Monday, February 9, 2009

Fun Monday, This is Where I Live




Pamela, from thedustwillwait is our host today, and this is what she wants to know ...


Show me in pictures or tell me in words what defines the place where you live.
I want to leave the interpretation open to include any possibility.
I'm looking forward to finding out more about the place you call home.


I tried to find as much video's and pictures as possible to show what life is all about where I live.
You can click the links if you want to, and you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them as well. Enjoy ...


I live in the municipality of Schoten. ( click on the link to see the Wikkipedia page. I'm not going to bore you with history and facts and figures and all that stuff)
Schoten is a lovely place not too far away from Antwerp.
As a matter of fact, the bus across the street takes me to Antwerp in less than twenty minutes.
This is the skyline as seen from my patio.

Shops are just around the corner from where I live, look ...




Yes, well okay, it was made around Christmas, but it gives a pretty neat idea what I'm talking about. Oh and um, it is not custom for us to walk in the middle of the street when we do our shopping. There are no cars in the video, it must have been filmed on a car free shopping weekend.

Is there a college or university close by that seasonally changes the way your world operates? Or maybe a winter influx of retired snowbirds?


No, no retired snowbirds I'm afraid, but we do get to see some exotic people from all over the world each year in Summer. Schoten is very famous for it's Folklore festival, an annual folk dance festival that has been held here for over fifty years now. The slogan they use says: " You can see the world in Schoten". And it's true ...






Did a famous person put your town on the map?

I found this list of famous people from Schoten on Wikkipedia, and I was amazed we have so many! There is one person I would like to add to this list though.
His name is Dos Winkel. He's a world traveller and an amazing photographer and he does some very extra ordinary underwater photography. Among other things he photographs fishes' eyes!
This link will take you to his website, to the page with the astonishing fish eyes.
(Click on them to see them full size)
Reproductions of this work adorn the walls of our new police station by the way.

Oh and one other thing...
A jazz event called Schoten blues. They're great!



Is there something about your neighbourhood that makes it unique. Good or bad?

It's beautiful ...
This is very unique to me. It's the old windmill. Or what's left of it.
This is my view from my kitchen. Regular readers have often seen it appear in my pictures.
I think it's still very photogenic, despite the fact there's but half of it left.

Our neighbours live in there. It used to be much much higher, but they took the top off years ago. The walls of that mill are so thick and the building was so tall, that when they took the top off they built three small houses with the bricks that came off it.
The next pictures were not taken by me, I've found them on the net while I was looking for old pictures of that mill. But the funny thing is, this one has my car on it. Well, this used to be my car some years ago. And for one reason or another, I don't think I have one single picture of that car, ... until now!

The building on the left is the apartment building where we live.
But this is how it used to look ...
Awwww ...
From days gone by ...