"New updates? Yes I have added a few!" irisbe's Profile

It seems that real life is still preocuppying me very much.
I hope to find more free time but it seems that time itself is playing a trick on me !
Little Safi has arrived to her 4 years and half! What happened to those days that went by? Ofcourse our cameras do keep a record on her :)
You are free to visit her albums named Safi.
Enjoy! :)

the full VT Verona meeting group!

It was fun, it was fabulous it was unique... but let's not keep it unique, lets do it more often! and let's not keep it to ourselves `-)

What? Having a super European meeting I mean!

How to look at all the pictures, save them or add yours?
got to FOTKI ALBUM and view the folder with Virtualtourist meetings.
Choose the one you want to view (they are ordered by day). You will see thumbnails so you can have a quick view easy.
Seen one you like? click on it and it will appear in medium size, excellent to send through little mailboxes or to use on VT; want to save it at best size? Click on the link underneath the medium sized one and you will be able to save the big one.
How to save? just right click and "save as"on your pc.
Sure you can leave comments if you like, or read other's comments too.

Want to add yours? You will be in a special album of other vt-ers like Brad brown pictures. Your website will be put in the copyright space so people viewing can also take notice where your VT site is. So don't forget to mention what your nickname on VT is. My e-mail irisbe@fotki.com can take at least 4 to 5 mega's each time.

Let's make a great compilation album!
thank you already Bradbrown; Sandysmith; Roggeveen; JLBG; metamihelcic; Matcrazy1 !

Sleeples in Mortsel

I am born and live in Belgium. I live near Antwerp in a city (since 2000 we became city instead of village) called Mortsel.
At that occasion we got a Belgian beer named after a district in Mortsel...
"Oude Godje". Mortsel became a city because of it's urban city-like characteristics...
I was active in a pressure group, preserving a nearby farm.

I have a seat at the cityfs family council and we give our local government advices if needed or we discuss certain family topics during our meetings.
Each year in September we organise a local toy exchange market for the children.

A small travelogue about the market.

oil, next water

Peace!
I took the dog on the Brussels's rally of peace;
I took the flag, waving in front of the Brussels?s stock market building;
I took the boy at our vigil
but I borrowed the earth
as I would hope more would realize: we are just borrowing it, we don't own it!

Hey Babu, reading the future?

No one knows what is in front of us... but we sometimes have wishes we would like to happen.

My travelwish list:

Africa: Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana
Asia: India (meeting up with friends), Thailand, Malaysia (elephants, bicycles and friends!), China
USA: California with San Francisco, Houston, Tex meeting up some old friends!
Eastern Europe: Sint Petersburg, Moscow (checking on Marianna hehehe)
Europe: Italy because I still need to meet Chiara !

so Babu... what do you read in my hand? where am I going next?

VT friends are special!

VT friends are special and when some one is gone, it always hurts because you miss your friends.

What ever happens to our friends, they are maybe out of VT but still in our hearts. I never forget Ersal, Lucille, Frans (Northsea), Luc (Luchonda)... for ever in our minds

Huge problems can be solved by minor solutions!

The Leuven toilet proverb:

If the toilet doesn't fit, then fit the door to the toilet!

What a big knowledge one can find in such a small room!
I think this picture just reflects how we should face life!
Sometimes we see a huge problem, like this little room that was too small to fit the toilet.

Do we have to knock down the walls in order to make the room bigger?
Or worse: how quick would we give up the idea to make a toilet at all?

To realize the solution might be found in a whole different direction then the obvious way of our logical thinking.
Sometimes we have to give up our old rusty way of thinking and open our mind and look further then the lenght of our nose or the size of a toilet pot `-)
A minor solution can open doors!
at last... that was the fact for this one!

I think that maybe the astmosphere of this Leuven university city is a fertile location for the mind `-)

%c*Thank you Gini (Cadzand) to have helped me by taking this picture.

Equilibrium

Equilibrium
You have to read the painting from where all begins: from the roots on.

The roots, the basics on which all the rest is built and from where all ideas and thoughts are born, are painted in blue.
Blue: the colour of truth, wisdom, spirituality, dynamism and inner peace. It is the colour of reason and mind.

The green when going over in the stem captures the blue. Entwined almost with the colour of reason, green represents nature, Spring, renewal.
To me it symbolises all that is new, and offers hope.
The first leaves in an attempt to look too perfect reveal being shattered if you take a closer look. They try to hide the imperfectness but nothing in life is faultless and we are often living behind facades or masks to keep our pains hidden for the world outside.
However moving up a little higher you will find no longer "perfect looking" leaves. With growing up we no longer wish to act towards what is dictated by the world outside. We no longer wish to live towards dogmatic expectations of society. The hectic shape of the upper leaves symbolises the "self outing", or breaking out might as well be a description, let loose.

It is necessary to be able to be yourself when you want to be open to the passions of life.
These passions are symbolised by the multi-flower, it is not just one, it is many and they are all in different shades of colour.
The main colour is the red one that symbolizes love and warmth, sensuality and passion, but also revolt and blood, diabolical and devouring fire.

Above the orange shade reveals sunshine and light in our live, stimulation and youth,

while at the bottom the purple shades rather refers to the wisdom or experience past passions offer, ignorant to if these were good ones or bad ones.

The compilation of these passions are our life's weight and help us to bend over in reach of that happiness we all want to escape too.
The happiness is pictured by the yellow colour that resembles to the sun, blocked by the head of a white bird The yellow colour of the sun represents the joie de vivre, the optimism, hope, joy.

The white bird's head represents our "flight" towards that pleasure, the white colour represents the "lightness of being", the ultimate contentment.

It ends where reason started, and so the circle is round.

But, and there is a but, no matter how your colours run in your life, you should always seek for an equilibrium: if the roots were not firm enough, it could not bear the stem, if the stem were not flexible enough, it could not bear the flower and break, if the flower would grow too big for the stem, the same would happen and the way to joy and happiness will for ever be out of reach.