Shrek 2

Went to see Shrek 2 at Pathe Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam today. The movie was, in one word: HILARIOUS! Even “hilariouser” than the first movie. Countless references (spoofs) to fairy tales other (Disney) movies, companies, witty dialogs, impressive animations of the characters.

Getting there was an ordeal, though. Both the Rotterdam metro system and the Pathe Schouwburgplein cinema were obviously NOT designed for people who have even the slightest difficulties in walking: lots of narrow and steep stairs. Also, I made the mistake of taking the metro in the first place, while I should have just walked there, which is
closer.

Today’s milestone: climbed 1 zillion stairs in the Rotterdam metro and in the cinema.

Another Brilliant Box

Brilliant Classics still makes great box sets. This box with the Complete Schubert sonatas on 11 CDs that I bought at Kruidvat about 2 weeks ago, is worth every cent (of the 1599 ) The only “drawback” is that the order in which they’ve spread the sonatas across the discs, is somewhat confusing, at least to me. So I made the following table in chronological and D-number order.

Took the Train Again

For the first time in a year, I’ve been able to take the train from Delft to Leiden again. Yay…

Troy

Went to see Troy at Pathe Scheveningen with my friends from the former Classical Reading Group.
Brad Pitt made a good Achilles, while Orlando Bloom, who played Paris, reminded me of Mr. Frodo all the time, since I had just seen Lord of the Rings pt. 3 last week (I know he played Legolas there). But also the kind of movie reminded me of LOTR 3: a besieged city, high fortified walls, huge armies, massive battles, etc.
The cinematography was nice. The storyline: compared to Homer’s Iliad, there were a few changes, but then: how “authentic” was Homer’s version? And since the movie was based on a (to me) known story, I wasn’t surprised very often. My verdict: nice movie, but once is enough.

Saturday Shopping

The weekend was busy. On Saturday, I went to the city centre (in Delft) by tram again. After stopping by Goris electronics shop, where the very knowledgeable staff informed me about the features of their Shuttle Barebones systems and Van Buytene’s music shop, where the staff always give arrogant advice, I made it to the lovely Markt town square, where they were building scenes for the street theatre festival called “Mooi Weer Spelen”.

But only after having stumbled on a very agressive bible propaganda man, who tried to sell me a foreign language bible.
Man: “Hello Sir, what language do you speak?”
I: “Dutch”
Man: “Yes, but maybe you also speak another language better?”
I: “Nope, Dutch is my mother tongue”
leaving him with a disappointed face.
What do you mean, the Dutch are not biased?!
(but then, isn’t everyone? (including myself))

Dinner in Delft

Another milestone: for the first time after my operation, I’ve been able to travel using public transportation again, using the bus and tram! So I went downtown Delft to have dinner at Grand Cafe Verderop to have dinner with a friend. Which was very nice.

For starters, they served the best asparagus soup I’ve ever tasted: with tons of real asparagus, and as a nice surprise: salmon filet chunks! My friend had a cold cucumber soup as a starter. For the ‘main course’, I had a turkey + apple salad, with pine seeds. My friend had a very nice crepe stuffed with spinach, mozzarella and some other ingredients. After coffee and tea, we left the building around 20:30 h, to find out that outside, the sun had come out! What a nice feature of this time of year!