An Artistic Weekend

Saturday morning we decided that since we’ve been living here for four summers now, we should actually check out the Belgian Royal Palace, which, conveniently enough, is right around the corner from us (well, a couple of corners but very close).

Surprisingly, the palace is free to visit, while it is open to the public, during the summer months. They do however charge for the map and information booklet (which quite frankly wasn’t very informative, perhaps to encourage you to purchase the bigger, more expensive guide) and no photos are permitted inside. (In fact they check your bags and make you leave all cameras at the coat check – not my favourite thing to do).

We then crossed the street to visit the Bozar (the major contemporary art gallery here in Brussels) to check out the Summer of Photography exhibits. I was pleasantly surprised this year as I enjoyed both shows. (Last year had been a bit of a disaster that turned me off photo exhibitions for a few months).

After a stop home for lunch, we headed down to Grand Place to investigate the Beer Fest. We spent some time admiring the newly restored and unveiled guild houses and checked out the beer situation. We decided that being crammed into tents with people who had been drinking beer since 9 that morning and puking on each other’s shoes, was not our scene. So we bought some beer at the supermarket and went home to our own beer fest on the terrace. (Minus the shoe puking)

We then hung our Sara Caracristi painting that we purchased last summer at the Argyle Fine Art gallery in Halifax. We loved her work immediately and carried our favourite back to Brussels with us. This is the first time it’s been out of the bubble wrap and I love how it complements the red wall.

We found a home between the bedroom and bathroom for a cross stitch I did a few years ago that my mother finished beautifully for me last spring.

Then we began our big project – the stairway. It’s my goal to fill this area with a combination of family and travel photos. It will be a work in progress for quite some time, and hopefully something we will continue to add to, but I’m happy with the results so far. I want to change out some of the photos, specifically the flower images, but we at least have the frames more or less how we want them until I can buy some new ink cartridges and print some new photos.

We had waited to do this project for months because we thought it would be easier to do after the railing was installed. Of course, once we had given up waiting, our landlord called THE NEXT DAY and asked if they could come and do the installation.

So this morning, after 5 months of waiting, our railing is in. It took them under an hour to install it. It’s not as bad as I expected it would be, but I do want to paint it – either black or red… thoughts?