Dare to be different and learn to be lonely

Last Friday I got on a train to Amsterdam to cycle around for the Light Festival with brotherdearest. Was a little apprehensive because last year the installations were disappointing, but this year's artworks totally made up for that; so many gorgeous designs! After two hours of cycling (and stopping to take photos) we took a short dinner break and then did another final hour to finish the whole route. My butt didn't appreciate it, but (ha) it was an excellent evening:-)

( Here's a complete photo tour! )


Is it really you? - Studio Mast (NLD)
Another favorite: this installation starts with just coloured dots and then different faces are drawn with lines connecting the dots.

( More photos and links to videos! )
The current edition is running until January 21st. For everyone who wants to see more, I made a list of previous Light Festival picspams below:)

J.

December 2022 (LightFestival 2022/2023) Boattour with Mom and Brotherdearest, photos on Instagram

December 2018 (LightFestival 2018/2019) Cycled with brotherdearest, photos and video post on Dreamwidth (and LJ)

December 2017 (LightFestival 2017/2018), unplanned walk with brotherdearest, I only posted 2 photos on Instagram:
ships in the harbour and a gif of my face lit up in a box:-)

Januari 2017 (LightFestival 2016/2017) with Mom, J. and brother H., photos+gifs+videos in Livejournal:
Part 1 is a walk called Illuminade,
+ Part 2 is the boattour section called Water Colors

December 2015 (LightFestival 2015/2016) Walked with Mom, photo and videos in LJ

November 2014 (LightFestival 2014/2015) spotted two artworks on a random walk with brotherdearest, picspam of Amsterdam in LJ

Playlist of all the Video over the years on my YouTube

X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/583653.html
Lurk or comment wherever you like:)

Last week I had my offical summerholiday and I spent three wonderful days at Vlieland, the smallest of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea up North. (I put up some pics at my Instagram). Of course the reason I had only a few vacationdays left is because I spent them all in New Zealand and Australia after the conference in Auckland back in April;)
Here is the penultimate picspam of that big trip: some more time in Newcastle with my brother, sister in law and nephew, AND I went on a daytrip to Melbourne for a fangirl meet-up with majestic_duxk!

( Monday, April 10: Bogey Hole in Newcastle, Train to Sydney (for nightbus to Melbourne!) )

( Tuesday, April 11: fangirl-hang out in Melbourne! )

( Wednesday, April 12: Pirate Point, Stockton, Newcastle with brother and nephew )

One more picspam to go...

J.

1. Businesstrip to Auckland [and Livejournal] | 2. Tour to Waitomo Caves & Rotorua [and LJ] | 3. Auckland and Northern Island train [and LJ] 4. From Wellington NZL to Sydney AUS [and LJ]

Video Playlist of New Zealand | Video Playlist of Australia

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X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/581547.html

Ahw, my final day in Haarlem, so I'm saying goodbye to the fancy Royal Suite *happy sigh*. For my last bit of vacation away from home, I'm meeting up with brotherdearest H. He often cycles from Amsterdam through Haarlem to get to the beach and he was happy to show me a couple of sights that I had missed on my first visit.
The past few days were rainy, but we were lucky to have dry weather, so we could stick to our plan of cycling to the beach together!

( Steep dunes and cloudy skies )

It was such a great little vacation.

J.

Day 1: Exploring St. Bavo & fangirl meet up [DW] | Day 2: Bubblebaths & fancy dinner [DW]


X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/563348.html

In December I went to Amsterdam, not only to pick up my awesome birthday cake, but also to visit the LightFestival 2018/2019 with brotherdearest. For this edition of the grand outdoor exhibition of light art installations, the route was set up all around the Herengracht (the third canal ring) and you can see it by foot, by bicycle or by boat. We opted for bikes this time and it turned out to be the perfect way to get a great view of everything. Here are my photos of almost all the art.


Parabolic Lightcloud - amigo & amigo
One of our favorites, we parked our bikes and stood here for quite a while, just staring in awe. For a better view of the colours, scroll down to the photos below!

( LightFestival Amsterdam 2018/2019 )

If you fancy a visit to Amsterdam yourself: the Festival is open until January 20, the lights are on from 17:00-22:00. (Or start planning a trip for the 2019/2020 edition!:)

J.

Last week I'd taken Friday morning off work to spend a day with my mom in Groningen, the town where I used to go to university back in the day;) Had not really been there since then, so when I got a coupon for my birthday from my sister in law for a Mini High Tea and there weren't any places in my own town that served it, mom and I decided to travel up North again. Here's a picspam of our lovely afternoon, featuring gorgeous buildings and delicious cakes ( and tea; )

J.

P.S. If you missed it: I posted my BigBang art! Check it out on LJ or DW:)

Okay, before I begin the picspam of last weekend of fun, I have a question and two promos;) First: do I know any fanpeople in or near Copenhagen (København)? I'm going to be there for a day at the end of August if you want to meet up!

Second: I'm modding two art-challenges (TWO!)

The quicky_bang already has a whole bunch of authors offering their short fics for artists to illustrate:)
Go claim a story and get creative!

If you'd rather start arting from scratch, the spn_reversebang is the challenge for you:
make a piece of fanart to inspire an author! Sign ups are open!

And now: photos from my visit to fairytale amusement park The Efteling. I traveled to The Hague on Friday afternoon for dinner and a sleep-over at my brother J's. Our youngest brother H. was also there; he cycled from Amsterdam! Together with my sister-in-law G. and my darling nephew R. the four of us (so minus brother J.) went to The Efteling on Saturday by car (G drove:). We had an awesome day! It was really fun to visit the park with a six year old; the perfect age for all the stories that go along with the rides.
( Of course we also took a stroll through the fairytale forest:) )

J.

(Check the Efteling tag for previous visits. This is my favorite place in the whole world <3

First of: Happy Birthday milly_gal! Hope you had a smashing day:)

I had planned to post photos of the Amsterdam Light Festival right after my previous picspam of the IceSculpture Festival, but I had a few whirlwinddays with family-issues, so I had to postpone. But here is the first set of pictures: part one is the Illuminade, a 2,3 km long night time walking route with lots of cool light sculptures, inspired by the theme Biomimicry, think like nature...


Teaser of Rotifers

( Wanna see more? )

Last but not least: a video of Tree Hugger by Daan van Hasselt & Asia Jackowska; the lights actually responded to people hugging the trees!

This was merely a selection of the sculptures: some of them were hard to capture with my camera. The Illuminade closed on January 9th, BUT! The Light Festival Water Colors boattours are still going until January 22nd. I'll post photos of those sculptures this weekend:)

If you can't make it to Amsterdam before then, see you next year?

J.

Before I really start the new year on LiveJournal, I'm looking back on 2016 one more time, because little over a week ago it was MY BIRTHDAY! (Day after Christmas;) Special thanks to sillie82, amberdreams and tanisafan who sent me presents to unwrap as soon as I woke up *smishes*
Here are pictures of my presents, my party and... the cakes. I had made Arretjes Cake but had also ordered a cake which turned out to have the most precious little feet:



( Presents, Cake and Family )

I also really enjoyed all the birthday wishes on Twitter, in PMs and LiveJournal. Thanks to everyone who thought of me, I had a marvelous Birthday:)

On to the next!

J.

P.S. I also received a Buffy book from an anonymous gifter through The BookDepository. THANK YOU, ANON!

Oh my goodness *sniffs self*. I discovered an old bottle of soap in my bathroom and it IS SO DELICIOUS! The scent gives me all kinds of feelings; you know, the kind you get after reading a really good fic? Bliss. (I'm also testing a set of samples from Deep Midnight perfumes, will post about that later:)
Speaking of good fic: I grabbed myself one in the quicky_bang to illustrate! If you are an artist or know artists looking for inspiration, head on over for all sorts of awesome stories to make art for (so many visuals to choose from!)

Before I'll continue arting, I have a couple of old photos from my latest trip to Amsterdam to share and also this:



My screensaver is a slideshow of my J3 pic-archive and when these two showed up after each other, I just had to combine them for obvious reasons *chinhands* (Credits: JDM - Sam Comen 2010 for Maxim, I could not find an original source or date for young Jensen in his Superman shirt)

( Anyway, here are photos from my bicycle and Amsterdam )
J.

For those of you who are new here: Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. His birthday is celebrated on the Eve of December 6th with exchanging gifts in his name. Except my family chooses the weekend closest to this date when most of us are available for a get-together. We had each picked a name out of a (digital) hat for whom we'd buy a big gift, accompanied by a poem describing events of the year. (The traditional crafty secret santa surprise package was optional;) This year we were all going to be present at my mom's house in Zwolle on Saturday.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

On Saturdaymorning my youngest brother H. called from Amsterdam to tell us his father in law had a heart-attack and was in the hospital getting surgery. H and his girlfriend B. were going to travel to the South-East of the Netherlands as fast as possible. (As it turns out, B's dad had received CPR immediately from two friends who were running with him when he collapsed. This most likely saved his life. They discovered a big clot in his coronary artery. He is recovering beyond expectations)

Mom and I couldn't reach my other brother, because he and his family had already left The Hague and were on their way to Z. For the benefit of my 4 year old nephew Ruben we decided to continue festivities with just the five of us.

When my brother and B. had to get back to Amsterdam on Sunday to make arrangements for work, they invited us all over for another get-together on Sunday afternoon, so we could catch up in person and exchange left over presents.

I made loads of photos: the first set of 16 is the arts & crafs of the surprise wrappings I build for brotherdearest and my nephew. Part two and three are of our Sinterklaas celebrations in Zwolle (10) and Amsterdam (10)

( The making of )

( Sinterklaas celebrations in Z. )

( Sinterklaas celebrations, part 2 )
If anyone is interested, I could share some (translated) poems. I'm so very thankful that everything turned out okay and we were able to get-together and hug and have fun despite the big scare of Saturday. I love my tiny family <3

J.