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Showing posts with the label Le Greenwich

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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Brussels and its history (part III)

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We are now going further downtown to the Saint Géry district. We start at the Rue de la Grande Ile. Unfortunately, we don't see any traces of the Great Island today. It vanished when the River Senne was turned into an underground canal in the 19th century. Instead the city built a line of grand boulevards in its place. The city planners wanted to give Brussels something of the grandeur of Paris. At the opening the mayor said that he had 'replaced the dangerous and dreary river with the most important and arguably most beautiful boulevards in our city.' Baudelaire was not impressed when he visited Brussels and grumbled something about 'the sadness of a city without a river.' If you live in a city you have to put some extra work into surrounding yourself with greeneries! Aren't they lovely?
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