Well, what do you think about this blue and white striped shirt? I love the brown piping and although blue and white aren’t my best colours, I think there is a brightness in the shirt that makes it work.
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I am wearing the shirt with COS jeans which I bought a couple of months ago. The side seams of the jeans turn to the front.
When I tried the shirt on in the shop, I was wearing my brown vegan leather trousers (see crappy photo below). In this combination I don’t like the proportions, so I would wear it differently.
I bought the shirt from BYS in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Such a fab shop with unusual (meant in a good way) clothes, and the owner Simone is a great stylist (see her below). My shirt is by Jejia, an Italian brand.
Back to the day of the photo shoot. Prepare yourself for many photos in this post. Again.
Marjolein and I went to Rotterdam because she had sent me a great video of moving street art. We found the artwork, but it didn’t move.
Below: The artist is Daan Botlek.
Below: The movement of the ‘people’ in the artwork was shown on Facebook. I played it on my computer and recorded it with my iPhone. The result is a bit blurry, but you’ll get the idea. I have no clue how they did that.
Below: This is as high as I climbed. I am not a dare devil and certainly not on heels.
The above artwork was a 15 minutes’ walk from the station, so we first started in an area nearby (West Rotterdam) which is not the richest part of town. There were many murals to photograph.
Below: First thing we encountered was this statue of ‘De Reus van Rotterdam’ (The Giant of Rotterdam).
Below: Marjolein posed next to the statue to show the difference in height. The statue is life size, 237 cm tall with shoe size 62 (EU). His name was Rigardus Rijnhout and he lived from 1922 to 1959. The artist who created the sculptures is Herman Lamers.
Below: Too tempting not to sit in that chair.
As I said, there were many murals in that area. I couldn’t always see who the artist was but Google Lens helped. I found a travel blog by Jaquelien called JTravelBlog who provided me with much information. I linked her blog name to her site. You will have to use Google Translate as it is in Dutch but it’s a great blog for tourists.
Below: Mural by Sharon van Dams.
Below: I don’t know the artists’ names of the next two.
Below: Four arms. The name of this very skilled artist is Telmo Miel. The portrait is of the Rotterdam rapper Faysal Msyeh a.k.a. Feis. He was shot in 2019 after trying to break up a fight.
Below: On a wall near bins and bikes, is this mural by Ready2Rumble/Danny Rumbl.
Below: John Travolta, created in such a clever way that his eyes follow you. He is portrait as gangster Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction). Artist Insane51.
Below: Mural by Wild Drawings (WD).
Below: This artist is a familiar name to me: Tymon de Laat.
Now onto a few buildings.
Below: Fantastic. The corner of this apartment building is transformed into a Delft blue china teapot.
Below: As Rotterdam was heavily bombed at the beginning of World War 2, there are so many modern, new buildings.
Below: Very unusual church.
We slowly walked along the Westersingel to, what we thought, would be the moving artwork.
Below: Along this canal were a few remarkable statues. This is a steel plait. As this blog is about the outfit, the statue had to sacrifice its top; not in the photo. Artist is Kalliopi Lemos and the plait is a symbol for femininity and the battles women have to fight.
Below: I took a close-up of the bottom.
Below: Good shot. I really like this outfit. I have to figure out how to wear this shirt with other items, but that cannot be difficult, can it?
Below: There were quite a few statues. Sorry, I forgot to look for the artist’s name with this one. We were focussing on getting a photo of my back.
Below: This statue, representing mother and child is by Carel Visser.
Below: L’Homme qui marche, a statue by Rodin no less.
Below: It was time to lunch. Marjolein found a tosti restaurant. A tosti is a grilled sandwich with for instance cheese or ham and cheese, but there are many variations, especially in this restaurant.
Below: Close-up with Lara Design earrings.
Below: Then all of a sudden you get to an old area in Rotterdam that hadn’t been bombed. This magnificent tree survived.
Below: A plain grey wall is perfect to take Marjolein’s head-to-toe photo. Doesn’t she look good! She said that she initially had decided to wear jeans with a striped shirt, but that would have been too much a case of ‘the terrible twins’ haha.
Below: Great with or without the jacket.
Below: We were in a jazz area of Rotterdam (Oude Binnenweg) and saw quite a few murals like this, honouring jazz musicians from the past. The foundation behind this is Rotterdam Jazz Artists Memorial. If you want to see more of these, click the link in the previous sentence.
We had taken photos of many more murals, but it is a bit of an overload, so I’ll leave it at this.
What happened in my life this week
Granddaughter Zoë celebrated her third birthday with the family. She liked it a lot.
We went to see a cabaret performance in Amsterdam. It was funny but mostly mildly funny with a few hilarious bits. The women performing were Plien and Bianca, a terrifically comic duo. I have seen performances by them that left me short of breath because I had to laugh so much and so loud. Not as good this time is my humble opinion.
Afterwards we were invited to dinner at Georg and Marla who had been taking care of dog Watson in the afternoon. Very nice of them and the dinner was delicious as always.
I changed my summer shoes for winter shoes and boots, something I hate doing and I got rid of a few clothes which I really never wear. Either I cannot style them, or they were wrong for me to start with.
Below: Something I wore this week. Blue cowboy boots and an orange scarf for the third colour in this outfit. The jeans are the same as in the main outfit of this post. The jumper (sweater) you have seen on the blog the first time in this post where I also showed my beautiful Max Mara raincoat.
For about 6 days I was feeling really low. Couldn’t find joy in anything, so we brought out The Lamp. It is the Energy Light by Philips which imitates natural light. You have to spend some time (about 20 minutes) every day, right in front of the bright light.
Usually, this low feeling hits me in November, so it is early this year. Of course, I also go outside to catch the daylight. But days are grey and moist now. Hardly any sunshine which makes it also more difficult to take photos for my photo assignment. By the end of the week I was fine again.
Tuesday however, was a fine day. Marjolein and I did another photo shoot and we went to the Panorama Mesdag museum in The Hague, a 360 degrees painting of Scheveningen. It was jaw droppingly beautiful. You’ll see it in a couple of weeks but below a little preview.
Below: Look what a good hairdresser can do! I wish she could wash and blowdry my hair twice a week. She could of course, it’s a matter of budget on my part.
I am wearing the same jeans and shirt as the main feature of this post, but with different earrings and different boots.
Photo Assignment Freedom and Joy
As I told you before, I struggled with this assignment. I couldn’t find many freedom and joy subjects. Then, one day, walking dog Watson with husband Ron, I found so many lovely things in nature. They say nature heals and I totally agree with that.
Even though you have already ploughed your way through many photos in this post, here are 7 more.
Below: The dandelion before the wind could blow away the seeds.
Below: The seed head of a common sow thistle or a sticky groundsel. I almost mistook it for a dandelion and I don’t know which of the two forementioned plants it is, but I am only interested in the nice photo it creates.
Below: Beautiful thistle, although I am not keen on this plant. In order to survive they have these thorny leaves. Not nice, but the photo is.
Below: The yarrow is like a bridal bouquet.
Below: To my knowledge this is hogweed, but I took the photo in portrait mode which created this blurriness.
Below: White clover.
It is purely coincidental that I took photos of mostly white flowers and seeds. I also took photos of other, more colourful plants, but the ones I have shown you above, are my best photos.
A photo with a ladybird was also pretty good, but when I zoomed in on the ladybird, I saw it eating the insects surrounding it. Very good but not that nice to look at.
Below: It became quite dark and then the sun shone through the clouds. You can see husband Ron at the bottom of the photo. Love this photo.
That’s it for this week. Thank you very much for staying until the end.
Greetje
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