I stay with my hostess Guusje, who’s an artist a the Tilburg Fabric Museum, meet more pierced people and the actress and beautiful model Natasha followed by a symphonic rock concert of Fish (former singer of Marillion)…
I departed from Tamara’s room in the student apartment, accompanying her. As she had to head to work, we bid our farewells at the train station.
This day I didn’t have to hitch-hike along the highway, because Tamara sponsored my train ticket to Tilburg. She said it would be exaggerated to have me hitch a distance that take no more than 30 minutes by train. “It’s just the next big city!”
And around 10 o’clock in the morning I was already walking through the city of Tilburg. I knew my hostess for tonight would be finishing her work at 5 pm, so I decided to take a hike to the public library in Tilburg to use some internet minutes.
My hostess is Guusje, and she is an artist at the Tilburg Textiel (Fabric) Museum. In this museum, still an active on-demand-factory, learns you everything about the history of fabrication from wool to clothing and sheets. From the steam-area to the time electricity became more useful.
As you can see from the photographs I found it very interesting and all over the museum people were really working with all the machines and simultaneously talk about all this industry with the visitors. Really worth the time!
On the first floor I found Guusje, who was currently working on a special musuem project. She uses a rare painting by the Dutch artist Karel Appel (worth about 20,000 US-dollars) to make a 20-meters wide carpet off it. The painting, as you can see on the photograph, is not that big.
So the has to really look very precisely at all the little details on the painting which she has to enlarge and colorize on a very big screen, the bone of the carpet. She thinks she can finish the work before October this year.
At 5 o’clock sharp she finished her work and we left the museum. We had a nice walk into the sun, on the way to her home, but first we joined a group of her friends at the terrace of Kafee ‘t Buitenbeentje (The outsider) in the center of Tilburg.
And outsiders they were, ha! They almost all work at the Bat Cave, which is the metal-music basement of the local pop stage called 013. Everybody working in the Bat Cave has at least has their tongue pierced. It was amazing to see their pierced body parts together – on the photograph…
In a matter of seconds, the weather shifted on the terrace, causing gallons of water to pour down. Seeking shelter, we gathered under the awnings. Once the clouds had passed overhead, the warm sun reemerged and I walked with Guusje to her house.
Guusje had worked over 2 years in a local restaurant in Tilburg, almost being the chef cook, but with the museum project she has finally found something more relaxed. It’s funny to hear her talk about her restaurant-years, because a waitress who worked at the same restaurant is now one of the singers of the famous Dutch rock group Krezip. And the former dish-washer currently plays the bass in the rock-group Green Lizard.
For me it is like: hey, I know them too!!
At Guusjes’ apartment I met Natasha, who was just like me just lodging at Guusjes’ house. When I heard her life story I was really amazed.
As a young girl, she left the country in pursuit of a successful acting career. However, she did not want to start with the local soap operas and instead went to the United States, where she attended official acting schools and lived in New York for two years and Los Angeles for one year.
After realizing that the opportunities in the United States were limited without resorting to the adult film industry, she returned to Holland with nothing left.
Today, she has blossomed into a beautiful and confident woman, exuding self-esteem in every aspect of her being. She looks stunning, resembling a blend of Renée Zellweger and Michelle Pfeiffer in my eyes.
With Guusjes’ cooking experience we got a delicious pasta meal, which I forgot to photograph, to busy listing to stories and answering emails before dinner.
At this time I gave her the Gift from my former host Tamara, one unique Home Sweet Home tea-mug. This was special to Tamara as she had travelled a lot and took this mug with her wherever she was. Guusje was suprised and had to think hard about what to give the first person I’ll visit in Belgium, tomorrow.
After dinner, around 9 o’clock, Guusje took me with her to the pop stage 013, where she had put me on the guest list at a performance of the Scottish artist Fish, who was the former singer of the symphonic rock group Marillion. As she works as a volunteer at the Bat Cave, she could go in for free too.
I had never heard of him, but he was quite amusing on stage. Next to singing songs from his latest album, he knew how to manipulate his public. He tells some nice stories and he even tried to read out from a Dutch dictionary, which was quit funny! I now have desires for Scotland!
After this concert, we visited Kafee ‘t Buitenbeentje again for a few last beers. But as my sleepy yawning started to accelarate, we took off home again.
Natasha was still awake and we watched some TV and we talked a bit with Guusje typing on her ICQ, before I crawled onto the mattress in the living room…
