2_3_DiscoverBenelux_Issue14_January2015_Scan Magazine 1 26/01/2015 19:19 Page 59
Discover Benelux | Culture | Columns
Be my valentine TEXT & PHOTO: ANOUK KALMES
Some celebrations are just worldwide phenomena and Valentine’s Day is highly celebrated in Luxembourg as well. What does it mean? Couples are expected to give presents to each other, have a romantic dinner or go on a trip. It takes two to tango, but what if you are dancing solo, without a husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, ex? You probably either love or dread this day. If it’s the latter, I propose three options. One – don’t do anything and ignore all the hype around 14 February. Just pretend that it does not exist and resign yourself to the fact that you are going to spend the evening by yourself without candlelight dinner, red roses or fireworks. Love is for fools anyway and you don’t need anyone and no one needs you. You tell yourself ‘this too shall pass’ and wait for 15 February when shops are removing heart-shaped choco-
lates from their shelves and replacing them with Easter eggs. Two – find a last minute date. Ask your friends if they know a lonely heart out there who might also be looking for someone. Maybe the matchmaking works out and you get to wear that sexy red dress (women) or the silky boxers (men) after all? In my opinion, the quickest way to get ‘lucky’ nowadays is to use Tinder. Just press the like button on every photo that pops up. You may not necessarily find your dream date but you will find one. Guaranteed.
devouring an entire box of Ladurée macarons or Leonidas chocolates that I would have bought for myself as a V Day gift. Don’t expect to be rescued from loneliness by your one and only dream lover; think about who you can reach out to on such a day. Life and love need to be shared, so do it with people that you care about. Read more about Anouk’s life and travels on her lifestyle blog www.luxessed.com
Three – you propose to your single friends to have dinner together. That way, you not only get to spend time with people you like, you also do them a favour by offering an alternative to the two lesser appealing options above. And that’s what I’ve done. I am going to have a Valentine’s Day dinner with friends instead of sitting at home
Thoughts on perspective TEXT & IMAGE: SILVIA DE VRIES
grocery store, to the neighbourhood café or into the city centre. The latter being a walk that always has an element of surprise. No matter how ordinary the day might have been up to that point.
An ordinary day for me starts with breakfast, which is followed by work. An ordinary day usually also includes a walk: to the
When walking the streets of Amsterdam, you encounter many interesting people, I've talked about that before, what also meets the eye is the array of buildings – old and new – that line the canals and cobblestone streets. Looking up at them will reveal traces of history that
always leave me wondering who walked these streets before me. Who were they? What did they do for a living? Where were they going? Who built all these buildings and houses? Who designed the beautiful canal houses with their decorative gable tops and why? Looking up at the sky and the things that are aligned along it can show a whole new world and reveal a lot of interesting questions. When you look at things or people or life from a different angle, a different light may shine upon it. It can make you ponder questions that you never thought of before and might make an ordinary day a little less ordinary, if only for a few moments. After all, no day can be truly ordinary if you look at things from a different perspective every now and then.
Issue 14 | February 2015 | 59