Do Not Fold

I’ve been to Israel last week. Israel is an amazing country, with such a strong history and definitely worth visiting.

Most Western Europeans have a completely wrong image of this country. First of all… it feels very modern and safe. The only scary parts are that you sometimes see a military in the streets or just a guy with a Galil or whatever, that there are control posts to get in an out of each city and one night we saw a bunch of Israeli fighter jets flying over our hotel towards the Gaza Strip. But next to that everything felt pretty normal, modern and safe. :)

The Dead Sea is a salt lake and is elevated 423 meters below sea level, which makes it the lowest place on earth. Floating in the lake is a very weird experience. Because of it’s huge percentage of salt (33%) you can’t go down as you normally would in water. Your feet feel like a wine cork in a glass of water. It’s the perfect place to relax, you only need to make sure you don’t get any water in your mouth or eyes because according to our guide that might turn you blind.

The area around the Dead Sea is a sandy desert but has some amazing sights like Masada and Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi is a nature reserve with a spring and waterfalls, where David hid from Saul. These days Jews swim in the same water as Arabs, which is nice. The nearby Kibbutz is very active collective community with a botanical garden. It houses more than 540 people and the garden includes more than 900 different species of plants from all over the world. Masada is something completely different, it holds the ruins of King Herod’s mountaintop fortress and is the last stronghold of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 73 C.E. The Romans built a huge ramp to attack the fortress, pretty amazing!

Next stop: Tel Aviv. Well… wauw! Where is that like button? I like Tel Aviv! It’s a very modern city and one of the cities known as “The City that never sleeps“. It houses the largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings, it’s only about 100 years old and has been called the third “hottest city of 2011″ by Lonely Planet and the “ninth-best beach city in the world” by National Geographic. I’ve been there 3 days but have the feeling to have missed a lot of stuff. I’m going back here once, fo’sho’!

And then there was Jerusalem… There’s too much to tell about it’s history but I don’t know half about it. It’s totally different from Tel Aviv. Jerusalem has very modern and clean streets and of course a really old center. The Western Wall (known in Dutch as Klaagmuur) is a remainder of a large wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple. Every day Jew touch he wall an pray to God. The other parts of the city are weird to describe, there is an Arab part that felt a bit like Marrakesh, with mosques and even covered street-markets.

Overall, Israel is much more modern than I thought. I’m pretty sure I will visit Tel Aviv again, it’s cool. Check out the pictures here.

© Boy Kortekaas

De Standaard Magazine interviewed me a while ago about my photography. Here’s the article.

All choices lead you somewhere… Bold choices take you where you’re supposed to be. (via nieuwingent)

Wauw, this is totally my kind of thing. A series of videos with cool typography, nice photography and an original story. Directed by Gustav Johansson, typography by Albin Holmqvist and cinematography by Niklas Johansson.

(via @robslegtenhorst and thefoxisblack)

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Carinthia. Carinthia (Kärnten in German) is a province in Austria that situates just above the Italian and Slovenian border. In Belgium, everyone knows Austria, but no one knows Carinthia. For some people it’s name rings a bell, but for most of the people I know it’s totally unknown. I guess this is one of the reasons why I got this opportunity, to check it out and spread the word about this place.

Annelies, a bunch of journalists from Belgium and the Netherlands and myself flew with a propellor plane of Austrian Airlines to the Corinthian capital, Klagenfurt. We arrived at what I would call a typical Austrian hotel, the Ferienhotel Sunshine. It’s what you can expect from an Austrian hotel: wooden ceilings, flower curtains, Sansevierias and very friendly hosts.

After checking in and supper we went out to go Eisstockschießen. A very funky sport that is somewhat similar to Curling but with a UFO-like disc with a handle/stick. You have to slide the ice stock over the ice and aim for the target. A fun way to get to know each other a bit better and a good way to end the first day in the Alps.

Carinthia offers a lot of activities for winter- and summertime. Day two of our trip was action day. We started with ski touring. Ski touring is a bit like cross-country skiing (langlauf) where your heel is not attached to the to the skis but with ski touring you can actually walk uphill. The skis have a special nylon skin underneath so you don’t slide down. Very fun but very intensive and tiring. The good thing about this sport is that you can detach the skin and ski down the hill. Aaah… sizzling snow, the cold breeze, the sun, … I love skiing.

If you’re not fond of ski touring or skiing you can opt for snow shoes and take the sled to slide downhill. Also verrrrry fun!

Day two promised to be less intensive with a visit to the Weissensee. The Weissensee is a gigantic lake which is at one point to 930 (oops, tnx Marleen) 99 meters deep! Despite it’s depth it can get to 24°C in the summer and freezes completely in winter. Because it is certain that this lake completely freezes every year the Dutch organise their yearly Alternatieve Elfstedentocht on it. For a couple of weeks everything is Dutch. 44% of the yearly Corinthian tourist income comes from this event with about 35000 hotel stays. We had the chance to see the finals and have a talk with the organiser and the master of the ice, the Eismeister. He makes sure the ice keeps it’s strength. It’s about 60 cm thick but requires a lot of professional handling.

After dinner we stepped into ice skates our self. Yes, the ‘profi’ ones where your heel isn’t attached to the skate. Not very difficult but I wouldn’t be able to skate at 40km/h, which is an average speed for professional ice skaters. If they try harder they get speeds to 70 km/h! Amazing. Especially if you know that the ice has a lot of natural cracks and grooves.

We skated towards a fishers house: Fischereibetrieb Martin Müller. The living proof that Austria doesn’t need to be classical and typical. It’s a very trendy place where you can eat raw or cooked fresh fish and drink a fine glass of white wine. Definitely worth doing! The day ended -again- with an amazing sunset.

On the last day of our trip we went to the woods to try some archery at bogenparcours Steinfeld. Luckily not on real live animals, but on stuffed animals, hidden in the woods. Very fun indeed.

The name “Carinthia” comes from a Celtic origin: “carant“, meaning “friend” or “relation” – giving it the meaning Land of Friends. Nice thought and very true because what I’ll remember most of this trip is the pure, wealthy nature and the su-per-friendly people.

If these two are your ‘thing’, go check it out and visit Carinthia… Back to nature!

This was the second time I’ve visited Austria. I don’t remember much of the first time because I was like 12 or something but this time I probably won’t forget. I had a great time, with a great bunch of fun people and I would like to thank everyone involved, especially Julia, Suzanna, Eva and the people from Hotel Sunshine. Vielen Dank! Mit tiefer Dankbarkeit!

Check here for Annelies her post (Dutch only) or click here for the rest of the pictures.

Now this is just awesome. Visit some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums without leaving your home. Google Art Project is a collection of more than thousand artworks from museums from around the world, including MoMA NY, Versailles Paris, London’s National Gallery and Tate, Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh from Amsterdam, etc.

You cannot only walk through the museums like you’d normally do, but see the artworks in high-detail to incredible zoom levels. They used the Google Maps technology for this. Goode bizzy, Google!