Today you can read the second part of my memories of the nineties. A couple of weeks ago (in this post) you could read about my favourite book, outfit and beauty item, today I tell you which music I listened to, which television shows I liked and what the most important moments of the decade were…

Favourite music artist?

During the nineties I was a bit less into music I guess. I kept on listening to music, but it definitely was less important to me than during my teenage years when I knew every song and every artist.

During the nineties I got to know metal as my husband Peter is a metal fan. My favourite metal band is Savatage and I especially liked the concept album ‘Streets, a rock opera‘. This album tells the rise and fall of the musiscian DT Jesus and contains some really heavy songs, but also very frail ones with a Welsh boy choir.

I kept on going to concerts and festivals of course, but the concert I have the fondest memories off, is the one from Prince on December 28th of 1998. That night was pure magic as it was moments before 1999 and we partied hard, dancing to the tunes of 1999… He was such a fabulous performer and I am still sad he left us way to early…

The picture above was taken in 1991 I think it was, when I was at college. We were on a three day study trip at the end of April and were surprised by snow!

Favourite TV show?

At the beginning of the nineties it was all about Beverly Hills 90210 of course… Which teenager didn’t swoon over Dylan and Brandon?! I loved the jet set style of the series. I also liked Melrose Place, which was a spin-off.

Halfway the 1990ies Friends aired. I started watching it because my sister Maggy kept on telling me how good it was. I have seen every episode at least 3 times and at work we are all a bunch of Friends lovers so there’s always someone quoting from Friends 🙂

1995 was also the year of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I remember that this television series aired on the Dutch television and that I taped every episode so I could watch it over and over again. One day, I read a notice in a magazine. Someone was looking for a copy of Pride and Prejudice… you know, these days you just didn’t go to the store to buy a DVD of a television series… no online shopping… no netflix… nothing… nada… rien du tout! So I called that lady and said I had a tape which I could copy for her and she was so grateful! She had a music cassette with the music from the television series and promised a copy of that music cassette in return… so difficult those days… and yet so easy 🙂 I still have her cassette and some time ago I listened to it again… it sounded a bit slow and false, but I didn’t care, I just had too many fond memories of the music and how I got the tape!

Another television series I liked was ‘My so-called life’. It was a drama television series about Angela, a teenager who gets into all these emotional and personal dramas. I really loved the main character, which was played by Claire Danes. Even as a teenager she was already a fabulous actress! And the heartthrob was played by Jared Leto who also acted very good, but was mainly his own beautiful self 🙂

And of course during the nineties I kept on watching Neighbours…

Favourite (board)game?

There are 2 board games I remember playing in the nineties: scrabble and trivial pursuit. Especially the latter was fun to play with a bunch of friends and a couple of drinks 😀

It was also the start of computer games. Peter and I had bought a ‘computer’ in 1992 I guess it was. I used it to write my thesis and Peter used it to play ‘football manager’, a game where you were, well… a football manager I guess!

It didn’t take me long to set up my own football team… so during the beginning of the nineties, yours truly was the manager of Cambridge United 😀 (And boy did we have patience in those days… I remember that it took at least 15 minutes until the game was loaded!).

What did I do during the weekends?

In ‘Going back to the eighties, part II‘ I have already told you about the youth centre I frequented. It was the place where many friendships and romances started (and ended in many cases) and it is the place where I met my husband.

Peter and I shared a first quick kiss on one particular night I vividly remember… It was on the night when a hypnotizer came to the youth centre. He was looking for volunteers to be hypnotized and of course I put up my hand. When he hypnotized me, he told me I could take a trip to wherever I wanted to go… as my good friend Katelijne had moved to Australia a couple of years before and as I was really into Australia (still am as a matter of fact), it didn’t take me long to let my mind wander off to the hot and summery Australia, visiting my friend Katelijne.

That night I was wearing a woollen sweater as it was January, but in January it’s summer in Australia so during my hypnosis I really started sweating! So strange…

When the hypnotizer wanted to take me back to the here and now (or the there and then I should say!), I apparently said I didn’t want to come back, but when he finally persuaded me to come back, I started crying when waking up from the hypnosis. It must have been one pretty sight… me sweating away, crying my eyes out in front of all those present at the youth centre!

After the hypnosis, I stayed a bit longer at the youth centre, talking and laughing with my friends, one of them being Peter. When he decided to go home, he gave me quick kiss on the cheek. I was a bit startled as I didn’t see that coming. It took us a couple of months longer to actually become a couple, but there you have it… the start of our romance… now 28 years ago… and we’re still counting!

The first half of the nineties, we went out every single weekend. Often to the youth center or to the neighbouring pub, sometimes to a blues café in Antwerp or to a brasserie in Sint-Niklaas. Often we were with a whole bunch of friends. A lot of them I still see sometimes and when we do see eachother again, we reminisce about the good old days and how good everything was back then… Some of these friends became really close friends and some even became family! How lucky can one be… I know!

During the beginning of the nineties, I  went to the football nearly every Sunday as Peter played football in a local team. In his team were of course some of the friends from our youth centre. They brought their girlfriends which I knew from the youth centre as well. So while the guys enjoyed themselves on the pitch, the girls sat in the cafetaria, chattering away. Most of the times we didn’t even know the score of the game :-). I honestly don’t know what we talked about all the time… we were together on Friday evening, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon and most of the time on Sunday evening as well! Really, we didn’t need cell phones back than as we were with eachother the entire weekend!

Favourite event?

The nineties were filled with life-changing events: the start of my relationship with Peter, my graduation, my wedding, building our first house, the birth of our two eldest children, my husband being diagnosed with chronic kidney failure…

But let me tell you about the three most wonderful events of this decade and I’ll start with our wedding day! It was such a beautiful day to which we had been looking forward to for a very long time.

We married on March 5th, and even though it was cold, it was a bright and sunny day . Our wedding day lasted more than 24 hours and I remember so much of this day even though it’s been nearly 25 years!

I remember sitting at the hairdresser’s very early in the morning, I remember doing my make-up and my godmother helping me into my dress giving me the advice to truly enjoy the day that was lying in front of me…

I remember Peter arriving… I remember I didn’t want to drink champagne at 9am when Peter and his family arrived, so I took some juice, but changed it for a glass of champagne just for the picture…

I remember the beautiful poem the celebrant read to us during our civil wedding (it’s still hanging on the magnetic board in our kitchen and I used it in my speech when my sister married last year!).

I remember driving towards the church at a very slow pace as we would be way too early otherwise… how my nerves disappeared as family and friends were cheering at us as we arrived at the church, the way I held my fathers’ arm when entering the church and how I was smiling of pure happiness and he was gleaming with pride…

I remember how vile that church wine tasted… how a friend of mine sang in the church, how relieved I was I didn’t struggle with the vows… and ring!

I remember how glad we were arriving at the banquethall to have lunch with our closest family, how we had a few moments to ourselves… but not for long as the photographer took us to a location to take some pictures.

I remember welcoming our guests for the reception, which was followed by an elaborate diner… and that first dance… which was such a surprise to all we knew as we danced to the tunes of ‘bridge over troubled water’ by Simon and Garfunkel…

I remember we partied until dawn…  and the dj played ‘bridge over troubled water’ to end the party… and how I cried dancing in the arms of my brand-new husband… but how I panicked as I thought I had lost my contacts because of the tears… how we all were on our knees trying to find my contacts… but the moment I stopped crying I realised I still had them in my eyes, they were just so blurry because of the tears… and so we could all part on a funny note 😀

Yip… it certainly is a day I won’t forget easily… and I felt so loved by everybody: my brand-new husband of course, my parents and my parents in law, my sisters, my family, my friends,… and it really is a day I look back upon with a very warm feeling!

A second favourite nineties event is definitely July 2nd 1996, which is the day my daughter Charlotte was born (picture below was taken in 1997).

I will spare you all the details of giving birth (you’re welcome…), but I must say that becoming a mum has changed me. I was not yet 25 when my daughter was born. I was the first one in the family to have a child, no one from my friends had children yet, so I guess Peter and I just had to figure out what parenting was all about…

And of course we made heaps of mistakes, but I don’t think my daughter is too traumatized, so I guess we did an ok job 🙂

We liked being parents, so on November 23rd 1999 our son Stef was born. A cute little boy, who has now grown into a tall 18 year old guy!

Our third child, Elizabeth, was born in 2002 so I guess you’ll hear more about her in the next ‘going back to’ post 🙂

Moment of the decade?

To name one moment of the decade is just too difficult… I can’t and won’t choose… so  let’s just say that becoming a wife and mother are the moments I cherish the most ♥

And that’s it for the nineties! I’ll be back soon for some more nostalgia and I’ll tell you all about the noughties then 🙂

Love, Kathleen