Merry Christmas and well done...

...on surviving the end of the world. We totally showed that calendar system which never predicted the end of the world in the first place. Nice work mankind.

I'm not ashamed to say I've eaten and slept my way through the last week and a half. I also love the fact that we only really 'do Christmas' with my immediate family i.e. the people who live in my house; because it means my Christmas shopping is done within an hour and Christmas Day is a genuinely relaxing time where no one has to cook or eat turkey and we don't have Christmas cake. No one really likes those things and you're just lying to yourself if you think you do.

That doesn't mean that after a week at home I'm not already craving independent living again, because I am. I know my mum reads this but I think she's heard me say the words 'I'm just going to kill all of you' enough times in the last few days for this not to be a particular surprise - they know I love them, it's fine. But I also am loving the people of Leeds, I haven't even been gone that long but I'd forgotten that everyone is so damn friendly here, I must have chatted to like 5 people in M&S alone on Saturday morning. Special thanks to the shop assistant in Tesco who skipped the song that was playing in the book department after I said it was making me lose the will to live. You deserve to have an extra nice Christmas.

So have a lovely Christmas and tell the people you love/like that you love/like them, because that's what this time of year is for.

I will be doing; so if you don't hear from me in the couple of days you can take that as a sign that I can't stand you.

Merry Christmas :)

xx

Someone hates me.

 

They must do. Why else would the heating in the office have stopped working? I know it's winter and it's cold and that's what happens but seriously I didn't take my coat off the entire day and  at one point I stood with my hands on the kettle just to warm myself up.

I can't tell whether that's better or worse than the fact that half of the bathroom is now in the dark, and it is of course the half with the shower in, because nothing is more exciting than shaving my legs in a tiny glass box with no light source. Living life on the edge as always.

But it's all fine because I'm going home for Christmas tomorrow, and spending most of the weekend visiting the German Market in Leeds which will hopefully be more impressive than any of the ones in Brussels. Although one did have a Ferris wheel which was pretty exciting and helped confirm something I already suspected - I have not entirely overcome my fear of heights.

What makes tomorrow even better is that because I'm getting the Eurostar it will in total take me merely 4 and half hours to get home, which is pretty much how long it used to take me to get back from Bath anyway. So in comparison to the 16 hour coach journeys I've done before, this is amazing. Although looking at the prices for January, I  will absolutely not be able to afford to do this on the way back, so looks like I'm back to sleeping in the bar on the ferry and rolling in at 6am again.

Also, Apple, I appreciate you have to update stuff and whatever and I really don't care how you choose to lay out iTunes but at least do it in a way which makes it possible for me to access the scroll bar at the side and/or reach the edges of the window so I can make it smaller so I don't have to choose between being able to use the scroll bar and the taskbar. Thanks.

If you're at work for another week like most normal people then have a good last week at work, if you're doing exams/writing essays then good luck, and if you're travelling home then have a safe trip :)

xx

Being an intern means...

Writing your number on scraps of paper whilst everyone else exchanges business cards.

Hanging around the buffet, because you know you're not gonna eat this well until the next event.

Being served drinks at those events by someone who's at least 3 years older than you, and knowing there's a good chance you'll be standing exactly where they are when your internship finishes.

Having a tiny, personal celebration every time you make a new friend. Don't lie to yourself, we're all doing it.

Still assuming that if someone lives in/went to university at the same place as someone you know, they will know them. Even if however-many years of university has taught you that this is almost never the case.

Finally having a legitimate reason to be tired all the time.

Learning to use the photocopier, and in my case, taking about 20 minutes to find where the copies come out...all 10 of them because you were convinced it just wasn't printing at all. It would be easy here to jump to the conclusion that I'm an idiot, but it's mostly just an absolute refusal to ask for help. It's the same reason I get lost so much, and that I avoided using the phones at work for a whole year after I accidentally ignored the person who tried to show me the first time.

Like I said, it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that I'm an idiot.

I'm going home in 7 DAYS, and it never feels like Christmas unless I'm home, so right now it's just like it's cold and there's Christmas stuff everywhere but it may as well be like, October as far as I'm concerned. But it did snow on Sunday morning, so to anyone from home who I told that it was 'so much milder here', I'm sorry, that was a lie.

Oh and this happened:

What so just because I work 9-5 I'm not allowed to fan girl anymore? Please. I was super excited. And if you don't know who this guy is, he's 1/2 of these guys, and they're really funny.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/mKJBB9rqfyE]

I'm sorry this is short and pretty uninformative and it's taken me like 10 days to write. I just seem to have been crazy busy and have about a hundred things to do in the next two days before Sally gets here (hopefully should have stopped freaking out by the time you get here, I'm ridiculously excited to see you, by the way), and my brain can't really focus on anything else. The next one will be better I swear!

So much love

xx

1 & 1/2 bits of good news and an example of how awkward I find life.

1- I've been asked to guest post! These are available at the links below if you want to read them, I'm personally just really excited about the fact that they're even there, and it's just crazy that something I wrote would ever look that good and professional.

http://www.sdmmovies.com/2012/11/23/taken-2-movie-2012-review-more-of-the-same-in-a-good-way/

http://www.sdmmovies.com/2012/11/23/28-days-later-2002-film-review/

...and 1/2 - The lovely people at Expatica wanted to advertise with me, unfortunately because of the way Wordpress is (i.e. free) I can't change the HTML set-up etc. etc. so this wasn't possible (it's like a you can live here but you can't paint the walls kind of deal), but it was very sweet of them to ask and I hope I get the chance to work with them in the future.

And the example of how awkward I find life:

This happened when I was going to a gig last Tuesday (discovered an awesome band, there will be a video below).

So I don't um, pay for public transport here, basically they just have machines on the street/metro stations where you can buy tickets but they don't actually check if you have them and it's expensive and I'm poor blah blah. I'm going to defend myself here by saying that I can only use public transport about 3 times a week max. and I walk everywhere else I need to go every other time. Although realistically I don't actually feel that guilty about it because I watch basically everyone else who gets on the bus/tram/metro do exactly the same thing. Sorry STIB/the Belgian economy.

But sometimes they do have people that check tickets, and I thought I'd spotted one of these people, so I stood up to get off hoping he wouldn't check me if I was leaving the bus, but whilst I was stood up it came to my attention he wasn't checking tickets, just asking people where they were going to so the bus company could improve their services. However, because I have absolutely no control over my social awkwardness I obviously felt compelled to get off the bus anyway because I'd been stood by the doors for so long that if I just sat back down it would look weird. So I travelled about 20 metres and had to walk the rest of the way, for no reason other than not wanting to look weird in front of all of about 5 people. I guess that's what you get for cheating the system whilst also having no social skills.

This is the band I was talking about, I'm not really a fan of the bees myself, but almost everyone I've shown this to (and apparently everyone on YouTube) has disagreed with me, so enjoy.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/a_bAQZATCTM]

Also a lot of people have been sharing this around but it's so good I feel I should do it too.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/8nif01WZ9aI]

Have a lovely last week of November :)

xx

I was ill, but then I got better. So it was fine.

Private Jones: Mitch, I fucking got one!

Corporal Mitchell: What you want a fucking sweetie? Keep shooting you cunt!

This is why all horror films should be British; none of the ridiculous puns of American films, just lots of swearing. That's basically all I've done whilst I've been ill, I watched The Exorcist on Friday for about the 100th time, and no matter how many times I see it I can't help but feel a little annoyed that it kind of has a happy ending. Not that I'm against happiness, it's just not how horror films should be. Definitely not as annoyed as I am at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre though, in which every character is so irritating, I'm actually rooting for the silent serial killer. Seriously if you start walking when the killer is within grabbing distance of you, you deserve to be chainsawed(?) to death.

It's also come to my attention lately, that I have really weird taste in fictional men. Just stay with me on this, this isn't going to be about how hot the cast of 90210 are, I promise.

I've already proclaimed my love for Ryan Howard from The Office, and I know, I know he's emotionally void and he kind of goes crazy when he gets promoted and starts doing shit loads of drugs and embezzling money...but in the 'Grief Counselling' episode instead of telling a story about the death of someone close to him, he tells the story of how Mufasa dies in The Lion King -  and if your approach to grief counselling is to tell part of a Disney story, then we need to get married.

Nathan from Misfits is another one, because apparently if your one goal is to annoy other people and make ridiculously inappropriate jokes, then I will think you're the best thing that's ever happened to the world. He has completely irrational reactions to everything, and is therefore the love of my life.

Nathan: Are you asking me out on a date?
Simon: No... I meant all of us.
Nathan: Did you? ... I am not your whore!

Guy Secretan from Green Wing is probably the most prominent and unreasonable adorations:

Dr.  Dear: It is for a good cause.

Dr.  Secretan: I don't do good causes, OK? A charity shag maybe, but certainly not to raise fucking money for medical equipment.

It's not like I don't know what terrible 'real life' partners these people would make, they basically live to be infuriating and find it impossible to take anything seriously and/or be emotionally capable, and to be honest that's really not what I should be looking for. BUT, they are about 20 million times more interesting than Edward Cullen/any male lead in those films where the someone dies/I don't even want to talk about (500) Days of Summer.

In other news, the key that has the comma on it fell off my keyboard, so I keep accidentally typing full stops instead, I've tried to correct all these grammatical errors, but sorry just in case. Oh and I broke a mug, fused the lights in my room, and spilt tea on my floor. The last two I did within the space of like an hour. I expect a serious injury within the week.

And I'm more than a little frustrated with living here right now; all I've wanted is blueberries and cookies from a supermarket bakery, but to afford the former I'd have to sell my organs and the latter just don't exist apparently. Way to go Belgium, way to go.

But good stuff has happened too! I received confirmation that I'm getting my Erasmus grant at some point in time so I'll be able to afford food (but still not blueberries) and stuff which will be a nice change. I successfully changed the light bulb in my room and overall everyone's been really nice whilst I've recovered from being poisoned by some food. So that's nice :)

I went to a lovely event hosted by my friends at CBI, and today I went to a seminar where the John Harris, editor of Politico, spoke. Politico is basically the nearest Washington gets to un-partisan journalism, so that was pretty cool. And I was persuaded to go out on Saturday night, so we danced on tables for a bit and the learned played chess in a bar until it closed.

I haven't really chatted about work so far, and just as a warning that's probably not going to change because I'm absolutely convinced I'm going to accidentally let something really important slip and initiate a crisis/lose my job.

Au revoir!

xx

I've stopped getting those 'WELCOME TO...' texts from my network when Icross a border.

Which is probably the biggest 'stop doing these ridiculous coach journeys' sign you can get, if my own phone company can't be bothered to acknowledge how much I'm moving around, then I should probably stop doing it. At least for a little while.

But yet this coach is always full, who is doing this journey from London to Brussels in the middle of November on a Sunday night? Apparently the answer to that is shit loads of people. And the guy sat next to me on the journey to London apparently found it acceptable to do a mini work out next to me. So many hours in the day and you couldn't just not do weird breathing exercises for those 2 hours? Really? But on a happier note London looks beautiful now all the lights are on, and I'm lucky enough to drive down the street with both the Harrods and Harvey Nichols Christmas windows on them, they're amazing.

I also met someone on the coach who said my accent made me sound intelligent, something I'm still trying to process to be honest.

And I need to find somewhere else to travel from, so I can stop being harassed in the train station. Just a heads up,  if I've told you I don't understand a word of French (lie) and from the little English you understand I've also managed to tell you I have a husband and a child (also lies). Then you need to step back, and stop hitting on me. Cheers. 10/10 for persistence though, I'm not saying you didn't try. Just that you didn't really realise when you'd failed.

So a quick update on my day, it would appear that I am ill, so today has so far been spent watching Alex Day read Twilight on Youtube. Now no one can attack me for saying I hate it and not having read it, because now I sort of have, at least in the sense of watching someone criticise it chapter by chapter. What got me in particular was that there seems to be a real interest into why Edward saves Bella from being hit by a car,; does that really need an explanation? Isn't that actually a pretty normal thing to do, would you really sit there and wonder what potential sinister motives they could have? Also apparently in Twilight it's totally okay to start talking about marrying someone when you've only known them for 2 weeks, and in the same conversation discuss how easily they could crush your skull. Don't even get me started on the 'forgot to breathe' thing when she faints.

Anyway, my weekend was awesome, it started off with a Post-Election Party, during which I watched a man who looked like an older Hugh Grant dance very well.

Dear whoever you are, I'm modelling my future husband on you.

It continued with a trip to Lydney to see Alex, who for some reason left her summer in Sydney to do winter in the South West of Britain, but I'm very glad she did. For some reason I've only taken about 4 photos from the past 2 weekends so I can't even show you what we did, something we did do is make sweet potato at like 10pm on Friday night. The lesson there is that watching too many cooking programmes set in the English countryside will give you irrational cravings. And then I went to Bath for half a day, and Bristol for about an hour and experienced my Uni life again and as a result was pretty sad to leave and come back to reality. But on the upside we've started house-hunting for final year. I'm still in that stage where I'm looking out houses I clearly can't afford, in other words, I'm looking for a house in Bath.

Here I am with Chepstow Castle.

I'm not one to absorb joy - Jon Richardson.

I know how you feel babe, I know how you feel.

xx

I'm still too tired to think of a witty name for this

I think I realised exactly how excited I was to go home when Wednesday seemed to be the SLOWEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF TIME. I'm actually writing this bit before I've even left to go home, so that's where we're at, I'm blogging about my weekend at home before I've even got there. I watched Homeland, an episode of Civilisation, painted my nails, packed, ate large amounts of food, showered, straightened my hair and, in true Halloween spirit, watched Friday the 13th (the original, of course) and it's STILL not time for me to leave.

Now the acting in Friday the 13th is terrible, there's a massive overreaction to one of the group pretending to drown - even if he was actually drowning it would be pretty unnecessary to jump in AND use a boat AND a lifebuoy when he's, at most, 2 metres away from the platform you're on (although this pales in comparison to the ridiculous under-reaction of the guy in A Nightmare on Elm Street; who remains relatively calm whilst his girlfriend's blood-covered body is dragged across the ceiling).

But it remains a classic nonetheless; it's a film with all the questionable moral messages of a American slasher. If you have sex, well, I hope it was good, because it's the last thing you'll ever do. Smoking weed? Better enjoy that joint, because you're about to be stabbed in the face. Although the only surviving character does smoke weed and flirt outrageously with the especially 80's looking summer camp owner. All this whilst one of the first characters to die is a guy who couldn't be less in line to get laid - so what's the message here? Flirting with middle-aged men with disgusting facial hair is fine, but being a socially awkward teenager isn't? Is that what we're saying? I just don't understand your angle here Paramount.

And I'm back.

Okay, so I got back on Monday, but I've only just sorted my sleeping pattern out, just in time to do it all again tomorrow night, where did these last 3 days go?

So since these two weeks of my life seem to have revolved around coaches, it's only fair I share a little about what I've learnt about coach etiquette.

1. It's totally fine to spend like 20 hours with someone and never learn each others names,. To the couple who I befriended on the way there and then met again on my return - thank you so much for making those journeys bearable, and for buying me breakfast! I will always remember how much we all hated the Border Control staff and how angry we were when they started playing music in the bar we were trying to sleep in on the ferry. This also goes out to the girls I made friends with on my 'moving in' journey; thanks for making the whole thing seem a lot less scary, and for the tea. I hope my next set of coach friends are just as nice as all you guys.

2. Apparently if you're a fairly short female, any guy who sits next to you will assume you don't need your leg space and just use it to make their legs more spread out. Now, whilst this might be correct for some, even most girls below 5' 6", it is not true for me, and you should not assume it's true for anyone. For someone who's pretty short, I have pretty long legs, so I'm struggling to get comfortable as much as you are, and if I can't straighten out my knees for 5 hours, then neither can you, so back off my half of the seat.

3. If someone accidentally falls asleep on you, it is not okay to fall asleep on them back to make everyone more comfortable. What is okay however, is to sit there awkwardly and text everyone you know to tell them about this guy that's fallen asleep on your arm. I don't know this because I've actually tried to do it, I just know it isn't okay to intentionally fall asleep on someone you don't know. I can just imagine it would go down badly. But it shouldn't be that way, I think we should just agree that it's fine to sleep around each other, so everyone can have a more comfortable journey. As someone who basically always makes these journeys overnight, and by myself, I think it's difficult enough to sleep on coaches as it is without spending the entire time trying to sleep as far away from the person sitting next to me as I can. Because it isn't actually comfortable to sleep with my face on the window.

Also nice work America, you totally pulled that one out of the bag! I'm not going to delve into all things political here, and it's safe to say Obama isn't exactly living out all of my political dreams. But if you imagine you have to run a marathon, and then just before you start running, you take a machine gun to your feet...the political equivalent of that would be Romney being President.

Have another good weekend and I promise next week's post won't be about coaches.

Well, probably not.

xx

I get paid tomorrow...

...I have €7.17 in my purse, and £0.66 in my bank account. So it would be safe to say I'm pretty excited.

I went to Bruges! Despite the crazy weather (hail, sleet and sun...seriously?) it was by far one of the best days I've had since I got here. Even at the end of October it's just a beautiful and tourist-filled as you would imagine - but don't even bother imagining, there are photos at the bottom. The hot chocolate we had when we got there was probably the best I've ever had, and when your table is the one in front of a log fire in the cafe, it probably couldn't feel more like Christmas.

That's pretty much the only noteworthy thing I've done this week, apart from very stupidly, and unintentionally, use up all €15 of credit on my phone by calling home for 20 minutes (Mobistar...is this about what I said last week? Because that feels like an unnecessarily high tariff to me).

I'm beginning to get really annoyed at the woman on my French learning audio course - she just gets everything wrong all the time, I've never known anyone be this bad at repeating something they've just heard (I should point out that these are on my iPod and she is a 'student' who repeats back what the guy leading the course says, I'm not just getting really angry at some woman who's genuinely trying to learn French). As I'm only 9 lessons in, this is probably a bad sign - there's like 80 more to go, and by the end I'll either be able to speak French, or I'll have spent 10 hours yelling at my laptop. Maybe even both.

I'm also inadvertently following the X Factor, so I know Jade went last week, Union J and District3 are basically One Direction but...no that's it, they're just basically One Direction, and Rylan appears to only still be in the competition to frustrate everyone who watches it. All this horrendously useless knowledge has been gained through my Twitter feed, so thank you Twitter, for making me incredibly well-informed about a programme I have absolutely no interest in, and have never watched.

Finally,

I just had to share this site : http://www.lovepanky.com

Now coming away from the fact that 'panky' should never ever be used as a word (even when preceded by 'hanky'), there is just so much more that's just plain wrong with what they're suggesting.

For starters some of the stuff they suggest is just contradictory, I'm probably going to find it pretty hard to play with my hair if I'm not allowed to move my hands, and that's all gonna look pretty weird if I'm constantly shifting around on my feet at the same time, in fact I'll come out of this less of an attractive young woman, and more of a Weeble (Google it). I'm personally going to find it pretty difficult to express myself full stop if my hands have to be clamped by my side, but then with advice like 'speak softly' and 'barely speak at all', expressing myself clearly isn't the aim here. I think the worst thing is that if this actually works and his heart is suitably melted to the point where we start dating, he's going to get the shock of his life when I stop being cute, and start being myself. And then I'll have to start all over again, although maybe this time I could take their advice on being sexy, and the advice on that one is basically just 'LOOK AMAZING', which might require a lot more prep work, but at least I won't have to put on a voice.

Their first date advice is equally as frustrating, to be fair the article is entitled '14 Signs You're Ruining Your First Date Unknowingly'. It may as well be called '14 Ways Everything is Wrong With You and You'll Die Alone'. And the advice itself is a lot like being yelled at by a maniac - 'be yourself - but not too much like yourself, speak a lot, but not too much, show an interest, but don't be too interested, or friendly, definitely don't be too friendly don't smile too much, dress appropriately and under no circumstances agree to seeing him again,  - oh, and BE PERFECT IN EVERY WAY'.

If I actually read this before a first date I'd probably be a nervous wreck by the time I arrived and sit in silence for the whole date, convinced that even the slightest movement or sound would ruin everything.

It's probably wrong of me to direct this purely at lovepanky.com, I just happened to stumble across it this week and it brought up a lot of the anger I feel about dating advice more generally. I'm not even going to give alternative advice, because I never give advice, and even if I did it would be just as useless. Just behave like a normal person and you'll probably be fine.

This is my last post before I go home on tomorrow night for the Bank Holiday weekend, so if you're in Belgium, enjoy your days off, if not, then enjoy your normal-length weekend.

xx

Thanks to Ash and Francesca for their help in inspiring this post, I hope it's every bit as ranting and angry as you expected.

No spoilers here - just good food.

 

Look how beautiful Brussels is in the autumn! It's still like 20°C here at the moment, which is even better. I really feel that if it was always this temperature and looked this good then I'd stay here forever, but realistically I'm just waiting for winter to return with a vengeance.

Okay so I saw Taken 2 over the weekend, it was really good, that's all I'm saying.

There is a post coming but that probably won't be for another month or so, to prevent the punches in the face that I would totally deserve if I completely ruined the film for anyone who reads my blog.

I also made a very dangerous discovery:

And it's only €0.15. They shouldn't make something that's so tempting that cheap, especially not when 6 apples are like €3 or something ridiculous. But luckily after you've eaten one you can't  imagine eating anything sweet ever again, so as food, it more than does its job, and you definitely couldn't have too many of them. And I'm actually doing exercise now, so I don't feel that bad - actually, what am I saying, I never feel bad when it comes to food. My bad eating habits are definitely the worst symptom of my limbo financial situation where I have no idea how much I'm going to have to live off for the next 8 months - to say I go to what is now the third best University in the country, they sure take their sweet time to respond to their students. Clearly time taken to (helpfully) reply to emails was not one of the criteria.

They've started selling Christmas themed biscuits in the Delhaize now, so if you hadn't already noticed, Christmas is coming. Usually I'm not excited this early but I'm travelling home on the night of Halloween and they don't celebrate Bonfire Night here for obvious reasons so it's the only winter holiday I really have this year. And it's going to be the first time in about 5 years (seriously, what have I been doing with my life) that I won't spend Christmas tidying gift displays and getting up at 5am on Boxing Day (okay really, I didn't realise how awful that was until I saw it written down). I'm not even going to mention the fact I won't have to do any revision, because that's just mean.

Apparently this post is almost entirely about food because I'm now going to talk a bit about the amazing Romanian food I had for lunch (and dinner) at the event I went to on Saturday. Salată de vinete is mashed aubergine and chopped onions, it's amazing on bread, pancakes with ham and cheese, eggs stuffed with pâté and a side dish made with tomatoes and root vegetables. Dessert was pastry filled with cream (best description I can think of) and what were basically Hobnobs but they were home made so obviously ten times more amazing. Overall, I had two very good meals from that food. Thanks Romania.

Continuing the theme, the crisp flavours here are just baffling, so they use blue for paprika and green for pickles, which is...fine I guess, I mean blue for paprika is a weird choice but whatever. But the issue is really that those are the only flavours you can get, which means someone at Walkers/Lays decided that Belgium didn't need a variety of crisp flavours, they needed Paprika, Pickle, Naturel and nothing else. And now they've got this special edition hamburger flavour which is not only the worst thing I can imagine but its also taking up space which could be used for other normal flavours. I don't even like crisps that much, but it bothered me that should I ever crave them, I'd have incredibly limited options.

I think that's pretty much it.

Oh and I'm going home in like 8 days.  So excited.

Lots of love!

xx

I'm really struggling to think of titles for these posts.

 

And photos to head them with, so if I can't think of anything relevant, it's just gonna be pictures of street art, I hope that's okay.

For some reason I've been really productive over the last couple of days, maybe it's the realisation that if someone asks me a question in French on the street I can answer them in French without them laughing in my face.  Or it might be that after my post last weekend I realised that I didn't really have a plan.

I know, I know, it's still ages until I graduate and no one really knows what they're doing, but until now (and to be honest, still now) I had nothing.

Nada.

Niente.

Rien.

And I'm never really sure if I should do anything about it. Most of the people closest to me seem to be telling me not to worry and I'll find something eventually, that I'll be fine. But there are always some people (and it tends to be the people who initiate the 'future' discussion) that can't keep the worried look from their faces when I answer with 'I literally have no idea'. I used to nip the conversation in the bud with 'I'm going on placement in my third year, so I'll decide then'. Which was fine, until third year was actually now, and I'm still no closer to having any direction.

So I started thinking about it, but then I realised it wasn't my refusal to think about it that was the problem, it's that I genuinely don't know. I've changed my mind a couple of times over the past 6/7 years about what I wanted to do, it just so happens that the last time I changed my mind I was left without a replacement idea.

But I'm okay with that, I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. The closest I got to an actual conclusion was just that after I graduate I'd really like to stop moving house. Just for a bit. Just living somewhere for longer than 9 months would be good.

This obviously wasn't the productive part of my week, that part involved deciding on my dissertation topic (sort of), doing washing, going food shopping, replying to all my emails, going running and still managing to have a social life. Unfortunately the last part involved the significantly less productive conclusion that I'd happily spend every night at Open Mic sessions in bars, and another defeat served to me by public transport.

That's now Claire - 0 Brussels transport - like, 50.

I promise I'm going to try and find more interesting things to write about than just whatever I'm thinking at the time, but I am basically excluded from the fashion/beauty realm of blogging due to a) not having any money to buy clothes and therefore wearing the same outfits to work over and over again, and b) not actually using any beauty products. In fact the no money thing prevents me from reviewing basically anything, but I'll find a way to work around it I promise.

Now to finish, a fun fact: Malta does not have a railway system, but then it is made up of 3 small islands, so as you might expect, boats are much better.

Jake Bugg's debut album is awesome, so if you haven't already, give it a listen.

Oh and Mobistar? The last 3 letters of my name are not 't-n-e', but I wanted you to stop calling me when I'm at work, so whatever you think you heard is fine.

Ciao!

xx

P.S. Unlimited thanks to the guy from Omnitherm who was just at the building I work in, not only is my office now toasty warm (and I'm no longer burning my ankles using the electric heater),  but at no other point would I have been able to drop my key down the drain outside and not just burst into tears. You are amazing. Merci beaucoup.

I think I might move to San Francisco...

...and work in a museum. This is the conclusion I always draw when I'm tired and stressed and the weather is terrible.  Despite my immediate reservations about living in the US, I do love San Francisco. So it's definitely not a bad plan. Hence the header being some particularly attractive trams.

Just some things I'm really enjoying this week:

• The Office - If you follow me on Twitter you'll have seen me declare my love for Ryan from the US version of The Office. He is by far the best character, which is weird, considering he has almost every character flaw a person could have. Maybe that's why I like him so much.

I'd be lying if I said it was as bad as I thought it would be,and I intend to continue watching it, so it would be fairer to say it's actually pretty good. Although for me it will never beat the UK original, and I consistently compare them when I watch the US version. This probably isn't helped by the fact that I really don't like Steve Carell, in anything (Despicable Me excluded), so I feel like I just tolerate his character much more than I ever had to with Ricky Gervais. I get that you're not really meant to like him, but it's at the point where I'm looking forward to the series after he leaves the show.

• Crash Course World History  - I know this probably doesn't sound that exciting, but these videos are SO good I cannot express, and they cover pretty much every period/event in history you could imagine in 10 minutes (well there are only 40 of them, but still, they cover a lot). I guess they're not much good if you're not interested in history but if you are, even remotely, they're a really good way to get a good overview of world history, especially the history of the Middle East and East Asia which was probably barely (if at all) covered in history at school. The Mongols get a pretty good review too, so I guess if you like Mongols, this is probably for you.
  

• The Rolling Stones (all over again) - I feel like I'm hearing Let It Bleed for the first time all over again, and I'm loving every second of it.  I've been combining this with another period of listening to John Legend all the time (if you haven't heard Number One with Kanye West, well, you should). So it's been a pretty mixed week music-wise.

• The dress code - I could basically go out in what I'd worn all day, work or not, and have no fear of  feeling under-dressed, it puts an end to searching through my wardrobe hours before I leave the house, and the constant texts of 'what are you wearing'. It means I can dress for the weather, so walking from bar to bar, or bar to home in mid-October, doesn't have to be the most horrendous experience of my life. It does present its own set of problems however, namely that in an especially full bar/club, I am, within about 20 minutes, horrendously warm and pining for the times I wore significantly less, even with all the obvious downsides of the latter scenario.

• The music in Carrefour - From Ra Ra Rasputin and Copacabana to Y.M.C.A. and  Let Me Entertain You, Carrefour is bringing a little excitement to the mundane task of the weekly shop every time. 
  

This weekend started with another night out which ended at around 5am Saturday morning, continued with a lovely lunch with Rosa (Sucre d'Orge), probably the best calzone I've ever had for dinner (La Brace), a ticket to see Stealing Sheep in November and plenty of rain in between. It ended with the very welcome return to my life of central heating, this blog post and no longer being able to put off going to the laundrette.

Au revoir!

xx

Happy 1 month in Brussels!

Can you believe it, as of last Saturday I've been here an entire month. I was actually crawling into the house at 6am Saturday morning - marking the time to the second that I first got here just 4 weeks ago. Needless to say I was just as tired but had spent the last 14 hours having much more fun than the first time around.

Aside from that, this week I have:

• Been kidnapped by a metro driver - apparently hilarious to close the doors before Marika could get on and drive away cackling like The Child-Catcher, leading to an epic journey, actually mainly down to the fact that we stayed on a tram for farrr too long and so basically went in a circle...


• Used translation headphones for the first time - getting the volume and language changing buttons mixed up when I was trying to write at the same time was a particularly confusing moment.


• Become increasingly angry and whoever shares a wall with me in the house next door - your alarm is your phone vibrating, and evidently it doesn't wake you for a good 15 minutes, but it does wake me, an hour before my alarm is due to go off. I will find you, and I will set you a more effective alarm.


• Bedding! - And as a result have just had the best 2 nights sleep (and possibly a nap on Sunday evening) of my (Belgian) life.


• Gone for my first run in about 8 months - my body definitely knew it. It can only get better.


• Finally been to a club with like, other young people in it, and good music and everything - that would be the getting in at 6am I mentioned, the best night I've had in a while.


• Done tourist-y things with my family - like see the Atomium, Mini Europe, eat overpriced sandwiches from a tiny cafe and be made to pose for countless photos with everything we saw - apologies for the ones included below, after 4 hours sleep, I was not photo-ready.


• Made exciting plans - including a home visit in November and a visit from a very good friend (Sally, I know you read this, and yes, this is you) in December so we can enjoy Belgium in all its festive glory.


• Finally caught up on Homeland - cannot believe I left it this long, brilliant.


• Probably used Skype more than the rest of my life put together - this would be the disgusting bit where I say thank you to anyone who's Skyped/messaged/spoken to/seen me this week - but that would be highly embarrassing, so I would never do that.

Songs of the post:

Placebo - Nancy Boy

The Vaccines - Ghost Town

Jay-Z & Kanye West feat. Frank Ocean - No Church in the Wild

Rolling Stones - Start Me Up

The Black Keys - Tighten Up

Royal Crescent, Bath. My piece of my second home in my third one.

Due to Italian traffic, the closest I've ever been to Pisa.

Bonne journée!

xx

Because Shop Assistants Are People Too

First of all, it's officially autumn!

Despite my absolute hatred for the cold, I do really like autumn and winter, and I enjoy the build up to Christmas of October and November too. I also enjoy that it's acceptable to admit you're cold and put on as many clothes as possible at this time of year, unlike when a cloud covers the sun for all of a minute on the only sunny day in July, when apparently, it is not.

But this post isn't going to be about the weather, although unlike the rest of them, it will actually be about something.

Most people who know me will know that I used to work in a shop (I worked there for nearly 5 years so if you didn't know that, come on, step up your game). I've had enough of a break from it for this to (hopefully) not turn into a rant, and more an idea I had after something mentioned in a meeting about why small businesses experience so many difficulties when they're trying to trade outside their member state. Turns out the best conclusion we reached was that they don't tell anyone about these problems, or at least not the right people, they grumble and complain to people around them, but don't tell the people who could actually make a difference, so they never feel like there's enough interest in an issue to change anything. So they don't.

Away from the fact that if anyone demands to be served faster because they have a train to catch, I will, without doubt serve them intentionally slowly (that's just poor time management skills, I'm not your PA), by far the complaint I heard most, is that we were understaffed.

Now, I get it, they don't want to wait ages to be served, they don't appreciate the shop being a mess, and I get that, I really do. I don't want that to happen either, I want to go home on time, and I want to serve customers who don't yell at me. The only difference is our approach to this problem, the fact that I'm here for 10 hours of the day, means that by mid-morning I've basically gotten over it, at which point they've just started making their complaint. Loudly, and in my direction.

When we get down to it, I usually agree with the customer, we probably should have more staff. Unfortunately, I don't actually have the power to hire more staff, or allocate more money for more staff, even the management of the store often won't have the power to do that. So what they're basically doing is yelling at me because I don't work at Head Office, which honestly I feel is a little unfair considering I'm only 20 and I only work part-time. So even though short-term they might feel better once they've taken out whatever is bothering them on a unsuspecting shop assistant; long-term, nobody who could make the situation better is any wiser to the problem, which isn't really going to help either of us.

Calling the shop assistant a 'little/ugly/stupid bitch' definitely doesn't help, so probably best not do that either. But calling Head Office and suggesting in a calm and considered manner that they allocate more staff to a certain store might just do it, especially if everyone else who would have otherwise shouted at said shop assistants does that too.

This isn't really directed at anyone (except the hundreds of people who've yelled at me at work - I've bitched about you hundreds of times, just so you know), and it's definitely something I'm guilty of doing all the time; just complaining about something without actually effectively tackling the problem by telling anyone who could do anything about it. So after writing this I guess I should probably stop doing that.

I tried to make that interesting, but I might have failed, more photos and pointless updates to follow soon though.

Au revoir!

xx

Good news

It feels like I've done a lot complaining in these posts since I moved here, although that's hardly because I'm not enjoying myself, and mostly because posts saying 'everything is great!' would be short and not very interesting. So this post is going to be some good things,one tiny tiny bad thing that was so disappointing  it can't go without comment, and some photos.

Good things:

• Well first of all Brussels is lovely, I'm settled and very much enjoying myself, also we get 2 new housemates this weekend and meeting new people is never a bad thing.


• Turns out the 'third time lucky' myth really works, third time walking to my meeting building and I got there absolutely fine (and without wandering round streets I had no reason to be on), have since made the journey twice more with great success. And never without an umbrella.


• My coat arrived, it's actually way too warm to wear at the moment but I'm now fully prepared for the infamous 'Brussels weather'.


• The self-service machines in Delhaize don't have a bagging area, which is probably the best idea I've ever heard. They also don't yell at you like the ones in British supermarkets do, it's definitely all-round a more relaxing experience if you dislike human contact/are in a rush.


• It's only 5 days until my family get here! I've never been so excited to see them, in 2 years of university I was barely homesick, but I feel so far away over here, and this isn't helped by their inability to use Skype because the home computer is so slow it's actually more time-effective for them to wait for me to come home at Christmas.


• I found a shop that sells these things:
  I think you can still get them in the UK but I haven't been able to find them for years and I'm so picky about sweets that I end up giving away the majority of a normal packet of fruit Mentos, so this is pretty exciting.


• It's only 50 cents for a hotdog in IKEA, and you can get 2 and a drink for €1.50, a packet of 4 donuts is only €1.60. I don't (and probably don't want to know) why it's so cheap, but I'm definitely not swimming in money at the moment, so it was good to see.

One tiny tiny bad thing:

• This barely deserves its own section but it was a pretty big disappointment; basically, when I first visited Delhaize I spotted some pre-cooked waffles with jam in the middle, obviously having just moved to Belgium this was pretty exciting. So, finally, when they came on offer this week I bought some, excitedly went home, only to be completely disappointed. Far too much jam, they tasted nothing like waffles, I only ate half and was so devastated I had to throw the other away.

That bit wasn't very interesting, I apologise.

Some photos:

Au revoir!

xx

There were going to be more photos but...

it rained. The it rained some more, and my measly completely-made-of-paper notebook took the brunt of the bad weather, so now it's just some paper stapled together rather than an actual book because the cover came off. Yes, this was made worse by the fact that I got lost, and yes, this is the same place I got lost finding last week, but finally I've realised where I've been going wrong, something I could have done much earlier by paying more attention when I walked home...

But it's good to know that the weather is just as bad at home at least, although I am still missing things from home:

• A hairdryer - So I don't get temporary pneumonia every time I wash my hair.


• An oven - Which I didn't realise we didn't have until I got here, and even though I barely cooked in the oven at uni due to its inability to cook anything evenly, I've just been continuously craving oven pizza for the past 3 weeks.


• My running shoes - So. Many. Carbs. Even with the lack of pizza I've been eating terribly and to be honest, I need to do some sort of exercise when the office is only 5 minutes away.


• Central heating - That's not a Belgian thing, we just can't turn the heating on until November in the house, which I assumed would be fine, until I had to start wearing more clothes in the house than outside of it.


• The time - Or rather not converting it for no reason in my head every time I look at a clock, even though it's just an hour I can't get out of the habit of knowing what time it would be if I was in Britain.


• Not living with my landlady - it's only for another couple of weeks now, and I'm not exactly untidy...but it's a bit like having your lecturer or boss follow you home to make sure you're doing enough work, it's just a bit weird. So I've taken to hiding things I haven't had time to wash up yet in my room, like being a student, but in secret.

Also a fun fact: If you get your bike stolen from the street in Brussels, you'll probably find it at the bike market at Gare du Midi on a Sunday, where about 90% of stolen bikes turn up.

Just one photo from something we visited at the weekend, it's Porte de Hal, a city gate from the second set of Brussels city walls.

À la prochaine :)

xx

Some photos of Etterbeek & an update

Etterbeek town hall

Etterbeek centre

Etterbeek centre

My house :) My room is the lowest one on the right with the balcony

So over the last few days I have:

• Booked my bus tickets to see my lovely Australian friend Alex in Bristol.


• Been told that my parents aren't coming for another 2 weeks (it was this weekend, then next, now it's the 6th of October), so that's just more time I have to spend sleeping in a sleeping bag feeling like a squatter in my own room.


• Discovered that two streets I thought ran parallel to each other, in fact, don't, and so ended up taking the full hour of time I'd allocated myself to find a meeting that was 25 minutes away, thoroughly breaking in my new shoes (and feet) in the process.


• Ordered myself a coat from ASOS, because it's absolutely freezing here already.


• Started watching Jonathan Creek online, and remembering why I loved it so much when I was younger, and also questioning my parents viewing decisions for their child.

Au revoir!

xx

1 week in Brussels - 10 things.

Here are ten things I've taken from my first week in Belgium:

1. Brussels apparently put cars last on their list of priorities against other forms of transport, in fact today is even 'No car day' and public transport is free. However, it appears no one has told the cars this, and everyone drives like they've been told they've only got an hour to live, like 'even if there's a red light I'll drive anyway if it doesn't look like I'm going to hit anyone'. It will probably be a small miracle if I leave this year without a broken leg.


2. The weather is the same. For anyone who had the idea that the weather would be much nicer for much longer in Brussels, this was an error, it's freezing and it rains, just like home...


3. On a more positive note, my French is much better than I thought, at least understanding wise, and when someone asked me a question in the street I actually helped them!


4. Sunday is a ghost town day, everything is closed by 1pm apart from the restaurants, public transport is still as regular,  but buying things is off the agenda entirely.


5. They absolutely love the waffles-fame, no doubt, they know that's what people come to see, in Grand-Place there are at least 5 shops per street that sell waffles for €1, and the waffle vans are everywhere in the city.


6. There's a big difference between the outer districts and the Schuman/EU institution area, particularly in language. I barely hear English in Etterbeek, but a 15 minute walk to the institution buildings creates a very different environment.


7. People are constantly coming and going. Not just in a 'this is an international city' kind of way, but in a 'internships are usually only 5/6 months here' kind of way. So as I'm staying until the end of June, come March I'll probably have to make a whole new set of work/house friends.


8. Google Chrome struggles with having websites in 3 languages. It translates something originally only in French fine, or in Dutch fine, but as soon as a website is potentially in both languages and I would like it in English we seem to get an amalgamation of the three. In which it translates some number characters into their English word counterparts and days of the week are spread over all three languages.


9. It's pointless to register as a resident - or so I've been told. I had an appointment to go and show my documents and pay the fee to become an official resident which then means I can have a bank account. However when I mentioned this to some people they told me it was more trouble than it was worth and since international bank transfers means I don't even need a Belgian bank account to pay my rent  and I don't want a phone contract - I guess they're right.


10. The guy who created Tin Tin is from Brussels, he's even from my district, which so far is my only claim to fame.

À la prochaine

xx

Je suis arrivé!

I am officially living in Brussels now! Well, in the sense that I occupy a room here and I pay rent and work here and basically do everything here, but not legally, because I'm not registered as a resident.

The journey was actually quite enjoyable, although not being able to straighten my legs for the last 4 hours did make me a bit crippled, but despite this I managed to pass the time from London to Brussels very well after I made friends with 3 girls sat near me who were going to Amsterdam. I didn't sleep, but doing the journey by myself and only saying a fleeting goodbye to my parents on Friday morning meant I was pretty all over the place, so the distraction was nice and they were lovely people to spend the journey with.

My room (pictures below) is quite big, lots of storage space etc., and I look forward to having a cup of tea on the balcony in the mornings. Yes I have already bought and made myself a cup of tea, what can I say, I just can't resist home comforts. I also accidentally bought chocolate filled with rum truffle, which will teach me not to wear my glasses when I go shopping and everything is in French and Dutch. I now have a phone number, and I've explored Etterbeek and some more of Brussels with my house mate Rosa, we went to Saint-Catherine, saw Grand-Place and 100s of stalls selling waffles for €1.

I met my landlady when I arrived, she  is so lovely and helpful ( which is exactly what you need when you arrive when it's still dark and you haven't slept since that time yesterday), and everyone else pretty briefly and me and Rosa were out all day yesterday and everyone works during the week. Everyone has been very welcoming and nice and I'm sure I'll enjoy it here. I definitely feel much further away here than I did at University though, despite the fact that I'm basically speaking to everyone as much as I would do if I were still in the UK, but I'm sure once I'm more settled I'll feel much more at home :)[gallery]

That's all for now!

Au revoir!

xx

Packing up

So I'm less than 2 days away from moving my life to a little room in Etterbeek, Brussels and I thought I'd start blogging because it's probably the easiest way for anyone who cares to see how this move pans out given that I will no longer be easily contactable by phone and sending out group emails is a bit weird. This also might end up being where I post stuff I think is cool, or it might crash and burn within a couple of weeks, it's basically completely dependent on how interesting my life is.

I still have a list as long as my arm to get done before I go, most of it will involve making phone calls and being stuck on hold for longer than the conversation will actually last and printing things (which I'm still struggling to do despite the fact the printer is literally a yard away from me). I also don't have a phone number, a bank account, or a map. Oh, and I don't really speak French well enough to have meaningful conversation. So overall, it's probably fair to say this is going pretty well.

But despite all this, hopefully, the journey will run smoothly, my lovely landlady has agreed to meet me at the house herself, which is also luckily not too far from where the bus drops me off, and only ten minutes away from where I'll be working. All of which is much appreciated when I have to travel by myself and I don't arrive until 6am on Saturday. Another piece of great news is that I'm not expected to dress too smartly in the office, so (fingers-crossed) I won't have to buy any more clothes on top of the minimal shopping I've already done. This might not sound that exciting, but if you were my bank balance, I promise you would be ecstatic.

I think that's all I've got for now, realising only yesterday that I had no currency has confirmed to me that I think I've still got ages to prepare. I have not. So I'm going to go and panic for a bit and hopefully make it to Brussels in one piece :)

À la prochaine!

xx