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