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