No wonder Colin Farrell hated it.

Bruges I mean. I'm not surprised he wondered if that's what hell was like. After my experience this weekend I'm very much inclined to agree with him.

It started with a waffle. We wanted to share one, but obviously being two people we wanted to eat using separate apparatus. It quickly became apparent this would not be possible. When I first asked for the second set of cutlery I was greeted with 'no'. I thought it was perfectly deadpan, I didn't think he actually meant 'no'. So the very British part of me decided continued to pursue my request, only to be greeted with 'no', again. I looked confused, he stared blankly back and replied with 'If you're sharing the waffle you can share the cutlery'. I wasn't completely convinced that this wasn't a joke until we'd finished our meal alternating with the one set of cutlery we had. Maybe I haven't been in Belgium long enough after all.

Then we had lunch at a place where you can order only drinks but not, it would seem, only food. As we were told 'this is a restaurant, you have to order drinks if you're eating'. Now I've been to plenty of restaurants,in plenty of places, and I'm not entirely sure this is how it works. In fact I know it isn't, because I routinely don't order drinks, especially not in Belgium, because water is very rarely free and I'm yet to start bleeding money. I am however, not routinely thrown out of restaurants.

I think the most depressing part of this story is that even with the €4,50 each we paid for water, the bill still came to less than it would of had we eaten anywhere else.

I also hit an old woman in the face with a door. Although I initially thought I'd knocked over a small child, so breaking an old woman's nose was actually a fairly positive outcome.

Once you get over the emotional trauma though, I guess it's alright. It's really pretty but I was too busy being furious to take any photos.

Oh, and whoever walked past my office on Monday and pressed the intercom button. You pressed it too hard, it got stuck and subsequently set off the doorbell for a good 5 minutes before I worked out what the hell was going on and why all these white plastic phones on the wall were making noise. Some of those phones are in parts of the office I don't have a key for. You better hope I don't find out who you are. You are mine.

On a more serious note, for everyone who has read this, and for all the nice things you've said, thank you very much, it is very much appreciated.

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.