I've been really bad at this lately.

I've just been crazy busy and I'm trying to move out of/find someone to move into my house - more to follow when I've actually sorted this out and have a new place to live. But at least it's the 16th , so we're officially half-way through the worst month of the year. I didn't think the 'January blues' were a thing, and then I got back here last week and discovered they were a thing, and I had them. There is of course, every possibility I was just home sick and in a horrible mood, but blaming the time of year is just easier.

And if anyone's looking for a room in Brussels let me know - because apparently this blog has also become a sales pitch.

Then it snowed. It looks great don't get me wrong, I like snow as much as the next person, but I've been running maybe 3 times since I got back here and now it's too dangerous for me to even walk. I'm very lucky in the fact that I get to work from home quite a lot at the moment so I don't have to risk my life walking to the office, but even a trip to the bank this morning took about 3 times longer than it should have; and to those people who saw me nearly fall on my face - I hope you enjoyed it, I really do. In all honesty everyone else probably isn't finding it this difficult to get around, but I'm not that stable as it is, I'm not really expecting to make it out of January in one piece.

And yes, I know the picture of the snow isn't the most artistically brilliant one, but it's largely melted in the bits of Etterbeek that look nice because those are the bits where people move around a lot.

But in more positive news we went out on Saturday night and had probably the best night out since we got here (I say this a lot, I know, but it's for real this time) - I've really fallen back in love with going out since moving here, thanks Brussels.

This is another really short and uninformative one, I swear I'll be better at this once I've stopped showing people round my house every day/worrying about being made homeless very swiftly. I'll also explain just how I got to the point of needing to move out in the first place, I promise.

So I'm gonna take some time here to recommend some other people Youtube/blog wise you might want to check out just because I feel like this post should be good for something at least.

Touchdemode.com - This girl can put an outfit together, and her site looks brilliant, check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/thatssojessicaful   - I hope she doesn't mind me putting this here, but sometimes I watch this girl's videos and I just feel like she's stolen my brain.

And if you follow @thirdyearabroad on Twitter they always re-tweet some pretty good stuff from other people who've decided that moving once to go to university wasn't enough, and want to do it again 2 years later.

À bientôt!

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