Basically Everything : november

Sunday, 25 November 2012

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 :)

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

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.