A day off

Today was a day off from pretty much everything. Work, laundry, sewing, bread-baking, yoghurt-making, housework... After our weekly food shop, we upped and offed to Bruges for the day.

Bruges is sometimes called the Flemish Venice and it certainly smells like it! It's a beautiful old city on a sunny day like today, albeit a little full of tourists, and ideal for our kind of sightseeing which mostly involves wandering randomly through interesting streets, exploring churches and other sights we might stumble upon, and discovering cafes, bars, craft beers and artisanal chocolatiers.

We've been drinking a fair amount of craft beer recently, and an off-hand comment from my boyfriend revealed an interest in possibly having a go at brewing beer. This is really quite exciting for me - so many of the things I do as part of this drive for a make-your-own lifestyle are things that I do alone, but now here is something we could do together. 

We've been talking about beers we like and beers we'd like to make, and I've been talking him through the results of my research into how to brew (basically outlining the differences between kit brewing, malt extract brewing and grain brewing). We'll need to find a bit of equipment and do a bit of planning, but I think home-brewed beer is definitely in our future - and an opportunity to explore this new field together.

Of course, some things need doing, day off or no day off. The plants need watering, the sourdough starter needs feeding and the dishes need washing. But I'm definitely smiling today, after my day off.

A very welcome guest

It's been a very full and uplifting weekend - one I really, really needed. A lovely visit from my father, with a trips out to Leuven and a long walk through the forest at the edge of Brussels and endless cups of tea. Plus I get to trot out my favourite blanket for the spare bed.

I really enjoy having guests. It's also lovely getting the flat back, and being able to do all those little domestic tasks which you put on the back burner while you have visitors, but I love having people to stay. Making the bed, preparing the room, stocking up on nice food to give them, being able to offer homemade blankets and breakfast cereal and yoghurt and so on, and taking them around to different parts of Belgium, with medieval cities and beautiful forests and old churches and lots of Belgian beer!

It's remarkable how much of a difference a month makes - we last went to the forest a month or so ago, and in that time the most obvious change is the sound - before it was still and quiet, and now it's full of birdsong. Everywhere you looked was at first glance still winter-bound and barren but a second glance revealed buds along the branches of trees promising a burst of colour shortly. I reckon in another couple of weeks the leaves and first flowers will be appearing.

And you? What did you get up to over the weekend?

Car-free Sunday

This morning, I woke up, and it felt different. Odd. Weird.

Quiet.

Then my boyfriend commented that today is an auto-free day. Ahah!

As a city dweller who grew up in a more suburban, almost rural environment, I miss quiet, reflective days. I miss sitting on a fence listening to the wind in the trees. But today, I don't miss the countryside as much as I normally do. Brussels is a very green city, with plenty of parks and trees and people-spaces, but today without the cars, it's blissful. It feels quiet and calm and restful, tranquil and pensive. And there are so many people. People on rented bicycles, walking, playing with their children in the streets.

Fail

City fail. I have been into no less than EIGHT SHOPS looking for cup-cake or muffin cases, and NO ONE stocks them. I am more than slightly appalled. Someone has suggested I try a kitchenware shop in the city centre, but that means that I will not have time to make the cupcakes for at least a week. Grrrrrrr....

Another example of the frustrations of expat life - something that would be so easy in a Tesco or Morrisons becomes such a challenge. Especially when no one knows the French word, nor is it in my dictionary. Anyone out there know how to say 'muffin case' in French or Dutch?

On the limitations of being English

Don't worry, this isn't a rant about national identity or frustration about how Brits are viewed abroad etc. This is about one particular thing which I have been barred from for being English.

Blood donation.

I went to the blood bank today (because it stays open a bit later and I could go after work) to give blood and to give a sample for the bone marrow donor registry. All went well for the first 45 minutes, despite a few French/English communication problems and the most UNHELPFUL doctor on the planet. She was just standing in the room, arms crossed, staring into space. I asked a question. She said I had to go through the procedure properly and speak to Doctor A (currently engaged with a patient) before speaking to her. I explained that I had already asked Doctor A this question, and he thought I was asking for a translation of a word rather than an explanation of the risks the word referred to. She just said, you can ask him. Great.

Finally got in to see Doctor A, who looked about 85. Took my blood pressure, asked my weight, looked at me in some surprise and condescension when I confessed I didn't know my height in centimetres. To be honest, I was more surprised that they had nothing to measure me with. Are the budgets so tight they can't manage a tape measure up a door frame?

Well, we made it through the medical questions more or less. Finally after 45 minutes of paperwork, waiting and questions, we got to this one:
Did you spend any time in the UK between 1980 and 1996?
I had ticked yes, and this totally confused Doctor A. He asked why I would be in the UK at this time. Please note that at the top of my file it says that I am British and born in London (before 1996, as you might guess). Nevertheless, he cannot think of a reason I might have been in the UK in those years. I patiently explained that I had lived there.

He then explained to me that, because I happened to live in the same country as a mad cow disease outbreak fifteen years ago, I would never be able to give blood or any blood products in Belgium. Can anyone explain the medical reasoning behind this to me? Or why, in the UK, there is no such restriction?

The times, they are a-changing

So the move is almost upon us, and I can proudly announce that I will be moving house in the most eco-friendly way possible - by train. (That's not the reason, it's actually cheaper because my boyfriend gets these vouchers from work, which give him money off green stuff like train travel). However, the flipside of this is that I can only take what I can carry with me - one suitcase and a big rucksack. That's not a huge amount of stuff, but we're leaving some here.

So there's a lot of emotional stuff flying around right now - I've had an interesting year here, and I think I've learned a lot, but I also feel that I let a lot of opportunities pass me by. Places I didn't go, museums I didn't see, people I didn't befriend as thoroughly as I could have... Some of it was beyond my control - I spent a lot of this spring helping my parents with stuff, but a lot of it was just due to laziness, bluesiness and apathy on my part. I have an ongoing problem with apathy, and it frustrates me no end because I feel that by this age I should be able to get on with tackling problems like a sane adult, rather than putting my head in the sand and hoping they'll go away!

Somehow, I never manage to convert this sense of general regret into a determination to get more out of the next experience - always the apathy and always the sense of lost opportunities. But I'm going to try, this time. Maybe I should make a list? :-)

Surprises pleasant and unpleasant

As I'm coming to the end of my time in Belgium, I've been trying to squeeze in a few last trips and experiences. Yesterday we went to spend the day in Antwerpen and the nearby commuter town of Lier. I have to say that Antwerpen disappointed me, or more specifically, the museums disappointed me.

The city itself was as busy as Brussels, and has an if anything more beautiful centre, with the advantage of a river and a ruined castle. It still didn't tug my heart-strings, though - not the way Prague or Riga or Paris did - and I didn't come away feeling like I wanted to go back. Budget limitations affecting choices of activity, two museums were duly visited. The first was the Rubenshuis, home of Antwerp's favourite painter. Overpriced, especially considering what was inside - the place couldn't decide if it was a reconstruction of his house, or a slightly more picturesque than usual gallery of his studio's artwork. There was no attempt to involve the visitor in the house itself - the rooms were there, there was some furniture, but it felt very very dead. And given the lack of evidence for the actual internal structure for the house in Rubens's day (most was rebuilt), there were some odd decisions made concerning, for example, the location of the kitchen. The paintings were mostly by Rubens's students and contemporaries, rather than the man himself, and while there was no shortage of supplementary texts praising his inspiring style etc etc etc, there was nothing at all informative or interesting. In short, very disappointing. I would have preferred either a close look at his work, maybe looking at some of his influences and his development as an artist, or a house carefully reconstructed based on contemporary building patterns with explanations of decisions taken, and some detail about his household and working environment, his daily life and family. The gardens were nice, but poorly maintained - weeds, and some plants in serious need of pruning. The only good thing: the museum provided a small sample of the cuir doree (gilt leather) used to decorate the walls, so you could have a feel without damaging the walls themselves. Maybe one and a half stars out of five?

With time and money constraints, the second museum visited was the Maagdenhuismuseum. Deeply, deeply disappointing. Really, don't bother. There was almost nothing about the abandoned girls who give the museum its name, despite the apparent similarity to the Foundling Museum in London. The signs were almost exclusively in Flemish, and the only things to see were a few uninspiring paintings on the usual subjects. There were three records of verbal agreements to take in girls, attached to their tokens (I think - my Flemish is extremely sketchy!) and that was it. Enquiry revealed that there were some relics from the girls' day, but they were in a second building and not open to the public. No stars. Can I give negative stars? It was a really unpleasant experience.

Moving on from Antwerpen, we spent a lovely evening pottering around Lier. The inhabitants are sometimes insultingly known as "sheepheads", meaning stubborn or stupid, which apparently comes from the occasion when the town was offered a choice between hosting the university or the sheepmarket. The sheepmarket was chosen as it offered greater financial rewards. However, the university went to Leuven, which seems to have got the better deal. Lier is a small commuter city serving Antwerp and Brussels, but it's an eight-century town with an astonisingly well-kept historic centre. The Begijnhof was so peaceful and even still had the names of old inhabitants on the doors. The bell-towers sounded lovely, and there's a really cute clock - the Jubelklok - in the Zimmertoren which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has figures who strike bells and things in the side, who actually move! And it shows things like the phase of the moon and sign of the zodiac. The whole thing moves fractionally every four seconds. Impressive for something built in 1931. The town felt a bit surreal - it was a bit Stepford-esque, just a bit too perfect and too clean. I would have said it had been designed that way, if it weren't for the history giving that the lie. Still, very beautiful, with the canals and weeping willows, bridges and churches, and flowers everywhere. I was expecting something much drearier, and was definitely pleasantly surprised.