Week two: summer rain, rain, rain and more rain...

There's nothing quite like living with a bunch of workaholics to make you feel lazy...
There's a screen-saver on one of the pcs here that says:
At Maison du Dragon we love working... and working... and working... and working...

Just like May says, this family is not normal...

I've been really good actually. Compared to my holiday shedule at home which usually includes at least ten to twelve hours sleep a day, I've barely slept at all! I go to sleep after 2am almost every night and I'm up by 9 at the latest.. ok maybe except the last two mornings..

So, anyway... Brussels in summer. Is wet. And this is from personal experience as well as from reading the paper (yes, my cousin Alex convinced me to read the Le Soir to practice my french). And I've been going everywhere on foot. Walking walking walking to walk off the extra kilos I must be putting on from eating a belgian waffle and a bowl of yummy yummy hot chips everyday topped with mayonnaise... hmmmm.....

I make a daily visit to St Michael's Cathedral, always taking the lonnnnnnnnnng way round cos I can never remember the short way and end up getting semi-lost and wondering through familiar yet unfamiliar streets, and I sit inside for ten minutes or so feeling calm. On Saturday, there was a wedding and the service was in French and Dutch so everuthing was said twice and the bride was very pretty and it was nice to be there.. On Sunday there was a marathon curling its way around the city so it took me extra long to get to the cathedral because I didn't want to have to cross the orange orange track (think ING orange cos they were the sponsors), and when there were helicopters swirling around overhead everywhere probably filming the athletes progress and it was one of those greyest of grey days so when I got to the cathedral around noon, there was the sound of thundering helicopters mixed with church bells and giant black-grey ominous-looking clouds hanging all around.. it was quite eerie.. then every five minutes or so, an athlete would jog past and people on the streets would cheer and clap.. I wanted to write postcards outdoors but then it started to rain. One giant SPLAT after another and within a minute I was drenched...

On Tuesday I made it to Antwerp. Finally. Too bad I didn't get to really catch up with the friend I met in Lyon cos he was working, but what a beautiful city! Really, Antwerp is so gorgeous and I don't know whether the weather was being nice to me or not but in between every half hour or so of absolute POURING rain, a patch of blue blue sky would appear and the sun would dry me a little... The sounds of the city are so different to here in Brussels. Here most people speak french, and if there are signs then they're in french and dutch. In Antwerp, they speak dutch, and all the signs are in dutch, and when you're walking in the streets, the sounds of other people's chatter is a totally different melody to that here... So what did i do? I walked, and walked and walked some more. I visited every site that appeared in the postcards in the souvenir shops. And all without a map! I'm pretty proud of myself. But I wish I could post up my photos because eventhough they aren't very good, it's easier to show you in pictures than in words what I saw/felt.

I walked past the front of a restaurant and just stopped in time as a flying bone span through the door in front of me and onto the footpath follwed by a yappy little jack russel who caught it then ran back inside to his owner... I miss Taxi :(

It's Thursday now. Uni doesn't start until 18 September, but i have to be back in Lyon by the latest on the 12 September. I was going to leave today except I had a lot of trouble finding airfares, which I realised were much more expensive than I expected. For a single one way fare to Lyon, the regular price is EU$477 not including tax. I think I'm taking the train on Monday... but a direct route ths time so I don't have to change in Paris..

My cousin Alex has convinced me to stay til Monday. There will be a wedding reception at the hotel on Saturday night. It's gonna be interesting. To be honest, I'm really looking forward to the start of uni.. even after I heard yesterday that the university residence that I will be staying in is really crap and isn't in a very nice area... I just want to get my mind working again...

I better leave it at that. If I stay the weekend, I will probably try to get to Luxembourg for a daytrip tomorrow.

Hope you're all well,

luce :)