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Yesterday was definitely one of my favourite days so far - I got to spend it with some of my favourite people in the world :) Esther, of course, & my two lovely friends who I met on exchange at SFU three years ago, Jessie (from Sweden) & Helle (from Norway)! Helle has recently moved to Leuven (which is about half an hour out of Brussels) to work on her thesis & by pure chance, we noticed on facebook that Jessie was coming from Stockholm to visit her the same weekend that Esther & I just happened to be stopping over in Brussels for one night!! What are the chances???
So I began the morning with a lovely skype date with my Mum + Nigel & his family back home (it never ceases to amaze me what you can do with technology these days!!) while eating my delicious breakfast of fresh strawberries & yummy pastry from the local patisserie (where the lady remembered how I liked my tea having seen me there the morning before - the people of Bruges were without exception, truly lovely!). We then set out for Brussels on the train & walked a rather painful 8kms or so to our hostel from the station through a kinda dodgy area of town (if you're ever going to Brussels, get off at Central station, not Midi!!) before arriving at our hostel, which has really nice facilities but a prison warden lady running the place. We got told off for taking too long to put our bags away in the lockers we had to pay for because they "were closed" for cleaning, then when I asked about wifi so we could google maps where to go next she once again reiterated that they "were closed" right now…which apparently means they turn off the wifi as well for three hours a day (I'm rolling my eyes right now!).
But we still managed to find Jessie & Helle without a hitch & it was just so SO lovely to see them both again! It felt like no time had passed at all, which, of course with Jessie it hardly had, since I had seen her in Perth just a few months earlier! We wandered throughout Brussels looking in antique stores for kitschy items to deck out the apartment Jessie has just bought in Stockholm - she had her heart set on a growling puma as a random piece to place by her front door, but no such luck! Would have been kinda hard to get home on the train anyway I suspect…we also stumbled across a fantastic vintage store, where I died & went to heaven! 65 euro later I emerged with a 1950s red & white fine houndstooth patterned pencil skirt (think Mad Men!), a cute yellow skirt, a strawberry dress MADE for field frolicking & a gorgeous one piece 1950s bathing suit :) Thank goodness clothes are light & easy to pack ;) We ate wonderful Lebanese food sitting on the steps of a nearby church & then made our way to Zara homewares store to pick out more delightful things for Jessie's apartment!
Esther & I headed back to our hostel in the afternoon to get ready for the evening, with a pit stop by Haagen Daz icecream (strawberry cheesecake - a very untraditional choice for me to make! - = yum!!!) to restore our flagging blood sugars :P I then decided to take the gorgeous red pencil skirt for it's maiden voyage as we were joining a couple of Helle's work friends for dinner in the nearby city of Gent. That's right, brekky in Bruges, lunch in Brussels, dinner in Gent! What a day! We took the train out there & were introduced to her work colleagues, Andre (from Brazil) & Frederick (born & bread in Belgium) as well as some of Frederick's friends from the UK - quite a mixed bag of nationalities really between us all!
Frederick has this amazing apartment in Gent where you walk up a flight of teeny tiny narrow stairs with no railing around them & then out on a sort of plank-like walkway across to the outdoor setting (also no railings or guards anywhere in sight!). It was the kind of set up I'm pretty sure the Aussie councils would have a thing or two to say about, & not the easiest thing to make it across in heels, but despite a gin & tonic or two, nobody fell! We also found ourselves fascinated by a woodpecker toothpick dispenser device he had…I think you kinda had to be there for this one, but it was AMAZING! I'm rather easily amused I guess…haha
So we sat on the terrace as the sun was setting drinking G&Ts & nibbling on amazing cheeses, salami, fresh bread, home made tapenade - as was my experience with the Europeans when I was on exchange at SFU, they sure do know how to entertain! We then walked through Gent, admiring castles built in medieval times (woah!!), to a Thai restaurant that is a favourite of Frederick's, where we ate & drank & talked & laughed until we had to be whisked away in a taxi at 11:00PM on the dot (very Cinderella-esque) so we wouldn't miss the last train back to Brussels. It was a really wonderful evening, with a great mix of lovely people from all over the world - both old friends & new. Like I said, I think it was one of my favourite days yet :)
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Mutti My word, Liv, what a trip. All that eating and shopping! I guess all the walking about seeing the sights takes off the calories (kilojules), but I think just reading about all the delicious things you are trying out is putting weight on me! But please don't stop! It's wonderful! Love you