A few loose ends

My first day off work! Next year, I go straight into my new job for six weeks or so, and then a long break in New Zealand - seems just about perfect! First, a few words on stuff I haven't blogged about/follow-ups. Yesterday I actually looked at the stats page of my blog and the post with the most hits over the last week was the last day of my trip to Ukraine in 2011. I ended up looking back through my whole trip and really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. So it's a reminder to keep blogging even if it feels like I'm the only one reading it...

• Edinburgh: One thing I forgot to say last time was how marked the differences were in security between Edinburgh and Brussels. How quickly one gets used to seeing armed police and soldiers everywhere you go! It seemed really strange to me to see the Christmas market, for example, without armed (wo)men standing guard outside. I don't know how I feel about that. As we saw in Paris, it doesn't have to be a big, well-publicised event for it to be targeted. The Sydney siege was in a Lindt chocolate shop of all places. But I suppose it's more about reassuring people they can still go places like the Christmas market and the Grand Place than anything else.

I got a few more photos from other people's cameras - my birthday brownie

I had to take a photo of a photo since I don't have a scanner, so this is not the best quality. I feel I was tricked here because Caro said "let's really go for it with the photo, none of this namby-pamby stuff" and then those two do incredibly photogenic cute little scared faces, and I'm the marauding hell demon next to them

That wasn't my only cake of the weekend. I'm so excited!

Pre-dinner silliness

C&C and our indian feast

• In "look how fancy I am" news, the other week I was invited to a party at an Ambassador's residence! I didn't exactly cover myself in glory while I was there. It was pretty crowded, so while trying to skirt around some people I managed to walk into a massive lampshade and then while trying to fix the shade I had knocked askew, I tipped my (first and undrunk) drink on the floor. That wasn't too bad, I think only the girl right behind me saw. But then the Ambassador came up to us, introduced himself by his first name and asked when the choir was going to perform. I totally didn't recognise him and (politely) said I didn't know, maybe he should ask that guy over there. Then he (nicely) said he was the Ambassador and wandered off. Oops. So this is more "why I shouldn't be invited fancy places". It was fun seeing everyone's party frocks though, and I talked to the Ambassador's wife later, who was very nice.

In Grand Place after the Ambassador's party

A fondue sandwich. What an age we live in!

Jules at the Christmas market

Light show in the Grand Place

Panorama at the Grand Place

• See how I'm not wearing a coat there? I do tend to run hot, but it's definitely unseasonably warm here. The coat has only come out on a couple of occasions, with most days getting into the low teens or at least double digits. It's like winter in Auckland! Way back in October, we even had a day in the beach at Ambleteuse in France. It was sunny and about 16 degrees, we couldn't believe it. I don't know if it's going to suddenly get cold next year, but so far it has been incredibly mild. I still can't believe the photos below are from October in northern France though!

The beach at Ambleteuse

People on the rocks looking for mussels

A feast of wine and local cheese

Catching shrimp and playing with the timelapse function on the iphone

That's about it, just counting down to a few days in Luxembourg for Christmas and then a quiet new year to recharge the batteries. Merry Christmas all!

It's the thought that counts

First: a disclaimer that I'm not complaining about my perfectly nice and thoughtful present. But... I suspect a small snafu in the ordering process.

Back in October when the girls came to visit, I got all over-excited about the mini Jaegermeister bottles I found in the supermarket in Luxembourg and made us all do Jaegerbombs with them. Except I didn't have enough shot glasses for everyone, so a couple of us had to improvise a bit with eggcups, which was harder than it sounds.

This obviously gave Liz a brilliant idea for my Christmas present, because a week or so before Christmas a package turned up from her, courtesy of Amazon (thankfully in time for me to panic-buy her a cute, if slightly undersized makeup bag from Esprit, hand-draw a Christmas card using office stationery and dispatch it to France - I didn't realise we would be exchanging gifts at a distance, bad friend).

Now, normally I would most definitely not google the presents people are nice enough to buy me, but upon opening the parcel I was a bit perplexed to find that this box, about the size of two large shoeboxes, contained a single shot glass. A fancy crystal shot glass, to be sure, but just the one. I fished out the packing slip and saw written on it something along the lines of "Fancy Brand Name 586214/8 verre à shot".

Bemusedly wondering if there had been some mistake and where the other 7 shot glasses had got to, I typed "Fancy Brand Name 586214/8 verre à shot" into Amazon and figured out that the final 8, despite appearances, was just part of the product code and what was for sale was indeed one shot glass. One shot glass... that cost 35€...

Frankly, 35€ seems on the steep side for 8 shot glasses if you ask me, but for ONE? Madness! Now, the "verre" isn't pluralised, and the picture is of one shot glass, but still, I was kind of looking at it wondering if they did that with the product code on purpose. Because who is spending that much on a  single shot glass? Is a single shot glass even any use to anyone? Buying just one shot glass conjures up a pretty depressing image. Actually, they are by appointment to Her Maj, so if I ever meet the Queen at least I can toast her in the style to which she is accustomed.

Now here's the tricky part - I don't think Liz would be mad enough to deliberately spend that much on one shot glass, but on the other hand, you can't exactly ask someone if they've taken leave of their senses if that was actually what they intended to get you.

So I texted her the following picture with a message saying thank you for my present, it's so fancy I'm using it to drink champagne:

Yes, I'm drinking Mumm on the couch in my mauve dressing gown out of a 35€ crystal shot glass. Just before I lit a cigar with a 100€ note.

...And got back a message saying "Haha, never thought of using them for champagne, glad you like them". *Them*. Not sure whether to (drunkenly?) confess some time that she spent the equivalent of more than two months' salary for a minimum-wage Bangladeshi worker* on my princely vessel, or if it's nicer just to dodge the subject and hope we never do shots round mine again?

*And yes, that fact does put my (supposed to be) light-hearted dilemma into perspective.

PS, I didn't take any pictures at Christmas, but here's one of the cheeseball I made, which was enjoyed by all despite Mum thinking it was shamefully unsophisticated and dated for Europeans. Jules's mum had even googled how to serve a cheeseball (in the centre of an arc of crackers, seems legit).

Yummy

And here I am all dolled up for Christmas dinner and pretending to be thin via the miracle of angles

Or angels. It is Christmas, after all

Winter warmers

I'm, unexpectedly, writing this tucked up in bed in Luxembourg on a Monday afternoon. Unexpectedly because, although (thankfully) I had already taken the day off work today, I had planned to be back home in Brussels chilling out, rather than here. I took the day off because today is a nationwide strike in Belgium, and I thought I'd rather deal with that from the comfort of my bed than struggle to try to get to work and back. It's maybe 5 km between my house and work, so not really comfortable walking distance and I can't ride (and don't have) a bike, so seeing that I have around 7 leave days left for this year, it seemed easier to just call it a long weekend and opt out of the whole mess.

This was all planned out weeks ago, since the strike was announced far in advance. What I didn't see explained anywhere was that the widely-advertised strike on Monday, 15th December, actually started at 10 pm on Sunday, 14th. And since trains, especially crappy Belgian trains, take time to get places, I turned up to the station yesterday to find out that the 7.35 train was only going as far as Namur, since the 22.10 arrival time in Brussels would have run past the start of the strike... I mean, how ridiculous for one. And for another, I checked the times on the website at around 6.30 pm and it showed the train going to Brussels just fine. It would have still been too late to catch a different train, but at least we could have avoided a 45-minute round trip to Arlon if we'd known.

There are definitely no trains going today, so I'm hanging at Jules' apartment while he goes to work and then comes home and drives me all the way to Brussels tonight. What a champion.

Between the strikes, and rain and cold and darkness and impatiently counting down to the holidays, we all need some cheering up. That's why, in this hemisphere, we're lucky to have Christmas. At home, frankly, Christmas is badly timed. It's not far enough into summer to reliably hit good weather, then offices often close for a couple of weeks for Christmas and New Year, which means you're basically forced to take summer holidays then, rather than later in January or February, when the weather's generally better, and then there's absolutely nothing to cheer you up through winter (which admittedly is not as cold or dark as it is here, but still). But here, there's really no excuse not to warm up with a mulled wine, hot chocolate or Belgian peket and enjoy what the festive season has to offer.

My first inclination was that Brussels Christmas market probably wasn't worth bothering with. For some reason, I thought a big-city market wouldn't have any charm, and we should head to a smaller town instead. But it was recommended by people at work and it turns out to be pretty good. For starters, it's really big and spread over multiple locations, so while it's crowded, it wasn't too much of a crush. We filled up on the aforementioned beverages, and (in several different trips) tried out some wurst, raclette sandwiches and what purported to be authentic Quebecois poutine, which was disappointingly unlike what I had in Canada. (Where were the cheese curds? This one had chopped up blocks of what tasted like Emmenthal on it! Granted, I tried poutine in Toronto or Vancouver, I can't remember which, so maybe it's different in Quebec. Any poutine experts out there?)

In front of the Grande Roue in Brussels

Christmas tree in the Grand Place

Oh, and by the way, we found where you can get a fantastic view of central Brussels for free - on top of the carpark at De Brouckere! It was so full we had to go all the way to the 9th floor to find a spot, but you're rewarded with 360 degree views of the central city. They should stick a revolving restaurant up there.

St Catherine church is lit up for the markets

The Brussels Christmas markets by night

One of the occasions we visited the Brussels Christmas market was on my birthday. We both had the day off, and we celebrated pretty quietly, just shopping and visiting the markets by day and then champagne at home followed by a trip to the same local restaurant we visited for Jules's birthday.

Prost! New LBD I bought that day :)

Birthday dinner

While I was waiting for the bathroom at the restaurant, I got chatting with two women who were smoking in the lobby. Normally that would annoy me, but I was in a good mood, and somehow ended up confessing that it was my birthday. The guy using the bathroom before me overheard and said happy birthday to me, and he then went inside and told the restaurant owner that it was my birthday. She ended up bringing me out a birthday moelleux while the bathroom guy sang me a (strangely ballad-y and intense) Mexican birthday song, and then the whole restaurant (a dozen or so people) sang happy birthday to me. I was really quite touched!

The day after my birthday is Sinterklass, or Niklosdaag, or Saint Nicholas's Day, in this part of the world. I'm glad it wasn't celebrated at home, since as a kid I already found my birthday to be way too close to Christmas, but this year it was fun to share a little of the tradition with Jules. In Luxembourg, the Kleeschen (Saint Nicholas) brings a Teller (plate) of chocolates to good girls and boys, while the Housecker (the equivalent to the French Pere Fouettard or Dutch Zwarte Peet) brings sticks to naughty children. I must have been good for the first time ever, because the Kleeschen brought me my first Teller.

A partly-eaten Teller

That brings us (finally) to this weekend, which of course was spent here in Luxembourg, mainly shopping and visiting the Christmas market in town for souvenir mulled wine mugs and gromperekischelcher.

Lucky the Kleeschen didn't see me being naughty at the Luxembourg Christmas market!

Jules's head fits perfectly into the chalet roof

And we had a lovely winter dinner of baked Mont d'Or cheese

Sunset in Luxembourg

Just six working days to go for the year before a nice long break and my first Christmas with Jules's family (prepare the champagne). I hope you're all finding ways to cope with the cold and gloom too (even in Auckland, where I hear it's miserable too!)

Holiday hijinks in Bath and London

Hello neglecterinos, yes I've been slack again lately and fallen a bit behind with blogging. So, quick wrap-up of what I got up to over the festive period.

First off, it was a three-train trip across to South-West England: train to Paris, Eurostar (for the first time in many years - very pleasant and it was surprisingly half-empty on Christmas Eve), then train to Bath. I had planned a lot of time between trains, mostly expecting chaos on the Eurostar, since it seems every Christmas brings its share of pictures of unhappy crowds at Gare du Nord or St Pancras, unable to get home for Christmas due to 'fluffy snow' or something. This part, however, went off without a hitch. It was only at Liverpool Street where it was confirmed that things were going quite wrong due to the floods that had hit England. I was *so* early (about three hours) for my train that it wasn't even showing up yet, but the raft of cancellations were not a good sign. Basically, there were trains every half an hour, and all the trains on the hour (of which mine was one) were cancelled. So when, two hours before, my train popped up as cancelled as well, it was no big surprise. I was at that time enjoying my first pint of cider on English soil (drinking vast quantities of cider being one of my very favourite activities on the other side of the Channel) but I decided to take a snap decision, abandon three-quarters of my poor pint and rush down to take the next train going, figuring that a train on the tracks were worth two hypothetical trains in the sidings.

With the trains either side cancelled, everyone toting suitcases and backpacks, and possibly other chancers like me hopping on far in advance, the train was predictably rammed. I spent the first hour standing in the corridor by the toilets, very uncomfortably jammed in alongside dozens of other passengers. Despite this, everyone seemed in pretty good spirits. The only slight sign of bad-temperedness I saw was one woman trying to board the already-packed train at Liverpool Street, pleading "please let me on, I'm desperate to get home for Christmas", which earned the obvious riposte of "what do you think everyone else is doing?" Other than that, not too bad and I even got to Bath early!

Christmas was quiet, just me, Liz and her parents. We started out with church at a lovely old Anglican village church. It's been a long time since I've been to church and I'd forgotten quite how much standing up is required, so I spent most of the service regretting wearing heels and wondering when we would get to sit down again. It was conducted by a Lady Priest, which was a bit of a novelty for this former Catholic girl (she was quite good, as priests go), and of course I was pleased to get some carol singing in!

Liz and me at church on Christmas Day

By about 3 pm, after lunch, the champagne and red wine were taking their effect and I was pretty sleepy! Safe to say there were no ragers for the whole trip: I basically stayed on France time, and since I go to bed every night at 10, thus 9 pm in the UK, most evenings were spent with Liz and I fighting to stay awake to a decent hour.

This was all for the good though, as it meant the next day we were up bright and early for the Boxing Day sales. Ahhhhh, England, how I love your sales! We spent about 3 hours just in Debenhams, and I think by the end of the trip I'd spent up to the tune of around 500€, oh dear. Good things were bought though! Along with my usual pretty dress fetish, I managed to pick up sensible flat boots (the first I've had in my life, but I must say I'm now a convert! Comfortable Boots Are Comfortable: hold the front page), a new trench coat, a black triangle skirt (so versatile), and the one I'm proudest of: a suit for £30! Bargain!

The suit in question

If I'm honest, the following days were also largely spent shopping & having pints of cider in pubs, but we did manage a little bit of sight-seeing too. I dragged Liz into Bath Abbey for the first time ever, if you can believe it. Her parents have lived nearby since she was a teenager, but she's not really big on that sort of thing and spent quite a bit of time sitting quietly waiting for me to finish looking around. It's gorgeous though! (I've been to Bath before but I don't think I went in the Abbey - it was just a daytrip and we saw the Roman Baths and Jane Austen's house.)

The outside of Bath Abbey

Inside Bath Abbey

The gorgeous fan-vaulted ceiling

A pretty chapel inside the Abbey

Best name ever! The Abbey was full of memorial plaques, with a high number of military men and people with connections to the West Indies (slave trade I suppose)

I found this interesting: the English calendar was reformed in 1750, changing to the Gregorian calendar and changing the beginning of the year from 25 March to January. Hence this lady's birth year needed adjustment!

An unspectacular picture of the Royal Crescent

The Bath weir

We also made a trip to the village of Bradford-on-Avon, not to be confused with Bradford not on Avon. The pub behind Liz in the photo below may be old and pretty but featured such incompetent service that we ended up leaving. I think we waited about half an hour and enquired three times, no pints were served. By the way, the South-West is cider country, and I found my new favourite, Thatchers Dry cider! Unfortunately, the supermarket we visited had none in stock, so I came back to France hauling the medium-dry variety with me, which is not the same at all :( 

It wouldn't be England without a little bit of rain

We also visited Bristol, to have dinner with Liz's brother, but not much to report from there. We saw a pretty church but we had to leave to buy Liz some phone credit after she received a text from her Dad reading "At hospital. Your mum had an accident. Getting plastered". Turned out she just broke her arm (well, that's bad enough) but the plastering involved was of the arts-and-craft variety, not the "something awful has happened, I'm getting blind drunk to cope" kind, which is a bit better! And then we went to a pub and had some more cider and checked out a lovely indoor market, where as luck would have it, there was an entire stall selling about 50 different masks, perfect for our New Years masked ball!

So that was the South-West, next stop was London for a few days. I stayed with my uni friend Amber, caught up with Rick and Kiwi Liz, visited Borough and Camden markets, popped into Tate Modern (so nice that it's free), got my hair cut and paid my respects to my main man John Gower in Southwark Cathedral. I like to think he was pleased to have a visitor who's read (some of) his stuff.

Scary church in East London. Have these people not heard of Heaven's Gate?

Gower's fancypants tomb

And then it was time to get our glad rags on for NYE. We were going, as mentioned, to a Masked Ball at the Paradise, somewhere around Kensal Green I think. I don't have particularly high hopes for NYE, but I must say it was a fun night. Not amazing or particularly different from any other night out, but fun for my first London NYE. I've got to say the highlight of the evening was probably the greasy, greasy delicious fried chicken we got on the way back (only something ridiculous like £3 or something like that). Amber and Jen were busy getting chatted up by some drunken lads and I was there just like "omnomnom CHICKEN you guys!" It made me realise that I don't think there are any fried chicken joints in France (probably Paris) other than the odd KFC. Oh my god, you are missing a trick, it was the best thing ever!

Anyway, here are a few snaps from the evening to close out the holiday report. I struggled back to France on the 2nd with an insanely heavy suitcase AND a giant sports bag I had to borrow from Liz's parents because of all the shopping! Worth it though!

Me, Amber and Jen before heading out for the evening (I don't have my shoes on yet if you're wondering)

And a little NYE selfie

Drinking cider on the tube on the way out. Pure class

Group shot at the Paradise, once the other girls finally arrived (and Charlie on the left made it over from France too!)

I have my eyes closed, but it's not quiiiiite so bad with a mask on. My mask spent most of the night on top of my head, but Amber loved hers! I think she'd wear it full-time if she could

Me, Liz and Charlie. Horrible photo, but the only one I got!

Liz loves the old "finger in the mouth" pose when she's had a few