Pre-move round-up!

Hello all, yesterday was my last day at my old work, meaning today is the first day of not getting up and not going to work until the 1st of July, hurrah! In true SNCF form, there was a strike last night (and today, and who knows when else) - I managed to get one of the last trains before it started at 7 pm, so we were "only" 25 minutes late. There have been at least half a dozen delays, some hours long, since around Easter, which considering how many days I've NOT been at work is pretty impressive. 5.45 am starts and 1.5 hour commute, how I will not miss you!

Lots to catch you up on before the move on Friday. Figuring out internet access in Brussels is currently one of the missing pieces in the puzzle. I called a company on the weekend who claimed that I would have to register with the "commune" (council, less dodgy than it sounds) as a foreigner and then wait THREE months to get internet? That can't be right, surely? I managed to sign a lease and open a bank account (more on that later) without being registered, why would internet suddenly be a big deal?

Going back to last Thursday, which was Ascension or Assumption or something like that, I finally ticked off one of the must-sees in Metz (maybe the only must-see in Metz) by heading along to the Pompidou Centre. The Pompidou Metz is an exhibition space without its own permanent collection (although there is a long-term exhibit of key pieces that will run for several years - installed, I believe, because of disappointed visitors stumbling in to a near-empty gallery between major exhibitions). The exhibition we went to see was all about the paparazzi. It was actually better-executed, bigger and more interesting than I would have thought. As well as classic paparazzi shots of a selection of key figures such as Brigitte Bardot, Princess Di and Britney Spears, it featured "behind the scenes" shots of paparazzi work and artistic "interrogations" of the role of the paparazzo. I think I did leave with more understanding of just what a circus it is - and we got to see Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis naked (let's just say you can tell it's the 70s!) and Britney's cooch (not the 70s any more). (Bonus?)

I should have noted who/what this work was, because I really liked it. It's a floating plastic disc that looks like a sphere, lit so as to project the circles on the wall behind. Photo doesn't really do it justice

Me with a couple of monumental panels by Robert Delaunay

Really want to hear more about that baboon!

Blatantly flouting the "no bending" rule

The following day, I got the train to Tours, where I was later joined by Jules, who drove over after work. I don't think I took many photos, but I'll whack some up later if I get around to getting them off my camera. It was really great catching up with my friends and introducing them to Jules (and vice versa). The wine festival was great, I bought SO much wine! Went a little bit crazy to the tune of around 250€, to be honest, but I'm looking at it as my wine budget for quite some time to come. At an average of maybe around 5-6€ a bottle, you get a lot of bang for your buck, and Loire wines are really hard to find outside the region! I don't know about Brussels, but here in Metz you see maybe Cabernet d'Anjou or Rosé du Loire (bleh) in the supermarkets, Sancerre sometimes on menus, but my favourite Chinons, or small appellations like St Nicolas de Borgueil or Montlouis are nowhere to be found. So it would have been silly not to stock up, really!

I had three days back at work, and then headed to Brussels on Thursday evening to pick up the keys to my new place, eeeeee! Friday was a busy day, meeting with the agent, opening my bank account and arranging insurance. In Belgium, it's apparently standard procedure to open a frozen bank account for your security deposit, which can only be accessed by either side at the end of the contract, if both parties sign off on it. I had mistakenly thought this meant I would open it together with the agent, so I didn't actually have an appointment at the bank until the late afternoon (to open my own personal accounts). Luckily, the bank across the road managed to squeeze me in, and after a lot of boring to-ing and fro-ing, a mere 4 hours or so later, I was good to go! Oh, AND the agent brought along all the necessary forms to sign me up to gas, electricity and water. SO much easier than in Metz (and everything's turned on already, woohoo).

It was pretty exciting walking in to my new apartment, which I was a bit fuzzy on, having only seen for about 10 minutes way back in April. I still love it, and was so excited to see sunshine on the front balcony and test out the bath (fully clothed, and I couldn't hop all the way in because I stupidly tested the taps first, but seems comfortable enough). I'm already plotting in my mind where to put existing furniture and what additional/upgraded furniture I should get. Goodbye horrible damp bathless and balconyless apartment, hello airy new Brussels pad :)

(Sunny) kitchen. OMG, cupboards and counter space, I'm in heaven! Just need to figure out obtaining and placing a larger fridge

Living room, nibbled by poor panorama-taking

And the Lord said, "Let there be light. And there was light." On my balcony.

Bedroom, facing on to the back (shady) balcony. Gonna need some curtains!

That's it for now. This (long) weekend was super hot, in the 30s, so we spent it lazily lounging around in the park and splish-splashing in Jules's pool. Next weekend I hope to be sipping rosé on my sunny balcony (Brussels weather permitting)! I'll leave you with a few extra snaps from Majorca, stolen off one of the party on Facebook (who I can now unfriend? Or too soon?).

Group shot at Cap Formentor

At the amazing lunch location in Port Soller

Beaches and churches: Majorca continued

As noted, the highlight of the trip was probably our drive on the north-west coast on the first day. The rest of the time, we really didn't do that much, particularly Sunday and Monday which was essentially taken up with shopping and eating (and waiting ages for people to get out of bed).

Saturday was a pretty good day, however. We spent the morning faffing about and seeing the cathedral, thus wasting the best weather (grizzle, grizzle) and then drove south-east of Palma to Cala Pi, a pretty amazing beach in a secluded cove. Not so secluded that it wasn't a bit cold between the thin layer of cloud and the breeze (temperatures ranged from around 16-25 while we were there. Which is okay, I don't like being super hot, and the rain threatened in the forecast never came, so can't complain too much.) Not only did I sunbathe, I actually went "swimming", how brave! I say "swimming", as we went quite far out and the water still wasn't above hip level, so you did have to crouch down in order to stop absolutely freezing your nuts off. The evening before we had gone self-catering (and actually had a lot of fun drinking, nibbling home-made tapas - well, ham and cheese - and playing cards in the apartment) and someone had picked up a small beach ball at the supermarket. It was actually a lot of fun splashing around trying to throw the ball to each other despite the breeze playing havoc. I hadn't really been to the beach since 2011 I think, and I think the last time I went swimming in the sea was in 2009 in Italy, so it was very welcome. I am going to have to make the effort to go more often - why do I keep moving to cold places miles from the sea?

Beach at Cala Pi

The cove was narrow but quite deep, and the sea very shallow as far as we went out

A scenic lookout near Cala Pi

Lonely Planet suggested this was a good picnic spot. Maybe not eh?

Even though it delayed our beach visit, the cathedral was pretty impressive. On a grand scale, old, and with some lovely stained glass. It was also really rammed with tourists, wouldn't like to see it when the season's properly under way. For the most part though, I think May is a great time of year to visit. As mentioned, it was warm enough (hot in the sun) to sunbathe or just hang out sipping sangria on a terrace, but while there were certainly a fair share of tourists, it wasn't choked with them. And talking of tourists, beyond "hola" and "gracias", I don't think I had to (or did) speak a word of Spanish the whole time. I'm sure, as with France, "everyone" does not in fact speak English, but in the touristy professions they at least get by. And they do it with a smile on their face, attention France!

Inside the cathedral

Canopy by Gaudi

Chapel also by Gaudi? The pamphlet is all the way in the living room, so we'll never know

Cathedral window

View of the water from the cathedral

Panorama of the cathedral

On Saturday night, we went to MISA for Amber's birthday dinner. We really had a good time. The food was excellent, wine was plentiful, and the waiters were helpful and efficient but not at all stuffy or formal. Very reasonably-priced too. I split half a roast chicken with someone else. It was amazing, although I really did not need dessert after that, I was stuffed!

Amber's birthday dinner

Delicious roast chicken (for two). 

Me and Amber

I don't think we really did anything on Sunday. On Monday, I was dragged along for a carriage ride. The price came down from 30€ per person to 15€ by the simple expedient of walking away after he named his price - I think we could have got it to 10€. It's not really something I would have done, I don't really see the point of riding around in a carriage, but hey. The particularly interesting part was that the carriage just chilled out in the normal lanes of traffic. I suppose if we'd got one at the top of the steps by the cathedral it would have gone around the narrow cobblestone lanes of the old city, which seem more carriage-appropriate, but since we got it at the bottom of the steps we just bombed around on the normal city streets, surrounded by cars. So I guess that's a new experience!

Carriage ride

After that, we had a look around the very cute Cort shopping district, full of little boutiques where I picked up a new dress and a gorgeous sparkly clutch for my friend Liz's birthday. We'll see if I actually manage to give it to her or if it mysteriously falls off the back of a truck between now and then... The girls went home on Monday afternoon (the others left the day before) and I stayed an extra night. Initially we had planned to stay out on the coast somewhere, so I thought I'd tack on an extra day in Palma. Since we changed to staying in Palma, I really didn't have much to do with myself on the last afternoon/morning - just some more shopping and plenty of sitting around in the sunshine with a glass of rosé and a platter of ham. There are worse things to do with your time.

Majorca: very brown

Adios Mallorca

Winding roads and rugged mountains in Majorca

I'm currently in the not-so-shabby position of trying to rush through blog posts since there is a lot going on to try and blog about! This weekend, I'm back to Tours for the first time this year (where has the time gone?) to catch up with friends and visit the Vitiloire wine festival, the highlight of any self-respecting Loire-wine-loving girl's calendar.

First though, I'm fresh from five nights in Majorca celebrating uni friend Amber's 30th birthday. When she invited me along, I hesitated a little bit. In my mind, Majorca was a "Brits abroad" destination, full of sunburned, drunken chavs (yes, Mum, chav is a naughty word), massive nightclubs and very little culture. But I thought, "it's not the sort of place I'd usually choose to go to, so this is my opportunity to see it", and decided to hop aboard the Majorca train.

I imagine a lot of it is where you go to - a night out in Magaluf was talked about several times, but eventually dropped for lack of enthusiasm/everyone wilting under the prospect of a big night out on the tiles - and also the time of year you go. But I must admit that Majorca didn't really live up to my negative perceptions. I did very little research and hadn't even seen any photos (I think I initially thought Majorca was in the Atlantic, that's how little I knew), so I was really surprised by the rugged, mountainous interior, the sheer coastal cliffs and the diversity of sights and activities on offer. We really didn't do too much, and actually I would have been happy with some more time lying on a beach, but it really wasn't the drunken lads on tour vibe I was expecting.

We stayed - seven of us - in a large stone apartment in the heart of Palma. This was a bit of a challenge to my sensibilities as well. I'm not really a fan of being around people 24/7, especially since Amber was the only one I knew. Everyone was perfectly nice, bar the occasional minor annoyances you get with any group, but it was a bit much for me by the end. With that many people, it's just a hassle trying to get going anywhere. Trying to decide what to do, where to eat, and then just getting everyone up, showered and out the door (particularly when there's hangovers involved) is a real mission. In that sense, it's amazing that we did anything at all, although I'm still kind of annoyed that on our beach day we missed all the good weather because some of the group wanted to visit the cathedral first despite the forecast predicting it would cloud over in the afternoon. Hmmph.

I arrived on Thursday evening after a stressful trip to the airport (the train was replaced by a bus service which was oversubscribed, but luckily I left plenty of time to get to the airport in Germany) for an evening of tapas and wine, very pleasant. Friday was probably the best day of the trip (always good if you can start high and then taper off). We hopped in our two hire cars and drove from Palma to Port Soller, where we stopped for an amazing lunch on a roof terrace overlooking the harbour, then on to Pollença through some very windy mountain roads with spectacular views. Stopped in Pollença, a charming little village, for a drink and then before it got dark drove all the way out to Cape Formentor at the northern tip of the island, whence you could just see Menorca on the horizon. I got a bit carsick on the twisty roads, but it was definitely worth it for the views.

This is the view from the terrace where we had lunch in Port Soller. Amazing (reminds me of Monaco)

And the delicious grilled calamari I had for lunch

On the beach at Port Soller

Stopping en route to Cape Formentor for a selfie

On the way to Cape Formentor

Unfiltered photo of a very white town as the sun sets on the way back from Cape Formentor

At Cape Formentor

Virtually the same as the last photo, but I couldn't decide which I preferred

Apparently hanging on for dear life at a viewpoint on the way to Port Soller

Panorama at Cape Formentor

On the way to Cape Formentor