Gwan's Year in Review - 2015

Can it really be time again for me to reflect on the year that's been? I think it's a fact of getting older that the year seems to fly by but simultaneously it must be going super slow since things we did back in spring seem like half a lifetime ago. Last year was another year of change - new job, new apartment, new country, so this year is...

2015: Finally a bit of stability

That's right, a whole year (and more) in the same job, same city, same apartment. That might not seem a huge achievement, but let's see, since the first time I moved to Europe in 2006, I've lived, at least briefly, in Prague, Moscow, London, Northern France, Chamonix, Wellington, Auckland, Nice, Tours, Metz and Brussels, and I think this is the first and only year since 2012 where I haven't moved at least once. Jules moved in here, and we're planning to move when my lease is up next June, but still. This year at least, I stayed put.

It was a busy year. Before Jules moved here, we aimed more or less to take turns, one weekend in Brussels and one in Luxembourg, so adding in quite a few holidays and long weekends meant that I was fairly frequently home only one weekend of the month or so. Which could be exhausting at times, but kept us out of mischief.

Last year I divided my travels into trips abroad, and "domestic" trips, in which category I included Belgium, France and Luxembourg. This year I can't really count France as a domestic trip any more, which leaves less to work with, so I'll divide it by longer trips and weekend breaks, with a little bonus section for the glories of Belgium.

PS I took literally hours writing this, putting the photos in, all the links etc. and then AFTER I published it I went back to tinker with some of the spacing and so on, and I managed to delete the. whole. thing. And there was no "undo/back", it just went blank, AND I managed to unpublish it as well. Thankfully I found online a tip to go into feedly and pull it off the RSS feed, which worked, but that's why the formatting is wonky. But thank Christ I at least got all the text back. This might be the final straw with me and Blogger though!

Onto the award portion of the review - 

Best proper holiday

• I kicked off the year's travels early, with a trip to Marrakesh, Morroco with my friend Liz in January. My overall impressions of the place were, um, not great. The constant badgering and cat-calling got old pretty fast, and while we saw some nice museumsand palaces and enjoyed some winter sun, there wasn't really any "wow" moment that compensated for the general experience of harassment. It was just after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, but I didn't feel unsafe in anything except a gender-based way, but the sad events of the year might make me even less likely to want to visit in future (I know Morocco isn't Tunisia, but honestly there's nothing really coming up in the pro visiting column for me right now). Still, at least I've been there, done that, bought the lamp. 

• We spent Easter at Lake Constance/Bodensee, Germany, via Freiburg and a three-star lunch at the Auberge de l'Ill. Freiburg was super charming, I was sorry we didn't have more time there, but the drive through the Black Forest via Titisee toUberlingen was stunning. While in the area, we saw some beautifully frescoed old churches on a very rainy day on the island of Reichenau and finally got a bit of sunshine in the chocolate-box-cute village of Meersburg. 

• The really big trip of the year was our two weeks in Albania and Macedonia in June/July. Without giving anything away, this really was an amazing trip. I blogged about it at great length, so if you missed anything, start here and there's another dozen or so posts for you to enjoy. There was plenty of history and culture along the way, but what really stuck with me were the stunning landscapes, whether it be the"white city" Berat, stacked up on a hillside (the photo above is an old church on top of the hill), the gorgeous sandy beaches of Himare and Drymades, the Roman ruins of Butrint, the Blue Eye spring, stunning river and mountain vistas on the road toKorce or the amazing red roofs of the lakeside city of Ohrid, Macedonia. All this in a country not (yet) too touched by mass tourism and still as cheap as chips. We loved it.

• After spending the rest of the summer at home, in September we crammed in another longer break with an awesome road-trip to the South-West of France and back. On the way, we drank wine and saw the sights in Beaune, visited the Cathar castles ofCarcassonne, Montségur, Peyrepertuse (pictured above), and Quéribus, saw the picturesque small town of Lagrasse, stopped in at Albi to check out its beautiful and imposing cathedral, drove past and over the viaduct of Millau, and ate a lot in Lyon. If you have only time to do one thing, definitely go see Peyrepertuse. Just look at the amazing views in that photo and imagine how much better it is in real life!

And the winner is...

Not much room for suspense here. Our French roadtrip was great, but we had an absolutely fabulous time in Albania and Ohrid, I really can't recommend it highly enough. Go before everyone else does! On second thoughts, maybe I should keep it as my little secret... Go to Morocco instead ;)

Best short break

• Our first real weekend away of the year was our anniversary trip to Champagne, France in mid-March. We had a Michelin-starred lunch in Reims, enjoyed a spot of light wine-tasting in Hautvillers and again in Epernay and toured the de Castellane domaine. I think my favourite part was taking the scenic route from Reims to Epernay. Almost makes me wish I were the cycling type!

• Our next long weekend wasn't until late May/early June, when we took our traditional annual pilgrimage back to Tours, France for the Vitiloire wine festival. On the way, we took our first trip to the stunning château Chambord, well worth a detour. I feel a bit nostalgic looking back on this trip. My sister has come over, often with friends, several times for the wine festival, and I know she won't be there next year as she's moving back to New Zealand (exciting!) With that and the fact that a lot of my good Tours friends have also moved away (Caro will also be gone in NZ), Vitiloire next year just won't be the same...

• Still, there was some time to catch up with family this year, with not one but two trips to London. I've seen quite a bit of London over the years, but there's always more to explore and revisit - we saw an Escher exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, went to the British Museum, Natural History Museum and the National Gallery, and still had some time for shopping, and most importantly, eating and drinking with family and friends.

• My Tours friends and I, now being scattered throughout Western Europe, try to find the time to catch up together a couple of times a year. This year, Liz, Mel and I met up in Bordeaux in October (how nice to have the convenience of a large airport on my doorstep). Relaxing was higher on the agenda than sight-seeing, but we highly recommend the Maison des Vins where you can taste great wines at a great price in a very salubrious atmosphere - just make sure you come early!

• My last little trip of the year was to Edinburgh, to visit my friend Caro and spend my birthday weekend in style. I loved the shopping, enjoyed the Edinburgh Dungeon and a free walking tour, and had a weekend full of warmth, friendship and laughter. (Dear God.) Couldn't have asked for a nicer birthday, and the weather was even good some of the time!

And the winner is...

This is a tough one! I do love a weekend break, maybe even more than a longer holiday since they can come around more often and bring a special little bit of sunshine to everyday life. I could really name any one of them, but perhaps because it's fresh in my mind I'm going to give the nod to Edinburgh.

Belgian delights

• Remember back when it was cold? I shouldn't jinx things, since the current winter temperatures are about what winter is like back home, and it suits me just fine. But on a very cold and snowy day last December (so, yes, 2014, but after last year's roundup), we visited the Reading Between the Lines church in Borgloon, which I have to mention here because it's such a beautiful spot, it doesn't deserve to fall between the cracks of 2014-15. 

• Sticking close to home, I have to give another Belgian shout-out to the spring delights of the bluebells in the Bois de Halle/Hallerbos and also the famous Royal Greenhouses at Laeken. At Easter, we also stopped by Luxembourg to check out the traditional Easter fair at Nospelt which revolves around clay bird whistles.

• In May, we took a daytrip to Bruges, where unfortunately my suggestion to take the train was unheeded and we got stuck in some awful traffic. We saw some pretty/interesting things at the Memling Museum but overall the impression was: Bruges on a holiday weekend, never again.

• By contrast, somewhere I think is seriously underrated and I'm surprised I haven't been back to yet is Mechelen (Malines). There were so many interesting sights we didn't have time to see in our brief morning visit - the cathedral with its belltower you can climb up, the deportation museum and the De Wit tapestry workshop, to name a few. But the city is also great just to walk around, particularly its floating river walkway and grand place. It's so close to Brussels too - we really have to pick a sunny day sometime soon for a return visit.

• I should have called this "Benelux Delights", as I'm going to sneak a bit ofLuxembourg in here. (Talking of Benelux, we haven't managed a trip to the Netherlands yet, will have to remedy that next year.) We visited the castle ofBourscheid on a beautiful June weekend and were wowed by the stunning views of the surrounding countryside, traveresed by the river Sauer. 

• I'm a very lucky girl, and this year I got to go again to the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps. The unpredictable gods of Belgian weather really smiled on us this weekend, and we had the most perfect sunshine to finally see Lewis Hamilton win. Going General Admission was a different experience, one with added stress but also added fun finding different spots to take in all the action.

What's next?

I expect next year's travel will mostly consist of short trips, since Jules is in a new job and can't get a lot of time off. Short trips except, of course, our month+-long sojourn in New Zealand next February/March, which is really coming up right around the corner! I really want to go to Georgia and Armenia, but it's looking like it won't be next year, due to the difficulties in getting time off. I need to get them under the belt in case it goes all war-ry again though - I'm so pleased I went to Ukraine back in 2011, although not so happy that I didn't make it to Crimea. I think a compromise for a shorter-haul trip might turn out to be Iceland.

I got promoted recently, and officially start my new job in January, so that's something to look forward to. And as mentioned, we will probably be apartment-hunting once we get back from New Zealand. My current apartment has been good to me, but it's a wee bit too small for two people, particularly the half-size fridge. Definitely not looking forward to a move, but kind of exciting to start dreaming about our new home.

Hope 2015 has been good to all of you, and I wish everyone a very Happy New Year 2016!

Going to the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix

My second trip to watch the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps differed quite a bit from the first, in 2013. That time, we were commuting to the track by train and bus from Liège, this time we were camping near Tiège (they like their ièges in these parts), taking the bus on Thursday and Friday but driving in for Saturday and Sunday. That time, we had expensive grandstand seats at Eau Rouge, this time we had (still fairly expensive) General Admission tickets (i.e. no seats). That time, it rained during qualifying, this time, we had sunshine throughout the weekend. That time, Vettel won, and this time, Hamilton did!

So, which was better? Actually, each has its pros and cons. While the campsite (Spa d'Or) was a lot closer to the track, public transport connections weren't that great (and the campsite's own shuttle was exorbitantly priced), so it still took a long time to go there and back on Thursday and Friday. Driving in on Saturday and Sunday was actually pretty hassle-free, but it took at least an hour just to get out of the carpark after the race on Sunday. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun getting to pick our spots to watch the different practice sessions and the race, and we saw a lot more of the track than we had in the grandstand. The disadvantage was you had to arrive really early to get the best spots. On raceday, we woke up about 6.10 and were at the track before 7.30, all to watch a race that didn't begin until 2 pm! (And trust me, it got pretty crowded pretty early.)

The people at the campsite basically told us there was no way to get to the track on Thursday afternoon for the pitlane walk/autograph session. We suspect they might have been withholding some information about the bus routes in order to promote their own shuttle service (which wasn't running that day), but luckily since we had been in 2013 we remembered that there was a bus line that ran along the main road, about a 20-minute walk uphill from the campsite. We weren't sure if it would be running at a good time, but we thought we'd take our chances rather than just sit around the camp doing nothing.

The bonus being that I finally got a proper picture with the famous "Drink Drive in Tiège" sign (Bernie says...)

We actually arrived there quite a long time before they opened the gates and had to wait in a large crowd with many people who snuck around the outside in order to get closer to the front (grrr). The other big problem was that cars kept coming through, forcing everyone out of the way. At one point, some dude had enough of this and (not sure exactly why), starting punching one of the car's windows and trying to open the driver's door. Luckily he had it locked, but someone else got in on the act and jumped on the guy's bonnet. Probably not the best place to kick off, since the police were duly called in a short time later, but the instigator managed to melt into the crowd anyway, and (I think) only the joiner-inner in bonnet-jumping was actually apprehended.

Other than that, things were calm, but man were there a lot of people in the pitlane. It was basically impossible to move or to see anything once the popular drivers started coming out. Unfortunately, I lost my Dad and he stuck in a spot where he managed to get some photos of Nico Rosberg (boo) and even saw Lewis Hamilton (sob!) I only managed sightings of Marcus Ericsson, Arrivabene (Ferrari team boss) and Sebastian Vettel.

Marcus Ericsson having a good time in the car

I hoped to see something of the Mercedes garage, but it was impossible, and I was very uncomfortably shoved up against a fence too

So I moved on to Ferrari and managed to catch a few glimpses of Vettel through the crowd (wearing the cap in the middle)

Standing on hallowed ground

On Friday, after watching practice, we managed to get royally lost out in the Belgian countryside. We had already done a ton of walking around the track, watching FP1 and 2 from different vantage points around Pouhon and also checking out the area around Les Combes, and my cellphone died after recording nearly 12 km of walking. We got so lost that I think we added at least another 5 km on to that, downhill thankfully, so by the time we got back to camp we were exhausted and filthy, it being a very hot day too!

The countryside around the track is quite pretty though!

On Saturday, we drove to the track around 7.30 am and found a spot on the hillside overlooking the busstop chicane. This turned out to be maybe my favourite of the places we watched from. While the view was not as extensive as the long sweeps around Pouhon, the cars slowing down and changing direction made it easy to take photos and we saw several cars go wide or spin here. It was also a bit easier to get a comfortable spot for our chairs than it was on raceday. There was also a fairly good view of a big screen. The disadvantage, though, is that there's less room for people to sit, so I think you do really need to get there early to get a good spot.

Another beautiful day

A Lotus spinning at the corner

On raceday, we were back at Pouhon. One of the things I liked here was that you were well above the safety fencing, so you could see the cars properly. You also had a good long view of them down the straight and through the corner. There wasn't much action going on here during the race though, and we could have had a slightly better view of the big screen. Another disadvantage is that the hillside is really steep, and the menfolk had to do a lot of digging (literally, with a spade) in order to wedge our chairs into the hill. We were really lucky that the weather stayed nice - it poured down shortly after the race - because I'm not really sure what happens when the whole hillside turns to mud! I could definitely imagine everyone sliding down on top of one another. It was also a nightmare to get out to go to the loo or get food, sincelatecomers crammed themselves into every free spot there was left. I actually managed at one point to kick a very big rock down on to a poor woman, and I was absolutely terrified the whole time that I was going to fall over! We were completely in the sun all day on Sunday (appropriately enough) and I got very tanned.

Quite proud of this pre-race panorama

The crowd on the hill

Showing off my Mercedes cap

The race itself was perhaps not the most eventful ever, but I was just happy to see Hamilton win! Last time, in 2013, he was on pole but Vettel won (with hindsight, he was always going to, since I think he went on to win every race for the rest of the season, but I had high hopes at the time) and in 2009 when I went to Monza, Jenson Button only managed second even though that was his championship-winning year. So I finally broke the curse and got to see my favourite win, the only bad thing was they didn't come round for a victory lap.

Gwan's Year in Review - 2013

Here goes, the second annual installment of my wrap-up of the year according to Gwan. I enjoyed reading through my report on 2012 again, and I know I'll have fun looking back through my 2013 experiences, even if it takes a really long time to put this together!

2013: A year of changes

So I managed to say a lot of positive things in last year's wrap-up, but it really was a year of disaster. I lost my job and spent the majority of the year unemployed and a bit depressed, which is no good in anyone's book. So I'm especially proud of myself that I managed to shake things off, pull myself together and get back into the working world. (PS I don't mean to imply that clinically depressed people just need to shake things off and pull themselves together.)

The turning-point came with a new job in Tours. Thank goodness I got it, because I think if an information job for an English-speaker had magically come up and I hadn't got it, it might just about have put the nail in the coffin of my hopes and dreams of ever getting back on the work horse. The unfortunate side-effect of getting the job, which I never discussed on the blog, was that I was actually meant to do an EVS volunteer project in Moldova, starting in May. Unfortunately, by the time the Tours job started in April, I still hadn't heard anything back about it. I think they finally contacted me about two weeks out from the start date - even if I hadn't gotten a job, it would obviously have been really difficult to pack everything up and move to Moldova within two weeks. I was pretty gutted to lose out on this opportunity in order to spend 5 months working in info management, but I think sticking with the job was definitely the grown-up, sensible thing to do, and I am really grateful that I was able to get my life back on track.

When I learned the contract in Tours wasn't going to be renewed, the race was on to find something else before I found myself back in the dark place of unemployment. After a few frantic weeks of scouring the web, online applications and surprise telephone interviews, an opportunity came through... All the way in a little country called Luxembourg across France's eastern border. 

I'm not going to say the move wasn't stressful. From touring a near-slum to accidentally insulting a secret real estate agent, figuring out where to live and how to move myself there on a serious time budget (and money budget) was tricky. Even after I found my new apartment, I got seriously delayed thanks to an airport strike, screamed at by my old estate agent and almost failed to hire a van. When I finally got to the new place, I had to start a new job while living without electricity for nearly a week, a phone for a couple of weeks and internet for about three weeks. I'm sort of tempted to move again, since I don't like where I live and it's a long commute every day, but I don't think I can face another move for a while!

I miss my friends in Tours a lot and don't love everything about my new life, but overall it's been a positive move. Again, I'm very happy to be working and I've been doing a pretty solid job settling in to Lux/Lorraine life.

And now on to the awards portion of the evening -

Best trip abroad

I seem to have some sort of travel amnesia. I think it's because I'm always eager to go to the next destination, so I tend to think that it's been aaaaaages since my last trip and I haven't been aaaanywhere in any given year. Au contraire, I've actually ventured beyond l'Hexagone on a number of occasions again this year.

• The year began with a mid-January pick-me-up trip to Italy. I had some airmiles to burn, and picked the destination of Bologna more-or-less at random based on how much a return flight would set me back (since I only had enough miles for one-way). I actually made my way straight to Padua, in order to fulfil a recently-acquired ambition of seeing Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel.

Source

This was one of the most amazing places I've seen in my life. The photos don't do it any justice. Definitely, definitely, if you get the chance, do go here. And even better if you go in the middle of winter and are as lucky as I was to be left all alone to contemplate it in peace for a full 40 minutes.

I also ate, drank, and took surreptitious photos of the devil and overt photos of flayed bodies in Bologna.

• January also brought the first of the year's trips to Belgium. I headed to Brussels for a free stay in a lovely hotel, price of admission two days of tests and interviews at the Important International Organisation (IIO).An interesting experience, at any rate!

I took advantage of the free trip in order to take a little side visit to Bruges, which was icy cold and quite pretty. There I fell in love with a Turkish rug, or rather the painting of one in van Eyck's Madonna of Canon van der Paele in the Groeningen Museum. 

• After that, it was back to gainful employment, so I didn't have a chance for any travels abroad until my July trip to Luxembourg to interview for my current position. Thinking that if things went badly I might never go back to Luxembourg again, I stayed overnight and had the time to wander around taking in the sights of Luxembourg on a particularly hot summer's day. I squeezed in a second quick trip in the middle of August, for a bit of stressful international house hunting, before obviously ending up spending 5-6 days a week here currently.

• More exciting than Luxembourg, in August I headed back to Belgium to meet up with my family and take a trip to Liège/Spa with my Dad to watch the Belgian Grand Prix. While the race (and the rest of the season) didn't pan out quite as I would have hoped, I'll never forget the high of seeing Lewis Hamilton get up to take pole at the last second of Q3 - a sentiment that was shared, it seemed, by the majority of the crowd at Eau Rouge. (Sorry to those of you who think that sentence might as well have been written in Japanese...) It was also great to spend some time with my Dad: I'm especially proud of our military-style logistical efficiency in getting to and from the circuit on the three days (no easy feat!)

We also got to briefly hang out together back in Brussels, including a bit of a naughty drunken singalong with my sister, which left me slightly the worse for wear the next day!

• In early September, my job in Tours was over and I got the chance for a proper holiday in Italy (via England) to unwind a bit before my big move. What can I can? The Sorrento/Naples/Amalfi Coast region is just gorgeous. I think Capri (pictured above) was the most beautiful, although Amalfi gives it a run for its money, and had a spectacular cathedral thrown in for good measure. Pompeii, of course, was the most historic, and it was great to supplement a trip to Pompeii with a visit to the Naples Archaeological Museum, which houses many of the original artefacts excavated from Pompeii and other sites.

• We had a few more days in England on the way back too, where I got to hang out with my family and the lovely Rick, which mostly consisted of roaming around the English countryside in the Sandiego family mobile karaoke machine (we also solve mysteries in our spare time), avoiding the rain and looking for Hadrian's Wall.

• I debated whether to put my daytrip to Trier in the "trip abroad" category, which probably shows I've become blasé about such things, given that I cross an international border on a daily basis. Germany is legitimately a different country though (last time I checked), so here it is. We popped across the border to visit the Karl Marx museum (utterly bereft of all things Marx, btw) and visit a true blue German Christmas market. Prost!

• For my last trip of the year, it was back to England again - that makes two trips to England, two to Belgium and two to Italy. Quite a strange year, travel-wise! I spent Christmas chez my lovely friend Liz in the South West, and then we scuttled off to London for my first New Year's Eve in the capital! (Blogposts to come...)

And the winner is...

For the second year running (last year, it was Norway), the family holiday takes it out for the best travel experience of the year. Great spending time with Mum and Dad, and this time round we got tans and limoncello thrown in to boot!

Best domestic trip

I didn't have quite as much free time on my hands as last year (at least from April onwards), although I did have more money of course! 

• Last year was a bumper year for châteaux, but I still managed to knock a few off this year too. A visit from my friend Amber gave us an excuse to check out Azay le Rideau and get to know a vintner in Villandry.

• One good thing about staying in Tours was that I got to claim my ticket to the wedding of the season, i.e. the wedding of the lovely Ella Coquine. In classic Ella style, not everything went smoothly as we raced across (and out of Paris) to get her to the mairie on time. Still, it was a beautiful, memorable, and most of all FUN occasion. Félicitations my dear & thank you for having me!

• I "profited", as the French would say, from being in the Ile de France to go to nearby Fontainebleau, which is worth the interminable walk from the train station with a hangover to see its magnificent interiors.

• At the end of May, my sister and co. came over to drink a lot of wine at the Vitiloire festival and visit Chinon. And we finally got some warm weather and sunshine!

• I had intended to get to some more Loire châteaux before the Metz move, but I only managed to add Villandry to the mix. It's right up there with the best though, especially the gorgeous gardens.

• In late October, I got to be reunited with some of my Tours friends in Dijon. We had dinner and karaoke with a potential con artist and actual stripper (this is a story you really have to read if you haven't already), and visited the beautiful Museum of Fine Arts. 

• Since I work there now, I'll count some Luxembourg excursions in the domestic category. I enjoyed their Christmas markets, took a trip to see the castle of Vianden (from the outside) and, back in France, also saw the castle of Rodemack (also from the outside).

• Rounding out the year, it was back to Tours and then Nantes for a two-stage birthday celebration in which I went too hard on Stage One (the "quiet night out") and was left a bit unenergetic for Stage Two ("big night in Nantes"). Still fun as ever, though. 

And the winner is...

For sheer craziness and the brilliant story that came out of it, the nod has got to go to Dijon. The city itself was perfectly nice, we had some good food, mostly good weather and the museum was fabulous, but just goes to show that sometimes it's all about the company you're with!

What's next?

As you know, my contract in Luxembourg has been extended for the whole of this year. This, theoretically, means I could move closer to work than Metz, but I'm still weighing up my options for a number of reasons. The last move wiped me out a bit financially and also was exhausting, so maybe not just yet. 

In travel terms, I'm off to Brussels again for a long weekend next week, so stay posted for that (plus my Christmas/New Year wrapup). And then ??? There is talk with the Tours girls of a February break somewhere, but there hasn't been any actual planning. I'm kind of caught between the need to get on it quickly to snap up good deals (especially if we're going by train) and the fact that my bank balance is a bit sad after the UK sales (I got some good stuff though!) I haven't got around to even thinking of summer holidays yet, but I'm sure I'll be on the road somewhere this year, you can't keep a wandering Gwan down!

Happy New Year to all!

Formula Fun

Last weekend was our much-awaited pilgrimage to one of the temples of Formula One, the Spa Francorchamps circuit and, more specifically, the famous Eau Rouge corner.

A rather moody shot of a GP2 car going up Eau Rouge

"Pilgrimage" is an appropriate word, because it's a bit of a mission to get there and back. The journey started midday Thursday, when I managed to haul my hungover self (one quiet drink at the guinguette having turned into out-all-night with the girls) out of the house in time for my train/metro/train trip to Brussels, where I was reunited with my parents for the first time in a year and my sister.

We had time to settle into our lovely, central apartment and head out for a delicious dinner somewhere that the owner informed us was off the tourist trail. I was pleasantly surprised by the scrummy fish soup I had as an entree (Mum and I both headed into that one without high hopes, just picking the thing that seemed least bad on the fixed menu, but were agreeably surprised). I also made a total dick of myself and lost all pretensions I might have had about knowing anything about wine. We ordered a Sancerre rosé, the waiter duly brought it, presented it to us - I thought it strange that it was in a green bottle, but didn't actually click and I couldn't read the label. He poured it for me, the supposed Loire Valley expert. I held it up to the light, thinking it looked VERY pale, but my sister chipped in to say it was definitely pink. I smelled it, very floral and tasted it, likewise, but nodded approval since as we know, the point of tasting is to check it's not corked, not whether we like it or not... And perhaps also to check that it's actually a rosé. Because yeah, it was a white. Quelle embarassement! When he moved on to pour my sister's glass, she who had reassured me that it was pink piped up to ask the waiter if it was really a rosé. Nope! He fairly graciously brought us the correct wine (which was unmistakeably pink), but I think my face was quite red. I'm taking comfort in those wine studies that show that even experts can't tell the difference between a red and a white if they're dyed the same colour... d'oh!

Anyhow, after dinner it was time for bed, since I was understandably pretty tired and I needed to set the alarm for 5.45 am the next morning in order to get up and at 'em to cover the c. 150 km between Brussels and the Spa circuit. Mum and Jess stayed behind in Brussels, while Dad and I took a train to Verviers, followed by a bus to the circuit. Things were somewhat disorganised across the whole weekend, but I'm giving us props for our logistical skills. After the first day, when we had a nightmare hot, crowded bus ride back to Verviers despite crowd numbers for Friday practice being much lower than for Saturday and Sunday, we planned our movements with all the cunning of a whole bag full of weasels. From strategically sitting at the front of the train to Verviers in order to dash out first to the bus line (leading to us both being comfortably seated for the ride to the track on Saturday and Sunday) to investigating where the bus came from before it got to the main entrance for the trip home (again, meaning we got a seat for the Saturday trip), we executed our trips with panache. This didn't mean that we had late starts on Saturday and Sunday though - even with the race starting at 2 pm on Sunday and despite us staying Friday and Saturday night much closer to the track near Liège, we were up at 6.30 to make sure that the day went off without a hitch.

Here follows the boring F1 bit...

The first day (Friday), we arrived at the circuit conveniently right next to the pit-lane exit as free practice 1 began, and were able to hear the cars firing up and glimpse them heading out on to track. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's nothing quite like the noise and speed of an F1 car in the "flesh" - orders of magnitude greater than they seem on TV. We headed into the stands, where the rain poncho I'd borrowed for the weekend came in handy for the first session, while it turned pretty hot and sunny for the afternoon session.

Probably the highlight of the weekend was Saturday's qualifying session. Light rain showers were passing throughout the qualifying, which is always a magic formula for exciting racing. While it looked like Paul di Resta (one of my least favourite drivers) was going to take a surprise pole, the track dried up in the closing stages of qualifying and lovely Lewis Hamilton crossed the line to start his pole lap with 2 seconds to spare. Trackside, however, it's a bit hard to follow the action, and I didn't actually know he was still out on track, because the big screen was only showing Webber and Vettel's times, who were slightly on front of him on track (in that order). So it was a pretty magic moment when first Webber crossed the line to take pole position, drawing a small cheer from the crowd around us, then Vettel took pole off him a few seconds later (cue a much smaller cheer), and then, unexpectedly, Hamilton popped over the line out of nowhere, the final car to complete the lap and take pole position. Cue massive cheer from at least 80% of the crowd! While I didn't see a lot of Mercedes merch (and it seems very much the done thing to kit yourself out with as much merchandise as possible when attending a GP), it was very obvious who the crowd was getting behind, at least in a three-way Webber/Vettel/Hamilton battle.

Unfortunately, the race didn't quite go the same way. Vettel got ahead on the first lap, just after passing us at Eau Rouge, and he built a lead very quickly and just dominated from the front, as (if I'm being bitter) is the only way he knows how to win. It was a bit depressing seeing him flash by lap after lap, with the gap growing ever wider to the following car. Plus some guy behind me felt the need to clap every time Vettel went by, getting on my nerves hugely. To add insult to injury, Alonso got past Hamilton before too long as well, and from there on in the lead group of drivers didn't really change. I was sitting there hoping for rain or a safety car, but unusually for Spa, neither turned up during the race. That said, we got to see a couple of overtakes down the bottom of the hill, particularly Sutil overtaking (I think) Gutierrez, and it's still a great experience seeing the cars (and hearing those engines for the last time, since they're changing next year), checking out the famous circuit and witnessing the ambience and camaraderie in between the fans. It would have been great to see Hamilton win, of course, but we still got to see him put it on pole at least.

Moi with Eau Rouge in the background

In the stands on Friday

All my photos were pretty terrible, so I put my camera down during the race and just watched it. Here's a Toro Rosso climbing Eau Rouge - it does at least show the gradient a bit

I had to find a much better photo online to confirm this was Mark Webber in the drivers' parade

On the third attempt, I managed to get a shot of this shop advising you to "drink drive in Tiège"

Our trip back to Brussels went pretty smoothly and we arrived in time for a yummy dinner cooked by Jess and the chance to demolish a few of the bottles of wine I'd brought over from France. After Mum and Dad went to bed, Jess and I "snuck" out to see a little of what Brussels nightlife had to offer on a Sunday. We ended up in a small bar which was playing (mostly) classic 80s and 90s tunes and videos, condensed to about 90 seconds each, so we had great fun doing our own little karaoke session. It did ensure I bookended both sides of our Belgium trip with a bit of a hangover though...

On our last day, we mostly just wandered around a bit to see the Grand Place and stock up on Belgian chocolate, eat fries and waffles, etc. We did make a detour to the Librarium museum which I'd tried to see on my last trip to Brussels. I would have liked it if there had been a few more really old and precious books, illluminated manuscripts, etc., but there was still some interesting stuff.

All in all, a nice long weekend en famille, and I'm counting down the last day and a half of work before it's off to England and Italy for more family fun!

Me, Dad and Jess in the Grand Place, Brussels. Both my parents are terrible photographers, hence you can't actually see anything of the background. For some reason Mum thought it more important to include our shoes in the photo.

Me, mum and Jess. In this version, you can't even really see us either!

This was my go...