So I worked out when preparing my "Decade in Review" that I've moved 13 times in the last ten years. Oof! In fairness, most of the early moves just involved me and as much stuff as I could carry (which, contrary to my father's nay-saying, was around 40 kilos). But on the other hand, all except two moves (in Tours and Brussels) have involved changing cities and/or countries. That is, how you say, a pain in the arse no matter how much stuff you have.
The most recent move was prompted by the boyfriend moving in last October. My old place was 45 sq metres (I think? Like my glasses prescription, this is something everyone else seems to know - for themselves - but I always forget), which was great for a single gal plus cat but not so much when Jules moved in and inconveniently insisted on bringing things like books and clothes with him.
So we gave notice just before our trip to NZ and once we got back the hunt was on to find a new place before the end of May. We actually only saw three places, ending up taking an apartment one street over from our old place. I would have liked having a direct transport link to work, but otherwise, we know and like the neighbourhood, so it made sense to stick with this area.
Plus the new place ticked pretty much all the other boxes. It's way bigger, a duplex (two floors) around 140 sq m (although a lot of space is lost to things like the stairs and the sloping roof on the top floor. Talking of which, a slopey roof was, unsurprisingly, not one of our requirements, but we are very pleased to be on the top two floors. As my sister can testify, in the old place a demon child lived above us who loved nothing more than to rampage up and down on our ceiling making as much noise as humanly possible. So now we get to be the ones annoying the downstairs neighbours, with no retribution. The third big problem with the old place was that it only had a small fridge with a freezer compartment. Even the motorhome we stayed in in New Zealand had a bigger fridge! It was a real pain having to shop basically every other day since we couldn't have much frozen food and anything big like a big bag of spinach basically took up 1/4 of the fridge space. Lastly, it met the terrace and bathtub requirements, so pretty much a home run.
New terrace. On, like, the only sunny weekend this summer, in which we spent 90% of the time indoors moving house
Finally, a move with a furniture lift! I'm so easily impressed
Bob surveying the empty (old) apartment. He has been a super trooper with the move! Even knew how to go up and down the stairs from day one!
A bigger place meant more furniture, so we have spent the last couple of months busily shopping at IKEA and assembling our purchases. We had the idea to get a nice mid-century sideboard and found a few in antique shops that were gorgeous (and expensive!) but we didn't get our act together to buy one before the move, and then afterwards there would be the problem of how to get it into the apartment. It would basically mean hiring a lift, with all the hassle and the expense that involves. So, sadly, we stuck with our all-IKEA decor since that, at least, we can haul up the narrow stairs ourselves.
The light in the kitchen was the worst. Ugly as hell and hung down too low
We switched it out and added extra bench space - the right-hand side is all new, from IKEA (I'm sorry I didn't take a before picture of the kitchen, because this was where we made probably the biggest change)
Then the finishing touch (almost, there's a couple of bits and pieces we still haven't sorted out) was the long-awaited arrival of a few boxes of things from New Zealand. Mostly books and a few paintings, this was stuff I'd left behind 7 years ago when moving to Europe. I'm so excited to have all my old university books back, many with notes and highlights, all reminding me of my student days. I don't tend to over-sentimentalise books too much (it irritates me if you see some craft project using books online, like a découpage or something, and all the comments are HOW DARE YOU DESECRATE THIS BOOK? Yeah, this mass-market paperback of which a billion copies exist. It's not a sacred object. End rant) but yeah, my uni books are still special to me!
It was like Christmas when all my stuff arrived from NZ
The finished product
I still dream of a room with floor-to-celing built-in bookcases. But a wall of Billys (already full!) is a start
My (and Jules's) preciouses
The week of the move, we had just come back from Berlin (I swear, I can't move without sticking an international trip in the mix, just to stress myself out), and that weekend was also the Brussels Food Truck festival. The evening before M-Day, we snuck out after a full day of packing to get some fresh air and sunshine and conveniently have dinner without needing any of our packed-away utensils. Win win! This year, for security reasons, it was held in the Park Royale - which was actually great on a hot day, with plenty of shade and grass to lounge about on.
Wine and some sort of fried cheese-chorizo lollipop makes a happy Gwan
This is actually a different park. But another nice day (rare)
So, as moves go, #13 was relatively stress-free. It's been fun decorating and fixing up the place and we're pretty happy so far. Signed a three-year lease, so long may that continue!
Obviously, the terror attacks were awful, and I don't want to minimise the pain and suffering of anyone who went through them, particularly those directly affected. They have certainly disrupted everyday life even for those of us lucky enough not to be personally involved - the metro and bus/tram network has only just opened fully up again this last week (other than Maelbeek station), and it has become not all that unusual to hear of roads blocked off and areas "locked down" due to police activity. One night a couple of weeks ago, there were three or four police cars parked outside our apartment, doing some sort of search of the houses opposite us. There seemed to be far too much chatting and eating of chips for it to be a terror raid, but it came just a few days after they shot a guy where I often take the tram (I've never heard what came of that?) so we were a bit on edge seeing so many cops right outside.
But life goes on, and as far as I can tell, other than for those whose lives were tragically cut short or forever changed by the attacks, it's back to normal for most people. It's really not possible to go on every day worrying about something which, in reality, is very unlikely to affect you anyway. No offence to anyone, but the sentiment that we've got to keep on as usual "or the terrorists win" makes me roll my eyes a little. I take a more pragmatic view of the situation: there's really not much of an alternative to carrying on as usual, because what else are you going to do?
It helps that spring is busy springing, the birds are singing in annoying fashion outside my window early in the morning, the sun has been shining most days, except today since it's a Saturday and that would be too convenient, and life in Brussels is really not as bad as sensationalist headlines would have you believe. Last weekend, we discovered a whole new (to us) area of Brussels, which I'm kicking myself at never having visited before. The Marolles district is surrounded by areas we have visited plenty of times, like Sablon, Louise, and the Mont des Arts, yet for some reason we had never strayed in to it before. But, googling good places in Brussels to go antiquing, we came across it. It was described as full of antique shops, in the process of gentrification, and less chichi (and expensive) than the neighbouring Sablon area. This pretty much nails it, and it turns out to be a really cool place to browse through antique and design shops, visit a huge flea market on the Place de Jeu de Balle, and visit a café or two.
The creatively named Chapel Church, on the edge of the Marolles
Inside one of the area's huge antiques shops
A beautiful shopfront
One of the more interesting items for sale
Me and a sculpture of Brueghel, who apparently lived/worked around here in the Middle Ages
Sadly, our budget didn't stretch to any new acquisitions (half the time was spent going, *how* much?!?, half reflecting that you can actually pick up a lot of chunky old antique furniture for about the same price as something from IKEA, but that's because it's dated and impractical), other than a new handbag for me. But I think we will definitely be back. It's a fun part of town with a great vibe, and when the weather gets warmer there are plenty of nice cafés on the main square where you could sit quite happily and watch the world go by. We felt kind of dumb not having been there before, but that means we had the fun of discovery, so it evens out.
Our other "discovery" was actually somewhere we'd known about for a long time, but never been to. There's a Friday night food market in the neighbourhood that we've talked about going to for ages, but when Jules was living in Luxembourg, he wouldn't get here until around 9pm, and then he moved here right at the start of winter last year, so we were not so motivated to be out hitting the open-air market. But last night, we finally went, on a sunny spring evening, and found a place with a really nice atmosphere: a mix of young families using the playground facilities and young professionals unwinding after work. There's a great selection of food from around the world (we shared a Cornish pasty and dim sum), and you can grab a wine or beer and stand around drinking it, which would probably be banned back home.
Other than that, I am in an organisado (organisation tornado) because we will be moving house next month. We gave our notice before going to New Zealand, which was a bit scary, but we were pretty confident of finding something new. In the end, we're moving only one street away, into a duplex apartment which is more than three times the size of the present place. Particularly looking forward to not having a freakishly clodhopping toddler running around on our ceiling (we will have the top two floors), having a full-sized refrigerator instead of the tiny one we have now, and having a south-facing terrace. Exciting! It's maybe not quite as elegant as my current place, but the rent is not so much more expensive (and less between two than I used to pay by myself, of course), that we can sacrifice a wee bit of style for much more space. Farewell, old flat!
One last (?) photo from here. A souvenir from NZ - vase with stylised pohutakawa flowers
Hello! I've been officially resident in Belgium for over a week now. Most of the time, it feels much the same as being in France - until someone asks me for my GSM (mobile phone number) and I have to remember to say 'septante' instead of 'soixante-dix' when I give it to them. That's a change I can definitely get on board with though, go Belgium!
The move went smoothly - it's definitely a #firstworldproblem when your biggest issue is that you're awkwardly perched on a chair in the middle of the room eating a pain au chocolat while other people work around you, cringing that they'll be judging your shabby IKEA furniture. Actually, the worst part was when I was unpacking my clothes on the other end and I discovered a pair of the dirtiest, mouldiest jeans you've ever seen. I've complained at length, I'm sure, about how damp the old apartment was, and since I wear jeans super rarely, they'd evidently just been sitting in my bottom dresser drawer gathering mould for the last nine months. I was horrified at the thought that the movers not only SAW these mouldbominations, they FOLDED them and PACKED them, obviously thinking that I was the kind of person who must, at all cost, have this pair of living dead jeans brought with her to a new country. I know, I know, they see all sorts of things and they're not supposed to judge. They definitely do judge though - the proof being that one of them remarked twice on how my new apartment was bigger than the old one and had a real kitchen. I suppose that kind of remark is just about kosher as long as you're coming up in the world, not moving *into* a hole. In that case though, you almost certainly can't afford professional movers - thank goodness my new work was picking up the tab, because it ain't cheap, let me tell you.
My second moment of shame last week was also related to mouldy, old stuff. I came downstairs one day and realised that my old laptop bag, also shamefully covered with mould, was sitting on the pavement outside my apartment. Odd... On further investigation, an old pair of my pyjamas (not mouldy, but well-worn to the point of threadbareness) and a shoe, missing its mate, were also on the pavement. Very odd. If you can believe it, apparently the rubbish collectors opened my rubbish bag, removed the items they thought unfit for disposal, and left them on the pavement!!! Can you believe it? This was NOT a recycling bag, just a normal bag for household waste (and don't get me started on the elaborate fortnightly schedule for throwing out different kinds of rubbish). I was mortified that my old clothes and mouldy bag were sitting on the footpath for all to see. Thank god the jeans were in a different bag and escaped the beady eyes of the garbage men, I couldn't take it if the zombie jeans rose again. What you're supposed to do with old clothes which are unfit for human consumption, I have no idea. I scooped them into a opaque black sack, put that into the official clear rubbish bag, and covered the whole lot with used kitty litter. Rifle through that if you please!
Anyway, that's a lot about garments of shame. The rest of the week was mostly taken up with long, exhausting trip to the supermarket, IKEA, etc., trying to fix up the apartment and get some ideas for future bigger furniture purposes. With the addition of a throw here, a couple of cushions there, my furniture doesn't look as bad as it did when the movers first deposited it, but most of it could definitely do with a refresh. Plus, I have more space to fill! Not the worst problem ever. There was also various DIY-type things to deal with: there were no curtains, and it was a bit of a hassle getting them (turns out getting curtains made costs hundreds of euros: the IKEA ready-mades are too long, resulting in some cat-related mischief, but they'll have to do for now until I can have them hemmed). We also hung up a clothesline on the back balcony - yay for being able to dry clothes without it taking a whole week and having clothes horses permanently cluttering up the place, and fixed a hook on the wall to hold the shower up. I've heard the explanation for why the French (and, apparently, Belgians) don't have hooks for their showers is because they prefer to take them sitting down, but after a week of sitting down to shower, I have to say the theory doesn't hold much water (heh heh). Even sitting down, it's incredibly awkward having to hold the shower head the whole time, you get cold because unless you hold it right above your head, your back or your front won't be under the water, and it's impossible to wash your hair properly. Even after hanging the shower head up, I still had to sit down since not only are there no curtains, there's not even anywhere to hang curtains - crazy! Eagerly awaiting the arrival of stick-on window transfers from Germany so I can shower like a real person.
Minor issues aside though, the new place is great. It's such a luxury to sit in the sunshine on my own balcony, with a book and a glass of wine.
Jules getting Bobby used to the balcony
And it's so great having a real kitchen with cupboard and counter space (still getting used to gas burners though)! Oh and a bath, so relaxing!
There's still work to be done - mostly boxes that need unpacking and sorting still in the short-term, and then longer-term new furniture purchases. But I have this week before I start work to make the place more habitable, and then I think it will be great! Jules stayed the whole week with me, which was a massive help, and it was nice to start getting our bearings and exploring Brussels a little bit. I'm definitely pleased with my choice of neighbourhood - thanks to the World Cup and evenings without internet at home, we already have a 'local' pub and have eaten at a few of the neighbourhood restaurants. Seems like a nice area! And of course, being a capital city - and, if the crowds watching the World Cup are anything to go by, a multicultural, multilingual type of place - I'm sure there's heaps more I can discover in the next few months.
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?).
Well, to be exact, as of today it's been 4 years, 7 months and 3 days since I moved to France in September 2009. But that (plus six weeks or so) is going to have to do. I'm not going to make it to that magical 5 year mark where you can apply for French citizenship (I wasn't 100% sold on that anyway), because it's time to say au revoir France...
...and bonjour Belgium! Hello frites, yummy chocolate and endless rain (apparently) and adding a sixth country to the list of places I've lived. As of mid-June some time, I'll be on the move again (sigh), this time for hopefully a bit of a longer run in the same place - Brussels. My last move, a mere eight months ago, was so traumatic that I had zero interest in moving again any time soon (despite hating my apartment and the mega-commute), but a fantastic opportunity came up (hence my January trip to Brussels) which was way too good to say no to.
I had more-or-less settled in to commuting for around 1.5 hours each way, and my work for the first few months of the year was a lot more interesting (I'm back to deathly boredom now), but the new job offers so much more financially, in lifestyle terms and (hopefully) in the kind of work I'll be doing. Ever since I've known I'm moving, it's been more and more of a drag when the alarm goes off at 5.45 every day and when I stumble back in my front door at 8.30 pm. After working 40-hour weeks with 15 hours' commuting time, 38 hours plus about 5 hours' commute a week will be a breeze! As well as being character-forming, having to go through tough times of whatever description also helps you to appreciate any upturn in fortune.
Plus the payrise means I could shop around for somewhere I really wanted to live. Absolute non-negotiables: a balcony/terrace/garden and a bathtub. I've been dreaming for years of having some kind of outdoor space, and having a bath (with book, music and glass of wine) is one of my absolute favourite things to do whenever I'm in a hotel or wherever. I never quite had the budget to find exactly what I wanted before, so this time I didn't want to compromise. Jules and I spent last weekend in Brussels, and I've lined one up that ticks all the boxes, and is in what seems to be the perfect neighbourhood, balancing distance from work and the city, amenities, quietness etc. Happy days!
Talking of Jules (who reads the blog, so this is a bit weird), that's the part that's obviously not so great. I was waiting to hear back about the job before we met, and after a few good dates I kind of rolled my eyes and thought "I bet I'll get the job now, that'd be typical". It's almost a cliché that you meet someone when you're not looking (I wasn't - despite it being online, I had taken my photos down, which is basically man-repellent) or when circumstances are going to make things awkward. Sure enough, I got the news after we'd been dating for a few weeks, just before the trip to Cologne. I had planned on waiting until afterwards to tell him, so as not to spoil the weekend, but in the car conversation turned to my job (level of interest therein) and what my long-term plans were, and by the time we got to the hotel I was wracked with guilt and had to break it to him.
He took it very calmly. He's a calm guy, so that's not a big surprise, but after only going out for a few weeks, it would have been reasonable on his part to decide he wasn't into the prospect of a long-distance thing and that it was easier to pull the plug there and then. Which would have been a tad awkward stuck together in Cologne. But, happily, we decided to see how things went over the next 2 1/2 months or so until I left, and then... Brussels isn't that far from Luxembourg, really. It's still only been two months, but things are going well, so hopefully it'll be okay. I think the fact that we already don't live in the same city will help the transition, although I'll miss being able to catch up in the week for a drink after work.
So, I'm super excited! The stress is starting to kick in a little bit now too. It should be much less chaotic than last time (I can hire professional movers for starters), but with the added complications of being an international move to worry about. Who knows how things work in Belgium? And, naturally, I already have trips to Mallorca and Tours lined up for the end of May/beginning of June to suck money out of my bank account and time out of my schedule, but hey, there are worse problems!
I'm a bit sorry that, mostly due to those long hours, I haven't really got to know Metz at all. The last eight months have flown by at warp speed, I swear. The bi-country work/home balance is difficult to maintain: very hard to make friends in Metz, where I was never home, and I'd be tired at the end of the day in Luxembourg and just have to rush off to the train anyway. I still have a little time (moving formalities and holidays notwithstanding) to tick a couple of things like the Pompidou Metz off the list, and I'll be coming back to Luxembourg to see Jules, so all is not lost.
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
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!
