News round-up

There's a few different things that I've been meaning to blog about but which aren't really a whole post on their own, so here's the news in brief (as if I'm ever brief).

- During summer, the Royal Palace in Brussels is open for visits and it's FREE! (Not sure why I put that in excited capitals since it's closed again now, but hey, maybe next year.) We dropped in for a quick tour between going to the library and watching the F1 a couple of weeks ago, and while it's not the most impressive palace I've ever seen, it's quite elegant (and did I mention, free?) They had an exhibition on WWI on when we went, it being the centenary, which I thought kind of spoilt the look of the place. Some of the old photos and videos were interesting, but this being the royal palace, it was annoyingly hagiographical towards the royals - there was even a section on the Congo with seemingly not a whisper about the murderous personal rule of Belgian King Leopold II there shortly before this period. Oh, and there was an amazing ceiling made out of 1.4 million crushed beetles.

In the palace ballroom, kinda ruined by the exhibition

The beetle ceiling

That painting in the corner had serious creepy vibes

I think he's going to haunt my dreams

- Here's the bit where I complain about something. Remember how I called my internet company in France, Alice, and tried to tell them my new address so I could settle up my account, and they were really rude and basically refused to take a new address and said they'd just keep billing me till my contract was up? HUGE SURPRISE!!! They just continued to keep billing me with zero acknowledgement that I had cancelled the contract. Oh but, no problem, I told my bank before leaving France to stop payments on all my old direct debits. Except my useless bank didn't stop the payments.

I let the first month go because I thought I probably owed that legitimately, and then the second month I just wasn't really on top of things. The third month, I actually found where I could tell the bank online to stop the payments, so I did that and it actually worked, prompting some angry emails from Alice. The next month, the bank helpfully let the payment go through again, this time with a late fee. Thanks a fricking bunch. By this time, I actually did get on to re-sending them a letter re-cancelling the contract, by registered mail, which cost more than 7€ from Belgium. The first time round, I had sent it by registered mail, but without proof of delivery, since I knew I was just about to move to another country and I didn't forward my mail from France since it was ridiculously expensive. So I have no proof that I did actually mail them back in June (and I'm still actually waiting for the receipt this time around too). I really don't think odds are that both the letter and the actual box sending my modem back both got lost in the registered mail system. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them to see that there was no delivery receipt and just shrug and go "she can't prove she cancelled it, so we'll keep charging her". The internet worked fine, but every interaction I ever had with them was so unpleasant that I find that entirely plausible. (This was also the company that made me cry when I was trying to install my modem when the girl repeatedly called me "Monsieur... pardon, Madame" and kept laughing with her colleagues at me in the background.) So... hopefully this time it will actually be cancelled.

- Talking of useless bank stuff, I paid my taxes online, which helpfully involved having to mail a printed authorisation for the transaction to my bank (sigh). I know the bank got the authorisation, because I sent a cheque in the same envelope and they cashed it, but the money hasn't come out. I don't know whether the government just hasn't tried to take it, or they tried before the authorisation arrived. Either way, my taxes are showing as paid, so I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars, but I really do try to do everything properly and by the book and that's why it bothers me so much when things like this and the internet fiasco happen. Life's not fair, it's true, but it seems like you should be rewarded with smooth sailing when you try to make an honest effort to take care of all your responsibilities, but it seems to end up in as much as a mess as if you did nothing. Then dealing with these administrative issues on the phone with French "customer service" people is really really one of my least favourite things to do. So I'm left not able to close my bank account because I don't know what's happening on the tax front.

- On a lighter note, Jules and I signed up as Friends of the Museum, as previously mentioned. When filling out the form, I started putting my details, and then they asked for ID, which I didn't have, so Jules gave them his ID and I added his name on the form. So it was like Surname: Sandiego/Luxembourg, First name: Gwan/Jules. I was amused when the ID cards came addressed to M. and Mme. Luxembourg-Sandiego. Then I remembered that I had definitely filled out the form with the names the other way round, since I started filling it in with just my name. So WTF, Musée des Beaux-Arts, do you have some sort of policy that the man's name has to come first? Or you took it upon yourself to decide it sounded better that way round? Way to mangle our fake, ridiculously long (in real life too) hyphenated name.

- Some other fun things: I joined a choir (yay) and will start evening Russian classes soon (I tested out at level A2, i.e. one up from a complete beginner. Slightly embarrassing since I did study it for 4 semesters at university, but that was a long time ago and it's hard). Last weekend we went to Aachen, Germany, so stand by for a blog post about that, and this weekend we're participating in a (sort of) festival where you go along to a Michelin-starred restaurant and get a surprise 4-course lunch or 5-course dinner for a bit cheaper than usual. We're going for lunch since most of the participating Brussels restaurants were all booked out by the time I found out about this last week. We're going to Bruneau - I can be a bit fussy, so I hope I like it! (The surprise is part of the charm, I suppose, but I couldn't resist writing "please no mushrooms" on the reservation though!)

A sunny day chez les Ch'tis

As mentioned in the previous post, we were treated on Sunday to a warm(ish), (mostly) sunny and much less windy day than on Saturday. As you can imagine, our hearts were gladdened when we stepped out on to the balcony to see this view:

We grabbed Susi the dog and headed down to the beach. Jules had been talking for a while about childhood exploits gathering mussels, crabs (mostly too scary) and shrimp on the coast here. I misunderstood how you got the shrimp, and thought it involved wading in the same sort of small rock pools where you got mussels, so I declared my intention not to partake. However, you actually get them by dragging a small (in our case) net along the sea floor and scooping them up. Turns out it's so much fun! I was inappropriately dressed and hence got a wet bum, but totally worth it. We only gathered around a dozen shrimp over the course of 20 minutes or so, plus I caught a baby crab a couple of inches long and two baby flat fish (these all went back in the sea, of course). I'd never seen baby fish/seafood like that, the flat fish were almost transparent, they were so small. We did cook and eat the fresh shrimp, although Jules grossed me out by pointing out that several (mostly the biggest ones) were covered in eggs. Ugh, I would have returned them to the sea too had I realised. I've eaten caviar, but gotta draw the line somewhere.

View of Ambleteuse from the beach

Me and Susi - obviously still a bit windy

Not Susi on the shore

Me and tiny camouflage man

Fisherman Jules having a Daniel Craig moment

Which I suppose makes me the woman in the white bikini, whatever she's called. Disclaimer: I've never seen a single Bond film

We realised while splashing around that the sea wasn't actually that cold, so we dropped Susi back off at the flat, I changed into a bikini, and we hurried back to the beach for a dip in the North Sea. Very brave! It was not that bad when you sucked it up and jumped in, and we even lay on the beach a bit afterwards, until the quickly-advancing tide threatened to dunk us again.

In the afternoon, we took another drive, this time to Blanc Nez, Gris Nez's twin, so named because it has white chalk cliffs similar to the Dover cliffs on the other side of the Channel. We actually parked near Escalles (I think) and walked up to a height of 134m or 151m, depending who you ask. I found the path, covered with myriad small, sharp stones, quite trying, I must admit (I had changed into thin-soled sandals). But at least I did better than Susi the dog, who had to be carried a fair bit of the way. She is 16 years old though. It was worth the walk though, as we were rewarded with beautiful views of the sea, Calais, Cap Gris Nez and all the way over to England.

Driving to Blanc Nez

Hello England!

Jules lets Susi rest her little legs

The land side of the cape

Susi selfie!

Looking towards Gris Nez

In the direction of Calais

Inland

View to Calais

I assume this village is Escalles 

Me, Jules and Susi

Okay, that was probably too many photos. But it really was pretty. The weather in August around these parts has not been too flash most of the time, so it was great to have a little taste of summer as the season draws to an end. Even more so since the forecast for the weekend had not been great, so it was a lovely surprise. We really had a good time and were just sad that it was so short! Luck definitely plays a part, but I'll think twice before badmouthing the Nord-Pas-de-Calais again.

In defence of Northern France

As some of you know, I lived for a while in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais way back in 2007. When I mention this fact to French people, they normally get an expression on their faces like "why on earth would you do that?" And much of the time, I would agree. For the most part, I found the accents incomprehensible, the weather abysmal, and the landscape unremarkable. Most of the time I was there, we were traipsing about WWI sites or cleaning children's dormitories, which doesn't help I suppose. One thing I rarely got to do was to go to the coast - and if I had, the weather the spring/summer/autumn I was there wasn't often beach-worthy.

Still, when Jules suggested we spend a weekend at his family's beachfront apartment in the small town of Ambleteuse, I thought, why not? Might be fun to see the old stamping grounds. My heart sank a little as the forecast for the weekend predicted more and more rain, but hey, free weekend break can't be too bad.

You'll probably have divined from the title of the post that it actually turned out to be a great weekend. We turned up in the dark late on Friday night, the wind blowing so hard along the sea front that I could barely open my car door, and it continued to howl around the house all night until we woke up to a grey and extremely blustery day on Saturday morning.

Undaunted, I put on my best tramp's assemblage of Jules's mum's too-small tennis shoes, rolled-up leggings, a dress and a mismatched cardigan, and we headed out to the beach with Susi, Jules's dog, to clamber around on the rocks while it was low tide (the beach actually disappears altogether at high tide).

Jules and Susi on the rocks

I don't want to badmouth Susi, but she did a poo right behind us while we were taking selfies. Everyone's a critic

I have so many where I look like I'm doing awkward Russian mail-order bride poses, when I'm actually trying to keep my hair from flying everywhere

Little red riding Susi gets a cuddle after her beach trip

In the afternoon, we took a trip to nearby Wimereux, because the weather still wasn't great and I wanted to buy some photo frames (no luck). The sea was at its peak by now, dramatically pounding the sea wall and sending plumes of spray up into the air and washing on to the promenade.

That's the face of someone wondering if they're about to get drenched

High tide at Wimereux

 

Stopping at a pretty bay between Wimereux and Ambleteuse

Panorama of the bay

We finished the day off with a drive to Cap Gris Nez, the closest point between France and England. I remembered once taking a drive up the Côte d'Opale (as it's called) when I was living there, and how pretty it was. There wasn't quite as much coastal views as I remembered, but it still was very pretty.

View from Cap Gris-Nez to Cap Blanc-Nez (and sheep)

Somewhere on the way to Cap Griz-Nez

So, it might have lived up to its reputation for fairly inclement weather, but luckily it didn't rain, and the wind, while extremely strong, wasn't all that cold. And it turned out the next day would bring us blue skies and sunshine...

Chocolate, lobster and (no) wild pissing

When we visited Belgium en famille last year (can't believe it was that long ago already), Brussels was pronounced to be pretty much the most boring place ever by my sister, who stayed behind while Dad and I were off to Spa for the Grand Prix. So when she came for a visit back in July, the pressure was on to find some fun activites to show a different side of Belgium. Basically, as long as it involved yummy food and drink, Jess would be happy.

So on the Saturday, I booked us in for a chocolate-making workshop at Zaabär. I've had my share of fairly cheap and nasty Belgian seashells bought from tourist trap shops around the Grand Place, so I thought this would be a fun way to learn a bit more about how chocolate is made and, more importantly, get to make our own creations. The class started with a brief demonstration of how chocolate is tempered, before we got to go to work making our own chocolate bars, mendiants and truffles.

Tempering chocolate the traditional way, by spreading it out on stone

Jules all frocked up for the workshop

Making some non-traditional mendiants

Making truffles

Our tray of truffles

It's not the world's most flattering look

My very own chocolate bar

Overall, I would say it was a fun activity and good value for money (20€ for the hour and of course you get to take your chocolate home). It's not the sort of thing you'd go and do any old time, but for an activity with visitors, or if you're a tourist yourself, why not? The chocolate bar and mendiants were done with individual piping bags, and it was pretty fun making different mendiant designs and choosing the toppings. The truffles, on the other hand, were made by dipping a truffle centre into a bowl of liquid chocolate (using tongs) and then rolling them in nuts. Our bowl of chocolate was shared with a couple of kids aged around 7 and 10 or so, who had the unfortunate habit of losing their tongs in the chocolate and fishing them out again with their hands. I'm not usually the most squeamish person in the world, but I also view children with a general suspicion, so the truffles we made are actually still sitting in my fridge uneaten.

A big bonus to the chocolate workshop was going into the factory shop afterwards. There were abundant bowls of free samples, and nobody bothered us as we duly sampled pretty much every type of chocolate (whether they're as welcoming if you've just come off the street, I don't know). They specialise in exotic flavours, so it was great to sample chocolate made with all kinds of crazy things, from thyme to jasmine, to chilli to sage to curry powder and many more. Not all of the herbs and spices quite worked for me, but it was fun tasting them. I went home with the less adventurous choices of plain, macadamia and tonka bean (although I looked up tonka beans on Wikipedia later and found out that they're banned in food in the US because they're poisonous in large doses, so that's quite exotic).

Jess doesn't eat meat, but luckily Brussels has some great fish and seafood restaurants, so in the evening we headed to François restaurant for some lobster. I've had lobster before, but this was actually my first time eating a whole (actually a half, but you get what I mean) one rather than in a salad or a soup etc. It was nice, but I don't think it's amaaazing. It came as part of a fixed-price menu, so it was a case of "might as well order lobster" rather than getting cod or something for the same price, but I wouldn't pay squillions of dollars for it.

Fashion tip: always try to match your shoes to the curtains

It was a good day for protective clothing

On Sunday, we went to the Gentse Feesten, a street festival in Ghent. Allegedly, this is one of Europe's biggest city festivals, attracting around 2 million visitors. All I can say is, there was not much going on when we were there. Not many visitors, but more importantly, not much festival. Maybe we were there too early, maybe it was because the previous couple of days had been hot and sunny, whereas the Sunday was a bit grey and drizzly, maybe it was because it was a Sunday (although the next day was a Belgian public holiday). We walked around a bit, had a yummy lunch, a few drinks, and saw the famous van Eyck altarpiece, and that was pretty much that.

Didn't even have the chance to do any wild pissing

Me and Jess in Ghent

So maybe that was not the most exciting event either, but I tried! Before we knew it, it was time to drop Jess back off at the Eurostar, to send her back to the land of Lewis Hamilton.

Is that a pain au chocolat in your hand, or are you just happy to see Lewis?