My seventh week was all about discovering that Brussels has some nice spots where you can take beautiful pictures. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous (except for some occasional rain) and I think that helped me see the city, its buildings and colours with the photographer (or painter!) eye! Actually my plan for the day is to paint a view of the city. We'll see what I manage to do. Every single time I sit down at the table with all my colours and brushes and the result is never like I wanted it to be!
I guess it's just part of being an artist (!); you always push yourself to do better and you're never happy with you finish product!
Here you just have some pictures that I have taken in the past few days. I am really happy with these. I think they look very nice considering that I took them with a really old iphone!
Apart from this epiphany about Brussels, my week was nice. We have a new colleague in our department. She is from the States and it is nice to have a full office with the three of us chatting and probably working less. During the week we went for a drink the three of us together. It was an impulsive decision but a great opportunity to welcome her into the team. It is a bit of a long story and definitely not a happy one. Last week a friend and neighbour with whom I am almost related (but how we became almost relatives would be too long and complicated to explain) asked me if I could take care of her cat while she was on holiday. I accepted enthusiastically because I love cats and I really miss having one. The only problem was that the poor kitty was a bit unwell. I went the first day and he seemed to cope well with the fact that he was on his own but the second night I received a call from the other friend who was taking turns with me to feed him saying that the cat was really ill and that she had to call an 'emergency' vet. We decided to take him to his vet's the following day. So here's when my colleagues come into the story, they were really curious to see how a Belgian vet looks like that they came with us as well. I was a bit concerned about the cat because he was unwell and without his owners and seeing all these stranger could have scared him even more. He was so unwell and weak that I don't think he even realised that there were two new more people. Anyway we had to leave him at the vet's because he needed loads of fluids and antibiotics, now it looks like he is slowly recovering.
After the vet my colleagues and I decided to go for a pizza and beer. We found this cute italian restaurant on my street and we had a nice real italian pizza (a bit overpriced for a pizza but not for Brussels I guess) and we have a lovely time together.
On Thursday we had a picnic with everyone from the office. We have a nice park just across the street. It is a huge park built under King Leopold II. It's called Parc de Cinquantenaire and with its monumental atmosphere, it reminds me a bit of the parks you could find in Paris maybe.
On Saturday we all (the office group plus a couple of other friends, flatmates etc) went out for tapas in this Galician Cultural Centre. As you step in you find yourself in Spain! It is amazing, it really reminded of the time I was in Asturias where there were all these tavernas serving cider, so noisy and simple. The place is huge and very basic; long and massive table and loads of Spanish drinking and eating what is really traditional food. We had tapas and cerveza and then we moved onto a bar/club that I didn't enjoy. By 2am I was home already, glad to be in my bed! I find really hard to keep up with this working life schedule: I can't wake up in the mornings and I struggle to get through the day. Also I don't know if my biological clock is broken or my blood pressure is REALLY low but I am basically in a coma until 4pm and then gradually I wake up and by the time I have to go back home I am really active! It might be good for social activities but not if you have to wake up 8am the following morning and facing 8 hours of sitting in front of a computer. Maybe the bottomline is just that I don't like my job. I don't think so, I have really good time at the office!!
Another thing that I realised is my lack of concentration. I am always doing two things at the same time. Usually I have 10 windows open on my desktop: one is our database, then my gmail, then something I am researching on, then the news (usually 5 different newspapers from 5 different countries) etc and in this way I am doing so many things at the same time and something always goes wrong!
I am now thinking of buying myself a bike so I can cycle around the city. Now I take the metro everywhere but it is absolutely crazy! There is always a problem! Last week there were two accidents two days in a row. One of them was so serious that they had to shut down the all line and replace the metro service with buses. Unfortunately there were just two buses from 250 thousands people that were standing on top of each other on the pavement. Everyone was angry and frustrated (French people sounds so funny when they are angry) that it was quite amusing in a way. Also what I found really funny it is how they put all these poor men to deal with the passengers and because everyone is so angry they get insulted and shouted at! I don't know why it was such a great cultural experience but after that I began to consider getting my own bike. I waste so much money in metro tickets and the service is not even that good!
I think this is all for this week. I just put here some pictures I have taken from my window. This has been going on all weekend now and if at the beginning was funny now I am getting a bit annoyed. I don't have anything against the Scottish but now I really would like to shoot these kilted men that are playing pipes under my window!!!
I will get back in touch next week! Have a good Sunday!!
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