New plans and exciting projects

It is Sunday and all sundays bring with them a bit of pensive mood, when you rethink all your life and completely restructure it and then follow exactly the same path the following Monday. Anyway, this is not going to be a depressive, super analytical post where I bother you with all my problems, this is a post full of projects and expectations!

I have just over two months left here in Brussels and I have been thinking about what to do next. I came up with a whole project just a few days ago. It took me almost a week to develop it fully but I think it is pretty good now and I shall start working on implementing it. I know that as soon as I put it down in writing it will probably sound quite childish and stupid but it is the closest I have to a realistic and easy to put-in-action plan so it is pretty good for my standards. It doesn't involve moving to the South Pacific looking for mermaids or something that bizarre. It is my speciality making up projects that are just impossible! So this time is something a bit more down to earth, I guess. I am a bit disappointed because I would always be on the run if I could. I mean, the world is so big and vast why should I just sit somewhere and wonder how it would be like to be in a completely different reality? Just go!! This is the answer! But I have just recently figured out that if I really want to do that I need to sacrifice a few years stuck somewhere a bit less adventurous.

This working experience here helped me understand what I want to do and what I don't. I am definitely not pursuing a career in communications. It is not for me and I don't like what it brings and involves. I know I want to work in human rights, because it makes me feel right with my conscience and you meet amazing people that live in the most atrocious and inhumane conditions but they still find the strength to smile and fight for a better life. Everyday it is a life lesson and knowing that through my job I can help those people in their fight is a rewarding sensation. Therefore, this is what I want to do; I want to find a specialisation and do that for the rest of my life. I think I would like to work on women' rights. It is something I feel very passionate about and there are so many women still facing abuses around the world. I went to an event at the European Parliament last week on women's rights. They showed a film produced by a Swedish human rights organisation. The film tells the stories of three women activists who focus on different aspects of women's rights in Abkhazia, in the Kurdish area of Iraq and Liberia. It really made an impression on me, maybe because as a woman I feel really close to those situations. I can only imagine what it might feel being a woman in those societies but I thought that since I probably had more opportunities (and considerably less courage sic!) I should use what I learnt to helping their cause. 

Therefore, I believe I need to study law. At least the majority of people that are working in the field  I want to work in have a degree in law. The degree would make me much more qualified to work in human rights organisations and then I will specialise on women's rights. I would probably need to campaign or take part in some initiatives but I think I would need another degree for sure. I thought extensively where I should start my law career. The best bet is the UK. For those not familiar with the system, in the United Kingdom, you can take two years of law conversion whatever your previous degree is and qualify as a lawyer. Unfortunately, the costs are very high. I thought about France but I believe the system works a bit like Italy; I would have to study four or five more years. 

I also thought about Italy. It is my language, my culture (or maybe not anymore) and it is free! Now, don't take any offence here, my Italian friends and relatives but the news from Italy are quite disturbing and worrying. The country is apparently sinking to its lowest point. I don't know if it is true but a few weeks ago I read in the papers that the economy is doing so badly we are not even part of the G8 anymore and we have been overcome by Russia! As someone put it: 'Italy is almost a third world country and you don't want to hold a degree from a third world country!' Well I won't put it quite so harshly but I believe I will not find myself familiar with the mentality and the way of doing things. Often I see when I speak with Italians that have not lived or travelled much abroad that we don't perceive the world in the same way, that we have completely different ideas about life and what surrounds us. Despite the free education I don't see many other reasons to go there. 

The bottomline is that I will go back to England and more specifically Bath and find myself a job. During the time I will spend in Bath I will apply for the Law Conversion Degree at the University of Bristol.  I will try to invest the money I earn into the degree and because I would live home (this is the less adventurous part for sure!) I will save up on accommodation and other living costs. Then during the summer with the money left I will do some internships just to build up the right experience. 

This is the plan and this is what I am probably going to do for the next three years, maybe! I believe working is still essential because I cannot afford to be out of the job market for three years as my mother suggested and so internships plus any paid jobs are the answer. I have already applied to a few. I always do that; when I make a new project I can wait to start. I had an interview already but I don't think there will be a second one. I didn't like the way the job sounded and I didn't do a follow up after the interview so they probably took it as a sign of my great interest. The job was with Bentley motors (!!!) and it involved dealing with customers enquires and spending my whole day over the phone. They were very interested in my Russian but they don't know I haven't got the slightest idea on how to drive a car or how it works even, and can you imagine trying to understand how an engine works in Russian? Well, I can't so I don't think I fit for the job!!! 

Then I had another offer with a Catholic school and I had to fill a rather lengthy application that even asked for references from my parish!! Of course I do have references from the priest, the Church is my second favourite place after the Catholic school I went to. I mean, I consider myself a Catholic and I believe, I have my doubts but I believe but truly I am not really a regular at the my parish! So I don't think that went down very well and I bet I won't hear from them either. I had a success though. I applied for a position in an international advertising agency based in Bristol and they are so interested in meeting me that they even agreed in waiting to have the interview when I am back to Bath, just before Christmas. I have a good feeling about this so fingers crossed!!

For the rest, everything is going well. I had two nice weeks. Winter is coming but Brussels looks lovely and I just love the period before Christmas. It is full of expectations and dreams and it is just magical. I also think winter suits my nostalgic and melancholic character.

Two weeks ago I went to the Hammam or Turkish Bath and it was a wonderful experience! At the beginning I didn't feel very comfortable at all. Having these big women scrubbing my whole body but after it I felt so good that I am thinking about taking a friend from England next week! I think it is a great experience if you have never been. Last week I went shopping and I bought myself the nicest dress, I love it so much that I just want to wear it all the time now! I am so crazy when I buy something new! I can take it off! It really suits me and I immediately fell in love. It is from a French brand Sessun. A friend introduced me to it and it was a great discovery. Yesterday I watched two games of rugby in a row for the first time in my life and actually enjoyed them. I am  improving. I believe I am finally getting all the fuss about sport. I mean I really enjoy running (even though I could never race and I don't enjoy running with other people) and for me that is a huge success! For tomorrow, Armistice Day in Belgium, I am debating on whether to go to see a military parade in a town in the North but I am so lazy these days!!

I realised this is a very long post and I should probably stop here now! I hope this finds you well and I will be back next week! A friend is coming to visit and I can't wait!!!!!!! 

Enjoy your Sunday evening!

A few considerations...

It feels like I haven't written a post in a while and so, today I have decided that it was time to sit down and jot down a few thoughts. I have to warn you; this is another one of those melancholic posts where I share with you everything that goes through my mind.

Said that, I want to start by telling you that Brussels looks beautiful in autumn. Thanks to the gorgeous weather so far (this was true until yesterday, this morning it's raining!!) I have started walking home almost everyday, taking pictures of every little detail that catches my eye. Brussels usually looks very grey and dull but the autumn colours makes it very solemn and cheerful at the same time. I think the architecture and the buildings are given a new life with the red, the yellow and the orange of the leaves. The new season has really helped me see Brussels under a different light. 

I had a few busy weeks; work, friends and innumerable attempts to organise my life better. My cousin and her family came to Brussels to visit a friend last weekend and we spent the all Saturday together. It was lovely. We never have the chance to spend so much time together. First because there is (actually I think there was) a big age gap that of course affects the relationship we could have and second, we now live too far apart. Saturday was good because we finally realised that I grew up (thank God!) and that we now have more of a common ground to build our relationship on. We definitely have more things to talk about, discuss and share. It was also very nice to be with family, being able to feel comfortable without making an effort and just be myself.

Then, I have reached the third month of my time here and it is a moment for decisions. I have to choose my next adventure and as every, single time my heart drives me both home and far from home. I want to work in London because that's where I see myself in the future, I know that is the place where I will settle down for real. Therefore, my rational side thinks that it is the time to go there and work on my career and my future plans, but my irrational side thinks that I am still very young and I have plenty of time to explore the world and see what else it has to offer. I believe, though, that this moving around is somehow counterproductive, we all reach a moment in life when travelling and changing countries is very enriching on the personal level but so limiting careerwise. What I mean is that once we find our career path it is better to stick to one place in order to build the right network and put down the foundations. So this brings around one first question, if my first job experience has been in Belgium should I better stay here then? But do I want to stay here? This is the second question. Since I don't think I would like to live here for long maybe it would be better to go before it is too late. And where to? If I go to London, I will be closer to home and ready to build my real life, the life I want for myself but then, I think of all the places I will not know, explore and become familiar with, all the wonderful people that I could meet and I won't meet. In choosing my next destination I use this criterion; I believe that Europe is a bit too stuck in the past and that places like Russia or Australia are moving fast towards the future. This means that I could probably find a job outside Europe but in my head I make an exception for the UK, which has an incredible ability to adapt to the changes this time is bringing and so I am back to London. You might think I have already found the answer but it is not true. My best skill is to never be content with my choices: if I chose London I will wonder what it would have been like to live somewhere else and if I chose somewhere else I will wonder whether London would have been a better option.

On this note, and also because of recent events, I have started remembering my childhood and mentally listing the reasons why I am the person  I am. I grew up in Italy and yet when I have to name my home I say: UK. I am a curious and a bit restless person. Maybe restless is not the right word, but what I mean is that since I was little I wanted to travel. I remember that when I used to play I pretended to speak English. I couldn't but I wished. I admired my father so much because he could speak English and he had worked in the US, in Canada and in Africa. I listened, mouth-opened, to his stories and anecdotes about the time he landed in Kinshasa or the time he haggled the price of some souvenirs with a Nigerian man who was selling his goods in the shade of a banana tree. In the mind of a little girl that sounded so exotic, like the adventures of Sandokan. I wanted to be like my father; I wanted to work abroad and see men selling their things in a market in Lagos.

I never liked the place where I grew up. It is a city, by Italian standards, one of the centres of the 'industrial triangle' (as the Italians call it), with a long and rich history and proud people, but I hated it. I found my city suffocating, stuck in the past and far away from whatever the real life was. I had the strong belief that something exceptionally interesting was going on somewhere else and I wanted to be part of it. My favourite subjects at school were English, history and literature (not so much geography, funny for someone who wants to travel so much). English was clearly because of my father's influence, history because it made possible for me to know more about other countries' past and culture and literature because I could travel with books and on the pages of some of my favourite stories I could find someone like me, someone that was impossible to find among my peers.

I had friends and my closest friend comes from that period. She is like a sister to me, she was the only one who could understand. Probably we are not very similar but we understand each other and this is all we need in life. Others did not even make an effort to understand me, or at least that was how I felt back then. The result was that I put all my energy in trying to be different. When I reached secondary school I chose to study languages. I knew that speaking more languages was the only thing that could take me out of there. I chose Russian, and not because I thought it was useful. I didn't know much about Russia or Russian economy to realise that someday that might have opened some doors. I just wanted to be different. All the proper, well bred girls were doing French or German and if you wanted to be more alternative you would have done Spanish (yes, the city is so backwards that Spanish is alternative!!) but I wanted to be more alternative, I wanted to be against the system and be labelled Communist; I wanted to speak Russian.

People were amazed and they didn't know what I was doing. My family is part of that well-bred class of people in the city and so I was the 'weirdo'! Maybe it was all my father's fault marrying a Milanese, who knows! I fell in love with Russian but I didn't like my secondary school years. I had plenty of clashes with the teachers who wanted me to study hundreds of Latin words by heart and couldn't teach us how to put two sentences together in English. They wanted us to know all about Italian literature and so miss all the great literature the world has to offer. I refused to study what I thought was not useful and I remember how I was the only one once to tell my teacher, by whom we were all terrified, that I hadn't read the great Italian novel 'I Malavoglia' by Verga simply because I couldn't understand it and I didn't see the point of reading something I couldn't understand just because someone told me to do so. I think that is the problem of that city; people always do something because other people has told them to do so. People dress the same because other people told them that is the acceptable way of dressing. People go to that bar because other people told them to go etc. Since I didn't agree with what people told me to do I was 'strange', strange just because I wanted to think with my head.

It was hard, terribly hard to grow up there. It is hard for a teenager not being accepted and feeling such an outsider. When we are teenagers we need our group of friends to feel accepted but I didn't have a group of friends, I had one friend who I have to thank for making those years bearable. I wanted so badly to be accepted but at the same time I didn't want to give up my personality. I wanted to be able to express myself and I couldn't understand why everyone was making that so difficult. I wished I was different, I wished I could be like the others, believe me, but I wasn't.

By the time I was fifteen I figured out that the only way was to leave. I couldn't find a place for my dreams, my ambitions and my interests where I was and the only way to save myself was to go. I went to England and Ireland to improve and finally be able to speak English. It was hard, people were different from me, from my culture and my mentality but I am stubborn and I don't give up easily so I went to study abroad. When I was eighteen I left my city and what I was familiar to me in the search for my place in the world. I found it but I say this again, it wasn't easy, even if I hated what I left it was still all I was used to.

This explains more or less why I left but it doesn't explain why I didn't stay. Sometimes I think about how easy my life would be if I was just like the majority of the people I met throughout my childhood. They are happy where they are, they don't wonder about what happens outside their comfort zone and they don't go through hard times just to find out. Maybe I left to create opportunities for myself, but it is not that people there don't have opportunities, they have universities, jobs and a standard of living high enough to allow them to explore a bit more. Despite all this, I went and most of them stayed. It is not that I am more clever or capable of those people. I believe many people there are smarter than I am but yet they don't appear interested in exploring and discovering just to see if there is something better somewhere else. You can always come back but I reckon it is worth a look.

Now, I think I found myself or at least I feel closer to that point. I know who I am now and what I am capable of. Sometimes I doubt it, like everyone does, but I know now where to find the strength to go on. I thought that once I had found myself I could have come back and be happy where I used to be but that is not the case. The people that used to know me now see me too tough and too ruthless. They act like they don't know me anymore. I am sorry but I am not tough or ruthless I am exactly like I was, the same person. It is just that when you find yourself in a new environment, usually with people that know each other already you have to toughen yourself up a bit, you need to learn how to be respected and you have to get people to know you as quickly as you can otherwise you will end up alone. This involves learning how to speak your mind, making sure that everyone knows what you like and what you don't. It is easy when you live in a place where everyone knows you to be respected but when you are unfamiliar with the culture and the people surrounding you, or when you are the only foreigner, the migrant you need to find a force inside you that will help to cope with all that is unknown. Sometimes you are the only one who can protect yourself and so you need to be stronger. Sometimes I pretend I am stronger than I actually feel because I am afraid that people will take advantage of me. I have to guard what I really am because people can damage that. If people don't recognise me anymore it is because the person they knew was a scared teenager desperately to find a place to stand. Now that I have found it and I am happy with who I am I am not scared anymore and I am free to share with you who I truly am that is exactly who I was but couldn't show.

Sorry about the long rant, perhaps now you know me a little better. I want to leave you with some pictures of Brussels. You can see how beautiful it looks these days. Good night everyone (and next time I will tell you all about my trip to the hammam)!!

A new beginning

You all know what happened the past week. The sadness has not gone and the sense of loss is still there and sometimes it manifests itself as a lump in my throat. When it’s dark and cold in my room I tell him what I have been doing during the day and he feels closer to me as he has never left.

 

This is all I am going to say about it because I don’t want to remember the day he left us. He has never left us, he is still here with all of us and he is laughing, chatting and enjoying our company as much as we are enjoying his.

 

From this experience I feel like I came out a completely different person that cannot see life as I used to. I feel like I should take up his example and try as much as possible to be like him. I know it is wrong but it is the only way I can cope.

 

My two last weeks have been very busy.  I had a friend over for five days. We went to Bruges and Gent, two little, picturesque towns in the Dutch-speaking part of the country. The trip made me realise that Belgium is not ugly but it is actually a very pretty country and that Brussels does not reflect the all country at all. I had a really good time with my friend.  We meet on yearly basis just for a week usually but it always feels like we have just seen each other a couple of days before.

 

Then, more than a week ago, I moved into a new flat! I’m so happy about my new accommodation. I live in Rue du Midi, people who have lived or still live in Brussels, probably will turn up their noses. I know it’s not a nice area of the city but it is such a cool and a bit bohemian flat that I couldn’t resist! It feels kind of homey too, like I have already lived here.

 

My room is on the back of the house and it overlooks a terrace but also the neighbour’s living room window which was a bit weird until my flatmate decided to put curtains on! Now I see neither the neighbour nor the terrace but I guess this is the price you have to pay if you don’t want to strip every night for a complete stranger.

 

My flatmate is a very cool Moroccan/ Belgian girl who has a company for commercial and tv series production. She has lived in France, Canada, United States, UK and she has always very interesting things to tell. She is a bit older than me, very generous and kind. The only problem is that she works a lot and so I basically never see her.The first night I had to sleep on my own and it felt very lonely, as I was again on my own in an empty house and a sense of loss. As the days pass I am happy that I can be more on my own because I think I am the kind of person that enjoys her own company.  I can do so many things, which are considering solitary activities and I love doing: painting, writing, reading etc. I also made some progress because when I do this kind of stuff I don’t feel lonely anymore, something that used to happen a lot in the past! What does it mean? That I ‘m growing up finally and that I am more confident about the person I am? I hope so at least, those adolescent years of doubting and fear should have ended quite some time ago!

 

I think that the fact that I don’t feel lonely anymore depends on the kind of job I do. My job is most of the time dealing with people, or at least it has been in the past few days and so I need to stay away from people sometimes! I know I sound like a freak so I want to make it clear: I do enjoy the company of people and of my friends. Here I have lots of fun because I met incredible people but sometimes I need my space because I like that.

 

My job is getting more interesting and a bit more demanding. This makes it more challenging but also a bit more stressful as if sometimes the outcome really depends on how much effort I put into a project. So far not all the outcomes were positive but I have learnt more from the ones that didn’t go as planned than the ones that went well.

 

I have also started to like Brussels a bit more so I have applied for a job at Amnesty International as well as the one at the Commission. This is not the place where I want to settle down but it is full of opportunities for someone who wants to work in international organisations. So I have decided to stay, get the experience I want and need and then move back to London.

 

The only downside is the weather!! It is crazy! This weekend we all went to Bruges and it was so rainy, wet and windy like I have never seen it before in my life! I have lived in England and Russia and really I was not expecting something like that here in Belgium! First of all the wind destroyed my only umbrella that I had bought just a couple of days before, and then the lack of an umbrella completely ruined my hair! You all know how upset I can get if my hair is not as I like it. Despite all of this it was a fun day, spent mostly inside drinking and eating. We went to visit a brewery (can you get more Belgian than that?) and had a beer there, which completely killed me! Belgian beer is so strong for my delicate body!!

 

Today I bought myself a new umbrella that looks solid enough. I am very proud of my new umbrella even though I fear it will break very soon. I am sure I will go through so many umbrellas this winter!!

 

This is all that has happened so far. Hope you are all well. I will be back soon enough with more news!

Good night everyone

Nonno

A couple of days ago my cool (and cool is exactly the right the way to describe him) grandfather passed away. Here I post a letter to him; just a couple of thoughts I would like him to know. It is in English because once he told me that I had to forget my Italian, something he thought I never needed again. He was so proud to read my e-mails full of mistakes! Russian and English were for him the best combination. As I can't really express my feelings in Russian, I'll do it here in English.

Carissimo Nonno,

I can’t even think that you are not here with us anymore.  I must confess that my first feeling was anger. I was so angry with you for leaving us when we still need you so much! The anger has now gone and it has been replaced by a sense of loss. I feel like something is missing, terribly missing. I love you with all my heart and what I have lost today will never come back again. I know you are not gone forever and that for me you are always alive, here with us but I am going to miss talking to you, sharing opinions and views as well as your shiny candid hair, your deep and big brown eyes and your laugh, your silvery laugh.

When I think of you I think of your smile! Of your round, chubby face smiling. You are always smiling in my thoughts. This is the way I will always remember you.

I met you at the end of your life, when you had already reached all your goals and achievements, when you were both a father and a grandpa. I met you at the very beginning of my life when I didn't even have a goal I wanted to achieve, but you were always a mentor for me and you will always be. It is difficult to find role models that never disappoint you in life; we all have our flaws and you did too, my dear grandpa. These flaws that you had are so similar to mine. How many times I recognised myself in you when you were angry or frustrated. The things that made you angry and frustrated are the same that make me angry and frustrated. It is the way you dealt with these flaws that makes you the perfect model. I like to think that we were very similar in our choices; in the way we built up our lives. I like to think that if we are really so similar that means you will never leave me.

My memories of our time spent together go back to when I was just a little girl and you would come to pick me up from the kindergarten. I don't remember you playing with me like grandma used to do, even though you sometimes played cards with me when I was a bit older and you had never liked cards. You always treated me like a person, an adult, someone that could always understand you. I think of this as the base of our relationship.  I always knew that whatever I did, I thought or said you would always think of me as someone who was worth listening to. We argued and we sometimes disagree but you were always ready to listen to me and consider my opinion, you never talked to me in a condescending or patronising way.

You taught me many things that I would always cherish in my heart.  I am not referring just to our long maths sessions. Those must have been so frustrating for you! Unfortunately, you never had another good scientific mind in the family to share your interests with! I have always been a literate, a linguist. My poor understanding of numbers had me to call you so many times to calculate the exact dosages for a cake, a soup and even a cup of coffee. You always told us that even the perfect housewife needs to know maths and yes, you were right!

I can’t believe you are not here anymore. I can’t believe we are going to put you away in a box somewhere. My life without you will never be the same. You were my guide, grandpa and your pieces of advice; your sense of humour and your attitude to life will always be with me. I would have loved to ask you if you are proud of me and of my choices. Whenever I have any doubt about what I am doing I think of you and of what you would tell me.

Now I am not angry anymore but grateful, grateful because you are my grandpa, grateful because I had you beside me most of my life, grateful because people as special as you are rare in the world and I did not just have the opportunity to meet you but I was lucky to be able to proudly say you are my ‘Nonno”!

So, I will not say ‘goodbye’ because I know I am not saying ‘goodbye’ but simply ‘see you soon’. I know you will always guide and protect me from wherever you are because this is what you have always done and always will.

We had so many discussions about religion and what happens after you are no more. You had your ideas and so many times you told me to have Faith. You had a deep and immeasurable Faith for which I will always admire you immensely. I hope you were not disappointed and that you have found what you had been looking for all your life. I am sure you did; you were always right about many things and I am confident that you were right on this one too.

In a time like this you would have patted me on the shoulder and said ‘Coraggio, Flavia!’. Right now when I feel a knot in my throat I can hear your voice and feel your gentle touch and I smile. You once told me I have always been an optimist, I don't know if that is true but if I really am it is because you taught me to be.

Now, grandpa, I will stop because I can go on forever, I want to tell you so many things!

Now, I kiss you on the cheek and I let you go, certain that you are here in my heart and you will never really leave me to go through life completely on my own.

Ti voglio bene,

Flavia

....On a melancholic note

Tonight I was walking back home. It was late, around 9 and so already dark and a bit chilly. The kind of weather and hour that leads you to nostalgic thoughts. I started thinking about all the people that I left behind during my life. It seems like I always have to close a page and turn a new one. It is good; I have started so many pages but I had also closed as many. I reckon many little things this week have brought me to this melancholic mood. First I found my old student card from Voronezh and I started thinking about the time I spent in Russia and how I have never realised that I love that country. Then I received an e-mail from a friend far away. We have always been so close and for four years we were used to see each other every day and suddenly it hit me how much I miss her. In the e-mail she sounds happy and I am too for her. I am also very proud of her, she has always been very brave but I still miss her and wish to see her soon.

Then I thought about my closest friend back in Italy, she seems to be going through an important moment in her life and I wish  I were there to share it with her.

But then I think about all the opportunities ahead and the doors I have been able to open for myself and all the amazing people that I keep meeting along the way; to do something worth doing you also need sacrifices. 

Today I was at a conference about freedom of speech in Azerbaijan at the European Parliament. Two activists were having a debate with two Azeri MPs and I thought about how brave these people are. Speaking up knowing that there might be retaliation takes a lot of courage. The difficult decisions they have to make that could put themselves in danger and sometimes having to distance themselves from their families to protect them made me realise that you always have to leave something or someone behind to gain something or someone else. People like the Azeri activists make a difference every day and me? I'm trying to make a difference for myself, I'm trying to create a better life and better opportunities for myself. This should makes happy enough but sometimes I do feel like something very important is missing, something that would make all this worthy. Sometimes I feel like doing all of this just for myself is not enough, it's selfish and egoistic!

When I went to The Hague two weeks ago to meet up with my 'aunt', I stayed at her friends' and they were such a nice and happy family that I thought this could be what I really miss: a family, coming home at night to a place you can really call your home. Even though, I feel pretty at home where I live now, I know this feeling will always be with me no matter what until I will be able to built a real home with people I can really call my family. 

This feeling has never stopped me to leave, mover around and explore because curiosity and restlessness always overcome my fears and doubts. My real problem is that I get bored too easily making impossible for me to call one place my home, maybe I am just someone with many homes...

On this melancholic note I leave hoping to come back to you with more exciting and fun stuff (especially good news on the house front!).

 Good night!

Weird Things Happening in Brussels

 A couple of days  ago I  celebrated my first two months here in Brussels. I don't think 'celebrate' is the right word, I would rather use something like 'commemorate' or 'mark'.

Many people have asked me about the Belgium and the Belgians, about their culture, habits and national identity. I found myself unable to give proper answers to all the doubts and questions people have on this rather small but so diverse country. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate this post to whatever I have been able to grasp about this tiny (yet great) nation. 

I want to start with Magritte. Exactly, Magritte, the great and much celebrated Belgian artist (to whom a very interesting museum here in Brussels is dedicated. I highly recommend it), whose work is sometimes difficult to comprehend entirely. So often I have found myself in front of one of his painting wondering how someone could ever think of such an absurd subject, until I have arrived in Belgium. Then I realised that ONLY a Belgian could have ever possibly produced such works of art! Don't get wrong, it's definitely great art but sometimes a bit too difficult to grasp!

Magritte was a product of a rather 'absurd' country where everything is left to chaos. The first that really struck me was the way all the signs were arranged! If you follow the signs in the street you can be sure you'll get absolutely lost! 

To give an example of what I mean I will tell you exactly what happened to me this weekend when I was trying to catch the bus for The Hague. First thing I do, I check Google maps for the itinerary; it looks like that if I take the metro I get directly to the bus station in 15 minutes. So I leave my house around 12.10 to make sure I could catch the bus at 12.45. I get to the station and I find out that the sign for the line and direction I have to take. It looks like I have to go upstairs and that I have two options: stairs or escalator. I decide to take the stairs but once I am up I find myself on the street! I was so angry and I immediately thought: Belgians!! I turn and I see the stairs going down with the directions for the metro, I go down and I find myself in the same place where I started!! So frustrating! Suddenly I realise that I didn't notice a small note indicating that the platform was downstairs! I get onto the metro but I have already lost 10 minutes in a goosechase!! Finally I get to my stop where I have to change for  the train going directly to the bus station. 5 minutes to find the right direction. It turns out I have two options: one is getting out of the station and then back in again or take a deep and dark tunnel towards the platform. When I finally reach the platform I can't understand which line i have to take because three different lines leave from the same platform! Eventually I understood that my train was the last to leave and that I would have had to wait another 15 minutes meaning that I was going to miss my bus!!!!

This is not the end of the story though. When I finally got to the bus station and ran to get to the bus I still had to go through an absurd sequence of events. I did the check-in, they gave me a ticket that said I was supposed to get on bus no 3. I walked to the deck and I couldn't see the bus number until someone stopped me, took my ticket and told me to get on a bus. I got on, despite the fact that the destination indicated on the front of the bus was Milano Malpensa! I was sitting on the bus wondering why someone wanted to go to Milano Malpensa with a bus from Brussels just to catch a plane. The only explanation I could give myself was that the bus was probably old and that no one wanted to go through the hassle of changing the sign on front of it!!

Another really weird thing is the new 'public toilet' they installed on my way to work, just outside Gare Central. The thing (no other way to describe it) is standing in the middle of the street and it is like a cone with four 'toilets' attached to it and men stop, have a go and then keep walking! Could you imagine the smell and the disgust? Everything is basically 'en plein air'! I think it is the council brilliant idea to counteract the common habit of peeing against any standing wall! This is a common practice in Belgium and that is probably the reason why the city mascotte is a peeing child!!

There are many funny things that have happened to me since I came two months ago and the list will be too long. Just to name a few: it's difficult to pay with a credit card, almost impossible to find a cash machine and the trash is collected only twice a month... I could go on for ages!

I just want to share with you one last and probably the weirdest thing I have ever witnessed to. It is something that explains the picture above. One rainy evening, around 7pm, I was walking up the street that from my place leads to Le Sablon.  The purpose of my wandering at such a late (!) hour was the irresistible need for chocolate mousse. I came to the crossing and I noticed something very peculiar: an umbrella was attached to the handrail that separates the road from the pavement and a nice big loaf of bread was lying underneath it as someone cared so much about that loaf that wanted to keep it sheltered from the rain. At first I was absolutely puzzled and I stopped at the crossing staring at the umbrella when I realised a sock on top of the umbrella as well! I couldn't believe my eyes and so I gingerly took another quick looked at it. People next to me didn't seem that interested in this peculiar arrangement and I was asking myself if it was supposed to be a work of art or that was just a normal way of keeping the bread dry in Brussels. Anyway when the road was clear I crossed, went to the shop and bought my chocolate mousse. But when I reached the crossing with the mousse safely in my bag and a big smile on my face there it was a again the umbrella, the sock and the bread. I stopped to look at it carefully and suddenly a man all dressed up in a nice suit, tie and raincoat appeared standing next to me. I looked up into his eyes and I could see he thought I was going to steal his bread, so I decided to walk away. Immediately I thought about Surrealism; Magritte or Dali and so I got convinced that I had found the answer to why this artistic movement was born in Belgium. The Belgians are so absurd and creative in their absurdity that paintings like the ones by Magritte probably just represent their normal everyday life!

Seventh week...Brussels has its beautiful spots

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!!