Street Party

Belgium is going through a period of unusual good weather for this time of the year. During some days it was even the hottest place in Europe this and last week, so sitting at work felt quite weird in such a summer like atmosphere. Lunch breaks are now spent outside of the office, preferably in the nearby park, where we yesterday played some games of petanque. The French might claim it as their national sport, our one french colleague though saw himself be beaten each time by a Belgian, Polish, Slovakian, Portuguese, Chilean, Russian or one Indonesian opponent.

Wednesday night I went out with some other people from work to sort of say goodbye to a Brazilian guy who had been learning about what we do at our office to do it as well in his home country. The location was a street Party 'Ockxfest' which was mainly aimed to students living there in the city. They had been partying and drinking since noon that day, so when we arrived later that evening, the square was already filled with litter and very drunk people. There was a very nice atmosphere anyway and it made me look forward to more hot outdoors parties.

Two summers ago I had one of the nicest ones here in Belgium, this being during the Ghent festival back then. It's quite famous over here and especially nice due to the beautiful location and the diversity of music styles on the different squares all of the city centre. It turned out into quite a drunk night with many interesting pictures, so for the friends I was there with it was a memorable day and night out. Chances that we can repeat it this year are again nonexistent, as holidays and work abroad are planned for most of us already...

Left: No, my friend is no superwoman, I was standing on a pillar. ;P Above: concert over the river

And due to some lucky friends who are now enjoying life in Finland, I also remembered their first of May celebration "Vappu" which is coming up this week. During my stay back then, it was cold and I was a little ill, but it was fun for sure. :) A huge amount of Finns outside, half of them wearing crazy overalls and a white hat, drinking beers and self brewed alcoholic drinks. The day after most of them were even able to attend an equally huge pick nick in a park, being entertained with live music. Very special anyway. :)

Vappu and Pick nick

How I spend my day

A lot of people keep on asking me what it actually IS that I do when going to work. So I thought the time was ripe to reveal this and as a picture shows much more than many of my words, here you can have a look...

This is the point where it all starts. When entering the office in the morning, my keyboard is usually hidden under a pile of papers, which I immediately remove to be able to enter my password to get into my work-mailbox. I put the papers in near sight, so at any empty spot on my desk within reach. I start going through an average of 90 new emails, from time to time I print out some and they also are put somewhere close to me. After a while faxes start coming in as well and by that time I usually turn to my right hand side...

And look! Another space where papers can be dropped! It does not take long before also that part of my working area is filled, so after this happened, I usually would try to take some documents together and start creating piles. Very urgent pile of things to look at, less urgent pile of things to have a look at in the afternoon and a hopefully small pile of documents that I will look to at some point as they don't make any sense to me at that moment because I am getting too stressed out to think rationally. ;)
So, to make things short, what I do all day is read papers, put them at other places, remove them from certain spots, read them again and look for another place to put them. :P And quite a bit more, but that would lead us way too far. :P

Sunny days

The past two weekends showed me once again that even Belgium can look nice with some sunshine. While last week I went to visit a friend in a smaller village on the countryside, today I went to Ghent. Absolutely my favourite city over here, especially on a day like today, with loads of sunshine and a good busy atmosphere. Below you can see a comparison between a stormy January day and a sunny day in April on the Graslei, one of the most popular places for people to hang out.

Graslei in a storm and in the sun.

My Chocolate Bar which I mentioned in the last post seriously let me down today. On the website it specifically said it was going to be opened on Easter Monday, but no, closed doors when we arrived. No fear though, I got my portion of chocolate outside in the sun in the shape of a delicious Dame Noire. For those non-french speaking readers, a 'black lady', so all chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce.
Seems my last two posts have been quite similar, lots of sunshine and lots of food... I'm happy the weather is getting nice though, winter wasn't too good due to the lack of snow and these views make people happy for no specific reason. On Saturday I bought myself new sandals and a bikini, so for me summer can come. :)

Chocolate

In some countries people are being crucified when celebrating Easter, here we mainly enjoy more chocolate. I know some people who have family gatherings and so on, but even then it's to eat and talk together. Most people don't even know the meaning of Easter anymore (including me to some point), except that the Pope will give a speech and say "thank you for the flowers" in dutch. Actually that's what the old Pope did, maybe this one will have a different pronounciation and make it less memorable...

For the four of us here at home it has become a tradition to go out for brunch on these Sundays each year, and again it was a very pleasant morning. We went to the "Zuiderterras" which is located on the shore of the river going through Antwerp. Very nice view, especially due to the great weather of these days, and great food. Smoothie, sushi, croissants, egg, tortilla, fresh juice... yum! This is what it looks like, I'd recommend it to tourists wanting breakfast in Antwerp. :) And to inhabitants too.

Tomorrow I will be going to visit a friend in the city of Ghent. (I should be a poet... :P) Last time I was there was in January with Pablo, during quite a storm. Tomorrow the sun will be shining, but still I will have a very wintery feeling by going to the Chocolate Bar next to my old university. I used to go there more often during my studies, but now it has been quite long ago already. If anyone would ever go there, I would warn you for the "Quetzal". This hot chocolate has 4 flavours of chocolate in it, white, light brown, dark brown and dark, a true bomb. But soooo tasty. :P I might go for it tomorrow...