Welcoming 2008, goodbye to Victor

Victors visit to Belgium and myself continued with an evening trip to Bruges, where we could meet up with Ellen for dinner. I had had a working day that day, but I have to say that this was a good way to regenerate. :) There wasn't that much time but we enjoyed a very nice dinner and beers as well as a photoshoot in the street and a run to the station in order to not loose our last train of the day back to Antwerp.... :P

It's not my favourite, but Victor wanted to see Brussels so I succumbed and experienced my nearly first ever sunny day in our capital. ;P Seriously, it attracts bad weather when I am there. ;) We did no museums, but instead walked around to look at nice architecture and the main sights and had, obviously, a nice warm sugar waffle. :B At the end of the day we considered going into the Atomium but both the price and the rumors about it put us off. People I know told me the view isn't even that great and inside the balls there is nothing to see and you don't even get the idea that you are in a ball...

Cathedral, Art Nouveau style house and Atomium with us in front

Last important stop was Bruges, this time for a full day rather than just the evening. Antwerp had rain, but we found the sun together with a million or so other tourists... The centre was packed, but still as pretty as ever. In the afternoon Ellen had some time to join us on the visit and to flee from the crowds, we headed for a quite walk just outside the city centre next to the windmills and waterside.

New Years eve was celebrated with a greeeeeat dinner in an Indonesian restaurant (she-male included :P) followed by fireworks on the river that runs though Antwerp. The next day we had another small party at home, let's call it a chocolate party. ;o) The picture says it all I think. :)

Yum! Yum?? Yum!!!

All good things came to an end however and after two weeks Victor had to change Belgium once more for Finland. It's a lot closer by than Venezuela anyway, so I am sure it wil take less time than the 2, 5 years which separated us before these trips. ^^ Och Thor min, du är mer än välkomna när som hälst du vill eh!!

Back to Belgium, but not alone

Flying home was not the best part of the trip, as we were both super tired and the darkness outside didn't bring us much distraction either. Breakfast in Copenhagen (Cho-bam!) was good though expensive, the views of the people around us were nice and whilst flying over Belgium, I finally saw my first real snow of that winter... Quite ironic yes, but there was not that much of it so we didn't miss too much. ;P

The first day was mainly spent by catching up on some sleep and dinner party in the night with a bunch of my colleagues at a tapas restaurant. Not a true representation of Belgium for a start I guess, but enjoyable nonetheless. ;) Next a two day visit to my hometown Antwerp was scheduled. The weather was amazingly nice and therefore we could cycle all the time and thus avoid all the crammed trams and busses due to last minute Christmas-shoppers. Cycling in between all of those people turned out to be quite hard too though. ;o) We saw the main pretty areas of downtown as well as my favourite cafe where my guests are forced to try the raspberry cake to which I am addicted... In this case I got the feeling the taste of it was mutually highly appreciated. ^^

Dreaming of presents... and cake...

The world famous belgian fries were obviously also on the menu, but we gave the visit a more scandinavian touch on Christmas day by building our very own "Pepperkakshus"! (aka ginger bread house) Looking at the result we were rightfully proud of it. :)

Tatatataaaa!

Christmas eve was the night for a good dinner and presents of course. With a new member of the family there were more presents than ever and that is something the child in me absolutely adored. ^^ One of my favourite gifts was my Marimekko bag and the most painfull has already proven to be my epilator...it does it's job though.

The next city I wanted to show Victor was Ghent. I think it became his favourite too, it was a sunny day and it all looked so nice outside. The visit there ended in a bit of an awkward way though due to going to the S.M.A.K., the museum for contemporary art. Usually he loves this kind of museums, in this case however we were slightly revolted, shocked and quite dissapointed 5 minutes into the visit. :P The exhibition showed the works of Paul McCarthy (no, not the Beatle) and as I try to keep this blog reasonably pretty, I will just give a link and then people can judge by themselves if we are just wussies or if the stuff truly is as ****ed up as we thought. ;) Read about his type of work here and a trailer of the stuff we saw here. I'm sure some people see the art in this, it's just nothing our eyes and stomachs could appreciate. We headed straight over for some cake to relax our minds and then back home to play with Anakin and Amidala on my Wii Star Wars Lego game. :P

Kat still in Turku

The second half of the week also brought with it very beautiful weather. There hadn't been any rain before either, but now also the fog and clouds had dissapeared. During the day Victor still had to work, but Petra had lots of time to entertain me and go out on a very busy day. :P Thursday morning started by sleeping in long, taking the bus from Vs place to the city centre and meeting up with P to go to Ruissalo. This is one islands of the archipelago where you can go for nature walks and this is just what we did. As it was december, we had counted the time to arrive after a 6 km walk just on time near the sea to see the sunset over the water and the surrounding islands. Very beautiful. ^^
Back in the city we went to see "Joulutarina", a finnish Christmas film and then headed for a swim at Carribia. To end the day Petra and I went to have dinner at a nice restaurant and then we had planned to go out to Onnela, but by 12 we were both half asleep after quite a tiring day...

Friday was then spent by meeting up with some more people again, buying the last cards and Christmas presents and saying goodbye to the city centre. I had some very finnish thick porridge at the university restaurant and at night pancakes followed and more cookies at Heidis place, so it wasn't exactly a healthy day...

Then, around 1:30 in the night, Victor and I decided it was about time to go and pack our stuff as we were leaving Turku the upcoming morning. This resulted in a night of sleep of aproximately one and a half hour, as we had to get up already at 4. Not much later we were out on the frozen streets, in the dark on our way to the first bus going to the airport...

Kat in Turku once more

The belgian railways were not in favour of it, but strike or no strike, I did get to the airport in time to catch my flight to Helsinki. First time with Finnair for me and apart from the price I can definitely recommend them. I was even served a Christmas special for lunch and received chocolates filled with alcohol on the connecting flight to Turku. ^^

After 2 and a half years, I finally saw Victor again, waiting behind the glass wall in the arrival hall of the airport. It was really incredibly great to meet him again and it felt as if no time had passed since the day we said goodbye in Turku in 2005. Outside Petra was awaiting us in the car to drive us over to Victors place, where we immediatelly went to have tea and glöggi with Heidi, another old friend from those days back then, so it was a very warm welcome indeed. :) The end of the evening we spent at a small party with friends of Victor and eating and chatting with people.

The first half of the week was mainly very dark and foggy outside, no snow, neither rain. Both V and P had exams to study for but luckily they could make some time free to go out to the city centre with me, have lunches and dinners together and just do normal stuff as going for a walk or to the supermarket. Maybe my trips to Turku don't sounds very spectacular, but for me they are always some kind of coming home. ^^

V studying, I found some snow!, Christmas Turku

As last year, I also managed to put my skates in my bags to go to the ice rink with Petra. Victor is not a huge fan of anything that can be done on ice, so he decided not to join us. :P My skates need some sharpening but this time I practised a bit on turning backwards, I am sure I will be a full pro in about 50 years, seeing that I only skate once a year. :P

She's a better skater. :P

On wednesday both their exams were finished, so to celebrate this I first went out to eat giant muffins with Petra. The cafe where they served them didn't exist yet when I lived there and that was probably for the best as all their cakes are huuuge and quite cheap even. In the night I went over again to Victor, to prepare a Venezuelan - Finnish - Belgian home cooked dinner. The rest of the week follows in the next post. ;)

It's alive

After too many complaints, I also realise that it's been ages since I wrote here and that I have too many things to recap.

So... I'll start where I left of which was the week of Grants visit and my spanish exam. The exam was a big succes as most of you know, so I won't brag much more about it here. ;) Grants stay here was also really cool, even though he finished my new Wii game before I could... The days when I was free from work I joined my sister and him on some touristic excursions to Ghent and the Antwerp city centre. Otherwise we mainly watched movies, played Wii and introduced him to all kinds of scary foreign food. ;) It was his first solo trip and I do think we took good care of him. :) Something we almost never did, was make pictures, so it's pretty hard to post any here... The only one I got is the following one, but we both look a little bit weird on it to be honest... But the sun was shining and we were having fun. ^^

When Grant left my free days of that week weren't all over yet, as Charlotte was back in the country for a while and I had planned a full day together. Starting with a fancy brunch near the river in Antwerp, followed by a couple of hours of sauna and gossip. That same evening I had a goodbye party from a colleague in a karaoke bar (stupid pics exist of me singing, haven't got them just yet. ;P) and the next day a movie night followed with Charlotte and other friend Hannah. It's useless to say I did not get much sleep that weekend...

I can't really recall much more of the two next weeks, probably cause I just spent them at work and looking forward to my holidays. ^^ And they finally arrived around noon of December 14th, when I left work to go home and start packing or attempting to do so.

And more days pass

Sunday again and I just finished studying for tomorrows exam of my spanish evening class. I took half a day off tomorrow afternoon, so I will have enough time to revise everything and be fully prepared for my first exam since about a year and a half. Really weird to have to study again, but if Iam honest there is no comparison to the courses I ever took at university, so I am quite confident that I will do quite well. ;o) I'll post my result here in a week, that is if it is acceptable (read: very good). :P

The past weeks have been slightly different at work as I was made team leader last week. I've only just started and so far it's been pretty busy sorting out what I should take care of and so on. Anyway, it's kind of a new challenge and I do need those from time to time to not get bored. ;o)

Seems I am off now, we have a certain english guest here these days and a movie is scheduled for tonight. Later more about Grant, exams, films and perhaps some holidays. :P

Euro Disney

Two weeks past due, but here it is, my Disneyland report. :P As I mentioned in my last post our digital camera broke down upon arrival, so we were forced to either not take any pics during the weekend, or to buy a disposable camera. Of course we chose the latter so we had the joy to rediscover how much fun it is to make pictures without the use of a zoom or the possibility to check on a screen what the picture looks like. We have become quite spoiled over the past years with those digital ones I can now say... Anyway, the results are ok I think.

The reason for our trip had been the 30 year anniversary of our parents and we as the children were ofcourse allowed to come too. It really became a super fun weekend, all four of us were absolutely enthousiastic about everything and everybody dared to go in every roller coaster available. The older generation mentioned each time after on that had made loopings that it would have been the last one for them, but that is of less concern. :P The way the park is constructed is just so beautiful and real, that you really feel away from all concerns for a while and I love that. Other amusement parks might be cheaper, but I have yet to find one that is more pretty and grand. The weather cooperated, it was reasonably cold but dry and we even had sme sunshine during a couple of minutes. It was raining in Belgium at the same time, so the comparison is what makes our weather good. ;)

Pulling out the swrd in the stone in 1993 and 2007

It was the weekend before Halloween so orange pumpkin scarecrows were to be found everywhere as they had taken over all of Disneyland. Luckily for us not too many people had decided to visit the parks those days, sothe queues were still managable and we were able to go on every ride we wanted. Even the food was good, something one wouldn't necessarily expect in an americanised amusement park. Especially our candle lit dinner in the Blue Lagoon restaurant was great, a total carribian style place with tasty fish dishes and burning creme brulee (crema catalan).

Day two was also spent in the main Park, as well as in the new Disney Studios park right next to it. This was still under construction, so apart from some shows and rides, there wasn't much too it yet. So we ended the trip buying some souvenirs, going into some rides for the second time and crawling back to the train station with a completely destroyed back, at least from my side.