Escape to the beach

On Saturday, a few of us decided to put down our books for the day and take advantage of the sunshine and head to the beach. I cycled to Ostend with Helena, Elena, Ramesh, Eddie and Peter. It was a fair distance (about 23km) but the route was beautiful - along a canal completely away from roads. A lot of other people came by train and we had a relaxing afternoon, including quite a good swim and (as Selwyn readers will be pleased to hear) The Game of the Sea. These photos mostly serve to show to incredibly white my back is...

More Alex photos

Here are some photos of my nephew Alex which I took while I was back in England last week. He's 4 months old now and has just learned to smile.

Escape to England

From last Wednesday until this Monday, I escaped from Bruges for a few days and had a very hectic, but great few days in England. It was always going to be exhausting to visit Liverpool and London in such a short space of time - especially when I didn't fly at all (train all the way), but it meant I got to see family up north and friends down south. I had some really good food, great conversations, pubs, restaurants, church, a conference, a party, many coffees and some exciting planning for the US holiday, which is less than 5 weeks away.

Back in Bruges, I'm struggling to motivate myself for the home stretch of my year here: my next exam is on Monday - 5 to go...

Eurovision ridiculousness

So, another year goes by and another embarrassingly low position for the UK in Eurovision on the back of a mediocre song. As I watched the votes coming in, I was struck by the fact that it's even more political than ever: voting for your neighbours is rife. This was made all the more poignant by watching it with people from all over Europe - who tended to agree that people vote on the basis of neighbours rather than songs. Add that to the fact that so many western European countries were not even in this year's final (Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Italy, Austria...), and the remaining western countries are not going to benefit from much regional voting. The only points the UK song got were from Ireland and Malta. I could have predicted that myself. Of the 24 participating countries, the entire top 16 were Eastern European and the bottom 8 were all Western but one.

It's not sour grapes so much as sadness that such a great (if kitsch) institution - one which, let's remember, in its early days brought former enemies together and helped to strengthen peace in Europe - has become such a farce. In my opinion, telephone voting is the problem. A basic course in geography and economic migration explains nearly all of the voting. For example, Romania, with quite a poor song (sorry Lavinia, if you're reading), did quite well - getting Balkans votes and then high votes from Spain and Portugal, where millions of Romanian migrants live. Germany gave Turkey its usual 12 points. There was such a former Yugoslavian love-in, you'd be forgiven if you forgot they were blowing each other up 15 years ago.

The premise of telephone voting is that the public decide their favourite song and they can't vote for themselves. I was in a room where nearly everyone voted for his/her home country for the Belgian vote. People are patriotic: it's normal and ok that they should wish to vote for their own countries when abroad. But we're fooling ourselves if we believe that this system finds the best song.

Why not go back to the old jury system? I know it wasn't perfect and was prone to political voting too, but at least it wouldn't be so extensive as we saw tonight. I know I get bitter every year after Eurovision and then the intervening year is long enough for me to be excited about it again, but I honestly believe that the UK could not have won tonight, no matter how good the song had been. Surely that's not a song contest.

Sure, it's all a bit of fun. But the BBC pumps money into Eurovision. The licence fee payer must surely start to ask if a contest that has become so phoney is really worth the expenditure.

There were some good songs out there tonight. It's just a shame the voting didn't reflect that.

Sunday at Ostend

On Sunday, I escaped from Bruges for the day and went to Ostend with Frances and Annie (careful readers will recognise Annie from this post). It was so nice to get away from thesis/exam stress for a day and enjoy the great weather we've been having. We swam in the sea (freezing cold in April, but fantastic nonetheless), lay on the beach, had mussels and chips (Belgian staple) with white wine for lunch and then Leffe on the end of the pier in late afternoon. We even went shopping and I bought some really nice stuff. A fantastic day and great company.

North Sea trip (part 2)

Day 5 - Gothenburg - Oslo

We continued north towards Oslo. Soon after we left Gothenburg, there started to be snow around by the side of the road, not much at first, but it was still impressive given the summery weather we had been enjoying in Belgium for a week or so (which, incidentally has not let up: it did not rain in Bruges once in the whole of April, which is a minor miracle given the usual wind/rain combo we get here. In fact, today's temperature of 23C is distinctly mediocre compared to the recent average). We took a little detour away from the main road and found a really quaint fishing village. I was really glad we did that, because until then, all I had really seen of Sweden was Gothenburg and the E6 motorway. We stopped at a little harbour and took some photos, and then continued northwards. As we approached Oslo, we followed the coast of the Oslofjord in, and the sunlight was reflecting off the water and the city looked beautiful ahead. Knowing I'd been there before made me happy to come back. But the strange thing was that I didn't really recognise anything for a good while. Ok, it was 4 years ago I was there, for two nights, with a group of friends, in January, and one's perspective of a city is always to some extent based on where you're staying and what you see first, but even so, it wasn't until I saw the royal palace that I recognised anything. I often wish when I do things like that that I could see my former self doing what I did when I went there - a bit like Quantum Leap, I suppose. Where was the kebab place where Kat demonstrated how a tampon works? Where was the café where Paul had wax all over his face? Where did we have to get the bus to the youth hostel from? All these things evaded me, and Oslo was very different to my eyes now from then. It's not that the city itself has changed: I'm sure it hasn't. But it really shows how much of an effect your state of mind and your company at the time has on your memory formation. I wonder if to some extent I'm also European citied out? Since my first trip to Oslo, I've visited Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Palermo, Prague, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Brussels, Strasbourg, Amsterdam to name but a few. To some extent, they all merge into one.


Day 6 - Oslo to Bergen

This was undoubtedly the best day of the trip. Even though it involved driving over 500km on non-motorway roads, every kilometre was spectacular. We left Oslo and gradually climbed into the hills, and it got snowier and snowier. Hills became mountains, lakes frozen and waterfalls icicles. It was a winter wonderland the likes of which I have seen in films and on TV but never witnessed before. It was such a pleasant surprise to find that at the start of April. I had expected the snow to have disappeared to all but the peaks of the mountains, but the snow was piled against the roadside in many places.


On the way, we went through loads of tunnels cut through the mountainside, including the longest road tunnel in the world at 24.5km. It was a fantastic feat of engineering and certainly made the journey easier - welcome on such a long day - but it would be cool to have the time to drive the old roads across the mountain passes. We finally arrived late afternoon to a drizzly Bergen, found our hostel and checked in for 2 nights. We had a kitchen in our room and so decided to buy food from the supermarket and cook to avoid paying extortionate Norwegian restaurant prices.

Ok, back to work now... days 7-8 coming soon

Quiet night out in Bruges

Now the weather is so nice, we're discovering all the hidden courtyards of Bruges. These were taken at the place we went to last night by Lavinia, my personal paparzza...

New nephew photos

Isn't he adorable? I'm a bit worried though - he looks about a year old, not 3 months! Well, I'll see him for myself in a fortnight and I'll have a better look!

All about the North Sea trip (at last!)

April has been quite a busy month, as you might have gathered from the lack of posts here this month.

I haven't really had a chance to talk about my trip with my Dad to Scandinavia, and now it all seems so long ago! We spent a week travelling northwards, through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, stopping each night at a different place.

Day 1 - Bruges-Amsterdam

We set off early from Bruges and headed towards the Dutch border, which is actually really close (about 20 km), crossed the Westerschelde through a tunnel and made our way north across the dykes linking the islands of Zeeland. It was pretty spectacular to see just how much work must have gone into protecting that huge area of land below sea level from the North Sea. We had great weather while we went and arrived mid-afternoon in Amsterdam. We had a walk around Amsterdam in the afternoon and then another in the evening. It was nice to go back there - I was last there in 2004 for a short visit. I think I really have to go again but for a few days to get to know the city better.


Day 2 - Amsterdam-Hamburg

We continued north from Amsterdam and crossed the massive Afsluitdijk, the dyke which holds back the huge IJselmeer, Holland's inland sea. That was really cool - driving for about 25 km across a dyke, with sea either side. The onward journey to Hamburg wasn't spectacular and we spent over an hour and a half in a traffic jam (Stau!) just across the German border. When we arrived in Hamburg, we were pleasantly surprised with our accommodation - a nice big room with two big beds and run by a very friendly Thai woman who complimented me on my German :) It looked especially good when compared with our hostel in Amsterdam, which was basically a cell, with no room for two people to stand up at the same time, two bunk beds and not even a chair! We went out early evening to explore Hamburg, coming out onto the Innere Alster at Jungfernstieg (a great first image of the city) and then going past the Rathaus towards the Speicherstadt. On the way, when we were a bit lost, a old couple came to ask if we needed help and I got into a nice conversation with them where they basically told me all the best things to see in Hamburg. Towards the end of the conversation the woman said "Wenn ich Ihnen fragen darf, woher kommen Sie? Ich höre, dass Sie nicht Deutscher sind aber Ihr Deutsch ist wunderbar. Sind Sie vielleicht Holländer?" - which basically means, where do come from? Your German is great - are you perhaps Dutch?... This woman instantly became my best friend - a friend in Cologne once told me that if an English person's German is really good, Germans often think they're Dutch (the diluted English accent apparently sounds a bit like a Dutch accent). So that was really nice. Hamburg instantly had a warm place in my heart. Later in the evening, Dad and I split up - he went to watch football in a bar, and I explored the city a bit more, including a visit to the Reeperbahn.


Day 3 - Hamburg-Copenhagen

From Hamburg, it was due north to Puttgarden, from where we took a ferry to Rødbyhavn in Denmark. It was my first time in the country and I was excited to be there. We took a detour to see the cliffs at Mons Klint, which was definitely worth it and then continued to Copenhagen, arriving quite late in the afternoon. I don't know if it's because I saw it mostly in the dark, if I went to the wrong parts or if my expectations were just too high, but I was a little disappointed with Copenhagen. It was really expensive (which I sort of expected), and seemed less pretty than I had imagined. Nonetheless, I saw the Little Mermaid (smaller than I expected). I decided not to make too negative a judgement and to promise myself that I'll go back there and give it another chance when it's light!


Day 4 - Copenhagen-Gothenburg

We set off from Copenhagen across the massive Øresund Bridge to Sweden. We made good time all the way up the west coast of Sweden and arrived in a drizzly Gothenburg mid afternoon. We entertained ourselves mostly trying to stay out of the rain (wandered around the station and a shopping centre, the only indoor places we could find). It was quite cool to see places in the Arctic Circle on the departures board at the station. Gothenburg had a nice feel to it, though we did have to imagine the place without the rain. Following a £5 pint of beer, we were feeling extremely poor and so ate dinner in McDonalds.


...ok, that's enough for now. Days 5-8 next time

mini-update

I haven't updated in a couple of weeks. The main reason for that is that I was away on my trip to Scandinavia from 5-12 April. Since I've been back, I've been in major thesis stress mode, which is not going to subside any time soon.

In the meantime, here are some photos of the trip - I'll talk about it all if I ever get time...