Installé à Bruxelles

Updating this blog has taken somewhat of a back seat lately, and I'm wondering whether to continue it. I started it with the aim of updating it during my year in Bruges - and now that's finished. Also, I'm not sure who (apart from my dad and maybe Chris now and then) actually reads this... so if you want me to keep it going, leave a comment or email me, so I know.

Anyway, I'm now three weeks into my job as a journalist - and two weeks into life in Brussels, and I'm starting to settle into both. I'm enjoying the job so far - I was writing stories from very early on, and am actually enjoying reporting on Belgian stocks far more than you would think if either a) you know me, or b) you know Belgian stocks. The job is quite fast moving, which is great - but in the quiet period of August, the nature of the job can be characterised by a period of frenzied activity - when there is news to be reported, time is of the essence - followed by long lull periods when I have time to do things like... write my blog. I am told that things get busier after the summer break, which will be welcome - surfing Facebook all day is not as appealing as it might sound!

This month I've been living in Saint-Josse, a predominantly Turkish suburb of NE Brussels about 15 minutes walk from Schuman (the EU quarter, where I work). I've been staying with Anna, an Austrian-Russian friend from Bruges. I move into my permanent appartment on Place Jourdan - about 5 minutes walk from work and just behind the European Parliament - at the start of September, all being well. It's been cool living in Saint-Josse this month, though. As well as Anna, Hans (an Austrian Bruges friend) stayed with us for a week, and tonight, Jakob (my Swedish future flatmate) is coming for a few nights. We're acting a bit as a refuge for ex-Bruges newcomers, which is really cool as it means we get to see a lot of people!

On Saturday, Anna and I decided to go along to a 50s music festival near the Atomium
which Abbie - a British woman I met last week through Frances - invited me to. It was a very interesting experience, though I think I was one of the few people there who hadn't spent his whole life practising the lindyhop and one of the few under 50. Still, it was fun to be at, and the Keytones - the live band - were really excellent and well-worth seeing again.

From there, not wanting to go straight home (around 11), Anna and I decided to head into town. Anna wanted to go to a gay bar (she was curious as to what they were like), and so we went to a place called Le Cancan, where there was a drag act. I have never actually seen a drag act I didn't find rubbish/uncomfortable, but this one was really excellent. In fact, at one point, we seriously questioned whether they were really men at all. The highlight of the show, which saw the pair dress up as Kylie, Celine Dion, Madonna and others, has to be Liza Minnelli - singing a French translation of "Liza with a Z" - absolutely genius!

In the theme of the random evening, we went from there to a salsa bar, then to another gay bar, and finally to a Brazilian bar. It was gone 4.30 by the time we got a taxi home - certianly the biggest night out I'd had in a while!

USA photos

A huge selection of holiday photos from my recent trip to the US can be found on my Facebook profile. For those of you not on Facebook, these links take you to the individual albums:

Orlando: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146006&l=2bd23&id=36918472
Key West: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2145999&l=caa71&id=36918472
Colorado 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146010&l=60837&id=36918472
Colorado 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146019&l=a840e&id=36918472
Utah / Arizona: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146927&l=ae053&id=36918472
Arizona 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146937&l=7b198&id=36918472

44 degrees in the shade

I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, and it's so hot you can only be out of your air-conditioned car or hotel room for about 5 minutes before you start passing out. My three-week US adventure is almost at an end. I've done so much, I don't even know where to begin. In the last week alone, I've been to the summit of Mount Evans (14,800 ft), to the Black Canyon, to Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and Route 66. Lots of photos coming soon...

US trip half-way point

I've been in Florida for 9 days now, and this evening is my last. Tomorrow, Chris and I fly to Denver, Colorado and begin our 9 nights in the Rockies and Grand Canyon.

In Florida, we managed a great mix of relaxation and adrenaline - the first day we went to Wet'n'Wild water park, and then it was tyhe 7 hour drive south to Key West - the furthest (inhabited) of the Florida Keys, 80 miles off the coast and reachable by the Overseas Highway, a series of bridges linking the archipelago. We had two relaxed days there, going to bars and restaurants and taking a boat trip out to the coral reef to watch dolphins and the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. Back in Orlando, we did Epcot, Islands of Adventure and Universal three days in a row. Today is 4th July - American Independence Day... it's been quite stormy so far, but the plan is to head to Universal this evening to see the parade and fireworks.

Our flight to Denver is early tomorrow morning. We're heading north to the Rocky Mountain National Park and then south along the ridge of the Rockies, down the San Juan Skyway, to the Mesa Verde National Park, through Monument Valley into Arizona and the Grand Canyon, ending up in Phoenix on 13th July.

The best is yet to come!

It's all over

...and I don't know what to say!

Today, the results came out, and the college year was officially over. It has been a surreal day from start to finish. I got up and went straight to College to get them - I was so tired that when I read them I didn't really feel any emotion other than relief. I did better than I could have hoped for. My average this semester was 10% higher than last and my thesis is even going to be published. I should be elated, on cloud nine. Instead, I just feel numb. This year has been a roller-coaster, intensive personally, academically and culturally. I have made friends with people from all over Europe and set myself on the road to the career in Brussels I have been aiming for. But today that's it. When Cambridge came to an end, it had been spread over 4 years, with frequent and long holidays and a year out in Germany. With only 2 weeks official holiday since I arrived in August, I haven't gone more than a few days without seeing the people who have become a surrogate family. I have been in lectures, the library, exams, the pub, the canteen twice a day with these people ever since I met them, and now, suddenly, it's over.
As I write this, most other students are at the beach, braving the rain and wind for the end of year party. I'm not there. I hate goodbyes and I hate the "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" element of having a huge last party. For some, probably masochistic reason, I prefer to lengthen the transition: to have a quiet, reflective - even melancholic - evening before I make a life-changing move. I feel the need for time alone to prepare myself for the fact it's all over, never to be regained. Yes, I get nostalgic and philosophical about temps perdu, and the knowledge that I'm leaving one phase of my life behind and entering another. Perhaps it's British reserve and coquettishness that makes me scoff at cheesy "group hug" orgasms of collective closure as we had at the closing ceremony yesterday, but more likely it's a refusal to embrace change: if I don't go to the party, if I don't say goodbye, then maybe it's not all over?

I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to a lot of people, but I'm glad I didn't have to say it. We placate ourselves with "but we'll see each other soon anyway" to try to fool ourselves into thinking nothing is changing. Change is inevitable, but it's not easy. We all have our ways of dealing with it. Unfortunately, mine is unlikely to make me very popular.

Towels

I re-read these wise words from the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy which have stood me in good stead over the 9 years since I first read them:

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great
practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have ”lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in ”Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Freeeeeeeeedom!!

I had my last exam today. It's over. Finito. Terminada. Schluss. I appear to have done a Master's. Ok, I don't want to pre-empt exam results - which come next Saturday - but soon I'll be Phil McComish MA (Cantab) MA (Bruges). Scary!

As from now it's the May Week equivalent - basically lots of parties, going out, enjoying the last week (it's a hard life...) Hopefully I'll update soon with some photos...

Leiden and Utrecht

I'm just back from a very quick visit to the Netherlands. I spent two nights in Leiden visiting Annie and Michael - a couple of American friends from the old Wust days. They're there for the summer while Michael does some research (he's an academic). I hadn't seen either of them for 3 years - in fact, the last time I did was in Leiden, when they were living there and I came over from Cambridge for a few days. It was great to see that things haven't changed: even though we hadn't seen each other for 3 years, we still got on great. I was really pleased it all worked out - when they moved back to the US, I didn't know if/when I'd see them again.

On Monday, Annie met me at the station and then we met Michael in a nice café for lunch. In the afternoon, Annie and I walked around Leiden, looking at the gardens and hoofjes. I'd forgotten what a pretty city it was. In the evening, we stayed home and ate there. Luckily, I borrowed Helena's inflatable mattress and had brought a blanket - being an apartment they'd just rented for the summer, they didn't have any spare bedding.

The next day, Annie and I went to Utrecht for the day. I'd never been there before, so I was excited to discover a new city. I really liked it - like most other Dutch cities, it had canals, but these were different - the streets were built higher and a lot of the shops and restaurants had a lower tier by the canals - it sort of reminded me of the Seine in Paris, but, well, with cafés on the lower level. We had lunch and then visited a convent museum - an eclectic collection of all sorts of religious paintings, gold artefacts etc. After that we climbed the tower of the cathedral. Utrecht cathedral is like no other I have seen: when it was being built, they ran out of money, but the bishop ordered it to be finished nevertheless, even if that meant building the last section of a poorer quality. The nave, the last part to be built, was poorly constructed and was destroyed in a hurricane in the 18th century, but was never rebuilt. So now you have the tower separated from the body of the church, and there is even a road going through the middle! The views from the tower were pretty good but the misty weather prevented us from seeing Amsterdam (as one is supposed to be able to do on a clear day). We finished up in the Winkel van Sinkel - once an old department store, now a trendy café-bar. The waiter was quite strange and asked me where I was from. When I said Liverpool, he proceeded to try to talk to me about football. Before we left, he even tried to get me into a conversation about Formula 1!

Back in Leiden, we met up with three of Michael and Annie's friends for dinner in a cool little restaurant. Our second funny waiter of the day comically attempted to describe what the dish of the day ("Slavink") was to us. He started off saying it was "pig" and then "sausage"... so we were thinking, "ok, pork sausage", but then he said "sla means to hit and vink is a type of bird - it's a hit bird". You had to be there, I suppose. I played it safe and had the fish.

The journey back this morning was a bit of a comedy of errors. Luckily I'd left myself plenty of time - my thesis feedback was at 4.40 and I'd originally scheduled to arrive at 1.05 - my actual arrival at 2.45 meant I still had plenty of time. It all went wrong when I stupidly took my first train to Den Haag (The Hague) Centraal instead of Den Haag Holland Spoor. It was a basic error - I've been through there before and I know they're on different tracks and that Centraal is a terminus. But I didn't think - I had in my head "Den Haag" and just got on the first train there. It was only as the conductor announced that the next station was Centraal that I realised. That made me miss my connection and made for a 20 minute walk across The Hague. Later in the journey, my connection to Antwerp was late and then I missed my connection to Bruges and so had to change at Ghent as well. All in all, it meant 5 trains instead of 3 and 100 minutes onto my journey.

The thesis feedback went well and then I had a lazy evening watching TV. Tomorrow: Brussels.

It all slowly starts coming to an end

This afternoon is strange. It's only two hours since I finished my final essay and only two days since my last major exam. I still have my thesis defence next Wednesday and one more small exam next Sunday, but to all intents and purposes, it's over.

This year has been probably the most intensive of my life. I don't say that lightly - it has heavy competition. My final year in Cambridge was crazy - balancing working harder than ever before with producing a play, doing access visits every week or two; and my first year of Teach First was the most intensive in terms of stress and exasperation, and also without a doubt the year when I grew most as a person. That year and the one that followed gave me the maturity and perspective to approach my studies here avoiding the 'essay crisis' that punctuated much of my time in Cambridge.

However, no matter how you measure it, I've been here now for 40 weeks of term (compare with 24 a year in Cambridge) and have only had two weeks of official holiday in that time. Ok, I know I've managed to escape relatively regularly, to England or elsewhere - I can't complain about that. But, with the possible exception of the Scandinavian trip, I never de-stressed and completely escaped the mountain of work waiting for me on my return. Not only in terms of work has this year been intense. I have coped well with residence life compared with many others for whom it was a shock at the start of the year. Living in a student residence (=Cripps Court), eating meals in the canteen (=hall), everyone knowing everything about everyone, gossip spreading like wildfire, reaching a point where you know everyone there is to know. I'd done it all before. But here it's even more intense than in Cambridge: at least there you have other colleges, your faculty, societies and some nightclubs (albeit Cindy's and Life). Here there is... de Garre. At least in Cambridge you had the long holidays when you could escape for a while, and return refreshed. Even though I grabbed a week at Easter, many people stayed... and even I missed lectures while I was gone.

Friendships here have been the biggest plus. I don't know what I expected. It would be wrong to say I hadn't expected to get on with people and then was pleasantly surprised. Having said that, though, after Teach First and the 6-week Canterbury boot camp I did wonder whether Cambridge was unique and not to be repeated. I still think the people I met there are something special and I have no doubt we'll remain lifelong friends. But here I have made great friends in a different way. We all study the same subject and so I've enjoyed the sense of camaraderie that I never had when I was the only person in Selwyn who cared about German identity. More than that, it's been so fascinating to make friends from so many different countries and to realise that we're far more similar than we are different. This year hasn't made me any more or less of a Europhile. I have become more sceptical about some aspects of the reality of European integration and more tolerant of others. I believe the federalist cause to be flawed and unworkable, but I admire its idealism. I think I understand a bit better the European Dream of a continent where war is banished and we work together towards a common destiny, not one which erases our differences, but one that celebrates our common values.

There are still two weeks left, but that's not long. Unlike after Cambridge, a lot of uncertainty hangs over the future of the friendships I've built here. We don't really talk about life afterwards. We love to moan about the canteen food, the infestation of tourists in this chocolate-box town and the draconian college authorities... but then that all seems very familiar when I think back to Selwyn, and who remembers that now? Although we're looking forward to moving on in many ways, and we know it is inevitable and a good thing, I think many of us secretly want to stay. It's all very easy to be trite and say of course we'll all stay in contact, but managing pan-continental friendships is going to be no mean feat. It can be hard enough to meet up with people in London when they live a tube ride away. How easy will it be to maintain friendships in Sweden, Ireland or Romania? For sure, lots of people will be in Brussels next year, and I think Brussels will be to Bruges what London is to Cambridge: the default place where people go next and the place where meeting up occurs most. Luckily I'll be there, so I should see a lot of people on a regular basis. I'm excited about starting my new job and establishing myself in Brussels - my first time living in a French-speaking city.

How many times I've had a go at Ben Lad for his anticipative nostalgia, but maybe he has a point. I know I haven't left yet, and going to the canteen this evening for more ham and cheese might make me wonder why I'm saying I'm going to miss it all, but I know I will. All the more reason to make the most of the next fortnight. Lavinia threatened today to step up her papparzza tendencies to all new levels. I think it's another expression of what we're all feeling. I won't protest this time.

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...