Day 76

It's been quite a long time!

For a couple weeks my life was mainly work/home, home/work, so there really wasn't anything to update.

Now that I am writing, I am no longer in Brussels. I am in my hometown, Coimbra (Portugal).

Before leaving Brussels, me and my friends had a big party and also a goodbye dinner. Hope you guys have a great holiday season!!

So.... what I can write about is my troubled trip to Portugal.

Last Thursday it finally started to snow in Brussels. 

Everyone was very happy and thrilled, except me. The snow made me anxious, mainly the thoughts of falling on my butt or my face or something around those lines. People didn't understand my aprehension...

Friday morning I woke up at 5am, got the train to the international airport and arrived there at about 6.20am. I looked up to the big board to check my flight details and..... CANCELLED, because of the snow. My thoughts were more or less "F**k!!!" I looked for the area where I should do my check-in, waited there for 2 hours, it was chaos! Initially there had been three rows, one of them Top Executive. There was a girl and her mother in front of me, who decided to go to the Top Executive section, even though they had normal tickets. I didn't go. Turns out, playing by the rules isn't always the best choice.... They had already left the queue over an hour before I did! Three queues got turned into two, people from the  former third queue started pushing their way to the middle queue... Just imagine, I had already been there for over an hour and people who had only just arrived got their plane tickets before I did. That kind of thing really pisses me off!

Happily, the company I was flying with (TAP this time, only the second time I fly with them) provided a substituting flight, that was scheduled to depart at 1.35pm. They also provided us with a 8€ voucher for breakfast. 

I decided not to go see any stores whatsoever, went to get my breakfast and sat there for a couple of hours, reading my book - travelling companion this time: Voice of the Gods, Age of Five, Trudi Canavan. Almost finishing the trilogy :) Am loving it!

My new flight left with half an hour delay. Here are a couple of pictures I took at the aiport and during the flight:

 

I arrived in Lisbon at around 3.45pm (now GMT, all previously time references were in CET). I was supposed to have arrived at 9.50am.... Despite that, I was happy for the fact that 1) we had a substituting flight; 2) I managed to still get my train with my sis at 5.39pm (she had already bought our tickets the previous day). I read in the news that in the following day the airport in Brussels was closed. So I guess I was still lucky!

I finally arrived home after 8pm.

The next day I went to spend the night with my best friends in Leiria and went to a concert with three bands (mainly composed by people we know and/or friends of ours).  It was amazing to see those guys again!!! Some of them I hadn't seen for over a year and a half.

Fried Chicken & Gasoline

A Last Day On Earth

We still went to the Beat Club to do some dancing and also get to know some new songs (thank you Carlos Matos).

The next day I came back to Coimbra to spend time with my family and went to the cinema with my friends and my sis to see... New Moon  (hihi). They hadn't seen it yet and, of course, I didn't mind to see it again.

On Monday I had to take care of renewing my European Health Card. It was nice to walk again on the old streets of my hometown, feel that familiar feeling that I know where I am and where those streets lead to. Until.... I noticed I took the wrong turn and was walking away from the Loja do Cidadão, instead of towards it. I laughed and thought to myself: does this mean that I was away for too long this time?

In the afternoon I went shopping for Christmas presents with my sister and took this little photo of my city:

It's now the 23rd December, doesn't really feel like Christmas, even though I spent a couple hours wrapping up presents yesterday. It doesn't really matter. At least I get to spend time with my family and closest friends and that's all that matters.

On the 28th I will fly back to Brussels (cross your fingers that the airport will be open and there won't be any problems with snow or weather conditions) and on the 29th at 7am I will get the train to Hannover, to spend New Year there. 

So much travelling...

Wish everyone a great holiday season! 
Have a great one and all the best!

Christmas Market

Here are some pictures I took last Thursday, when I went to the Christmas market for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

(It was rather cold, so we went for some warm drinks after at the Zebra cafe)

Sunset at Merode

These were taken last Sunday, while we were having a late brunch with some friends, to still say goodbye to that friend who left.

 

Day 59

Hhmmm... what to write...

It's been a couple weeks since I last wrote.

A couple days after the Prodigy I got a little sick... I don't think it was the flu though. In the beginning, it felt like the symptoms of a bronchitis and I started taking paracetamol/ibuprofen immediately, and also taking things to keep my throat relaxed. The next day I woke up and the bronchitis symptoms were gone, instead it seemed to have settled on my throat. Long story short, I ended up not going to the doctor, but did go to the pharmacy twice and it took about two weeks for the awful cough to go away. I still have nasty colourful things to get rid of my system...

One funny fact: last weekend we had a very big goodbye party for a friend who left to start a new job in Zürich. One person who attended that party found out the next day that she had the swine flu and was put under quarantine. Just imagine if we had all caught it from her.... (there were maybe 30 people on this party) I guess we were lucky (I was already sick, lol, could barely talk at the end of the night, with all the smoke).

One thing I forgot to mentioned previously was that I went to see the concert of Gilberto Gil. A friend won free tickets and asked me if I wanted to go with him, because I had told him before that I also like Bossa Nova. It was a very nice concert!

Hhhmmm... in the meantime, work has had it's ups and downs I guess. Friday was probably one of the most interesting days for me so far, because it was a lot more active. I had been preparing a couple meetings for a while and they finally took place, it was rather interesting.

This Friday In Flames and Killswitch Engage played in Antwerp and I had really considered going, but gave up in the end... December is a difficult month.

This week I went to the Christmas market with some friends, had glühwein, some weird "swiss" thing to eat (potatoes with bacon and something?) and churros!! :D With nutella, so delicious!!

Repeating myself, time goes by so fast... In a couple days it will be two months since I first arrived and in less than two weeks I will be flying home (to Portugal) for Christmas. My internship only lasts until end of February and who knows what will happen after....

Oh, I just remembered: I moved again! Because that friend left to Zürich and he was my friend A.'s housemate, I took his room and came back to the apartment I had been living in when I first arrived. It was a bit weird to move in to his room like that (we will all miss him very much), but it makes things much easier for me. I did almost spend more time here than I did on my other place.

(Sorry for the broken post... wanted to update, but didn't really know what to write)

Mobile Pictures

Here are some pictures I took with my mobile in the last couple of months. Quality is not the best, of course, but they aren't that bad.

A desert I once had at the work cantina:

At very nice Sushi restaurant between De Brouckère and Bourse:

 

During the Massive Attack concert (haha, can barely see anything):

 

Inside the European Parliament: