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… or the story of our two-week vacation in Madrid. 

So, in between the jobs we thought it’d be nice for me (Jan) to go to Madrid for a two-week stay. We looked online, found a nice place with Rent4Days: a loft located close to Ciudad Lineal, some metro stops, in short: nearly ideal. The pics on the site also make you believe it’s lovely. It would also be overlooking a park, which is great - nature always is very relaxing. It also says it sleeps 7, so it’s gotta be big. Nice!

Diana did some initial shopping the day before, and on the first day we headed over to the place. We were a bit dissapointed, since it was actually more of a store that had been ‘reformed’ into an appartment. (reformed being a key word here). Oh, and it wasn’t really overlooking a park either - you had to get outside, walk a block, and then there’s the park. Ah well, as long as it’s nice, quiet, cosy…

Boy, were we wrong about this one.

Here’s a list of problems with the thing:

Overall problems:

1. The place is _cold_. Both physically cold, and not cosy at all. It lacks furniture, posters, … anything on the bare walls to make it cosy. We had to put on the heating, while it was 25ºC outside.
2. You get to enjoy the sounds of your neighbours peeing, taking a shower,… since every time they flush, or do anything with water, it sounds as if the ceiling is going to collapse. Not fun.
3. Light. I like light by day. I hate it by night. The curtains (if you can call those pieces of fabric curtains) that were there were utter, total, complete, mega crap. They let through 99,9% of the light.
   They weren’t even long enoug! The bottom part was hung from the curtains using pins… (not even sewn on)
4. Noise. NOISE. NOISE! You hear everything, the smallest movement someone makes in the other appartments, you’re part of it, you can follow it, it’s all yours!

Bathroom problems:

1. The bathroom has a leak, from the upstairs neighbours. We reported this, no one came to look or even bothered to call us back.
2. The shower is useless - it’s got a 5cm deep basin, and the drain is crap, so if you shower, you flood the bathroom.
3. Again on the shower, don’t use it. It will break. We had to buy a new shower tube because it broke, and we didn’t want to cough up 50e or more (standard fee by Rent4Days, it costs maybe 8e if you buy it in a shop)

Kitchen problems:

1. If you dare use the washing machine (good luck without the instructions), and spin stuff, don’t be amazed when the kitchen cabinet falls apart.
2. The sink is placed in a way that you can never stand completely behind it, unless you’re a plank. Wonderful.
3. There are no cabinets. Don’t even think of storing anything - there is NO room.
4. This place is supposed to sleep 7, but forget about eating or drinking with 7. Not enough dishes/glasses/cutlery! You can even forget about cooking for seven! The biggest pot is about 3l.

Bedroom:

1. This is supposed to be a double bed. It is 120cm wide, the width of a double bed about 30 years ago. Good luck trying to sleep in that with 2 people.

So after about 6 sleepless nights, we moved back into Diana’s place (which is tiny and with four definitely over-populated), and called the people of Rent4Days to explain the situation, and to tell them that their offer was below anything possible. What did they tell us? “You are the first persons to complain”. On the remark that this place does not overlook a park, they said “We know the area, it overlooks a park.” Sorry, it overlooks a GARAGE. Not a park. Not even remotely.

We took some pics so you can compare them with the things on their site.

So really, if you’re looking for something - stay away from Rent4Days. They’re crap. Expensive service that offers cheap crap.

To make a long story short, the rest of the days we spent at Diana’s place, and we didn’t really do much. The six sleepless nights were enough to drain our energy.

We did throw a party there, for our friends - even though it wasn’t allowed. Sorry, but after all this they deserve a very big screw you. It was fun, we played Killer Bunnies (having to explain everything to Diana and then she had to translate it into spanish… what a mess *g*). We had loads of food, brought by our friends and cooked by us, we also had booze! (sangria and sweet wine), and since it was the last Formula 1 sunday, the tv was on. It was great fun.

Diana’s been here since the 27th of july, and we’ve been busy bees sofar ! Ofcourse the necessary amount of relaxing and just enjoying the time, too :)

We’ve replaced one of the closets with a new Ikea Billy closet, and are still looking to find a magnetic whiteboard that has been very elusive at best ;) every time the website says they have it, we go and it’s no longer there. Pout!

We also went to play catch-up with our movies: we’ve seen Pirates Of The Carribean: At World’s End (good), Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix (good), Ratatouille (hilarious), Shrek the Third (could have skipped it), The Simpsons Movie (good) and Transformers (good but definitely not for kids).
(thank you Kinepolis and your cheap 100-days card!)

Diana’s cooked loads of lovely meals and also vegan cupcakes (weird ones (pic, pic) but oh so gooooooood)

We also bought three lovely cacti, which are currently flowering!

We’ve also made a short trip to Germany, to visit friends.

Diana had to go back to Spain, unfortunately, though …

It seems that visiting Germany is becoming a habit of ours during summer ;) This time we went to visit Laura, Christian and Lumi (and Fina, the cat) in Germany, last (long) weekend.

Diana and I left for Germany friday 17th, and after a rather boring 2.5 we ended up in Ratingen. We had a room booked in the Relexa hotel Ratingen City, a nice non-expensive hotel.

(I just want to add here that I absolutely hate their parking entry/exit machines. I got a static zap from them nearly every time! *growl*)

After checkin, we went our way to Frimmersdorf, in Grevenbroich, to visit our friends. It’s a lovely town, very very green. Lumi’s a very adorable little baby, and the cat is also a fun creature :p Always hunting for flies, to the dismay of Laura and Christian ;)
We talked a lot, had some takeaway pizza and salad, and left around midnightish.

Next day we met up with Gundel, a knitty-friend of Diana, in Düsseldorf. We went to a cute yarnshop (called Woll - Duo, in Schamhorstraße 16), where Diana bought some lovely yarn: a skein of Opal Neon, two skeins of OnLine Supersock Silk, and a ball of mystery yarn.
After that we went for a walk through the city itself, grabbed a quick lunch there (great japanese stall in the basement of a mall), headed back to the hotel, and afterwards went with our friends to the Lantern Procession in Wevelingenhoven. Very cute, and very strange ;)

On sunday we first (ab)used the wellnesscentre in the hotel (which they were so nice as to open especially for us), and in the afternoon we went to the AquaZoo in Düsseldorf. Straaaange fish. Straaaaaaaaanger bugs. But educational, and fun too ;)
There’s a lovely park around the aquazoo too, in which we walked for quite a while before heading over to our friends’ place, and having some chinese takeaway for dinner.

Monday we had to leave again for Belgium, but we did a short sidestop in Die Wollfabrik, where Diana hoarded fiber for spinning and pretty rosewood sock knitting needles.

The pics of the trip can be found here.

Easter was to be spent together in Belgium, resting and having fun together and so on. Full recollection ahead!
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I flew to Belgium on the 27th on an uneventful flight. We ate garlic bread and a slice of pizza at the Brussels Airport PizzaHut since we both were hungry, and then we headed home so I could take over Jan’s rooms again and make them our rooms. Later that evening we went to our favourite chinese, China Garden, to have a quiet dinner.

On the 28th, we had a quiet day. We did some grocery shopping for the weekend that we would spend at a rental house in Ghent. We also baked Letter Cookies in vanilla and cocoa flavours as a present for An.

On the 29th we packet our suitcase (and forgot some things!) and headed to Ghent to install ourselves in the Galerie Appartement where Etienne Dewulf showed us our lodgings and welcomed us heartily. We also visited his Art Gallery and saw his pottery. We had our first go at the gas oven and made some veggie lasagna, and maccaroni in cheese sauce with ham for dinner. It was hard to find how it worked, and so we had to go in search for help to light the oven. We also let the place a bit smoky. Afterwards we just idled about.

On the 30th, we woke up very late, and had brunch with toasts (made in a pan, with butter), and espresso coffee. We also managed to get the fire alarm to go off while making toast, which scared us to no point, since we didn’t know we actually had a fire alarm on the kitchen’s ceiling. Then we went to do the groceries for the rest of the weekend, and buy all the ingredients for our New Years Eve dinner. Afterwards, we went in search of a cookie tin for those cookies we baked the 28th, and decided to have some snack in one of the cafes in Ghent. We ordered pancakes with sugar, a capuccino and a banana milkshake. When it arrived to our table, we got struck by how huge the portions were, and so, we skipped dinner altogether. Then we picked up the couple of things we forgot at our place, like the cookies, and checked online the news, since we heard about the bombings in Madrid Airport on the radio. Finally, around 8 pm, we headed to An’s place, tin full of cookies in hand, for a session of board games. Apart from us, there were An, Patrick and Joost, and we played Killer Bunnies and Vegas Showdown, where you have to build your casino and hotel. We left around 1.30 am, trying to find a fry shop open, since we had a craving for fries. We drove all around Aalst, finding all the frituurs already closed, and ended in the only open one in Ghent (for those that are fry-inclined, it’s near St. Jacobs church). We got back to our temporary home around 3 am and headed to sleep.

The 31st was bound to be a quiet day, with everything closed, and us in our cozy house. We had late brunch again: Toasted croissants, butter, jams, steamy coffee… We idled most of the afternoon until it was time to make our New Years dinner and set a nice table with candles. We made Mint and Cottage Cheese Samosas (substituted ricotta cheese since we couldn’t find cottage cheese, and used puff pastry) served with Mango Chutney and Red Lentil Dal (where I used green lentils that I had in hand) and served it with Jasmine Sticky Rice. We downed it with a couple of glasses of white wine from Yecla. For dessert we had assorted chocolates and clementines. We exchanged pressents and watched the fireworks and some tv (Varekai - a Cirque du Soleil show and a Madonna concert) before heading to bed.

The 1st of January was a very quiet day, woke up very late, had brunch and idled about again, watching movies and series and tv. For dinner we baked some french bread, that we ate with butter, ricotta cheese, salt and pepper, and made pasta with mixed mushroom sauce and parmesan cheese. We finished the bottle of wine and watched some more tv. Loooove the idling on vacation, don’t you?

The 2nd was the day to leave, so we packed everything in the car and said our goodbies to the owner. We also left some writing on their visitors book. Headed home and put a whole load of laundry while Jan went to work, poor him. I did some work on an uni paper and helped around the house. We had a dinner with the family, and watched some Fawlty Towers.

The 3rd Jan had to work as well, and left early and left me sleeping. And I overslept, badly. When I got up, I did some more work on the paper for uni, and then prepared lunch: cheese filled pasta with tomato sauce. We went to Ikea to buy some stuff we needed (some individual mantelpieces, and a bit more fabric for covering the back of a closet) and back home I sewed a cover for my spinning wheel out of Ikea cotton fabric (Ditte in beige) while Jan updated his Cisco C827 router. Then we cooked miso soup with yellow noodles, mushroom balls (from Quorn), onion and red bell pepper for dinner. We continued watching Fawlty Towers before going to sleep.

Thursday the 4th we cleaned our little critters cage. We got tired of their attic floor stinking and went to the DIY shop, Brico, to buy them a new floor, stairs and walls made out of PVC glass. We got the floor and stairs, 5mm thick, cut at the shop, and we had fun cutting the walls (0.8mm thick) with scissors and drilling holes with a Dremel.

When our critters were all set in their new attic, we found out they actually couldn’t see it, because it was transparent, and decided to paint it the next day. We made pizza (including the dough) for dinner. Toppings? Four cheese mix, tuna, and feta stuffed olives over mjummy tomato sauce. After dinner, we watched even more Fawlty towers.

Friday, we painted the new floor and stairs for the critters cage in a fancy white shade and let it dry till saturday. We went to the movies, to watch The Holiday. What a fun great movie. We laughed a lot, and I’m still amazed at how Belgians don’t laugh at the movies(!). We then went to have a fancy dinner at Faim de Toi. What a lovely dinner, good music, fancy place, nice waiters. However the barwoman couldn’t make a Caipirinha to save her life (she used white sugar, crushed ice, and lemon instead of lime and shaked in instead of stirring it… and, worst of all, she added aliens to it, there were redcurrants floating about), that was the only disappointment of the night. We finished the night by watching even more Fawly Towers.

Saturday we got up lateish, and installed the now dry painted floor in the critters’ cage. In the afternoon, we went to visit Godmum and give her a way late Christmas present. We had a fun time talking a bit and then we left for more Ikea shopping. We got two dish warmers, a couple of ceramic pots, a new rolling pin, and a Happy Hippo. We had to visit two Ikeas to find all, but we got it in the end.

We had chinese take-away for dinner from a new place in town, and watched even more Fawlty Towers.

Sunday the 7th my flight was leaving at 14:35. I packed my suitcase again, and we headed off to the airport. Somehow, Virgin failed to give my details to SN, and so my check-in took 20 minutes instead of the 3 it usually takes. We had a last coffee together, before I crossed the police check to board the plane that took me back to reality.

After those lovely forty five days with Jan, I’m back home to take exams, do paperwork, and go back to uni for yet another year ™. What have we done this summer, you ask? Well, 45 days seems long, but it definitively wasn’t long enough for us.

We had joined a group trip to Scotland, but for several reasons, it didn’t work out. We traveled for about 30 hours over two days, slept some three hours during three days, and ended crashing back home. That was my first week there, and instead we just had a quiet time at home, since Jan had the days off anyway. We don’t think we’ll be doing any tour-like trip any more. We agreed that our next trip to Scotland will include nice hotels picked up by ours trully, a rented (stick, continental) car, a good guide and some maps, for the two of us to enjoy!

We fancied a boat trip, and so we went to Overmere Donk, rented a slow boat, and had fun around. We also walked in the park by the lake, so pretty. Pitty the triathlon was so noisy and taking most of the routes! I think we should go sometime again, hopefuly when there is no sports competition dirtying and trashing the park and taking half of the road.

We went to a friend’s wedding, that consisted of a civil ceremony with plenty of people I didn’t know and didn’t know me, and where I understood nothing, and a medieval party, which we had to skip (will link to pics whenever, if ever, they are up).

We went to Germany: Dusserldorf (and pics en route), where we met up with Susann and her husband, then from there to Greifswald (with more pics of the drive), where we met up with Laura, had lots of fun, went bowling and playing darts, and discovered the Spetzi (half cola, half orange fanta), and then we drove to Münster. And finally drove back home.

And we also went to Brugge, to buy chocolate at our favourite shop, The Chocolate Line, which you will know already if you read this blog often. I can’t praise this shop enough. All the chocolate is hand made in situ, and you can see the Meester Chocolatier at work through the window at the back of the shop. And visited the Sand Sculptures Exhibition. Lots of work involved in them, and all will be destroyed in a couple of weeks.

Other things accomplished during the summer: knitting (not much), spinning (two whole bobbins, still to be plied, next time I go to Belgium) - no pics of either, stash enhancement (four skeins, enough for a pair of socks and a skinny scarf, pics coming, sometime), cooking a few recipes from our database, visiting family, going out, going five(!) times to the movies (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Over the Hedge, Miami Vice, She’s the Man & Monster House), picking up and installing Jan’s new desktop (fancy machine, it is), general happy living together, adopting our two little critters, going out with a bunch of friends for bowling and dinner, discovering a couple new restaurants (‘t Gents Fonduehuisje in Ghent, and Pizza Milano in Aalst), happy couple living decorating furthermore our livingroom and much more. Oh yes, studying too.

And lets not forget, we went together with Jan’s mum to see Le Cirque du Soleil, in Brussels, near Tour & Taxis. We saw the Alegrí­a show. It was an amazing mix of handbalanzing, power track, manipulation, contortion, fire dance, aerial high bar, clowns, syncronized trapeze, flying man, russian bars, live music and singing. Well worth the price! We had a lovely evening.

Leaving was hard, again, very hard. And I so want to go back very soon. Plans right now are me spending my “winter break” in early December and New Years in Belgium. Meanwhile, Jan will be coming over some time in October and November!

For those of you who care about my flight back, it was okay, if it weren’t for the more than three hours of a detour. The story is, we left Brussels airport on time without problems, the flight was good and we got to Madrid at the scheduled time, but there was a huge storm with lighting that kept more than fifteen planes waiting to land. That meant we had to wait over fourty minutes to land, but we didn’t have enough fuel and detoured to Valencia to fuel there. Once the storm was over, all the detoured planes wanted to leave for Madrid at once, and we got a slot for 10pm (that’s 2.5 hours after we were supposed to land in Madrid). We finally made it to our destination at nearly 11pm, then wait for my suitcase, which luckily was one of the firsts to get out, and get a cab to go home. I got home at midnight, a whooping three hours and a half after I thought I’d be! Luckily for me, I bought the last sandwich on board, and that was all my dinner.

Saturday, 8th
On saturday, I went to pick up Diana, and we drove straight on to Ikea in Zaventem, to look for some general stuff and to check out their couch department. We decided on the Lund Valla couch (the red one), which comes in a handy do-it-yourself package :D It’s very comfy, you do need the pillows tho. Otherwise the back is a bit hard.

We also bought all kinds of stuff for the dyeing of the fabrics for the midieval clothing - a spoon, pincers, and a big plastic trashcan.

After Ikea shopping we went to the local Delhaize, bought some foodstuffs (for dinner and for Diana over the days I have to work), and we prepared dinner consisting of mushrooms, onion, coconut milk, and seitan fillet. Verrrrry good!

At night we watched the first part of Chicken Little, Diana fell nearly asleep halfway :)

Sunday, 9th
On sunday we went to visit Chris and Joke in their new house in some obscure place called Zedelgem, where we finally got after getting detoured plenty. It’s a nice place, which needs some work still tho. Mostly painting, putting in floors and so.
Unfortunately, Diana had a rather nasty allergical reaction to the cat :/ we got the local doctor, who gave her some injections, and she was better after that… bad cat! Bad bat cat! Come here so I can spank you!

After she was better we went home, made our choice for the take-away chinese, I went to pick it up, we ate and watched the second part of Chicken Little.

Monday, 10th
I had to work the early shift (from 7am until 3pm), afterwards we dragged down the old couches (being three: a one-seat, a two-seater and a corner piece), and got rid of them. After this (sweaty) labour, we drove off to Ikea to get our new couch! We got the last one (lucky us :p) and some more stuff for the dyeing (glass pot, really :p).
When we went to ask for home delivery - but it was helluva expensive! (almost 1/3rd of the price of the couch!). They told us about the option to rent a car from them and transport it home that way - which we did, it saved us 75e! Diana had to sit in the back tho (in the ‘trunk’ of the van) since the couch had to be folded to fit the packages, but we got it home!

After getting home, we put the veggy lasagna in the oven (to unfreeze/cook) and assembled our couch (yes, it comes with assembly instructions, and a nearly impossible-to-fit fabric), and then tested it while watching the extras of Chicken Little.

Tuesday, 11th
On tuesday I had to work the late shift (11am until 7pm). At home we ate bread and so, and then we watched Wallace & Gromit and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit! Very fun movie!

“Cheese, Gromit!” :p

Wednesday, 12th
I had to work until 3pm, and then we had a lovely lunch prepared by Diana at home :) A mix of broccoli, beans, onion, carrot, garlic, spicy tofu and yellow noodles, with a tofu - coconut milk sauce. Gotta love the inventions. (which I do. Very much even. Mjummmmmmm! :D :D)

We prepared the dye in the airtight glass pot (from Ikea), and let it rest for dyeing tomorrow. (for more on the dyeing, see Diana’s Blog)

In the evening we went to the Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, a really fun movie! I do pity Scrat… He was so close!
We had some nachos with cheese (Gromit!) sauce and jalapeños (spicy hot) there too.

Afterwards we drove off to the Chinese to pick some takeaway, and had it at home while watching the extra’s from Wallace and Gromit.

Thursday, 13rd
We slept in this day, and after brunch started dyeing the first part of the fabric (which will later become my tunic).

In the afternoon we went to get some shopping done. Diana finally hit the sales (50% off!) and the summer season “preview”. Retail therapy ;) I also got me some hard-needed new pants, and a new belt. The old one is getting a bit… old :p

We spend the evening at home, watching Red Dwarf - Season VIII.

Friday, 14th
On friday we got up a bit earlier, and dyed Diana’s fabric - which was originally a bit brownish (bottom one in the picture), into a green/blue colour. Looks very nice :)

After doing that, we drove off to Brussels to go to the Albert Einstein Expo in Tour & Taxis, a fun and very informative expo about Albert Einstein’s life and his connections with Belgium. Lets not forget it was interactive. Buttons to play with things and look and touch and experiments! Buttons!!! Buuuutooooooons!!! Pushedy push!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! </kiddy>

After this we got ourself some lunch at the Green Kitchen snackbar close to work (and ergo close to Tour & Taxis), and then drove off to the Atomium, which has been renovated and is now again open to the public. There was a _huge_ queue, but we got in in the end. Unfortunately it’s a bit expensive for what it is - you only get in about 4 balls, and there wasn’t that much to see… Maybe it’ll get better when it’s completely finished, they were still doing some works around it.

In the evening we went to Bankok City, a local Thai restaurant were we’ve been before - and had a lovely dinner there, and back home we watched the first episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th century. Which is fun, but looks oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooold :p

Saturday, 15th
This day we didn’t do much… just pack everything up, cuddle, and then in the evening off to the airport to see Diana off…

I spent my newyears in Madrid, went there the 28th (evening). After an uneventful flight, we went to Diana’s place, didn’t do much and went to sleep.

The 29th we first went to check into the hotel, did the grocery shopping in El Corte Ingles. We bugged the cheese-salesperson because we needed a fondue cheese mix that contained no cow cheese… he was so kind to find a mix, try it out if it melted well, and gave us a nice cheesy mix.
In the evening we met up with a good friend of ours (who’s a member of the Marmotfish Studios and who gave us a copy of Freakmen 451 - very cute magazine!). We walked around a while, I lost me bankcard in an ATM (when it gave my card back I couldn’t reach it *sniff* so I pushed it back in completely with another card), and had dinner at Ginos.

The next day we went to the jokes market on the Plaza Mayor - all kinds of fun masks, wigs, and whatnot - strange people those madrileños! Afterwards we went home and were lazy…

On newyearseve we stayed home all day, Diana killed the chicken like a pro and stuffed it with a lovely Mixed Mushroom and Sweet Potato Stuffing.
Around midnight we exchanged some gifts… I got a ton of them *blush*

The first of the new year we didn’t do anything really. Not that there was anything to do - we stayed at home/hotel and were lazy :p

On the 2nd of january we went shopping for a cute fondue set for making a fondue sometime during the next days. Really the only thing we did. Yeah, we’re lazy :P

The next day (3rd) we went to a lovely Artisans market in Madrid, where I bought a penguin shaped candle for myself, and a 1/12″ doggie for mum.
In the evening we had to rushrush because I decided last-minute to buy a portable dvd player for on the hotel and on the flights - so they’re less boring.

The 4th of january we didn’t do much. Diana made a very tasty ciabatta at home, which we ate with the lovely cheese fondue in the evening. Diana also made the beginning of the Roscon de Reyes - traditional cake for the three wisemen day.

The fifth we finished the actual Roscon, and it came out very nice! Other than that, it was really quiet that day, as it also was the the sixth… the sixth I had to leave unfortunately, and I miss Diana very much…

(ps: pics are here)

Jan

I flew over to Belgium last Saturday the 3rd and on landing there and after picking up my suitcase, Jan and I went to do some shopping at Ikea. We bought a small dining table, two chairs, a low table for in front of the couches, and some nice boxes for our ‘little’ living room. Then we had fun putting all the stuff together and decorating the room. For dinner we had mum2’s chilli sin carne and rice with the family.

On Sunday we woke up late and had brunch at home, and then idled before meeting up with Chris, Joke, their Benjamin, and Joke’s sister at the irish pub in Ghent. We had some drinks and ate something while chatting over different things and hiding Ben’s playing car. After that, we went home and rested a bit, and called our favourite chinese for a take-away dinner, and passed by Jan’s sis’ to pick up chopsticks for eating our meal. We enjoyed duck with veggies, thing noodles with chicken, and fried rice, with some white wine and while watching some Red Dwarf (season VII).

Monday was time for more Ikea shopping (we had to exchange a book-case, wrong colour!) and bought some more boxes and the book cases, and dishes (only for two) and munchies (chocolate, vanilla cookies and marzipan). We put together all the stuff and had pizza dinner (with extra cheese). And more Red Dwarf *giggle*

Tuesday we went to Brugge for seeing the Ice Palace, a show of ice sculptures that was very cold and nice. There was even a bar to have drinks while seating on cold skins, and a barista with a frozen ass (his hands were kept warm thanks to the thermo filled with hot cocoa). We saw the Christmas (food and drink) Market and bought some chocolate from our favourite shop. And ate a real Brussels Waffle too (suikerwafel) warm, big and mjummy! After getting back home, we called the vegetarian restaurant Panda for booking a table, and had to rush down to Ghent again cause they close earlier that we thought. They had a fix menu (at a very affordable price) with orange lentil soup, a dish of seitan with various veggies and rice, and dessert (choco cake for the chocoholic, yogurt with fresh fruit for Jan).

On Wednesday, Chris was supposed to be at ‘our’ place around 10 for driving to Maasmechelen Village and meeting Dave there. He only got here one hour later though (bad Chris!). Once at Maasmechelen, we took a quick walk around the shops (nothing interesting *pout*) and drove off to Maastricht to eat there, take a walk around the (again food & drinks) Christmas Market and do some shopping at Media Markt. After that we dropped Dave at his place, and drove back home - don’t ask me how was the drive, cause I fell asleep pretty soon after leaving David and only woke up when we got to Brussels, and then fell asleep again! We showed Chris our living room before he left and prepared some veggie lasagna for dinner.

Thursday shopping after brunch! We went to a family run clothes shop (SKM) that was hideously expensive, and after 15 minutes or so we drove off scared to death. We stopped by Ghent and bought a pair of jeans at H&M and a laptop backpack at Fnacs. SKM was so depressing I really needed retail therapy! We went to have dinner at K.Roes.L, a nice restaurant that serves giant pancakes and oversized salads at a nice price, and then we headed off to the cinema to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Since we got there too early, we played some free videogames (Soulkalibur III I think it was, on the PS II). I kick ass! (literally) The movie was great, go see it if you haven’t yet :-)

On Friday we went to Brussels to see an exhibition about Asterix. And then drove to Grote Markt to see the huge Christmas Market there. It is spread over several streets and squares in Brussels, with a couple of hundreds of chalets that sell different things, including food and drinks, and with nice carrousels with old looking mechanical parts. I bought some glass figurines (christmas decoration) and before heading home we had pankaces and hot cocoa at a pub. Mum2 had prepared a vegetarian rice for dinner that we had with lots of soy sauce. Afterwards, we prepared some salty microwave popcorn, chilled white wine (and cookies and chocolate) and watched more Red Dwarf season VI before heading to bed.

Saturday the 10th was the come back day. We had quiet breakfast and packed, talked a while with mum2 and relaxed a bit before going to the airport and taking the plane back home. It was a quiet flight, except for my headache - caused by me hitting my nose the previous night. And then I am back home and missing Jan so much…

I went, had fun, came back (unfortunately)… It’s all on Diana’s blog!

Oh, she’ll be here sooooooooooooooooooooon! The beginning of december!