Anyway, I owe you updates. This is the third day I've been at home alone while Bjorn works, but the first day I've really felt like writing/blogging. I've been SO sluggish lately, and uninspired to write or do anything except sit on the couch and watch movies all day. Yuck. Luckily, I'm feeling much better today (about a lot of things - thanks, Mom!) and will share my latest adventure with you all!
First thing's first: we officially move into our new house this weekend. It currently consists of a sofa on loan from the furniture store until our permanent ones arrive in December, a handheld Philips dust-buster, Ester's old TV, and my suitcases in the attic.
Homey, right? Not exactly.
Luckily, Bjorn's Oma has two fold-out beds we are going to use temporarily until our real bed arrives in October, and we'll use a picnic table and chairs to eat on until December. Ester's old TV will stand in the living room until we get a bigger one (which will be soon, I think). The kitchen and bathrooms are fully functioning, electricity/power works, we have clean running water, and cable and Internet service will be turned on mid-September.
The inspection crew is coming on Thursday to fix a list of things Bjorn filed about - like cracks in the windowsill, a dead outlet, etc. And then we're hoping Bjorn can get the rest of the day and/or Friday off so we can go get a bunch of things like lamps, a coffee maker (very important), pots and pans, etc.
So really, we should be fine. We can survive. But I foresee a lot of knocks on Ester's and his parents' doors as we ask to join them for dinner and/or use their Internet for the next two weeks. :D
Although, perhaps not -- I leave for Vienna on Tuesday! I can't believe it's almost here already. I've been so busy with the whole moving and adjusting to living in Europe thing that I kept forgetting I had a vacation to look forward to. And I'm really getting excited now that it's becoming so real.
Bjorn leaves for Hamburg, Germany on Monday - for a week. He has a work conference to attend, but luckily I won't be left alone in the dust this time. In fact, HE will be alone for a few days between when he gets home and when I return from Prague.
So...we have a lot to do before Sunday.
~
In other news, I spent Sunday in Belgium! Bjorn had a three-day pass to the Spa Francorchamps Formula One races this past weekend, which meant he was up at 5am and gone until 8pm on Friday and Saturday. But he went with his uncle, who was a Ferrari VIP (lucky bastard!) and his uncle wasn't attending Sunday's race. So Bjorn's parents decided we'd go with him - drive him down to Spa, then spend the day sightseeing while he went to the track. The race would be over about 3:30pm, but we had to get down there early because it's an international circuit and a huge deal. Which meant huge crowds and insane traffic - and Martin remembered very UNfond memories of doing that last year, and being stuck in the village for 2 hours trying to get out.
So we were up at 5:30am. And on the road by 7am. All of us, in Bjorn's little Mitsubishi Charisma. Ester and I could barely see straight, and I fell asleep off and on the entire 2-hour drive down to Spa. It was barely 9am, and we were about 3 miles from the freeway off-ramp, when we came to a standstill behind a LONG line of cars waiting to get off. AT NINE A.M.!!!! The race wasn't until 2pm!!! I told you those people are crazy. I just didn't believe it until I saw that.
So after sitting in line forever, Martin finally pulled up along the left shoulder and passed everyone, got up to the intersection, and we booted poor Bjorn out of the car in the middle of the street. LOL. I felt so bad as Martin drove off, leaving my boyfriend to walk the remaining mile to the circuit. But it was kind of funny!
So Martin, Elly, Ester, and I went straight off in search of coffee - which we found in a cute little cafe at the base of green rolling hills and a waterfall. (Belgium is absolutely beautiful.)
We were in a tiny village at the outskirts of a famous children's theme park (Plop-something, I can't remember the exact name), which we walked around after we livened up on java.
RIDE OF DEATH. I did this in Luxembourg. Nee dank u.
Roller coaster with a spinning boat.
Spinning DEATH. Funny how these things work out.
Ester with Plop and Gert.
We strolled around, had an early lunch at 11am (traditional Belgian baguette with ham and Gouda "kaas", washed down by an itty bitty glass of Coca Cola with no refills). Then we piled into the car and Martin drove off through rolling farmland, up and down hills, around tight hairpin turns lined by trees, through villages so quaint and deserted that you blinked and missed them. It wasn't anything particularly eventful, but I really enjoyed the scenery and change of pace.
I filmed some of the drive, and there's some funny commentary from Ester and Elly here and there, but it's mostly a recording of the scenery and tight turns. So watch what you want, but you certainly don't have to sit through all of them in their entireties.
At one point, we came upon a roadblock to reroute traffic away from the circuit (the ENTIRE country stops for Formula One, I swear) and the officers spoke only French...even when Martin tried to tell them in English that we were trying to get to the town of Malmedy. "Malmedy?" the officer asked...and then rattled off rude, condescending instructions in French. We had NO IDEA what he said, but he waved us off to get out of there, so we just turned around and bolted back to a roundabout we had passed through a ways back, and hoped for the best. We eventually did find Malmedy, but I learned that it's not unheard of for people in that part of the country (French-speaking, versus the Dutch-speaking north) to be like that. Rude, unsmiling, and absolutely refusing to communicate in ANYTHING except French.
I found it so ridiculous - these officials are working at an international event filled with people from hundreds of tongues around the world; the least you can do is revert to the universal English (which most of Europe does, if you don't speak the native language). You want us to obey your orders and follow directions, but you refuse to communicate with us. Yeah, that works.
We did make one sightseeing stop at a famous dam called Barrage de la Gileppe - apparently the engineer who spearheaded the construction discovered that he made one tiny miscalculation after it was finished, and promptly threw himself off the dam into the lake. It was finished in 1878 and still works perfectly over 130 years later, so I'm not sure what miscalculation he made...but it clearly didn't make a difference!
The dam is crowned by a massive, beautifully majestic lion...who has one hell of a view.
We initially viewed the whole lake and dam from an observation point above it, but Ester wanted to walk down and see "big Simba," so we trekked down VERY steep walkways to the lake level. Nice way to stretch our legs after hours in the car, but definitely not for the faint-hearted.
From there we drove back to the village of Spa to wait for Bjorn - we parked a mile and a half away so we could walk and then be able to drive off without sitting in massive traffic. And then we drove back into the Netherlands and straight to the Pankoek Huis (pancake house!) for a special Sunday dinner.
Needless to say, we all slept QUITE well that night.
So now I'm enjoying a relaxed first half to this week before we do some major shopping and move in. And on Saturday I have a "date" in a town called Den Bosch (about 45 minutes by train) with someone I met on the travel website, CouchSurfing. She's from Asia, studying abroad in the Netherlands, and then just studied abroad abroad (?) in Prague! So we're going to chat about Dutch life and then I'll get some pointers on Prague. I'm excited. :)
Miss you all! xx
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