Leaving on a Jet Plane...

After three and a half months living here in Leuven, or Leuven la Vida Loca as the wildly unpopular saying goes, I am heading home to Melbourne. That's right, as the weather starts to turn nice, oops I mean noice - have to get used to saying that again - I'm heading home to the cold Melbourne winter as well as exorbitant petrol prices (they're bad here too but I don't drive here), water shortages, shocking public transport, newspapers and magazines I can read, TV in English (which won't actually be any better than here), looking for work (oh joy) and of course seeing family and friends again.

I decided before I go that I would give you all a rundown on what I've been doing since I've been here, so here goes:

Written 74,000 words toward my first novel.






Written 14 blogs.








Spent too much time watching videos on you tube that were put there by idiots, and were full of sound and fury but signified nothing. (See that, Shakespeare!)





Consumed Belgian Waffles, Belgian chocolate, Belgian Fries and Belgian Ice cream (no Belgians though thankfully).













Made 600 hot dinners, washed 1200 plates, done 18 loads of washing and carried 300 kilograms of groceries so Jai Faim could concentrate on her studies (also ironed twice).









Have been entertained and informed by numerous Authors, including the following: Neil Gaiman, Kate Grenville, Murray Bail (Not Footrot Flats, that's Murray Ball), Jeanette Winterson, Jim Lynch and Ahdaf Soueif (not an FHM or Ralph amongst them.), thank God for the local library.







Watched the entire series one of Friends. (whatever will happen with Rachel and Ross? Whatever happened to all of those actors?))








Watched numerous DVDs which, due to my sketchy "home entertainment system", all had Nederlands ondertitling. I don't think it affected me though so geen probleem.








Saw two actual movies at the cinema. (Spiderman 3 [3 stars] and Pirates 3 [2.5 stars])








Taught myself two lame card-tricks from the Internet.








Wandered the streets and alleyways of the Historical city of Leuven and enjoyed getting lost and discovering new places.










Visited the following Places: Brussels, Antwerp, Gent in Belgium; Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Cologne, Germany; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Bari, Bergamo, Milan, Genoa, Cinque Terre in Italy; Cairo, Egypt; and Paris, France. (if you think I'm putting a picture for all of them, you're sorely mistaken.)









So that's about it for my little adventure, soon I will be shoehorned into an economy seat for God knows how many hours until I land in Melbourne at 4.45 am, oh lucky person who gets to pick me up. See you all soon.

Greets,
J