Just some short notes on the previous days. First of all, I set a new personal best on my usual 50 km Leuven – Mechelen – Leuven route (all the way along the Dijlekanaal) on my training ride (click link for details) today (after work). My average speed was 33.1 km/h, which is an improvement of 1.0 km/h compared to the previous PB (which was set on the 6th of April after I came back from La Palma). This – as always – was an individual ride (like a time trial), so I had to fight the aerodynamic drag alone, but this was the first time I needed only a short-sleeved jersey, thanks to the return of normal May weather (so 20°C and not 6°C like two weeks ago) to Belgium. I am quite happy with this speed (though my heart rate was a bit too high this time and the cadence could be still higher), now I would need interval training to improve it even more… With today’s ride I have passed the first 1000 km mark with my new road bike :)
Honestly, there is nothing else to write about, but the weather is getting really great these days, so we could finally eat outside on Tuesday evening (at the Seinhuis – the new beer was the Maredsous 8 this time, then the Kessel Blond and the Hommelbier on the day after in the Via Via). And – finally – we could play with my special frisbee – which is just the most cool outdoor game ever – in lunch-breaks…
The list of beers I have tasted in Belgium until now (in chronological order – italic typeface if the beer can be found in the book “100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die!”):
It is quite an impressive list, my guess before this post was around 50, so it is even more than I thought. And if I made a list of the beers I had tasted before I came to Belgium, I think it would not have more than 5 entries… So this number is a result of three things: 1) I try to integrate well (which also reflects clearly in my chocolate consumption), 2) Belgian beers are quite good (which translates to really great, but – originally – I am not a big beer-drinker, so do not expect those high emotional words from me when I am talking about beer), 3) the culture of beer-drinking is much more evolved, richer and more important (in a social way) here than in Hungary. Now it’s getting harder to taste new kinds in a normal bar, but I am still far from running out of possibilities…
My mother and my father spent four days in Belgium from Saturday till Tuesday. We had a lot of fun (and food :D) together! On Saturday (I planned to go to the airport, but I slept over, so I met them only at the train station… such a shame…) we just walked around Leuven. But we walked a lot (~15 km). We went to the Botanic Garden (one of the most beautiful sights in the city during this time of the year with all the flowers), the Arenberg Castle and the Great Beguinage. Then we had a great lunch (or early dinner) in the Domus (good Flemish food and Belgian beers). And finally they managed to see the square in front of the library free of any view-blocking installations (if you are from Leuven you know what I am talking about…).
After three weeks of great, dry, sunny and warm spring (25.6°C on Friday) the weather changed. To crap. On Sunday, we get off the train in Brugge in rain and cold wind. So – to put it in a more touristic point of view, or way of thinking – I could easily show the so called typical Belgian weather to my parents. (Which is not at all as bad as some locals claim it in their non-stop complaints, but that is something I will have to prove during their next visit…) They were really happy about it (place sarcasm mark here). And no, my mother was “not” wearing a skiing coat :D
Anyway, the worst part of the storm (as it was a nice small thunderstorm indeed) ended pretty soon, so we could leave the small church of the local Beguinage and start our looong walk in the city of Brugge – the most touristic place in Belgium. I am sure there are more foreigners in the city on a normal summer day than Belgians. And I am quite sure that every third shop is a chocolate store… (torturing me with the smell and the view of their windows…) But I can not deny, that the old city is beautiful. My parents also agreed on this. And we ate fries, chocolate, waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, so we did what a foreigner has to do in this country :D Around noon, we even had some sunshine, so we hopped in a boat and rode around the canals of the city. They loved it. (Me too.)
On Monday the weather was extremely cold (come on, maximum temperature of 7.1°C in May…), so I went to work and they went to Brussels, but at the end of the day, we had a great dinner in De Kansel. (Nota bene: new bear taste – Steenbrugge Blond.) And I gave them the best Neuhaus pralines I have ever tasted as a present. On Tuesday, we only met at lunch (again in Domus, so my mother finally tasted my favorite waffle with the warm cherries…), then after some shopping (e.g. cycling bag for my mother’s bike) they flew back to Hungary :(
I am very happy that they came. And I have no idea when will be the next time we see each other. It may not happen before Christmas… But for the near future, I really hope my brother can come somewhen during the summer, because I miss him too ;) Oh, and last but not least, my parents brought me some bottles of high quality Hungarian wine, home-made cake (thanks Mom!), Túró Rudi (check Wikipedia) and a Hungarian Apple keyboard – which makes blogging (ok, writing in general) much easier :) So thanks for all!
Making the comic strip triumviratus complete (with PhD Comics and Yehuda Moon) I present you my most recent discovery, the Happysad series from Jeroen. (He – I mean the author – is a Belgian guy, and guess what, he lives in Leuven!) I love it. Any resemblance to my life is purely coincidental. Do not worry, I am just fine :)
I had no plans for the last weekend, so when I saw that one of my colleagues was looking for company to go to the coast, I decided to join her. It has been a long time since I saw the see (if it is from an airplane, that does not count), so I thought it’s just about the right time to go, and a nice, calm, restful weekend would be really good after all the active, sports-filled Saturdays and Sundays I had recently. We left Leuven on Friday evening, and took the train to Ieper via Brussels (accompanied by all the students heading home for the weekend – this is the reason why Leuven is so empty during weekends and holidays). After a loud welcome from all the dogs around the house in Elvire’s hometown (note: thanks for the hospitality, which made things much easier!), I had my longest sleep in several weeks time. There was no rush at all… (I like being active, but I can enjoy the “just not doing anything” state too :D)
On Saturday, we were just lying in the garden enjoying the warm sunshine (and the great pasta Elvire made for lunch) before we left to the coast on the afternoon. I was not even aware of the fact that the main reason for visiting the coast was the Dranouter aan Zee festival, which took place on these days in De Panne. (Small side-note again: Flanders is generally flat, and we have plains in Hungary, but this part of Belgium is the prime example of a flat region.)
As my experiences from the past are not the best from these kind of concerts, I was a bit afraid inside how I would feel myself there, but then everything turned out to be pretty much just perfect (and sometimes even freakin’ cool :D) – if you do not count that we spent a lot of time standing in the wrong queue when we wanted to buy the tickets, but we always had something to talk about, so that was not a real issue at all. Before we jumped into the concerts we had a short walk on the beach, and I am sure that I would like to go back somewhen because there is even a nature reserve nearby at the French border, where you can walk in the dune grasslands which are so typical for this area.
As real Belgians did, we ate fries and I drank some beer too (nothing special, just a Maes – but still it is a new kind in my “collection”) between the performances. And one of the nicest things was that you could see the see itself from within the concert tent! It was a bit surreal, looking back towards the entrance, see the silhouettes of all the people behind you in the backlight, and then the horizon marked by the see in the distance behind them… I really liked it.
So we started with the second half of Balthazar, a Belgian band (luckily singing in English), playing mainly indie pop-rock. They were quite good, there is definitely a potential in them. Here is a video clip from their debuting album (far not the best piece of music they have, but that’s all I can show here).
The next one was Jasper Erkens, a damn young Belgian boy with his guitar and great voice. In some songs he had another guy on his side playing on a cello – those were the best ones, it’s a shame I can not find anything like that on YouTube… (But in this video you can see the city of Leuven for some seconds ;D)
Then came (one of) the iconic band(s) of Belgium: Daan. His (their) “show” was much more professional, with songs ranging from beat and electronic to the more recent pop-rock styled ones. It was truly energizing…
Then after a short break (of fries and coke) we listened to the first songs of Arid, then jumped over the Clubtent to catch the concert of Katzenjammer. They are 4 girls from Oslo (Norway), and their music is – how to say – different :D But in a really lovely way. Their instruments are cool (and I am in love with musical instruments – the Belgians whit whom I went to Sweden can tell, that the Musikmuseet was my favorite in Stockholm), they interact with the audience, and they really get you in the mood (and they are crazy :D)! Even I was jumping, waving and clapping my hands, singing along when I could during the show, and people who know me can tell, that this is not happening on every concert… But they were cool!!! This was the best part of the night.
To close the day, we went back to the Concerttent for the concert of Arno. It was a bit of a disappointment, because as an evening-closing concert you would expect the best band to be on stage, but this was not the case on this Saturday…
At the end, we stayed a bit in the Clubtent where two DJs made the beat for those who still had enough energy to move, but I think I was not one of them… So we left after a quarter, drove back and slept till midday on Sunday. We came back to Leuven on the afternoon after a nice walk with the dogs (I think they really liked me by the end of the weekend). This was really the first weekend since the start of my PhD, when I had no scheduled plans, no internet connection and e-mails, when I just went with someone and let things to happen independent of my will (but of course not against it). And I enjoyed it! I felt completely charged up (both physically and mentally) when I arrived home. (Though my physical energy level dropped significantly after the floorball practice on Sunday evening.) I should have these calm weekends more often (also because my sport activities are usually quite lonely…).
