Antwerp

Yesterday (Wednesday the 18th.. apparently I didn’t publish this blog yesterday) I went to Antwerp (Belgium) with 3 studymates/friends. It’s only a 2 hour train ride from Utrecht and it only cost us €9,20 because we can travel for free in the Netherlands. So we only had to pay from to border to Antwerp, yay! And because our tickets weren’t checked on the ride, we can go again before the 17th of June! Hopefully we will…
When we arrived at the station it was a bit rainy, not a lot, but we thought ‘uh oh..’. Luckily it started to get better soon and at times even the sun showed herself, which was really lovely. First we walked through the main street, with a lot of stores (mostly the same ones as in the Netherlands), but we didn’t come for shopping luckily! We walked past the Ruben’s house, to make a further walk into town. Lots of lovely streets, it all felt really different than at home. More relaxed or something, no hecticness and people didn’t seem to be as much in a hurry as we are used to.
We walked to the ‘Our Lady’s Cathedral’ at the Groenmarkt (Greenmarket). We went insid, because there are a couple of works from Rubens, very famous ones. It was a really nice Cathedral, gothic style. I always love the windows (I don’t know what they’re called in English, please tell me), even though I’m not religious at all. The other three girls all found it a bit bizarre to realise you’re walking on graves of people who have died centuries ago. Somehow it never really bothers me. After we’d admired the paintings from Rubens we left the Cathedral again to walk to some other famous streets and places and then we decided to visit the Ruben’s house.

It was his real house (from Peter Paul Rubens, ‘the elder’), with some pieces of the chambers still intact. He made some really good paintings I think. I definitely don’t like all of them, but he also had some pieces of furniture that were so lovely, I wish I could’ve taken them home with me! After we visited his house,w e went to his garden. Some garden! So nice with all the different kinds of flowers and some statues. The sun was shining so we sat on a bench in the garden for a while.

After that visit we went to the main street again to get a delicious Belgian waffle!! I got one with whipped cream, mmmm so lovely!! A nice warm waffle with whipped cream, oh yes, I think that’s really something you can wake me up for in the middle of the night!
With our waffles we walked to a park and there we sat on a bench for an hour or so. Just chatting, enjoying the sun and taking pics. I still need to upload them, maybe I’ll post one on here.

After the lovely break in the park we went to the main street again to find some Belgian pralines! My housemate D asked me if I could get him 2 pure pralines and my friend H wanted to get some pralines for her boyfriend, since it was their 3rd anniversary yesterday. When we found a Leonidas, we still had to make a choice out of all the different kind of pralines. The lady in the store was helping two women and when I overheard them talking I thought ’shit, they’re talking Hungarian!’. So I shuffled for a bit and decided to ask if they really were Hungarian and yes! So the oldest lady asked me if I was too, but no, but I could say that my grandmother was! Then she asked me where she lives, but unfortunately I don’t know the word for ‘dead’ or ‘passed away’, so the oldest lady’s daughter (who also spoke Dutch) could translate it for me. ‘T was really nice to finally practice a little bit of my Hungarian!

When H and I had paid for our pralines we decided it was time to eat. Not far from where we were they had some nice little restaurants and we decided to eat at an Italian. Ugh, there were a lot of waiters standing outside trying to get people in. ‘Oh, beautiful models, table for 4? Come in!’. I HATE that kind of waiters and they give Italian men a bad name I think. Yuck. Oh well, aside from some ‘har har’ jokes from the waiter (why do they always feel the need to impress us?), the food was really nice. I had a pizza Hawaii, yummy.

H and V didn’t want to make it too late (boooring!), so A and I had to go along with them. We already had the train back at 19:33… Oh well, it had been quite a long day and my feet were definitely aching, so it was nice to sit down for a while. I arrived in Utrecht at around 21:45, but then I still had to catch the bus, so I was in my room at 22:15. I couldn’t wait to take off my shoes and I lay in bed at 23:30! So early for me!

All in all it was a really nice day, I enjoyed spending time with my studymates and I got to hear the complete story of A’s new boytoy haha. No, it’s probably going to be serious, he sounds like a really nice guy. She still had to tell me everything, so I’m all up to date again.

“You’ve got such beautiful eyes”

Boy, yesterday was enervating!!
After I made breakfast I put the stuff I had used back in the refrigerator, but then I noticed the light of the fridge was off. Hmm, strange. Mentioned it to mum and stepfather, they also thought ‘hmm strange’. Then someone wanted to get something from the living room closet and turned on the light, but it didn’t turn on. U-oh, bye bye power downstairs. Let’s try upstairs, nope, no power their either. So it must be an electricity disturbance. Fun! It  happened around 11 o’clock. Also bye bye warm water, so no shower for me!
My stepfather went to the bakery and supermarket to see what it was like there (well, and because we needed bread and other stuff). Also no electricity in the stores! Lovely. The supermarket (the same kind I work at) was already closed, but the bakery was still open, the employers had to count by heart again..

In the mean time I decided to text some co-workers, to see what it was like at work, if they also didn’t have electricity, because I had to start at 13:00. No electricity there either, we were closed!! Woohooo I thought! But I still made myself ready to go there.
And then, around a quarter past 12 the electricity was back. Aww… so I arrived at work around 12:45, we were still closed by then and some co-workers were re-starting the registers. By the time I had to start we went open again The rest of the day was super hectic because of all that. Some people were in the middle of a transaction when the electricity fell off, so they had to leave their groceries to come back later.

That’s not all though, oh no! Around 15:30 a co-worker from the bakery came to me with an old lady who lost her purse with her wallet and groceries. Her story kept changing though. First she said her purse had been stolen, then she thought she had lost it on her way home (she already had gone home and there she realised she didn’t have her purse anymore and came back to the store) and then she thought she had left it in our store. So I called the manager to see if he could do anything. She was really distressed and started to cry. So sad. I was at the tobacco counter so I didn’t catch up n the whole story. A couple of minutes later the manager called me and asked if I would want to walk home with the lady, because he had the feeling that her purse would be right at home, in the hallway or something. She seemed a bit confused. But just in case he gave me a phone number for blocking your cards, in case the purse wasn’t at home after all.
So off we went. She was old and couldn’t walk fast, she had a rollator. It was fucking hot outside, so I was glad I had taking my jacket off (also for more obvious reasons hehe). She didn’t live far from the store, it took us about 10 minutes I think. In the mean time I got to know the lady a little bit. Normally she doesn’t go grocery shopping in the middle of a Saturday, it’s all so busy and hectic then. But she was going to be picked up by her son and she wanted to get something nice for the coffee (like a cake or something). I thought she might lived in an old folks home, but it appeared she still lived in a normal house, even with stairs! She did get help with cleaning though, but I was quite impressed she still lived there, as I found out later she was almost 86!
Well, we finally arrived at her house, the moment of truth. We went inside, no purse in the hallway. On to the kitchen and YES!!!!! There was the purse with her groceries!! Aww man, the lady started to cry and hugged me and kissed me. She was so out of it, I walked her to her couch and got a glass of water for her, so she could calm down. Wow, so sad! It was the first time something like this had happened to her, so it was a big scare. She still cried for a while, but also kept expressing how happy and grateful she was that  her purse was at home. She still had her wits with her though, because she said to me that she hoped that people wouldn’t think she was a crazy old lady or something hehe. I asked if I had to call her son for her, but that wasn’t necessary as he would stop by her house not long from then.  After she had calmed down, we went to the kitchen to check if everything was in her purse, just to make sure. Luckily everything was still there. Then she checked her wallet and said she wanted to give me a little something (50 eurocent), but I said that although I really appreciated the kind offer, I couldn’t take it and that I was jut lad that her purse was at home, with everything in it. Then she hugged and kissed me again, looked me in the eyes and said “oh and you have such beautiful eyes!” Aww *blushes*
I told her to take it easy for the day and to enjoy the rest of the weekend and then it was time for me to go again. Luckily the way to the supermarket wasn’t too complicated, so I could find it back easily. The hotness irked me though and I forgot to grab my sunglasses, but I made it back

The rest of the work day was just fun with my co-workers.

At the car wash

And another week has passed. Shall I tell about allllll the things I have done? Yes? Ok, if you really want to know:

I didn’t to a thing!!!!!!!!!! Just sat on my ass in front of the computer all day. Except for some eating, some grocery shopping, some Hungary class, some gift shopping and some birthday party of a housemate.

*yawn*

So tonight after dinner my mum and I finally decided to go look for a car wash near us. Just 5 minutes away from us we found one, yay! My mum was super scared to have to be in the car while it gets washed, but at the gas station they made sure you don’thave to stay in the car, it would actually be better if you didn’t. I still had to park the car in the actual wash thing though, she’s such a wuss! Blah blah, we got a ticket and then there were 2 people in front of us (on a Friday night…). Finally it was our turn, my mum already got out of the car, so I had to clear the job on my own! I was a bit shaky at first, but I parked the wheel right, so I could leave the car and enter the number.
And then the process  began! Fascinating I must say, and the car became cleaner and cleaner.
That was that really… cool to know how this works now!

Good night.

Time off

Time off sure is nice! I guess… I can’t help but thinking it will be over really soon, 2 weeks from now I’ll have classes again.

In the mean time I will go to Antwerp on the 18th, I have two birthday parties and my dad will have dinner at my place some time next week.

I didn’t do much with Easter, just ate quite some (coloured) eggs and last night we (mum+stepfather+I) went bowling. My right arm is really painful, because on Sunday I had already made a lot of repetitive movements with that arm, like cleaning a garden table and at night grating cheese! So my right underarm looks twice as big as my left underarm haha.

Oh well, I guess I should get dressed and pack my stuff so I can go to Utrecht to take care of the fish of my housemate.