Ola, So I finished up working at the Mission on August 14th, and I felt like a vacation was necessary. I decided that I would head to Spain for a couple of weeks. I flew into Madrid on Sunday morning, and then took the train to Zaragoza. Zaragoza is located in the north east of the country on the Ebro River and it was founded by Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar. I arrived in town and checked into the hostel. The hostel was cool, especially the basement bar. The basement bar is the only surviving part from the Inquisitor’s house when he lived there during the 16th century. It was made of brick and consisted of vaulted ceilings and was a great place to enjoy a drink. I walked around town for the rest ... read more

Bonjour et Hallo, As some of you know, I can be a bit of a masochist at times. I guess I should put that in context first. I try to see as much as I possibly can when I’m travelling and I am beginning to run out of time in Belgium so I woke up very early (the day after visiting Vimy Ridge) and joined by room mates Cris and Mirjam for a trip to Maastricht and Tongeren. We slept on the train most of the way to Liege, where we would have to transfer trains. We had a bout 20 minutes at the station, which was great for me because the station was designed by my favourite architect Santiago Calatrava. It is a flowing structure; bright surfaces, glass and very welcoming. I was in paradise ... read more

Bonjour, Another little Brussels update. The day I flew back from France, July 21st, was also the National Day in Belgium. I had forgotten about it until the flight attendants made an announcement on the plane that they would be handing out chocolates in celebration. It was quite funny actually as they made the announcement in three languages. There were many cheers on the plane after the French announcement (I was one of them because I understood the French), then there more after the Flemish announcement and then the remaining holdouts cheered after the English announcement. I dropped my stuff off at my house and then fought what seemed like all of Brussels in order to get on to the metro to head back downtown to the celebrations. I got off at Gare Central and wandered ... read more

Bonjour, I’ve been reading through the blog, and I’ve realized that I haven’t said much about my general life in Brussels recently so I will try to give you a scintillating version of things over the last couple of weeks. There has been quite the transition in the house I am living in. At the end of June, many people moved out including Claire, Malou, Christina, Natalia and Lucia. Monica stayed here though, so the transition was a little easier because we each knew someone. We had some cake. Well, let me rephrase that. We had one cake and one mess. Natalia, although usually a fantastic baker, forgot the little necessity of sugar that is fundamental to a cake. That and it was undercooked. So, imagine if you will a raw, doughy mass of baking. We ... read more

Hey, So I was getting bored of Brussels. It had been stiflingly hot for a couple of weeks (29 degrees and 90% humidity) and I decided that I needed to get out of town. I felt like going somewhere near the water, so I decided that Malta would be a great choice. I hopped on the train to the airport and after it picked me up I felt a little ill at ease. I was thinking to myself that it was odd that it was a double-decker train heading to the airport. I also thought it was odd that the TV screen by the platform had switched to a different train name just before I had got on the train. I asked a woman who was sitting across from me in French where the train was ... read more