Crave.

I miss Leuven, so so much.

There isn't a day that goes by without me thinking of my lovely little room in 17 Ierse Predikherenstraat.

And running in the wind in my blue tracksuit to Origin O' Leuven to get my fix of organic chocolate and hummus.

And walking up Naamsestraat to get tofu and oyster sauce from the Asian supermarket.

And getting plastic-bag burns from hurling all my grocery shopping back from Delhaize @ Heverlee.

And bringing my bound readings and a highlighter to the laundromat and (making an attempt at) reading while waiting for my laundry to be done.

And "ein warme waffle, austublieft!" choruses I'd echo each day at the stall on Dieststraat.

And running on gravel and grass in the tiny park down the hill.

And the dreary wooden doors of the auditorium.

And the gothic structures on every surface.

And my heart skipping a beat while walking in the rain to the train station to pick the visiting boyfriend up. All the while worrying about whether the banana cake I'd baked for him was cooling well by the window sill.

And the rain, oh pitter patter.

I want to be there. Be home. Be there, and not here.

Home!

And so it is, just like you said it would be

I'm the sort of person who begins things never thinking of the end; or that the end will come anytime soon, for that matter.

But it's been six months and tonight is my final night in Leuven.

The floors have been scrubbed, the photos peeled off the wall, the fridge emptied, the bags packed. Everything's ready for its vertrek, it's departure; everything except for me.

I don't want to say goodbye. I don't know how to bid this perfect life farewell full-knowing I will never have it again.


Can't take my mind off you

3 working days, nay?

I have;

:no chargers so my handphone AND camera are both dead and gone.
:no toothbrush. 'Nuff said.
:no toiletries. Zip, nada, nothing.
:no access to the anti-itch histamine cream I so desperately need for them damned rashes.
:no access to any of the stuff I so gleefully picked up at the Spanish summer sale.
:no way of going to Amsterdam.
:no idea if I am ever going to get my LV bags returned.
:no idea if I will retrieve the birthday present I got for Lulu.
:none of the memories I picked up while travelling.


He has;

:no Eurail pass, so ditto, no Amsterdam.
:no shirts. (So thank God for the 10Euro section at Springfield's)
:nothing to sleep in. (And thank God for my Dutch flatmates)
:no credit card.
:no money.
:no Barca memorabilia.
:none of the stuff he picked up at the Spanish summer sale.
:no idea if he will get his Balenciaga wallet back.
:none of the magnets he collected from every city we visited.


We have;
:no idea why they lost our baggage.
:no idea whether our baggage is still in Barca or en-route to like, Malaga.
:no idea when we will get it back.
:no sodding person in the Spanish Airport telling us anything.
:every reason to be pissed off.

Hot couture

Hola mi amigos!

Seville is a beautiful town and its architecture is so lush and decadent but the heat, the heat! It sticks to your skin and there's really no way to get rid of it when your hostel puts you up in a room that casts serious doubts on the issue of ventilation.

We've been mucking around at night because it's just too hot to do anything. I suppose this is all good now that I only have 12 days more before I return home to (even) muckier Singapore and I best be prepared for the tropics.

Second-largest might not be second-best

So today we arrive on Portugese soil, a first for theboy and I. We had absolutely no inkling whatsoever about the language ('tis pretty serious when you arrive without knowing how to say 'Thank you' in the local language) and not much knowledge about the people and the culture.

But after half a day in Porto, the only thing that is definite about Portugal is the fact that it can be described in one word: Beautiful.

Taking the bus to the beach revealed bridges so high-up it felt like we were just midway between aeroplanes and the shore, an entire bus-side view of the ocean opening up as we were going at 90miles/hour, houses in stucco and sunwashed beige popping up like mushrooms amongst basil-like clumps of mountain vegetation... It kind of makes you lose words for a couple of minutes and then emerge from your thoughtfulness with a very intelligent Wahhh-wowww.

We picked the residential beach to begin our happy larking. I had to shout for theboy to hear me because the waves were crashing so hard on the rocks, and the water was a distinct blue-green. He ran like a young un to get his feet wet in the water, picking up conch shells and a particularly pretty rock that tickled his fancy. And I just lay on my beach towel lapping up some sun, my toes buried in a grainy mass of cool sand.

(Okay I realise the last paragraph sounded like a Joseph-Conrad-gone-happy piece of writing)

He actually opened a mussel to see what it looked like inside. And before doing so he approached me with a cautionary question: Do you think it will bite me?

Peas in a pod

Beso grande from Salamanca!



Universidad Salamanca has got to be the most beautiful university in the world. Romanesque columns and façades still fresh with a million engravings, none identical to the other. I think if I went to school here, I would voluntarily go to all my classes and sit in a corner just behind the Cathedral Vieja staring like an idiot at my beautiful beautiful school.

Tomorrow we go to Porto. And it will be 9 days before we land on Spanish soil again, but I already am feeling that familiar tug in my heart at having to leave Salamanca. Perhaps it´s largely due to the fact that this university town reminds me of Leuven more than any other town I've visited so far.

And that only reminds me about how much I don't want to leave Leuven. My little Leuven. Mine.

Ask me something else

I said goodbye to,

Heidi
Nath
Ruben
David
Kin Yew
Lucia
Groel
Stefanie
Ania
Mathilda
Nathan
Esther
Bram
Jan
Maarten
Hendrik ...
.
.
.

And it still doesn't get any easier the more times I bid yet another person farewell.



Where did all my borrowed time go?

Snippets

Okay I am officially the world's worst blogger because I have no coordination whatsoever over my pictures and sequence of experiences.

Not that I really care anyway. Hurr hurr.

But now, every single day I say goodbye to at least one person, local or Erasmus-stamped like me; and every farewell dinner I attend draws me closer to my own departure date, I do feel a little more urgency to chronicle my little life in this town I've called home the past 5 months.

So here goes nothing; snippets of Leuven over the past 2 days. I smell a series coming along.

-

A noise outside my door led to the discovery of a crumpled note and a can of Mae's. Ruben thought it would be too difficult to say goodbye face-to-face, but when I eventually ran down the street just in time to catch the boy and his backpack, he had tears in his eyes.

My favourite Belgian and second boyfriend he will always be.

-

And a dagschotel with Uncle Bob is never dull, especially when it involves ritzy vegetarian food.

Probably the best bread in the world!

Eh do you think I can ask for more?

If my girlfriend ate as much bread as you, I, errr, I... ...

Grilled seitan gratin.

Eh can I scrape your dish? I like the charred bits.

One for the book, neighbour!

-

A happy Nath sparklers on a chocolate cake maketh.

Did you know that when Nath was born, it was the longest day of the year? 20 hours!

So said her mother to the rest of us.

Singaporeans unfamiliar with the concept of Midsummer are quite prone to misunderstanding that that means it was quite difficult to give birth to her.

No I didn't speak that thought out loud. Thank heavens!

-
Post-Cecemel and pre-dinner afternoon walks home, seem to bode for quirky finds.

-

Origin O' Leuven; why did I not discover you sooner? Organic and vegan are right up my alley; I know I ain't both things, but I sure as hell can try. I am more than fascinated with seitan and hummus, and if you can make quiche taste kickass for half the calories, I'm sold.

What is this?

And what is this?

What about this?

What's in this?

Chocoladeknapper? Yes, this one!

Origins, you really shouldn't put your yummies behind a glass casing. Because I can see them. And I can ask questions. And I tend to enquire what ingredients you used to make them look so yummy. And I can't read Dutch so I need you to translate for me. And my indecisiveness increases the more delectable food porn is.

Oh god Celest, stawwwpp.

1989

Exams begone! I am a happy girl again.

And when I am happy, I post pictures.

These were taken at Michael's new-old apartment in Warsaw. New because he just moved in, old because it was built for the good people living at Służew during communist rule.

I was completely fascinated with the flat; it was like I was reading Siberian Dream all over again. You can't verbally describe something to be 'so communist', but you sure can feel it. Maybe it's in the uniformed layouts, the pale walls washed down in cheap paint, the Russian refrigerators, or the faux parquet sheets laid over concrete. I don't know; it just is.












And no, Michael didn't think me nutters for snapping pictures of everything in the line of my vision. I think he was just about as fascinated as I was; afterall he was only 4 when the Russians left Poland and took their food queues with them.

Faded with age; always remembered.

Przepraszam

Economics is not my forte. Never has been, and it never will be. Perfect markets and perfect information do not exist in any world, and I have never managed to excel in anything I have no ability to believe in or comprehend.

D'oh.

I'd rather be in a place not so far away from where I am now, sitting on a swivel chair watching episodes of Dilbert while munching on Princessa bars.

Even more so, I wouldn't mind long walks through parks sectioned in fields of green alongside grey tiles, most possibly procured even before the communist era.

Polska, you certainly have left yourself in my heart.

Where are Lucy's diamonds?

So they said goodbye, with a phonecall at 7:02 in the morning.

& already, they are sorely missed.

Mom, Dad, Celest, and a thousand different words

Well-thumbed, my sidekick, well-thumbed.

Mommy takes a bite of Belgium!

Back in Leuven, Rossi's nondescript interiors pack a mighty fine punch,

and if you don't believe me, you have to believe my pasta. The thinnest tagliatale ever known to man and black truffles, y'all!

and if you still don't believe me, you have to believe Roberto Benigni; he of La Bella Vita fame. He whose famous face is tacked up on the wall behind that of my famous father.

Hell, if Rossi's is good enough for Benigni, it's good enough for me.

But okay, there's always a rotten apple in every basket. Here, my mother's dinner demonstrates that fact quite well. All that glistens is not gold; and in this case, it's oil.

Besides that little glitch and the mad scramble all day, I sit here feeling on top of the world :)

HAPPY IS MY NAME!

Zee parental unit is here! I'm the happiest girl in the world!! Mom burrowed me into a monster of a hug at the train station and I couldn't stop talking the entire time after that, a close competitor to Mommy because she had even more to tell me!

And looky at Mommy's loot from Paris!

A-hem! Add 3 Longchamp bags to that and errrr.... well I think you can just say that I am my mother's daughter! I was beyond ecstatic when she pulled the bags out of their velvet casings.

Beeeeeeeyond ecstatic, I tell you!

And Mommy got me a present too! Longchamp I love you! Mommy I love you even more!!

The tin, not just the packet!

It's 0215 in the morning. My textbook is more wide-open than my eyes are.

But all I can think about is


Why Umami, why!

Lithuanian cuisine

I am quite familiar with the smell of tuna; I use it quite often in the quick-fix pasta meals I make.


But judging from the smell that is wafting through the house now, it appears that my flatmate has done gone and grilled an entire ton of tuna, sprinkled it with an over-generous heap of salt and then left it in the oven to bake for 10 hours.

Because some things don't require words at all

Auschwitz

He could have been somebody's grandfather.

Birkenau

Some places you go will stay burrowed in your heart and mind; for as long as your memory doesn't fail you.