Back to the… past (for a change) – Part III: Stay at the seaside

What can I tell you that's worth sharing about my holiday in my favourite coastal town?

First I arrived there on 30 June, in the evening. We went there by car, my parents were just staying that night because they had to take care of Curtis (our cat) the following days. From 1 July to 6 July I rode my bicycle with my uncle and my brother on the smooth and safe coastal roads, and it was great fun: 300 km in total. I could have ridden a little bit more if there had been less wind and rain.

Apart from that, I saw a dozen of new Belgian licence plates, i.e. three digits preceding three letters, such as:

This one was the very first one I saw, hence the picture. Such plates are given out by the DIV (Direction pour l'Immatriculation des Véhicules / Dients voor de Inschrijving van de Voertuigen) since 25 June, but just for car owners that apply for a plate via the Internet. Plates with the now older code (e.g. YRJ-983, the newest plate I've seen so far) are still issued in local DIV offices. If, like me, you prefer that older code, you know what to do if you want to get one. I'll tell you more about these new plates in a forthcoming blog entry.

On 4 July (Independence Day, I know) my brother and I decided to go to Knokke. In Zeebrugge we got to see this amazingly huge ship:

We couldn't resist going to the "Place M'as-tu-vu" (as we nickname it, instead of Place Albert) and act as chavs in the middle of obviously rich people wearing white trousers and shirts with awful pink stripes. We ate a "Luikse wafel" and made silly comments about the city. I was surprised by the number of vanity plates I had seen, e.g. SAY·007, IJS-101, GRA-004, TM-865, OOO-200, RAP-001, BOB-004, etc. "Spekje voor m'n bekje", as I can recall from Konnex.

Notice the yellow stickers with a Flemish lion on both our bikes…

We also saw an old Russian submarine that we visited some ten years ago in Zeebrugge harbour. Admire this symbol of the communist warefare!

Another day, I saw this interesting vanity plate:

Maybe the owner works for Toys'r us or something…

An interesting photo for trainspotters: 78 + 13 + 16 (these numbers representing the locomotive's type, or, as we say, the "series").

Well that's about all I have to tell about my trip. I'm already looking forward to my next stay at the Belgian (or should I say "Flemish"?) seaside.

Back to the… past (for a change) – Part II: Results

On 27 June we had the opportunity to take the train to go to Ypres for a bike excursion organised by Prof Mettewie, Mrs Lievens and Mr Van Mensel. Most of us took the train in Namur and we arrived some three hours later in Ypres. We visited the In Flanders Fields museum, which focuses on the different origins of soldiers who fought during the First World War. Later we took a bike and visited several places such as graveyards, riding along canals. We were back in Namur For more details (and pictures) about this excursion, I refer you to the unofficial germanistes blog, germanamur.skyrock.com.

On 28 June we were "kindly invited" to go to the faculty to get our exam results. Just like a year ago (time flies!) the L4 room was crowded with students and parents — let alone the teachers. First the names of the first year students who had passed: out of the 45 students that had taken the exams, only 13 of them had passed — which is not a surprise: same rate as last year. Then the three deparment heads gave the names of those who woudn't have to resit exams in August. Fortunately I was amongst them. Here is my full results:

Formation générale
Critique historique : 15
Initiation à une troisième langue étrangère moderne
Stylistique et maîtrise de la langue allemande I : 17
Approches linguistiques
Stylistique et maîtrise de la langue anglaise II : 14
Stylistique et maîtrise de la langue néerlandaise II : 15
Linguistique anglaise II : 18
Lingisitique néerlandaise II : 16
Approches littéraires
Histoire des littératures et des civilisations anglophones II : 16
Histoire des littératures et des civilisations néerlandophones II : 18
Analyse de textes littéraires néerlandophones II : 18
Formation générale à caractère philologique
Linguistique générale (en anglais et en néerlandais) : 15
Théorie littéraire : 16
Résultat : Grande Distinction
Moyenne : 16,18/20
Les crédits correspondant aux activités d'apprentissage de programme de cette année d'étude sont octroyés par le jury.

That's it. I was sure I wouldn't get the greatest fulfilment: it's really difficult to get four times 18/20. Next year it'll be totally unthinkable to get the greatest fulfilment: you need to have an average of 17…

After getting my marks I stayed on the fifth floor to talk with fellow students. Later in the day I went with some friends to a pub in order to have a drink. After that, we went to Mellet, where Melissa had organised a party to raise money for her Erasmus stay in Leuven.

Join me tomorrow for the account on my stay in Westende!

Back to the… past (for a change) – Part I: Barcelona

Let's go for the account on the first part of my holiday: my tip to Spain with Elodie, my "significant other", as would one of my professors write. ;)

First I had to wake up at 3 am to get ready and go to Brussels Airport by 4.30 am to check in. Thanks to Elodie's parents, we arrived just on time and after checking in we waited in the huge terminal, from which a bus took us to the airplane. Since a passenger hadn't shown up to get into the plane, his or her luggage had to be removed, so we had to wait for an extra 20 minutes before taking off.

Two hours later we landed in Barcelona. Due to a pitiful lack of information we didn't know we had to go to terminal A to get our luggage back, while we were in terminal B… After going through security gates and "talked" to several policemen (I use inverted commas because they hardly know a word of English, and since Spanish is like gibberish to me, communication was hampered), we finally found our luggage, approximately two hours after landing…

Anyway, we had plenty of time at our disposal. It was just unpleasant not to be able to find where our luggage was. Fortunately, everything's well that ends well, so let's forget about that. We took the bus to the city centre, then we headed for our hotel, Barcelona Cathedral, right in the "old city". We unpacked and then went our to get some food:

Yep, we found a Quick restaurant not very far from our hotel. The taste of the "Giant" (my favourite hamburger) was identical. The Coke they gave us, however, tasted awful. Moreover, I took an interesting photograph: I noticed that the cleaning ladies use Dutch (!) signs to warn people that the floor is slippery! (Note that Prof. Mettewie was really amazed when I showed her the picture.)

After that we got back to the hotel and later in the afternoon we went out for a walk in the narrow streets of the old Barcelona. The next day we got up pretty early and we took a metro to go to Barcelona's most famous building: the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece.

Usually I hate churches, but I wanted to see this one for its architectural qualities. I was amazed to see all the different techniques that were specially invented to build this monument.

I'm looking forward to seeing this cathedral when it's completed, probably in 2026. It's a brilliant effort to find new ways to build seemingly impossible structures, but I regret that it was done with a religious aim in mind.

After eating at a nearby KFC restaurant (yummy!) we went to a really pleasant park where we relaxed some time.

We also went to the harbour, a commercial mall (not my idea) and to several other places. The next day (i.e. 25 June) we went to Barceloneta, the city's beach, where thousands of people were either sunbathing or playing or sleeping or walking.

We also went to the aquarium, but I was relatively disappointed: I had to pay 16 euro… just for myself! So 16 other euro for Elodie… Outrageous! Inside the building the fish and other sea creatures were all right, with even a conveyor belt in a glass tunnel to let us wonder about sharks and whatever fish — but it was nothing to write home about. Well, I just did, but… Oh, forget about that.

Later we went to the Park Güell (also designed by Gaudí) where I took some nice pictures of the city.

Unfortunately, I ran out of battery power so you (and I, obviously) won't get any pictures from the splendid main terrace, "surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent" (as said in the Wikipedia entry).

On the last day of our trip we didn't get up very early, so we had to rush to pack things up and leave the room before 12 o'clock. We went for a walk and we ate at a McDonald's (don't worry, we also ate local food on other occasions) and in the afternoon we stayed close to our hotel. We took the bus round 6 pm to go to the airport. We waited a bit, checked in and we took off soon after the semi-final of the European football championship, opposing Spain to Russia, began. We landed in Brussels at 11 pm and got our luggage back without any trouble. Who said everything was more complicate in Belgium?

In conclusion, this was a fantastic trip which I spent with a most delightful person, my beloved one who I'll never thank enough for these wonderful four days. I'm already looking forward to our next trip!

Back to the… past (for a change) – Part 0: preview

Oh, come on! It's been weeks that I haven't posted anything on this endless blog and I thought I'd read some words of support and encouragement when I'd come back… Well, once again I was too naive: I received just one comment. Same thing for my two other blogs (germanamur.skyrock and the outrageous one). Please send me some feedback: it's always nice to hear from you!

Now, after this "coup de gueule", let's rejoice because I've got a lot to tell you about what happened between the previous post and today's. I'll divide the events into three episodes (you know I love trilogies, and as was hinted in the heading): first I'll tell you about my trip to Barcelona (Spain), then I'll have a word about 28 July, when we all got the results for our exams, and finally I'll account on my stay at the seaside (more precisely in Westende). I think I've quite a lot to write about all that, but fortunately I've a lot of time to spend on that! I LOOOOOVE HOLIDAYYYYYYYYS!!!

Ok folks, after a whole month being smashed under piles of course notes, it's now time for me to take a well-deserved break. Don't worry, I'll come back soon to tell you about the beginning of my holiday and supply you with dozens of silly videos! Meanwhile, don't hesitate to go into my post archives (scroll down and look on the bright side of life, er, no, right side of the blog…). See you!

Mid-term Report

The end of July. Already. Yeah… Just a month left to sleep till midday. Oh no, wait, the university only opens on 17 September (!)— and that's just for ceremonial purposes, but I'll be there, in order to welcome the rookies. The next day, we've just got to show up for kind of a speech from our "chieves", Professor Delabastita and Professor Leijnse, but also to buy the syllabi. And the lectures only start on 19 September. It's quite a relief.

Apart from that, I'm fine. I'm done with classifying my lecture notes, my notebooks and syllabi. (Putting all that on a bonfire would have been much more easy, but not really clever.) Everything is finally packed up. It took me almost, say, six hours in all to do that, but I like things to be done perfectly. At least, next year, when my "filleul(e)" (i.e. godson or goddaughter, i.e. a protégé at school or university) gets my lecture notes and all that (valuable) stuff, (s)he'll find whatever (s)he wants. While I was tidying up my old stuff, I read bunch of papers that I had completely forgotten. The "Delete button" in my memory works perfectly: for instance, everything I knew about Plato, Kant and Descartes had been wiped out, erased, obliterated. And yet, I got 18 at the exam. The exams are just something to test us on a (vast) subject on a particular day — for the next day, it's all gone! The pedagogic system is sometimes weird.

"I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide" (Gandalf the White, The Two Towers)

Yep, I've come back from holiday. I'm slowly recovering from two weeks without the Internet, so don't expect me to write a lot in this blog for the next week. Of course, I'll give you a summary of my stay in Westende and I'll tell you about my trips on my bicycle (roughly 450 km, that is to say three times as much as last summer!). Besides, I still have to tell you about my exams, even if it is possible for you to read my results below.

Watch this little gem (from the Monty Python's Holy Grail)

Goodmorning, Middelkerke!

We used to have a week of holiday on the first week of November. It's no more, because the "great" university wits think that we don't need these those days off. Enough criticism for now. As I was just saying, we used to go spending one day or two at the seaside in a really small flat of Middelkerke that my uncle (the minigolf freak) had rented from a guy that he knows, M. Haverlant. This time, I think I was with my parents and my brother, and we got up so early that we managed to watch the sun going up on West Vlaanderen. Nice, isn't it? Normally I should go back to the seaside one day during the Easter (so-called)break, just the time to take a deep breath of the coastal air, eat a half chicken, walk and go back to where I live, a village where it never snows and where Dutch farmers throw their manure… (Poetic).

Disgusting, Wretched Pidgeons of Paris

I know I already said that I went to Paris in April 2005 with the school, but I went there again in August. Apart from being a special trip during the holiday, this would give the opportunity for me to show to my family a shop not so far away from Notre-Dame, a real "Cave of Ali-Baba" (if this rings a bell, because I don't know if this idiom is correct) in which you find all sorts of collectibles over Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, comics, mini-figures, books, cards, etc.
Anyway, our day started by the visit of the Arche de la Défense, a huge square building with a hollow in it (google it). As we were having a break, eating bread, pidgeons came to us, begging us to give them some of our food. They were so wretched that I couldn't resist. And I took these pictures, where you can see some of the most ugly pidgeons in the world. (I know, it's silly to take photographs of that, but still.)

21 July 2005 in Brussels: The Atomium

As of 2004, we decided to go to Brussels every 21 July. And so, in 2005, we were back. The day usually starts with the going to Brussels with the car (about 75 minutes), then we stop not far away from the Atomium in order to buy fries at the well-known chip-shop (or as we say in Belgium "fritkot"). The fact is that you've got to be there at 11.30, otherwise there's a queue of 30 people (quite often Chinese or Italians) waiting for their "authentic Belgian fries". The best part of it is that we eat in the car, while seeing ravens which come, hoping that we give them something—if not, they eat trash from the chip-shop.
As to the Atomium, it was still being repaired in 2005, but the next year, it'll be brand new, as you will see in a next post. A mending was highly necessary for this (other) Iron Lady of 1958.

Le Mont-Saint-Michel

In July 2005, my parents, my brother and I went to the North-West side of France, just to see how it looked like. So we went to see the beaches of Omaha, etc., then to the West. We arrived at this well-known place, the Mont-Saint-Michel, an island (sort of) on which a monastry is set, in addition to thousands of shops for tourists coming from all over the world in order to see this curious city which gave the inspiration for the visual look of Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Help This Man!

Oh no! A skydiver is hanged on a church… But… Wait! He's got an old American uniform… A G.I.? In France, in Sainte-Mère-l'Eglise?
No, of course. This is just a fake one. This is a reference to what happened on 6 June, 1945: the American forces started their invasion (I think it is) of Normandy in order to kick the German's asses out of France. Skydivers were part of the "show", and one of them, probably blind, didn't manage to avoid the church—there was room everywhere, but still. Being hung there during the whole fight, this soldier became deaf due to the ringing bells (I'm not sure this word is appropriate). This anecdote was reported in the film The Longest Day, with (among others) John Wayne, Sean Connery… and Bourvil (for the local colour).

My Uncle, Great (Mini)Golfer

Once again a photograph taken on holiday, in Westende. This is (again) my uncle posing as a specialist of minigolf. Usually, when my uncle, my brother and I go and have a game of minigolf, my brother wins the first holes, but gets 7 points for the other, so that he always loses—and my uncle wins, of course. This minigolf of the center of Westende is quite good, in comparison with that in Oostende, in the park, where the little houses have burnt or are movable, or the holes are filled with grass, etc. Anyway, it's always great fun to go to a minigolf with my uncle.

My Brother Buys My Uncle A Drink (Extraordinary)

My brother is pretty cheap. So, when he finally decides to (generously) buy us a drink after we accomplished a 10-kilometres walk, I decided to immortalize that event. In fact, he had just enough coins to buy a drink to me and to himself, and not my uncle… Hence the ironic comments…

Coastal Tramways

The Belgian (Flemish) coast is known for its tramways—which underwent a modernization lately, so that they are longer and can sit more and more "white heads" (i.e. old people). (Everything is new in Flanders; while Wallonia is rather derelict, as if we were still in the 1950s.) This view was taken in front of the Middelkerke Casino.