The blog is back!

The world has turned, and a new season brings a new city: Brussels, ma belle, has charmed me back to the Francophone world for a summer fling of surrealism and praline. As such, now feels like a good place to try and resume this blog - after my shameful radio silence from Uppsala, that is. Another incentive to write comes from the good pupils of Dyce Academy's language department, who now apparently read my ramblings on teacher's orders. Hello you poor souls!

So, why Brussels? For those of you who don't know, I was desperately trying to get an EU-related internship here to make good use of my final summer before applying for a postgrad degree. However, competition is fierce and it would seem that this plan has now failed (although I'm still applying like a good'un!) - the catch being that I had already signed a contract for a room in the city. So, here I am, with a rented room, a grant and no job, floating around the continent on other people's money once again. Woo!

The plan is to find some work - any work - and make the most of living fifteen minutes from the EU by doing research for my dissertation. However, while the job search is still in progress and I await permission to enter the EU's archives, my days are my own - and what better place to have time to kill than in a city like this?

I arrived last night, laden with bags as per usual, and spent my first twenty-four hours getting re-acquainted with Brussels. It's a beautiful, quirky, gritty and exciting city, not at all deserving of its reputation as a wee-stained bureaucratic nightmare. (Don't get me wrong: it is a wee-stained bureaucratic nightmare, but that's all part of its charm.) A lot has changed even since my first visit last November - the whole city seems to be undergoing a refurbishment - and the once-dodgy canal district, home to my hostel for the first night, has been reborn as a shabby-chic evening stroll kind of place, with wooden boardwalks and graffiti murals running the length of the water.

Other highlights from my first day in town: the Grand Place (see above), which never fails to take your breath away, least of all on a summer's evening when the gold-encrusted buildings glitter; cycling down back streets on my rent-a-bike then suddenly, terrified, ending up on a six-lane boulevard; the beer, of course.

A side note for the train geeks: STIB, the public transport agency, is a loyal representative of its city's bizarre streak - already today I have witnessed a man jumping off a métro platform and running into the tunnel with an inflatable chip, followed by laughing security staff, in addition to the semi-regular occurrence of a tram stopping suddenly and the driver shouting "terminus!" It doesn't matter where you thought you were headed - this is as far as you're going.

Anyway, I don't mind too much. In the absence of productive work - and in the spirit of slow travel - this summer is hereby dedicated to unexpected stops, unplanned detours and general lingering. I can't wait. This is exactly the kind of wanky Euro-dawdling that I did high school French for. Remember that, Dyce Academy pupils!