Lost in time

This is the entrance to the old farmhouse where our friend G lives with her family. It's only a 10 minute drive into bustling cosmopolitan Brussels, but it looks much like it did 300 years ago, right down to the little girl skipping in the courtyard.

G invited us to a barbecue in her garden to celebrate her 38th birthday. There were about 25 people there, of which I counted at least a dozen different nationalities. Among them were a Colombian doctor of tropical medicine, a Sri Lankan biochemist, a Danish couple who are passionate about tango, a Namibian physicist, A Greek Kung Fu teacher, a Cuban nurse, a Zimbabwean research fellow at Oxford, an Austrian massage therapist, and many more. Listening to people converse in English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Danish, it struck me - this is why I love living here.