MY GOODNESS MY GUINNESS!

How to greet.. am I the only one in need of a manual?

In Iceland (at least in my neighbourhood) we shake hands when meeting first time and with friends we give a "half hug one kiss on the cheek" goodbye.. or very good friends and very possibly drunk straight on the lips. But a kiss or hug from first meet would make you look weird.. and possible attacksituation which I witnessed in Bifrost where Seb wanted to give a countryside icelandic girl a friendly kiss.

In Sweden there seems to be an unwritten rule:
first time you meet you shake hands.
second time and forever more you hug eachother. Swedish people are very fond of the "hug-term".. they hug you everywhere and after every single sms or email they write "hug" or on a good day "hugs"..it took me quite some time to get into this hugging with people im not that close with. But even more to get rid of my icelandic habit of giving people a kiss on the cheek.. when I think of it i might have scared some sweeds away.

French friends..my dears give me 2 kisses on the cheek.. and Im aware of this and always prepared.

In Finland.. after a long time to get to know eachother you might get a hug.

Let me tell you about Belgium... here anything goes and there doesnt seem to be any rules to follow!!!! This makes it very hard and can lead to embarrassing situations.
At first meet Ive had everything from handshake, one kiss, two kisses and even three kisses (which I heard was a belgian thing..but still only with some people??!!!?) And then it is very unclear when you are close enough to give a more friendly goodbye.. god im so lost.
At the Celtic on my first day of work my BOSS gives me a one cheek kiss goodbye. Second day and onward all the people at work give you a kiss hello AND goodbye... which now makes us one big happy family behind the bar. And we also get daily kisses from regulars... The Celtic is some kind of Cheers and you hear alot of "cheers" (irish accent) instead of "thank you".

Skunk Anansie - Brazen

Im alive! and so much more.. also very trashed from limited sleep this last week.

Yesterday Jutta and I drove (well more her since I cant drive) to Germany..Through Aachen, Koln, Dortmund and finally to Paderborn where Marlous is doing an internship. Getting back was less than fun.. late, dark, heavy rain and Germany has NO streetlights!!! I was very uneasy in some turns. In the end we reached Hasselt where I crashed.

I HAVE A JOB!!! I met these 2 nice irish boys in a bar and they told me to apply at this irish bar.. I applied some more places and soon enough I was swimming in joboffers. An angel, Joke, at Infopunt Europe helped me with all numbers after super unfriendly people at the district Antwerpen.

So now Ive been working 3 days in an irish bar at the Groenplaats which is the square on the picture up there... So that is where youll find me, at Celtic Ireland keeping the Guinness and Kilkenny floating;)

K s choice - not an addict

In the fashion city itself there is a fashionshow going on from the Academy. All 4 years students show their collections on a runway. Eva wanted to go and told me she "had a plan".. cause tickets for the show were like 30 euros! So what was the plan? yes.. in pooring rain me and Eva come riding together on 1 bicycle with a bag of OUR OWN clothes and some coathangers... I havent been sneaking around like a criminal since I was 15 years.. so I was very sceptic of this plan going in through the backdoors... Eva told me that the secret is just to "look like you are suppose to be there"... believe it or not but we got in easily and saw the whole fashionshow with free cocktails!! and let me just say WAUW what a show.. some of the stuff was so great:) Thank you Eva!

here is the website of the show; http://www.antwerp-fashion.be/

Hoi!
A very hectic last week in Sweden with thesis, jury, housewarming/goodbye/firestation parties and such .. This summer the people of AF are remodeling our kitchen..hùrra! For you who have seen it before dont need explaining why; to make this possible we had to spend a whole day going through50 years of kitchensupplies...including "The Nostalgic Box"with photos of students living there through time..Dont people just look great in the 80s? And in the name of ROCK! we threw that smelly sofa from the 70s off the roof.

Im now arrived in Antwerp.

I came here wednesday evening and already thirsday morning I found myself working in the University Hospital kitchen..Just for a day. People didnt really speak english there, which gave my dutch a real push for the better. The whole experience made me feel a bit disoriented since Id just landed a few hours earlier. In the evening we met Tom and his friend for a real belgian beer. Sweet!

Our house i a very nice old one and very central. As you see Im already adapting here by exagerating through "very", which Antwerpians like to do; they say "kei"(something like "very") a whole lot.. Keigoed. Keimottig. Ive also learned that you should refer to Antwerp as "THE CITY" (t stad) cause it is obvious to Antwerpians that Antwerp is the center of the world.

Friday was another barhopping now with Eva and brother, Sami and finnish girlfriend, Jutta and girlfriend. In the end we picked up Amy and stumbled into an Irish bar, where actually I might get work. For the first time I experienced KRIEK which is CHERRYBEER.. and it wasnt bad at all.

Saturday we touristed the whole city with Amy.. went to an interesting museum with a lot of Rubens paintings; after all this is his city. After dinner in the countryside at Marlous s parents, the evening started with Sangria at Meintjes and Thijs new house.... it ended with a Singstar teambattle!!! Jaeks! I think the shall we say highpoint was Thijs vs Marlous rapping Tricky with Run DMC.

Yes, I have a new phonenumber: +324476301909 which you are welcome to call.

More news later!

Groetjes!

Run DMC - Its tricky