people are leaving leuven. and the goodbyes have definitely begun. andy began the trend on wednesday when he returned home to england, with leigh and ian following not long afterwards. dan's left for the states, and luke and dermot have headed back home to ireland. and as for those of us who will not return home but instead be travelling over christmas - morna left this morning for austria, and before the weekend is out, the majority of my friends here, myself included, will have up and left this little town. and a nice little town it is. i've grown very fond of it to be honest.

but yes, so this may be my last entry for a bit. i have to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to catch a 6:30 train with eric, sandra and sandra's brother peter... 12 hours or so later, eric and i will arrive in munich. everyone else seems to think that 12 hours is a long time. i suppose it is. then again, none of them have ever embarked on a plane ride from new zealand to europe, which took a grand total of 37 hours if i recall! and there's far more space in a train.

and after a few days there, we head to salzburg for christmas - the home of mozart and the sound of music...

it's 6pm and the bells have begun ringing at st peter's church (i still think it is a cathedral though frank!). i will miss the bells when i finally leave this place. they were playing 'hark the herald angel sing' earlier on this afternoon, which put me in a very 'christmassy not wanting to study' mood.

so i'd like to wish you all a wonderful christmas - wherever you are in the world. and especially to my family - mum and dad, stephen, rachel and regan - sitting at home in henderson, eating turkey and wearing hats from christmas crackers, while no doubt reading out those useless jokes that are never funny! and to my grandparents down in nelson with my aunt and uncle and cousins. thanks to everyone for keeping in touch and i'll be back in 2004 with plenty of stories to go around.

take care,
lots of love,
bex

a big thank you to everyone who has been in touch over the last couple of days! it means a lot. i was able to laugh, to reminisce and to remember how special everyone back home (and in australia, benn...) is to me. thanks very much!

i am feeling decidedly homesick. and i probably shouldn't complain, in fact i should really count myself lucky, to have survived three months without suffering from any severe pangs of missing what is back home. but the fact of the matter is quite simply that regardless of that, i am still feeling homesick now, and 'now' is what matters.

part of the problem is, canadians have come to town. this might sound utterly ridiculous, but these canadians are here visiting 'my' canadians. still sound ridiculous? let me put it this way: suddenly 6 of my closest friends are extremely happy because 3 of their closest friends are in leuven. and this is a good thing. a very good thing. but all conversation now revolves around reminsicing - about canada, about ottawa, about university in ottawa, about people i don't know, about places i have not been too, about parties i never attended.

reminsicing is a wonderful thing to do. and, as many of you should be well aware, very much a favourite pastime of mine. however it is impossible to join in a reminisicing moment when you were not present at the event. you know?

and i guess i just feel out of the loop.

all i want to be able to do, is have 7 of my friends here, so that we can reminisice. it's been far too long since i last experienced that feeling.

in other news - sheep have now arrived in the stable and this is exciting!

my thesis. which i should, theoretically, be working on as i type this. due to numerous general enquiries into what exactly i am doing, seeing as the last entry regarding my topic is now completely out of date and irrelevant, i shall endeavour to explain what it is exactly. and hopefully, this will give me inspiration to work through the day!

there is a place called sagalassos. it is in the mountains in turkey. and it was a big roman city once upon a time. and this is the site that the archaeologists here at kuleuven have been working on. all of my professors have some sort of connection to sagalassos. and every year, around june-august, they head over to turkey, with students and workers from all over the place, to continue to discover how the city functioned in antiquity.

sagalassos is the place that i am hoping to work at next year, once i have finished my thesis. i have applied but won't find out until february, so i will keep you all posted.

for all of those interested, check out: www.sagalassos.be for more details about the site itself and the work that is being done there.

now. as for my thesis. which is far more geographically focussed than it was previously. i am planning on reconstructing the environment - the terrain, the vegetation, the geomorphology - during the late imperial - early byzantine periods in the sagalassos region. for a quick history lesson: sagalassos was at its prime in roman times, but afterwards started to decline, and in the middle of the 7th century AD, it was abandoned completely.

by working with brand new satellite images (that were taken a month ago) of the area - i should be able to map the area in detail, and in doing so, maybe shed more light on the reasons people lived where they did, and left when they did (a big earthquake shook sagalassos and is thought to be the main reason for its complete abandonment in the end).

positives:
1: all literature is in english - hurrah!!
2: all lecturers that know stuff and have first hand experience and primary data are in one of two buildings here in leuven.
3: i get to do geography after all!
4: by the end - i will be exceptionally good at computer programmes that are very necessary today for archaeologists - this is good, because often thesis topics are very specialised and don't help much in the future, yet here i will have a lot of useful skills which will be beneficial.

negatives:
1: i have to work with confusing computer programmes (for those geographers out there - this means dreaded g.i.s. stuff) which take a lot of time and effort to work with when you don't know what you are doing.
2: while i can now understand the literature, i cannot understand my supervisor as well as i would like.

i remember when we were younger, my mum used to buy advent calendars. and every day throughout december we all took turns opening the little windows and discovering something inside, all the while getting more excited because one less window meant one less day until christmas...

i have my own advent calendar in leuven. on the first of december i left my house and wandered down through the main square. to my surprise, a large pine tree stood alongside the town hall... a large pine tree that i had never encountered before. and on the opposite side of the square, outside the very big cathedral of st paul, was what seemed to be the beginnings of a stable.

each day i take the time to walk past the square, and each day i discover new things are appearing. the stable no longer seems out of place in the cobbled courtyard, but is surrounded by a fence and plants and gives an impression of always having belonged there. lights now cover the facing pine tree. in fact, more christmas trees in general have appeared - not just in the square, but everywhere; against every street sign and every shop window. and i had never really noticed all the deciduous trees lining the streets, but now they are all lit up. i feel like leuven is turning into some kind of magical forest, complete with a suspended sky of lights, hanging roof top to roof.

but it's not occuring all at once - and that's special for me, because it means each day, just as i did with the advent calendar, i can be surprised and excited by the images and impressions being created in this city as the time for christmas closes in.

i have the best grandparents in the world!!

after a long day of doing work, which, by the way, is actually starting to take place now, i returned home to find a parcel sitting on the table for me. that's right. a parcel. now mail is always exciting. in any form. but parcels have something extra exciting about them. and there it was. a parcel. an exciting parcel. an unopened exciting parcel. and it deserved attention.

and after demolishing (none of this, undoing the string and gently prying off the sellotape to save the paper) the first layer, i discover christmas wrapping paper! and that can only mean one thing... my first christmas present!! hurrah! the paper is green with little santa claus' skiing through the snow (for those of you who like visual images).

so, i got mail. i got mail in the form of a parcel. i got mail in the form of a parcel that turns out to be a christmas present.

and it is sitting unopened next to me.

i love my grandparents heaps. thanks very much.

it's december. december. that means i have been out of new zealand for two months. that means it is almost christmas. and that means it is nearly the end of the semester. which means that after writing this, today is going to be a day of solid work. no more procrastinating and no more 'rests'. yes. i am determined to make this plan work. far more determined than i was yesterday, when i had exactly the same plan, and yet somehow, by means that i'm not yet aware of, didn't succeed...

i am very excited because i have been booking places to stay over christmas and new years. and this is where i will be - leaving leuven on 21st december and heading to germany - namely munich for two nights. then on to salzburg for three nights, including christmas. hurrah salzburg. and the hostels all play the sound of music at least once a day. hopefully it will snow. my fingers remain crossed. either way though, salzburg will be a beautiful place to spend christmas in. plan on heading down to slovenia for a day or so (anyone who has read paulo coehlo's 'veronika decides to die' will understand my desire to visit ljubljana), and then back up to vienna for a couple of nights. both vienna and prague were fully booked for new years so i'm going to be in a little czech republic town called cesky krumlov for the 31st. moving upwards to prague for a few days. and then home. to leuven.

there have only ever been two places i have ever heard the macgyver theme song. on the tv. and in my car. i find it a good song to listen to as i wait in peak-hour traffic driving to and from university. and so there i was. just sitting in a bar. not a very uncommon thing to do over this way. and the macgyver theme music came on. i now feel a loyalty and a connection with libertad and it might just be becoming one of my favourite places to be in...

okay, all of you - look to the right of the screen. notice anything new???

this message is dedicated to two exceptionally good friends - frank and paal (sorry but i don't know how to put the little ° above the a?).

today, after class, with no effort at all, i convinced frank and paal to get on a bus with me and mission out to the 'rent a computer' shop. once there, i typically rented a computer. and none of this little laptop business - this is a real computer, a computer complete with a big monitor and a big hard drive, and all the other bits and pieces that a computer comes with.

of course i had hoped, and fully anticipated, despite the fact that the bus didn't drop us off anywhere near the shop on the way there, that the bus taking us home, would appear as we walked out with my purchase. unfortunately this was not the case. try to picture the following. short me holding one end of the box with the hard drive, tall frank holding one end of the box with the monitor, and medium-sized paal in the middle, breaking the height difference, and holding the bulk of the load. just like the three bears.

i love you boys. thanks very much for helping me out!!

i have had an ingenious plan. probably it was an ingenious plan that i actually thought up months ago but somehow forgot about. better yet, i'm sure it was someone else's ingenious plan that i have attached my name to. anyway, the thing is, i've had enough of the computer lab saga and am renting myself a computer. this is the new plan.

and once i have it, i can, instead of writing entire novels about my last couple of weeks, write random anecdotes that don't necessarily have to say anything of extreme consequence.

i haven't forgotten the photos. mike is back from greece today so i just need to get on his computer...

okay so that last entry, about the photos... i obviously slightly exaggerated the timing of when they would appear on the web. i had every intention of having them up and running before leaving for rome. but then, a combination of a variety of events slightly altered my initially well meaning plans. apologies. and now, the guy who has all the photos on his computer has headed to greece for a week or so, so you will all just have to bear with me for a little bit longer.

okay so last week i went to italy. because i can. because i am no longer in the middle of the pacific and it no longer takes 37 hours to get to europe. because there is no such thing as jetlag when you take a plane ride to another country. because the airfares are so cheap that to not go would be ridiculous. yes, living in europe has some very good incentives.

and i had a wonderful time. for a start, the weather behaved in the appropriate manner and the sky stayed bright blue and the sun stayed in the sky (until it was night time of course) and the temperatures allowed me to wander the streets in a singlet and feel the need to squint - not just because of the marble ruins surrounding me, but because of the bright sunlight beaming down on me, as it should have done. i was able to escape the cooler climatic forces dominating beligum, and have a mini summer retreat, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

the trip itself began when i stepped on the train to head towards the airport. due to my brilliant planning, i wanted to be in rome bright and early on monday morning, so opted for the 6:50am flight out of belgium. the hiccup in this plan was that the earliest train to get me to the airport would arrive too late, so i had to take the last train the night before, and spend the night trying to get sleep on the uncomfortable chairs that airports generally have to offer when you need to spend the night. i should have learnt my lesson after my 12 hour stopover in bangkok last year. alas, i thought this airport might hold more luxurious seating arrangements and that bangkok was just a once off mistake. it seems however, that the airports i decide to spend the night in have one thing in common. seats that were not made for sleeping on, much less sitting on. please remind me, next time i have a valiant plan of heading overseas, not to organise my flights so that i sleep in an airport.

arriving in rome was a crazy experience because the central station seems very hostile towards tourists - odd, seeing as rome is a large tourist destination, and the central station is exactly that - central - and they did not have anything helpful to tell me, except that the best way to get to the vatican was by taxi. ha. i was on a strict budget, that allowed for no taxi rides, and i couldn't figure out why the metro would not head in the direction of the vatican. so i walk down into the metro anyway, refusing to believe the taxi lady, to find myself in the middle of what seems to be some huge riot, with police running everywhere, and exits being closed off with huge caged gates, and red tape making the place look like a crime scene. i retreat towards the entrance i had walked down, to find that caged off and have to leave by another route, just in time as the police are locking the gates there also. later i discover that the metro went on strike. okay, so there was no mass murder, there was no criminal on the loose, and no one has fallen onto the tracks and been run over. just a strike. had the lady in the central station told me this, all would have become very clear.

and that marks the start of my 15km a day walking mission. of course the metro were only on strike for a few hours, but i was no longer interested in seeing the tunnels beneath the ground, and wanted to see rome itself. plus the sun was shining and it seemed pointless to go from one place to another by an underground system packed with commuters and tourists. and i like reading maps and getting lost and refinding my way through the streets.

i met my friend russ outside the vatican and we spent two days exploring the city of rome. what an amazingly beautiful city. i took far too many photos and will spend a fortune getting them developed but it will all be worth it. from the pantheon to the circus maximus, the tiber river and the capitaline hill. all the places i had read about and thought about for the 4 years that i did roman history in new zealand. and finally i was there, and able to imagine claudius up on the rostra in the roman forum, and julius caesar issuing statues to be put up in his honour. fantastic.

naples was quite a different experience. the city was chaos. it seemed like it was in the midst of being reconstructed or torn down. it was dirty and dusty, huge holes opened up in the ground on every street, construction work was paramount. the streets were too narrow for the traffic, and no rules of the road code were obeyed. i thought that buenos aires in argentina was bad in terms of traffic. i was wrong. i ened up adopting the 'follow a local' whenever i crossed the road. there were dodgy stalls everywhere, that immediately closed whenever a police car approached. there seemed to be a lot of police, and yet you never got a feeling of being safe in naples. not a place to be wandering about late at night.

however i didn't go to naples for naples. i went so that i could go to the museum and see all the mosaics found in pompeii, and i went to see pompeii. wow, now that is one amazing place. a whole city. i still can't explain or comprehend how big it was. usually you go to places, like rome, or athens, and you see ruins of a temple, or of the marketplace. but here, streets and streets and streets - with houses, and schools and shops. with temples and theatres. it was a real city. and everything was so well preserved. i could eat my banana inside someone's house. i could sit on the edge of the road and know people had walked there. it was a very surreal feeling. i felt like i had been shrunk down and was walking through a child's toy city, that had been abandoned because it was lunchtime and they had left in a hurry. nothing was out of place. to see people, frozen in time and space - see them covered in plaster - their last movements before they died - right infront of me. to see dogs, curled up, their heads down towards the ground. you could see the anguish on their faces. you could almost feel everything taking place. and then to turn and see mount vesuvius, the only active vlocano in europe, looming behind - a menacing reminder that all of this could happen again. it wasn't just a once off occurence in 79 AD, but it sits there, a ticking bomb, long overdue to erupt again.

after two nights in naples, i returned to rome and finished off all the things i had wanted to do, including getting a tour through the largest catacomb in rome, with over 20km of tunnels and over 500,000 christian graves. i stood in the colosseum and imagined the gladiator fights and the lions. i walked up the palatine hill where the she-wolf was meant to have suckled romulus and remus before rome was founded. i had the luxury i walking numerous times through the roman forum and being able to recapture life in the 1st century AD. everywhere i walked i could remember stories dr stevenson had told me in class. and it was a wonderful experience.

travelling alone has advantages and disadvantages. i met a lot of people, including about 5 kiwis which was exciting because i am yet to meet a kiwi in belgium, though i have heard rumors that one does exist somewhere... i was shocked at how clearly i could distinguish the accent. i went out with some boys from liverpool, got to share breakfast with australians, and heard a variety of stories about stolen wallets and passports and people being ripped off in shops. all of which i managed to escape. i think though, that next time i make a journey, i'll make it with friends. for one, i'll then be able to be in some of the photos i take. but mainly, i'll be able to share memories and experiences with people who live near me, as opposed to people i met in hostels who will all be in different parts of the world now.

this has been a long entry. and there is so much more i could say. but i will leave it there for now. hope you are all well.

photos are coming very soon. very soon. i guarantee it. they are on the computer, they are all ready to go, i just need to put them in order and the right way up and put some headings under them so that you know what is going on... then they will be ready for viewing. keep an eye to the right of the screen and very soon, a little new orange link will appear with words that speak about photos... then you can click on that link and finally visit me in belgium!!

i have been busy. busy and yet not busy. if there is such a thing? i don't know. all the same, too busy to come on here and write about my life. and despite still being busy, or at least believing that i am busy, it is high time i enlightened you all, once again, about things going on, over on this side of the world.

my last entry may become redundant soon. i'm not sure. i have been in a bit of a panic for this last week because everywhere i look, all i find is french and german literature. there is nothing in english. nothing. that almost deserved capitals letters. which is a big deal for someone who never uses capital letters. and this is a big concern for someone who knows no german whatsoever and who has very basic conversational french skills (which have somewhat improved since arriving here which is a good thing). but definitely not french 'academic article' skills. not good. i think this is because the topic i have chosen is very much history-based. so i have written to my supervisor and hopefully will meet with him tomorrow to discuss my options. it is just concerning that, if in the first week of very basic research, i have found nothing in english; then 2 months down the track i could well be starting to stress. writing a thesis is one thing, but writing a thesis using only french and german literature is quite a different story!! i am unsure where this is going to lead - but quite possibly i will lean more toward a geographical approach, as, thankfully, geography seems to have a lot more english!! no doubt i'll let you all know at a later date.

food. food is good. when i think of food at the moment, i think of two things. i think of my fridge, and i think of saturday night.

my fridge. one of the big things i miss from home is the fact that i could walk into the kitchen and open the fridge door and be greeted by all sorts of food. food that i could consume and not think about where it came from or how it would be replenished. as far as i was concerned, i had the luxury of eating anything i liked, and to any quantity that i desired at the point of time that i opened my fridge door and looked inside. unfortunately i do not have that luxury anymore. i share a fridge with 5 other people, so for a start, when i open the door, i am limited to only looking at my own little section of the fridge for things to eat. and because i am on a very tight student budget, the food in my little section of the fridge has no resemblance to the food i would have found at home. gone are the days of fizzy drinks and fruit juice and cheddar cheese.

saturday night. one of the girls from my course, eleni, is from athens and she cooked for 4 of us on saturday night. real greek food. real greek food. oh wait, did i just repeat myself? some of you may not be aware my relationship with greek food. some of you may not realise how much i love greek food. some of you may not understand my feelings toward greek food. but i do. and on saturday i was surrounded by greeks salads and pita bread and tzatiki and kebabs... mmmm. a lot of garlic, a lot of olive oil, a lot of generally delicious food. i am still recovering from the experience. i had forgotten how good tzatiki is. i had forgotten forgotten how good greek food is...

on other news, it rained in leuven the other day. now really, this should not be an unsual situation, because leuven, and belgium, are renowned for having rain for half of the year. however, it seems europe has been confused this year, with exceptionally hot summers, snow in october and no rain... i, of course, have not been complaining, because the sunshine is great and the snow, of course, was quite the event for me. but i think it might start to rain more now. it's different rain from auckland rain. lighter i think. and it comes down vertically because it doesn't seem to get very windy here. so it is actually possible to stay dry, even when it rains. good eh? i think so. so the rain is not as bad as people may have tried to lead me to believe. then again, i have'nt really experienced much of it; so my mind may change in a few months...

so i hear we are doing well in the rugby. good. i have not been able to watch the games as i often have a class when they have been played. however i will endeavour to be watching the next few matches, which are the ones that really start to count from now on. and i will attempt to get together a crowd who will support new zealand alongside me. might be difficult in a place where i am yet to find another kiwi - though i'm sure if there is one or two lurking around, i'll find them at the match!!

take care everyone.

my thesis. (i doubt this entry will make me sound like i am winnie-the-pooh!!!) for all those interested, here is a brief (though typically this is me typing here, so 'brief' may not be what you consider 'brief'...) rundown on what i will be concentrating on for the next 8 months or so. but firstly, just in case some of you have forgotten exactly what i am doing here in leuven, due to my entries not really containing much information about studying, and in case you haven't noticed the link on the right of the screen that sends you directly to my course... here's a rough idea.

i am studying my master of arts in eastern mediterranean archaeology. more specifically i am studying the hellenisitic and roman period of the near east. basically the deal is, everyone is living in their own little happy towns, ocassionally fighting with their neighbours but generally in their own world, with their own culture. then alexander the great comes along around 330 B.C. and suddenly the world, from spain to india, is adopted under one ruler. alexander dies and his successors fight ferociously for the land that's up for grabs. the roman empire gets stronger and stronger and then takes over everything. all this ultimately means big changes for the people, who become subjected to new cultures, new religions, new people, new ways of governing... and these changes can be seen, not only through ancient writers, but through architecture, through sculpture, through material remains that archaeologists, like myself, dig up.

okay so what am i doing? the greeks had numerous gods. one of these was the greek goddess artemis, known for her hunting abilities and shown depicted throughout greece with her bow and arrow at the ready. i will be looking at her representation and depiction in asia minor (modern day turkey) through both the hellenisitic and roman period. even though she was a greek goddess to begin with, when greece took over the ancient world, local villages who had their own deities, would adapt their gods to that of the greeks. their gods became greek gods, and greek gods became local gods. at the moment i plan on mapping cult centres geographically and sculptural changes of her image, along with her newfound identity, across space and time.

obviously this is only a vague beginning and as things progress my topic will narrow down a lot. but my supervisor is fantastic and is so inspiring and passionate in what he studies and has already shouted me a coffee and taken me on a whirlwind trip of important journals to read up on. am a bit concerned at the amount of both german and french articles i may, or may not, have to read at some point... but i'll deal with that at the time. so i'm happy, because i had been wanting to study both hellenisitic and roman sculpture, had wanted to somehow relate it to religion, and had hoped to be able to use my geography somewhere. okay, so i'm not studying anything coastal, but maybe as i move down the track, i'll be able to find some relevance to study beach sites... we'll see.

on other news... did i mention it snowed? ;-)

and maybe as a final aside... i'm going to rome! yes, that's right. suppose that really deserved its own entry, rather than be tacked on the end. oh well. i have booked my flights and am going from november 10 to 16 i think. and i can't wait. it's so cheap to travel over here. i'm flying there with ryan air, and it is costing me 1 cent, one way to rome. funny huh? i could have returned home for 1 cent also, but i didn't want to miss too many classes so had to opt for 25 euros home instead. still, not bad!! 5 days for me to explore rome and pompei and hopefully some exotic little beach. i'm going on my own, though one of the guys visiting the canadians, is going to be in the area around the same time so we'll probably meet up and spend a couple of days together, which will be nice.

today it snowed!!!! i am v v v v v v excited about this. also i have a thesis topic. but the snow is obviously the most important thing. yes. snow. snow and me. little white fluffy bits of snow. i am happy that it snowed. HURRAH for snow. i have not seen it snow (i have seen snow, but not seen it SNOW) since i was 9, or maybe 10... anyway a long time ago. there are other things i could talk about. but snow is on my mind. yesterday when i walked home from the canadian's house it was -2 degrees. cold. cold enough to want earmuffs. i am in the process of looking for earmuffs. suppose it is summer where most of you are. i like the snow.

i just spent the most amazing weekend in the ardennes, belgium's natural park. after spending a month only seeing cities, it was time for me to escape, to see the stars, to see a river that hadn't been cut into a canal, with straight concrete edges. i was ready to walk on the grass instead of the cobbled streets. i miss the space that new zealand has to offer. i miss my beaches that i had taken for granted. and camping in the ardennes seemed like the perfect idea, and turned into the most perfect weekend. to be able to escape to the forests, to the rivers, to the open air, and to the caves...

i guess caves and i go back to when i was 14, when i had my first opportunity to walk into waitomo, equipped with my orange overalls and hard hat, with lightbulb attached. from then on, i think i have a very special connection to the underground world of caves. there is something so powerful and old, something in the serenity and the grandeur, that causes me to feel compelled to return again and again to that world below where i live. it was at this time that i commented (or as mum would say, 'made a sweeping statement') 'i could live in a cave'. yet it was how i felt. and how i still feel. i always leave a cave feeling refreshed and alive. and so it was high up on my list of things to do, to go and visit the famous caves at han-sur-lesse and once again delve into another world.

the town itself was a huge tourist trap, where you had to pay to use the bathroom, where small (though on reflection, actually quite big) signs with little cartoon characters pointed people in different directions. where safari jeeps carted people up the road to the safari park, and trams transported even more people up to the caves. yet, despite having my picture taken with a parrot on my shoulder, and despite having to wait in a queue that reminded me of waiting to get on a rollercoaster in a theme park, the 10 euros was well worth its weight in gold. we had the option of taking the french tour or the dutch tour. my option? forget trying to translate the history of the caves and fall behind the tour group...

the caverns themselves were huge. perhaps the biggest caverns i have ever been in. towering above my head with a sense of being in control instead of allowing people to take control. the stalactites hung down from the ceiling, precarious in places, yet having hung there for thousands of years, growing slowly yet steadily. the stalagmites crept up from the ground. seaweed-like rock formations folded down from above, and gave me a sense that i had entered a sacred theatre and the curtains were beginning to close on the final act. solitude was all i wanted and i was able to block out the french voice ahead and feel at such peace as i took in the underworld city that surrounded me like no other. at one point very tasteful (thankfully) music came one, reminding me of the mines of moiria, out of lord of the rings. it was all so surreal. giving me the feeling i always get when i return to the outdoors, that there is so much power within the earth.

our first night was spent high on top of a ridge, that involved general hiking and then some scrambling to reach it. there was no way we were going to stay in a campsite that had a wooden arch over the driveway, or where little swings were placed in the centre of a patch of well cut grass. and we were rewarded with the most beautiful sunset, of oranges and pinks and reds filling the sky with such richness and colour that it was impossible not to be overawed at creation and our creator. despite the stars not being nearly as plentiful as those in the southern hemisphere, they were gorgeous all the same, though it was slightly odd for me not to see the familiar southern cross up there. we had a bonfire and cooked beans and ate bread and wathed the crocodile shapes form in the embers.

the second night was spent after a day of walking through the forests, amidst brich trees, all full to the brim with yellow leaves, just waiting for the call of autumn to drop. a bubbling river, literally bubbling up from an underground spring, flowed alongside. finally a river without straight edges!! and a steep cliff face flanked the edge, tilting into the ground, another indicator of how powerful the earth on which we live, is. that night was cold and a heavy frost surrounded the tent the next morning, allowing for the leaves to fall, in waves, raining down upon us. i promise pictures will arrive very soon...

i dunked my head in the water, refreshing though freezing, and used my macgyver knowledge to make a fishing line to try and catch a fish. however he did not seem to interested in the cheese that i was offering. a pity, then again, he was only 15cm long.

overall i think we would have walked around 20-25km, from town to town, through forests and fields, alongside sealed roads and dirt roads, along old abandoned railway tracks, but most importantly, soaking up the natural environment that belgium has to offer.

i feel at a loss to describe more accurately the beauty of a place that deserves better adjectives than those i have to offer. some things cannot be described in words or even with pictures. to be truely understood, one must experience them first hand and discover life outside of what we have grown to accept.

last night was canadian thanksgiving. of course i have been fully accepted by the canadian embassy and partook in the celebrations. why doesn't new zealand have thanksgiving? i think new zealand should have thanksgiving. i really do. thanksgiving seems like such a nice idea. and the food is good too.

hmmm the food. chicken and mashed potatoes and lots of 'almost' roast vegetables (we had to improvise as none of us have an oven) and apple pie and so much food that our (16 of us in total) plates were overflowing. and there was even icecream... definitely the first time since i left new zealand that i have had a meal like that.

so we sat around and ate and conversed and reminded each other what we were thankful for. beautiful. reminded me a bit of christmas - which is usually when we have the big dinner back home. and then all these phone calls were had as the canadians got in touch with their families, all in their own respective cottages, overlooking lakes and snow-capped trees. an experience i will never forget, and one that i felt very much a part of.

jasper has been here for the last few days so i took him in to brussels and we explored the streets, the markets, the gardens and just the general atmosphere which was nice. it is always so crazy how everyone in leuven speaks flemish, but then you head to brussels and everyone speaks french. strange phenonomen.

in fact, speaking about this division; did i ever mention just how serious it is? leuven is a dutch speaking (okay so obviously there are some english speaking courses otherwise i would be in serious trouble as i can only say hello, please, thank you, ask for bread and give directions) university. louvain-la-nerve is a new french speaking university that is just up the road. when the two split, everything within the university was split. it is exactly like a divorce between two people. the books in the library, for example, were split according to their cataloge number. all odd books moved to louvain-la-nerve, and all even books stayed here. this can cause big problems for people like me, trying to write a thesis.

on other news - i had a wonderful birthday. about 20 of my friends were there, we had a lovely dinner and partyed the night away. a couple of my friends have digital cameras so i will get on to posting up some pictures of amsterdam, my birthday and other random nights when we have been together. yes, i really should do that soon i think!

hope all is well back home. am looking forward to watching the all blacks play canada in the world cup in a week or so...

today is my birthday. so i don't have time to sit on a computer all day and tell you stories about my life. but the day has started off nicely. got to talk to my family back home which was great. thanks for the messages and thoughts. will tell you all about my party after it has occured. love lots, rebekah.

the city of amsterdam. this was where i spent the weekend. and what a weekend it was. it was a very last minute decision, made at 10pm on thursday night, but i think that's the way to do things over here. as soon as my class finished at 11am on friday i met up with sandra (one of the canadians) and we jumped on a train and made for the border. and finally i hit another country outside of belgium which was very exciting... though no one asked for passports and so i have no record of being there. then again, my passport wasn't stamped coming into belgium either, so theoretically i have no proof that i arrived here either. but what is proof anyway huh?

and then the adventures began. we made it to amsterdam in record time (under three hours) as we somehow managed to get a connecting train that left 30 seconds after our train pulled in to the station. so i looked at sandra and said "i think it is time to run, like they do in the movies", and so we did. and we jumped on just as the man blew his whistle and the doors started to close.

first impressions, or maybe just overall impressions are absolute randomness... getting off the train station we wandered towards a hostel and in a matter of minutes were thrown into amsterdam "reality". someone had thrown up all over a footpath, some guy was in the foetal position being put into an ambulance... two guys were getting into a huge fight, and then, get this, the queen of the netherlands drove past amidst a convoy off police cars. everywhere i looked i was surprised... it was like a continuous journey of confusion and amazement. you would be walking down a narrow old street and then suddenly a big oriental temple would appear, out of nowhere, and then disappear just as fast.

sandra and i ended up staying on the outskirts of the red light district (yes, the red light district in amsterdam, which has perhaps the biggest red light district in the world). but no need to worry now, seeing as i'm back 'home' in leuven now. but it was interesting... there are actually red lights that flick on and off to show where the district starts and ends.

got to check out the anne frank house which was very haunting and inspiring and nearly brought me to tears at times. very very incredible to read about how she would look out the window and see jews be taken down the street - and then for me to be able to look out the very same window and reflect on how she had been in that tiny place for over 40 months. climbing the stiars and imagining how she had clibed those very stairs and that her family were dragged down them and taken to concentration camps. hard to picture and yet at the same time, very real.

also went to the van goph museum which was awesome and it was at this point that we bumped into the boys, eric, joe and alex, who also were in town, but due to us being out of the country, our cell phones weren't working and hadn't been able to get in contact. we all wandered around together and took in all the spectacles that amsterdam has to offer.

on sunday i checked out the botanical gardens which even had some new zealand natives. and a gorgeous butterfly house and as i was wearing bright orange (typically of course) and joe had a yellow hoody - all the butterflies landed all over us. nice, as long as you don't have a phobia against butterflies!!! but a beautiful garden...

the ride home was not quite so quick as our first train somehow broke down and we had no idea as they only said it in dutch... but when everyone suddenly jumped up and stampeded out the door to another train, it seemed necessary to follow. then we got off at the wrong stop, but managed to jump back on in time before the train left again. ended up in first class i think, but no one checked out tickets or asked us to move so we made it home sfae and sound!! just slightly later than expected.

all up, amsterdam is like nothing i could ever explain. every corner was different, every street had something unusual going on. but the best part? everything was in orange!!! everything - the trains, the seats, the walls. very cool for one who has some sort of obsession with the colour. i fitted right in!!

so the plans for this week? i am very excited because jasper is coming down to visit and will be here for my birthday on thursday which i'm looking forward to. i'm having people over for dinner on thursday - but i have a little kitchen and we're already up to over 15 people... and the kitchen table here only seats 6 maximum). apart from that, i have lectures (yes i do actually do a bit of work while i'm here, though so far? not much...).

thanks to those keeping in touch. caisey and lachie - you two would love it over here so much, i seriously think you should both consider coming here in your holidays. which i don't think are too far off. start saving now...

right, feels like awhile since i was typing on here. i am in the computer lab where i will probably be spending a great deal of my time writing my thesis later in the year... not yet though right?!! still too much fun and adventures to be had i believe!

so finally i have had a class. environmental geomorphology which was good but very introductory-like and will be much better once we get into it properly. but it doesn't sound too complicated at the moment, though i seem to be very fortunate, having a geography major, as no one else in my course has studied this sort of thing and seemed to hold very blank faces when he was talking about plate tectonics and climatology and tsunamis. the lecturer seems nice enough and is fairly easy to understand. plus he has the brilliant habit of repeating what he says, so if his accent confuses me the first time, i pick it up the second time through. very thoughtful of him i must say!

the people in my course are great. there's 14 of us i think and everyone is very friendly and i think we will have a good year together. a combination of french speaking belgians, dutch speaking belgians, greeks, kiwis (okay there is just one of me) and norweigians. a nice combination with very different backgrounds.

so far i have tuesday and wednesdays off, though later in november another class will begin on tuesday. and then i have two classes on thursday and one i think on friday. it is all very relaxed. and seems very easy - but i think they will expect a lot of reading to be done and a lot of work to be done outside of the classroom. i presume anyway. plus i will have to start my thesis. i need a topic by the start of november so have to start thinking about that soon.

i am yet to leave belgium and explore other countries though there is a good possibility i will either be in munich for october fest or else might head to amsterdam this weekend. all depending on whether we get in contact with people from either city. it has been great meeting people here - there is a solid group of 10 of us that meet nearly every second night, and another 10 on top of that, that we would see over the weekends or on thursday nights. there seems to constantly be international parties and meetings here, even though orientation is over, but it is fantastic because everyone is willing to sit and chat with you and then because we all have cell phones; numbers are exchanged and we'll all meet up at the park to listen to a live band the next day. very lively and exceptionally friendly town.

today i bought a coat. not because it is cold or rainy just yet, but just because i found one that i love for 46 euros - kind of expensive but definitely a necessity that i will probably end up wearing every day over winter. it was from a second hand store and is actually very cheap compared to most of the clothes here in leuven.

speaking of which - you would think; or at least i would think, that a university town would be all about second hand stores - bookshops and clothes shops... you know, cheap things. but no. i think people in europe are quite content not to search for bargins, which is definitely a west auckland way of doing things. living over here is more expensive than i had imagined and while i have not run out of money, i think it will be very necessary for me to search for a partime job. which is a bit annoying because it might cut back on how much i will be able to travel around, but there will be no travelling around at the rate i am going. never mind, i am also aware that the first month in a new place away from home, is bound to be the most expensive - because you need to buy things like a lamp and sheets and a towel and olive oil and salt. hopefully all of these items have now been bought and i can actually keep to my budget in future months to come.

my birthday is fast approaching. my first birthday away from home. next thursday (9th) in fact. but the people here are incredible and some of the friends i have made have become like best friends that i feel like i have known for years. the three canadian girls - morna, desiree and sandra are the loveliest girls and have become awesome friends with me. just last night we sat at this little cafe/bar called amadee and drank tea as we played scrabble and boggle and listened to classical music. it is the cutest little place and the owner is very funny and laughs at us when we try and play english scrabble with spanish or dutch letters.

more than anything i want a white christmas this year and i am thinking about the idea of austria at the moment... or perhaps switzerland though morna knows people in austria, which could be helpful. i'll see, as long as it snows and i am with friends i will be content. as of course it would be highly impossible to return home for christmas - though numerous people have asked me this with no knowledge of just where in the world new zealand is situated!!

i have been inside this computer lab for far too long, but thanks to rachel for texting me which was extremely exciting to get at 11:30 at night when a group of us were walking along the street. for those that don't know, 11:30pm in leuven, is 9:30am in new zealand - until the whole daylight savings thing happens.

take care; love bex.

yo wassup? life is treating me exceptionally well here in belgium. i love it. i don't believe i could stress that enough. and we have had the best weather imaginable. apparantly it will start raining soon, and won't stop until next april or something, but for now the sun is out every day and i'm walking the streets in jandals and a singlet (two words the canadians don't understand!).

i still haven't begun lectures but i will definitely start tomorrow which will be good because that was the reason i came over here, right?!! ;-) it should all be good though and i'm looking forward to meeting people who are doing my course. i've met one guy from norway who seems really nice.

i have a cell phone... it only cost 79 euros and that included a 20 euro talking card thing. and phone calls over here are like 6c a minute. not bad really huh?!! so if any of you would like my number, send me a message and i'll give it to you. not too sure about leaving it on my site... also if people wish to send me mail (hint hint - my birthday is in october remember...) then i can send my address through also. just let me know and i'll get in touch personally.

so leuven is officially the party capital of the world. every night there is a party. and every night the party is bigger than the night before. it is incredible. the whole vibe and atmosphere of this place is like a gigantic concert. continuous. like a huge school camp or something. people don't seem to go to bed. i am unsure if this will last once uni starts up for good, but i have been talking a lot to ellen, who is my flatmate from ostende (on the coast of belgium - so hopefully i'll be able to go home with her for a weekend and see the sea...) - and she declares that it will be like this all year around until the holidays. amazing.

i have now met all my flatmates and we are a very multi-cultural group. morna has actually moved just down the road to a slightly more expensive place (these fickle canadians) though i still see her at least twice a day. so there is christophe who is from france but is part italian. there is sjourd who is from holland and goes home nearly every second night!! there is katherine who is flemish, andre who is russian and ellen who is flemish. and me of course. but we get on great which is definitely the main thing.

just a side note about photos. hmmm. it may end up being cheaper to send them home, have them developed, and then be sent back to be. my friend sandra took her photos in and asked for a double set (there was only one film). it cost her 26 euros. ouch. that does not quite fit in to my budget i must say!!

today there was this awesome concert in the main park of leuven so me and eric and ellen and joe chilled out there for most of the afternoon in the sun. it seems to be the main place to go, and will no doubt be packed all the time. though remember that when the weekend rolls around, all the flemish, and often people from nearby countries like holland, go home, and leave the international students to be in charge of the town. and it's amazing when they all come back on sunday night and the streets are packed again.

i hope all is well with you all. thanks for the comments and emails. will write again soon...ish...

so here i am again. thanks to those who are checking up on me and leaving me comments. i am liking this new website thing more and more i think. and i apprecaite getting the comments!!

okay so firstly i would like to warn you all about what i would like to call "the pillow saga". if you ever come to belgium, bring a pillow with you. the cost of a pillow over here is unbelievable. i mean really, i cannot comprehend it still. let's jsut sit back for a moment and think about what a pillow consists of. how much a pillow should be. a pillow in belgium, no matter where you look, averages out to around $60 nz. yes, 60 bucks... not really what a student is wanting to pay for a pillow, though sleep of course is a necessity. however in the end we did manage to track down these very small, very cushion like, i suupose cushions for much cheaper so we are quite satisified and can now sleep...

though speaking about sleep, it seems that leuven has had some sort of infestation of mosquitoes. this is not a pleasant experience when you live on the fourth floor of a building where it gets exceptionally hot... everyone i am meeting seems to have bites all over them, which really isn't such an attractive sight... however i am adament that i will destroy them all tonight. it is not just a goal but a desire... i was up at 5am this morning throwing my jandals at the ceiling, which unfortunately is much too high up for me to reach (and this has nothing to do with my height).

so today was the first day of orientation. which was good and gave us all a chance to do the whole mix and mingle thing. of course kiwis have the best reception. they love us. no seriously, they do. and the best thing is, as far as i know, i am the only kiwi in this town. quite a good statement to be able to make. i have even found some friends who want to watch the world cup with me later in the year - okay two of them are south african, but really... they don't have a chance against the all blacks.

better go, it's morna's birthday today so we're heading out and people have just arrived...

time for another excerpt out of the day to day happenings of me i think. i feel like i've done a whole lot of stuff here already and i still haven't been here a week.

but firstly - a special thanks to benn for coming across the channel and making things a lot easier for me in those first few days. i think we'd make an awesome team on the amazing race buster and i wish you all the best as you sort out your own plans for next month or so. i'm glad i was able to share the european experience with you.

also - cheers to both ray and dan (what's the apple, right?), who not only have gorgeous english accents, but who are lovely down-to-earth guys as well... i look forward to taking you both around middle earth one day and you can re-live the adventure (for everyone else - these boys continually argue over who is aragorn - i have my own opinions of course... and roped me into watching the two towers with them - nice new zealand proud moment!!). also thanks for giving me a go at the whole opposite side of the road driving thing. i hadn't been expecting to have had the opportunity so soon after arriving. i look forward to catching up wth you both, either back here in leuven, or in england sometime soon.

hello!! all is looking very good, despite the rain outside - but coming from the city of rain, i am well and truely used to it!! i have a place to live, which was the top priority after arriving here. it is on the top (4th) floor of an early 20th century home - yes, 4 flights of stairs to climb up, but they are very nice stairs... shall send through a picture one day... anyway i guess in the 'olden' days, my room would have been where the maid or butler lived. we have our own mini kitchen / table / bathroom, which is shared between four of us. the room i am in would be larger than my own at home, with a desk, bed, wardrobe, shelf and basin with cold water. the place is very old but not at all cold. i also have a huge window that will get all of the afternoon sun. i am a 5 minute walk to the centre of town, so it's brilliant!!

a girl i met on the first day, just randomly off the street, is staying in the room across from me as i bumped into her when i was going to check the place out. she's from ottawa, canada, and is here with 6 other students doing a kind of exchange programme in their philosophy course. the other guy, stuart, is from holland, and is studying some ancient classical something, and the other girl - whom i am yet to meet - apparantly studies classical languages. so that's pretty cool.

yesterday benn and i went into brussels before he caught the train back to the airport and returned to kent. at the train station we met a couple of poms (ray and dan) who are here in leuven for a few nights visiting a friend. we ended up spending the day with them in brussels, and then when benn left, i spent the rest of the afternoon with them, checking out an awesome art museum. a huge place but a lot of the paintings and sculpture were very dark and depressing. i really only liked all the landscape scenes. also, there were pictures of macgyver (my dog) everywhere! i think the welsh springer was very much the dog to have back in those days!!

last night i met up with the guys again, and ran into morna (canadian flatmate) and all of her friends - it is very easy to run into the same people everywhere because it is such a small place. one thing that i find very interesting is that every different type of beer (and it seems belgium has a thing for beer!!) has its own type of glass with its name written on it. i have never seen so many different shaped glasses to be honest.

today i am hoping will be my first chance at driving over here! ray drove over from england (so the layout of his car is like in nz) and today we're planning to head to antwerp, which we have been told is the most beautiful town in belgium. it was either that or amsterdam - personally i liked the idea of driving into another country and showing my passport out the car window like they do on the movies - but the boys have been there before but haven't been to antwerp. and ray said i was more than welcome to drive his car. cool huh - he knows me for 12 hours and trusts me! must be my smile i guess!

it is so easy to meet people over here though. everyone seems to be in their twenties, and everyone is really friendly. it's hard to explain, because i remember reading about how my friends would go on their O.Es and would just make the best friends, and never really understand how they did it. but now that i'm here, i fully understand. as soon as i heard those boys accents, speaking english; it was like we were all best friends - suppose that is also due to the foreign language thing.

here i am in leuven, struggling to find the right keys because keyboards are crazy over here!!! who knows how i will manage my thesis! the flights were good - had a row to myself flying over to sydney. once there the airport went crazy about security - making people take their shoes off... a businessman who had the profile of bad richard off coronation street ( not that i've studied richard's profile of course!!!) sat in my row from sydney to bangkok, and gave me the famous quote: 'i've always wanted to be an archaeologist'. the flight from bangkok to franfurt was fine and again i had lots of space because i was at the very back of the plane. franfurt airport is HUGE!!! but i arrived in plenty of time at my gate.

and so here i am. and benn is next to me. i love leuven already - awesome cobbled streets and old buildings. i stayed in a youth hostel last night and might have to do that again tonight; because finding a place to live is proving more difficult than i had hoped. we've decided it is like the amazing race - me and benn against all other foreign students - trying to find a place to live. there seems to be a circular problem in that you can't do one thing until you have done another. but all is good.

i am sitting in the registry building and have been searching for flats online. this building used to be an old church and has some very cool statues and pillars. there are a lot of people here, getting their photos taken and enrolling...

i will leave it at that for now. flat hunting comes first at the moment!!! thanks to those that have already emailed me. once i have all of the paperwork out of the way i will be able to reply to you all and give you more details.

until next time...

it is my last day of work today. unbelievable to think i have worked here since 1998! thanks for the good reference rach! it has been such a fantastic job and i have made a lot of friends, not to mention learnt heaps (about students, about lecturers, about equation editor...). so thanks to everyone in Statistics Department at Auckland University for being so welcoming and friendly and taking a genuine interest in my dreams and plans... and i will keep in touch!

why hasn't panic hit me yet? this is the big question. in two weeks exactly i will be in the air and heading overseas. i get to belgium around 10am and have the day to sort out where i will be sleeping that night and for the next year. i kind of presumed the sirens would be going by now. however i am surprisingly calm and logical. of course for the last week my dreams have been crazy - so obviously my sub conscious knows something is up!

today is also the day i share my new webpage with the world... well with all of you anyway... i have no idea how successful it will be but i'm hoping that it might work as an alternative to emails - that way, if i send photos i won't have to worry that i'm using up memory in those hotmail accounts! plus bulk emails don't always get through to everyone. anyway if it doesn't work then i'll revert back to the email system. so either way - you will hear all about the adventures of bex...

take care :-)