i have this friend. his name's dermot, which of course means he's irish! and a lovely one at that. he's studying at the music school here in leuven. we met on the very first day i arrived in town, when i was still very sleepy and confused from 37 hours in travel mode.

last night i finally got to hear dermot play the piano. the piano.

now, i know a thing or two about the piano. i myself played it for 7 years, members of my family have, and still do, play... but when dermot played last night, i was swept up into a world i have never been to before.

he played, not with music, but with his heart. i have never heard a piano be played in such a way. i felt like i was inside each note that sounded. and all i could do was shut my eyes and let it all soak into and through me.

one of the pieces, i later was told, he had created himself... at one point, he was joined by another guy who played a bass jazz type rhythm and dermot just started playing melodies - completely ad lib and free, in a way i have never seen or heard or experienced before.

it blew my mind and has left me refreshed. if there could ever be such a thing as musical cleansing, i have just come up from total immersion.

thank you dermot.

so i found this material store. uh huh. and there was a sale going on. a half price sale in fact. which of course requires a rummage about to see what was on offer. typically i found some random orange type material that is always useful to have about. and this great purpley pinky fabric with big flowers - very 70s curtain look i suppose. i am not in need of curtains, i have them already. but i am in need of brightening up this grey and bleak town that consists of people wearing the darkest or dullest possible colours invented. they might blend beautifully into the overcast sky, but really... what this place needs is some colour. some action. some boldness. and of course, that is where i come in. yeah, so there's no sewing machine. but since when has that stopped me? that's what safety pins, and tape and string and other handy devices are for...

ahhh, when there's work to be done, there is nothing more satisfying than putting it off with great ideas about starting new fashion trends throughout europe.

hmprh. it is still raining. and i don't feel like leaving my room.

now this brings about slight complications to my plans. my plans had been to get up bright and early and walk down to the lab and put in a solid day's work on my thesis. it is nearly 11:30am. i am still in my pyjamas. hmmmm. the things is, rain just doesn't inspire me to go outside. unless i really have to. in fact, it doesn't really inspire me to get up either. but i successfully pulled myself out of bed by 9:30 this morning so am quite pleased with myself (despite the fact that i had set my alarm for 7:30...)

this is most frustrating. however i have reshuffled my plans slightly and now will spend the day attempting (no - accomplishing!) to write chapter one. inside. without needing to leave my room. and going to the lab can occur tomorrow. when it will hopefully have stopped raining...

why does it have to rain? and why don't i have a car that would allow me to get to places without getting wet? and why did i leave my umbrella at davis' place?

today is raining. and rain just isn't as fun as snow.

however i currently have my hands on the book 'flowers for algernon' by daniel keyes. hence meaning i do not need to go out into the rain (except to go to the laundromat...). anyway i've read it before but reading it again, now having noticed the quote at the start by plato, gives it such a new meaning. if you've got time on your hands (or even if you don't) - i highly, highly recommend it.

"progris riport 1 martch 3: dr strauss says i shoud rite down what i think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. i dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if they can use me. i hope they use me becaus miss kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. i want to be smart. my name is charlie gordon i werk in donners bakery where mr donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if i want. i am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. i tolld dr strauss and perfesser nemur i cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says i shud rite just like i talk and like i rite compushishens in miss kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where i go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. dr strauss says to rite a lot evrything i think and evrything that happins to me but i cant think anymor because i have nothing to rite so i will close for today... yrs truly charlie gordon."

first semester in belgium complete! what a funny feeling - to be half way through (though theoretically, with a thesis yet to be severely tackled - it doesn't feel in the slightest like half way yet!). and it is nice to be done. to be able to sit and type this and know that i'm not procrastinating!

snowflakes are falling outside my window. it amazes me: the huge variety of snowflakes. i mean, of course, people always say that no two are alike - and of course i believe them... but i don't just mean that...

the wind is swirling, in a kind of spiral, and large floating fluffy flakes are being swept up in the current and spinning upwards, tipping in different directions, until the wind slackens, ever so slightly, and the snow starts to gently descend, only to be caught in another waft of air.

it reminds me of when i hear my brother play the piano. the wind builds to such a speed and with such a force, and the snow tumbles and collides and turns seemingly out of control. and then things die down, become quieter, and the snow drifts and settles to the window sill and the roof and the tree that the owl lives in - and somehow moulds together with other snowflakes until a fresh white line appears. and it gets thicker gradually - yet not so gradually that you can't gaze out the window and watch it occuring.

truly beautiful.

shall i begin with some updates? i think i shall begin with some updates.

firstly i am now well. all it took were two nights of good sleep and decent food - you know, food like meat (just as an aside - nobody except me uses the term 'mince' - they all call it ground beef. interesting.).

secondly - that decent food came via a trip to the grocery store. and guess what? the 'wet your finger' technique for opening a plastic bag really does work! how brilliant. guess that means i don't need to recycle now. heh heh heh.

thirdly - the owl was white. well, more of a white-ish blur through the tree. but definitely a shade of white. not as big as hedwig mind you.

and fourthly, five exams behind me, one to go this coming wednesday. am feeling quite content with my current situation!

okay, with the updates out of the way i have discovered i have no more news. as of yet. so, until next time...

(also, after next wednesday i'll be putting up more photos...)

today is a great day.

today is a great day despite the fact that i had my toughest exam this morning (which, subsequently, wasn't so bad).

today is a great day despite the fact that i am sick and am about to go to bed (hoping that sleep + sprite will cure me).

today is a great day because i finally saw my owl.

that's right. i have an owl. okay, so theoretically he is not 'my' owl... but that's how i like to think of him.

i discovered i had an owl a few months ago. at first i was a bit confused as to what was making the 'ooo-ooo' type noises. my confusion comes from the fact that my owl is not nocturnal. nope. not at all. in fact he prefers to sleep at the same time as me. at night. and all day, when i'm awake, he's awake too. hooting and whooting and ooo-oooing and generally making rather mournful sounds. all day long.

and today we met. at least, i saw him fly from the tree he lives in - which is across from my window, to a neighbouring tree.

i think i will call this entry 'the day i saw my owl'.

yawn. tonight is one of those evenings. one of those evenings when i really don't feel like doing work. one of those evenings when i know, without a doubt, that i need to do work (after all, wednesday is looming ever nearer, and that is the day that i sit my hardest exam). but one of those evenings nevertheless, when i would much rather procrastinate and chat to all of you instead.

so. here i am.

today i had another exam.

- are you getting tired of me talking about them? sorry, but currently they are all i can talk about. unless i made something up. and i don't seem to have any imaginative abilities at the moment, i think the exams (there's that word again) are causing me to be rather boring. -

anyway, it was oral. again. however each exam i have had so far has been different somehow. i think it is a belgian thing. little surprises all the time. keeping us foreigners on our toes. so to speak. anyway i showed up at the time i was meant to, only to find that the lecturer was taking his time... like, 'really' taking his time. two hours later, i was still sitting in the room, twiddling my thumbs and feeling decidedly hungry. funny how you get hungry at those very moments when it is not possible for you to eat.

anyway it was fine. the exam i mean. the worst part about it would have to be the hunger pains i suffered from. however my stomach behaved at the crucial moment and didn't interrupt audibly as i talked to my lecturer.

afterwards, on the walk home, i scoffed down two mcdonald hamburgers to console myself. mmm. it's a rare occurrence to eat such delacacies in europe. so expensive. far cheaper to go to a restuarant.

and that sums up today. hmprh.

oh, i know what i can talk about. the 'storm'. the 'storm' that arrived suddenly last week. funny kind of storm really. i'm used to the ones where it starts raining, then you hear the thunder in the distance, then it gets a bit closer, then you see some lightning, then it dies down again. belgian storms are obviously like belgian exams. always unexpected.

so yeah i was sitting in my room. as i do. it is raining quite heavily outside, but i'm fairly used to that. then all of a sudden there is the biggest flash of lightning i have ever seen, followed (split second i assure you) by the loudest, most rumbliest thunder i have ever heard. i wish i had words to describe the noise. perhaps imagine a big construction drill digging into concrete. or something. anyway i had a headache for half an hour afterwards. but the crazy thing was that everything shook. all the things on my shelves fell off. the house was vibrating.

it seems the lightning stuck the library's clocktower (which reminds me a little of the clocktower that you see in back to the future). this makes sense as it is the highest point in leuven. the clock still isn't working. the library is, hmmm, two minutes walk from my house perhaps? maybe three. depends on my speed...

so at 2:45 i wander up to the arts building to get ready for my third exam - this time it's written and i feel quite prepared. written exams, after all, are what i am accustomed to.

at 3:10 we're all sitting there. outside the room. waiting. waiting. no lecturer. hmmm. this is not exactly what i am used to.

3:15 and in we go, only to be told that pens are not necessary... hey, wait a minute... how do you write an exam without a pen? this exam is not going at all the way i thought it was going to go...

(i should also inform you that this guy is an austrian with a thick accent that always makes me laugh - so instead of saying "site conservation" it's more like "zite konzervaation".)

so instead we have a "group discussion". and what happens in a "group discussion"? so he asks us individually a question and when people want to add more information, we add more information.

that's it. that's the exam. the "written" exam.

but wait, there's more. oh yes, there's more. after "discussing" for 2.5 hours he returns to the front of the room, sits down and ponders...

"zo, vot do you thinkz you zud get?"

silence.

"vell, you must have zome ideaz vot you zud get?"

i meekly ask "do you mean as a group, or individually?"

finally a conclusion is reached. we all get a 15 (out of 20 - an exceptionally good mark by belgian standards) and if we want more, we say so and he will ask specific questions and then give us an extra mark if we answer correctly.

of course i would like another mark so i answer a question or two, and wham, there you have it - my first mark - a 16!!

one down, five to go... six exams is quite a significant amount i feel. quite significant. but it was fine. the exam i mean. for those interested. and i made the lecturer laugh. a good laugh too i might add. that must be a goodish sign, and i was wearing my orange woolley hat and not looking very formal at all...

also, what is wrong with me? why is it that i can't open plastic bags? no, don't laugh, i'm quite serious. every time i go to the supermarket, i dread the 'opening the plastic bag' process. you know how they have them, on the counter, all joined together in a big heap? and once you're done paying, you pull one off and open it and put your groceries inside? yes, that's what i'm talking about. i just can't figure out the technique. and i've tried a variety. it just doesn't open for me. ever...

it can be incredibly embarassing when there's a big queue (and there nearly always is...) and people are waiting for you to collect your food and leave so that they can leave too...

i think my new rule is to recycle more. who needs plastic bags anyway, right?

so, wish me well... tomorrow i undergo the belgian examination process.

this is how it supposedly functions. in formally dressed attire one student enters the room and is handed questions by a formally dressed lecturer. student then sits down and has 20 minutes to prepare for examination. student then speaks for 20 minutes regarding questions. lecturer intervenes as they feel necessary - asking for clarification or for more information or just generally opening up a discussion. formally dressed student then departs from room.

i don't have any formal clothes! the only shoes i have are sneakers (well i have jandals but it's raining outside)! and i certainly don't have time to check out the shops right now... but surely they'll let me get away with it?

did i mention that i met a guy in the czech republic who knew my grandmother in tauranga?

who would've thought...

so here i am once more. sitting in my pyjamas in my room in leuven. pondering how best to fill you in on my two week trip. pondering how much procrastination i can do before feeling exceptionally guilty about the lack of study i have done (first exam is one week today). so i'm going to try the bullet point entry for a change. not sure if i can pull it off. but i'll give it a shot.

21st december: start the day at 5:30am walking through dark quiet (perhaps the most quiet i've heard it) leuven to the train station. me, eric, sandra, peter. me and eric nearly missed the train. a sign of things to come...

saw a squirrel! highly delighted! the trip is off to an excellent start. little grey squirrel. running up the branches and down the branches. its grey fluffy tail making little wavy movements.

and then snow! yep. it starts to snow. what a way to begin a trip across germany. little snowflakes drifting through the air as the train speeds through german countryside.

14 hours of switching trains later... munich.

excerpt from diary: 21-23 december: "i felt like i was inside one of those glass balls that you shake and then watch the snow float through the air... climbed up a big church tower to view the city... very very beautiful... ornate old churches, palace gardens, old and new town halls..."

saw lord of the rings - jumped, laughed outloud and cried. proud to be a kiwi.

ate sausages in a very typical german beer hall with big heads of deer with antlers on the walls. one litre mugs of beer.

23-26 december: christmas in salzburg! snow everywhere. most beautiful little town i've been in to date.

walked up to the castle and into the abby used in sound of music. saw where they hid from the baddies near the end of movie. also saw "you are 16 going on 17" gazebo. hurrah! not to mention archway that mum and dad always say "we've been there kids" when we watch it...

spent christmas with eric's cousin and his family. absolutely perfect. shared christmas eve and christmas day with them and their two kids fiona and julien (5 and 7) and took delight in them running around and squealing as they opened their presents and then proceeded to jump on top of me and try to pull off my socks. loved it.

despite cell phone issues, was able to get in touch with family back home.

went to christmas mass in the big dom cathedral - gorgeous building - liked it more than st peters in rome to be honest.

went sledding!

26-29 december: grunau - little skiing hostel type place up in the mountains in austria. meet many aussies. walked through the snow. i spend time on my own (eric is skiing) and try to study a bit. nice, relaxing - let my feet rest from all the walking we do.

excerpt from diary: "saw both the big and little dipper - reminded me of the fact i am on the other side of the world - viewing the stars upside down. in a different place. stars hold such a peace. a peace and a clarity at the same time. the night sky is so deep, not only literally but how it can penetrate - right inside my eyes and almost through me... i marvel at the enormity of creation sometimes. the creativity, the uniqueness, the openness. no straight lines, no systematic patterns. it's all random beauty. in a world full of straight lines and codes, where people try to keep their surroundings manicured. the stars defy that thought process."

29-30 december: vienna. despite what so many people say - about how beautiful vienna is - it just wasn't a city for me. the extravagance and excessiveness - everywhere. every direction i turned was another huge building, trying to outdo the building on either side of it. more windows than i could ever count. too much and i felt out of place. vienna to me seemed to be a place that worships money.

the parks had too many park benches in line - so i moved one of them into the middle of the path - just to try and make things not so perfect.

did go to a concert and hear mozart, beethoven, strauss, brahams. that was good. in a place mozart had performed in when he was younger.

highlight - meeting up with sandra and peter and spending an evening in a far too classy for us bar, listening to old american jazz, drinking a drink that was called casablanca and catching up with good friends.

excerpt from diary: "as we walked home in the rain - i finally caught a glimpse of a pretty vienna. perhaps the rain washed away some of the immaculateness. perhaps it washed away some of my negativity and cynacism. but a mist lay over the city and the lights - lighting up the palaces - no longer with an air of disdain. the rain somehow glistened through... vienna isn't the place for me, but it wasn't so bad afterall."

31-2 january: the czech republic is awesome! and it begins with cesky krumlov - little town right on the border...

went to a bar that had a live snake under the glass counter. it was green. it was big. but it didn't move. all very exciting.

wonderful hostel where i met kiwis and spent new years eve dancing with them and people from all over the world. fantastic fireworks display that involved utter randomness and slight danger as people held up strange wand type devices that spurted forth fire and magic into the sky.

hello 2004.

walked up, over and through the castle - to read a sign saying "watch out for the bears" who sadly seemed to be hibernating. instead i made a snow bear much to my delight.

thick powdery snowy snow. fun fun fun.

2-4 january: onwards to prague. gorgeous. far nicer than vienna. most beautiful city in the world. fell in love with it. amazing buildings, bridges, castles, churches...

walked for kilometres and kilometres in freezing conditions where i had to hop and jig to keep myself moving.

went and saw don giovanni - a marionette puppet performance of opera. mozart's gift to the city of prague. funny and very very good.

found and bought orange earmuffs.

missed our train connection (was bound to happen as we had so many close calls along the way) and ended up taking a bus right through germany and back to leuven - a good 14 hour ride i guess, including a crazy 3 hour wait at the border whilst the germans inspected us...

excerpt from diary: "checked out the huge metronome - ticking back and forth, keeping the music of prague in time like a giant conductor - overlooking the orchestra which is all of prague itself. bitterly bitterly cold. could hardly feel my nose. ouch. fingers dying. literally i'm sure."

and here i am. off to study now. hope you all had a lovely christmas and welcome to 2004!!!

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.