Slacker!

Sorry for the lag time. I have been really adjusting to life in Brussels and I'm immensely loving it right now. I have a good group of friends and I've been introduced to some really cool areas in town. This is me and the girls at Ralph's, an expat bar in the EU area of town. Clearly we're not having any fun!

I just got back from 8 days in London. I was there for four days of conferences for work but then due to an extremely tragic train crash the rails were closed (and still are) so I had to wait a few days in London before heading back to Brussels. Oh yes, poor me! I just had to stay in London and hang out with Chloe and her friends. It was so awesome. I had never spent so much time in London and I had always been there to do touristy things, but to 'live' there for a week was amazing. I had such a different perspective on the city and now I really love London. We did some very fun things: saw Mama Mia (Chloe surprised me with a ticket), went to Richard Branson's old apartment which was turned into a restaurant and club (so fun - danced and drank the night away!), TopShop (need I say more!) and Whole Foods! I literally started crying when I walked in to Whole Foods. I had one of those 'I miss Boulder' pains. But then I ate my brown rice sushi and remembered that I was living in Europe!

Sunday Morning

Last night I went to a birthday/housewarming party of a new friend. I arrived with a couple of my girl friends and we had a blast. There was a whole different group of people there so I had fun getting to know another social circle. At midnight my friend and I left to head to a dance party in an old theatre downtown. Les Folies Bourgeoises was the name of the party and it was like nothing I have ever been to. We walked in and there were a couple thousand people all dressed up (and don't worry we were too!) and dancing to this really great DJ doing the euro-techno thing. I'm not a club kid, but I could get used to these kinds of parties! Everyone was dancing and just having a great time. I still don't have my euro dance moves down, but I'm working on it. There was a revolving dancefloor so we ended up dancing on the rotating platform above the crowd for most of the night. Seriously, it was one of my most fun nights so far in this town. I wish I had pictures from last night. We danced until the wee hours of the morning. Then I got up a few hours later to do a running race with my uncle. He did 20km, I did 10km - I'm not quite in 20km shape these days. We ran through the forest and to my surprise the course was rather hilly - who knew?! It felt so good to run outside on a challenging course! I needed it. I ran faster than I expected, which was surprising considering I had spent the entire evening on my feet dancing and talking to cute boys!

Crepe Day

February 2nd is some kind of religious holiday. I have no idea, but rituals stem from it like Groundhog Day and crepe making. In Belgium, you make crepes today to predict your luck for the rest of the year. You are supposed to hold the pan in your right hand, flick your wrist and do a flip with the crepe. If you can do a full flip of a crepe and catch it back in the pan then you will have good luck for the year. If you don't catch it, well, your year is doomed. I asked Granny if we were going to flip them (something I loved doing as a kid), but she said no it would be too messy. So instead I ate a couple crepes and wondered if it was going to be a good year or a bad year.