Four to Go

It is now official in e-mail print - Tom has satisfactorily made it through his first year - with flying colours!

From my point of view, it has been a long and quite tough year (less socialising, tighter strings on the food budget) but with that said, I wouldnt change anything about it. I am living with a very happy guy, who thrives at university and is constantly excited with what he has learnt. Giving up some slight luxuries really doesnt matter at all when we can still survive luxuriously (we have a roof over our heads; warm, clean water; food never runs out) so let me say to the next 4 years - Bring it on!

Onto London... we took our first trip underneath the channel (previously we have just flown to heathrow in transit to somewhere else) on the Eurostar (comes highly recommended) taking us roughly 2,5 hours to reach Waterloo station. We were some of the last passengers to travel to waterloo - from November on, the Eurostar will be travelling to and from St Pancras (I think...).

We were in all of our Autumn (for tom, Winter) glory, and greeted by a stunningly summery Kym (won't forget that lovely Cretan dress!) and a suited up Benj in a 35°C tube station. Poor Tom was being chivalrous to carry the backpack and wear his winter woolies standing up in an overcrowded tube at 11pm! BUT despite sounding negative, this was a great start to a lovely weekend because we knew that it was at least slightly warmer in London than in Belgium!!

Our hosts had all the drinks and nibblies waiting for us in their apartment in Wapping, along with the necessary oyster card (for the tube)! So while we didnt go out on the Friday evening, we still managed to drink a bottle of champagne and too much wine sitting on their terrace. The following day was to lead me to a long lost cousin - Ingelise (see any difficulties in this family with two people going by the name of Inge?!) and her hubby, Peter at the burrough markets (near the London Bridge tube stop). With that said, I dont even know which one of the bridges is london bridge! The only interesting looking structure going over the Thames was the millenium bridge (for padestrians only as far as I could tell). So we all enjoyed a nice brunch overlooking the market followed by a nice leisurely stroll along the Thames. This walk included:
-a pirate ship (they seem to be everywhere!),
-the Tate Modern art museum
-the Globe theatre (for Shakespear enthusiasts),
-2 Dali exhibits
-the London Eye
-View of Big Ben
and probably more which I have already forgotten. We crossed the bridge alonside Big Ben which found ourselves in Westminster. This is where ALL of the monopoly names were! Peter even mentioned that they run a Monopoly Pub Crawl in London, and he made it all the way to Leicester Square. I knew that if I went, I am sure I would have been flat on my face somewhere around Pall Mall...

That evening we dolled ourselves up and had a yummy Indian dinner in Soho followed by our engagement present from Kym and Benj - tickets to the theatre to see Avenue Q. (more for my benefit, but Tom had a blast!). I thought it was a great - slightly naughty - show! This followed by a stroll to Leicester Square to catch up with a really old friend, Evan proved to be an amazing day.

Risking long blog territory... Sunday was to be the Aussie BBQ day (calling in a few expat friends in London, some currently living in Sweden, others we all knew from uni days). Everything was running to schedule - beautiful salads, piles of meat, a fresh gas canister, an unused barbecue.... when we discovered, on sunday that the gas canister didn't fit with the Barbecue fittings... a moment of panic for us all... should we go to the pub? What the hell do we do with all of this food? So while Kym and I downed a bottle of Vodka, we let the night sort itself out, and it turned out beautifully. Somehow, the sane and sober people took charge of cooking lovely little tapas style nibblies, the boys did their token trips down to the off license to keep the beer supply plentiful and the rest of us ate and socialised!

By Monday, I was completely buggered - 10 points to Kym and Benj who had to get up and work... we did some more touristy things before heading to the train station. Both tired, cranky and disappointed that we somehow lost the Tate (how, dont ask) and when we finally found it, we realised that the Dali exhibition had closed the day before. BUM. Had a good look around at the rest and was nicely impressed. Caught train back that evening, needed to take Tuesday off due to copious amounds of virally created defence mechanisms clogging up my head, only to pass it along to Tom, 2 days later.

Why-y-y-y don't you use it?

Studying: To be continued for another 10 days.
Exams: 2 down, 3 to go
Currently: Watching Jimmy Neutron on the Nickelodeon Channel (some stress relief for lunch!)

We have also had some great company this weekend - visits from Tom, Nita and Natalie (who has taken a liking to chocolate biscuits - clever little thing has learnt how to grab tom's finger and drag him to the cupboard where the stock of bikkies is...


and Philippe and Jan (who we didn't take a cutey picture of). Lots of great conversation over the football/elections/arguing/chocolate fondue playing risk (while Tom and I lost in stunning fashion and Jan won (much to Philippes disapproval!

One more weekend of study, then we will hit the streets again!

Remember me when you're the one who's silver screened

Amidst all of my election ruckus, I have been complacent in relation to my partner in life...

Tomorrow, he begins his end of year exams. I have absolutely all faith in him - I have witnessed him the past 16 weeks (the last 5 with serious blocking) learning, testing theories out on me, me yelling at him to quit the psycho babble and him poking his tongue out and blowing (as do all mature adults). He begins tomorrow with Onderzoek Methoden en Technieken (research methods and techniques), followed by Gezondheids (health) Psychology on Thursday. More updates in the following weeks.

Lots of pressure lies on these exams - as, unlike Australia, most exams here weigh 100% of the total mark - he does have two subjects where the exam only weighs 75%. AND - most seriously warped of all - like the Wespac Maths Competition at home, you lose marks for guessing. I still have horrible memories of partaking in the maths comp in Grade 8, answering all questions (naturally, many of which were a random 'havent-had-a-B-answer-in-a-while' guess) only learning later that we lost points for errors. BUT that wasnt part of a uni degree! Still, I know he has studied everything so much harder than I ever did. I particularly enjoy his mad professor study stance. He will kill me for writing this, but while studying, he closes himself up in the study, holds his notes in one hand, has his head tilted to one side, and paces (approx 5 steps) up and down the room while reciting his notes aloud. The sweetest part is that his other hand usually aids in diagrams/explanations/expressionism. Oh, and since he wears braces, he really looks the part!

So, before you kill me, all the best tomorrow, and for the following 2,5 weeks. I know you will be fine and I am so proud that you have almost finished your first year.

I love you

Celebration

Yay - one semester down, 9 to go! So, we all decided to go for dinner and a drinky in Brussels on Wednesday night! What a lovely evening!


Tom, Louis, Stephanie, Tom and Mieke all go to uni together, and us girlfriends came along to celebrate with them... so after a few beers, we were all great mates. I ended up spending a lot of time chatting to Louis' girlfriend, Daphne with only one slight problem - no language in common! She is a native French speaker, so we struck up a deal that she would speak french to me and I would speak englsh to her (to help eachother learn) - problem was that her english was far better than my french, and we ended up speaking a mix of both language (wih a touch of Dutch)! There is ALWAYS a way to communicate with someone!

Thanks heaps to Louis (pronounced in that saucey French way - also the same way as Donald Ducks' Nephew...) for the great photos. I think Tom has met someone at uni who will definitely keep him on his toes!

New Pickies

I know we have already showed some pickies of Rome and Pisa, but here is an update of our actual photos! (the others were just from google!!).

We are getting used to doing self-portraits with four, and strangely enough, we coincidently are in the same positions!

As for the rest of the week... we visited the VUB on saturday (Vrije Universiteit Brussel - or in English, Free Univeristy of Brussels), so Tom could have an orientation for his course beginning in September. The professor was very impressed with how much research Tom had already done on the course itself. Hopefully this is an indication as to how he actually performs...!

Finally it's spring here, so we are also without scarves (for the first time since forever ago) and just down to 3 layers (as opposed to 5). But we do have sun which is a real bonus!

Not much else to say for the time being... maybe Tom will give an update in the near future.