CAT'S EYES

This spot is dedicated to the world and how I see it.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

NOT SO NAGGING, AFTER ALL...
7 August 2007

The nagging weekend turned out to be nagging only in one sense of the word: the nagging heat! And since my flat is among the rooftops bruxellois, staying inside would be equal to the not so pleasant experience of getting fried, alive.
So how did the weekend turn out?

After work on Friday I went staright downtown to Palais du Thé and got a nice Japanese Popcorn tea. Walking in Brussels on hot summerdays is quite heavy so when I came home I fell asleep on my sofa next to the open window with a magic cool-ish breeze invigorating my lungs. Simple but heavenly good, like yoga.

Saturday was even hotter so I decided to escape to the beach in Knokke. ‘Only’ 90 minutes away by train, the blue water and sky were very soothing. However, I did not find Knokke as posh as it says on the front cover of this month’s edition of the Belgian ELLE. I was enjoying my own company and got a refreshing tan, but concluded that there are two real practical drawbacks of heading to the beach alone:
1) It is quite tricky to take a swim: No one there to keep an eye on by bag…
2) It is easy to bu your back: No one to help me putting on sun screen...
When I came home I got that characteristic lovely relaxed beach feeling and was very happy chatting to my family on Skype. Skype is great but sometimes the connection gets crappy and the distance, ironically, feels ever longer… My sister said it sounded as if I was in out in Space and that I should tell our Mr. Fuglesong (Sweden ’s first Astronaut) to turn off the space ship engines for a while.

On Sunday I woke up at 8am enjoying the blue sky through my roof-top window. No nagging feeling whatsoever at all! For several months I’ve been planning to go planespotting at the airport so this was my mission of the morning: Clear blue skies and a busy travel Sunday – an ideal day for indulging in the sight of some nice takeoffs. I know it's kind of a nerdy hobby, but I can't help loving planes... After walking around the airport looking for an outside veranda and finding none, I discovered some people with binoculars at the top floor of the parking garage, and I figured that must be the place to be. And I was right. I spent well over an hour there just watching jets taking off and I felt like an amazed child. I managed to see both a BMI flight taking off to Edinburgh and one TAP flight jetting off to Lisbon. My past came upon me this Sunday morning.

In the afternoon I went to the park with a thermos with sweet Moroccan mint tea and enjoyed my book ‘The Night train to Lisbon’ in the shade. My friend Francisco then texted my, just having landed, and we decided to cool off later and go downtown for icecream. He picked me up at seven and we spent 3 long hours walking, talking and philosophising in the most beautiful parts of the city. I had a beautiful evening, saw a beautiful sunset and we had beautiful conversations.
Francisco told me that ‘one should always leave difficult decisions to the last minute’ and perhaps he is right. This way you open up space for improvisation and the unexpected. Seja o que for...

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