A week in Mons

Actually, not even a week yet. I arrived on Monday and it is now Friday evening. I'd say my first impressions of Mons were pretty much correct - it is small and quiet. Despite that, it does seem to have many more shops than Galway. Everything is old, the streets are cobbled, which makes walking places a bit more of a challenge than usual. Everybody speaks French, which I don't speak a word of, so for me at least things are very quiet. I am getting a lot of work done, which is good. I found a secondhand bookstore which had English books, which is also good. Now it is the beginning of a three day weekend and I must entertain myself somehow. I think I have already seen the sights of Mons - there are not many of them. Perhaps there are museums or something, but I'm not really interested in that. So tomorrow I will stay in Mons, have a relaxing day, see if there is anything more to see, and find the train station to ask about trains and busses. There is a wildlife park, I'm not sure how far away, but I would like to see it. Then there are other towns and cities, so I have made a small list. For this weekend I think I will try to see a small town called Dinant, which has a citadel and some big caves, and there is a big castle which is apparently nearby - I'm not so sure that it is so close but we will see. I hope that absolutely everything will not be closed due to the long weekend. It has been incredibly difficult to find postcards in Mons and what I did find were out-of-date and ugly. I hope that in another place there will be more for a tourist like myself.

Today my computer is acting up, and doesn't seem to be very happy. Especialy the mouse-clicker button. So now that I have finally managed to upload some photos of Mons I am not going to attempt to change the order of them at all. I will just leave them as they are. Here are three things that appear to be most of what Mons has to offer. There are also a lot of old buildings, but after a while they all look the same, a lot of cobbled streets, also all look the same and a lot of churches with towers and dome-like tops. Maybe the lack of tourist-attracting variety explains the lack of good postcards? Anyway, this first photo is the belfry, which is the only baroque belfry in Belgium and has 49 bells (they sound quite nice, they all chime separately, much better than Galway Cathedral's recording of bell chimes).

The belfry is on a hill and is the highest point in Mons. From the gardens around it you can see over the city. Like most cities, it is not a very exciting view. Just rooftops. Old, interesting rooftops, but still quite dull. 

Very near to the belfry is the next big monument of Mons, the St Waltrude Collegiate Church. I don't mean to sound dismissive, but really it is just another church. I think I need to get out into the countryside instead because all these churches and cathedrals no longer interest me. It is a big stone building, it has some pretty details, and apparently the oldest stained glass windows. I'm am not sure what exactly they are older than. The little tourism guide I was given is not overly specific. It is a gothic style church, and inside are many paintings and statues, which don't generally make a lot of impression on me if there is nobody around to explain the significance of it all. It was mostly like other churches I have been in, but sort of lighter and airier, not so tall and quiet and dim.

I'm not sure if this was the front or the back of the church. It was hard to say, there were doors on three sides. I think it is the side, actually, that you enter from the side and not the front in general for some reason because the front door seemed somewhat perpetually closed. The back of the church is nicer than the front, it is rounded and has lots of bits. The front is just big and flat and square.

So from near the church we have another view of the belfy, sticking up above the other buildings. It is quite a nice tower really, and has shiny gold bits on the top.

Finally we have the last big thing, the city hall in what is called the Grand Place, like the square in the city centre. It is a big cobbled area with a lot of cafes and these big old buildings that make up all the official parts of the city. The town hall itself is the nicest part. I have seen pictures of the Grand Place with big flowering gardens in front of the town hall but I guess they must not have been permanent. Would make for a nicer picture. There is a fountain, the type that is just holes in the ground that water comes shooting out of, and there were children playing in it then lying on the warm cobblestones to dry. There are plenty of trees all around the city, which is nice. It is lucky I went out in the sun to take photos though because now it is overcast and rainy.

Hello Belgium

So here I am, in Mons, Belgium, where the sky outside the window is overcast. The temperature is OK but it turns out that it rains quite a lot here. Just like in Ireland it can go from sunshine to pouring rain in just seconds, as it did on me yesterday when I was out without a jacket. I had to leave Galway at 2am yesterday so I was terribly out of it all day, after only about 2 hours sleep. I arrived and had to register at the university, something I did not have to do for either of my previous work trips. I found my accommodation and found a supermarket and then slept for about 14 hours straight. So after that I am much better today. Yet I have not actually seen Mons at all yet so have not much to say about it. My impressions so far is that it is very small and quite old. The streets are cobbled and there is a lot that seems dingy and falling down. But maybe that is a false impression.

My student accommodation is an old hotel and is very obviously so. It is OK though, just very empty because all the students are away for summer. I heard noises this morning so there must be at least one other person in the building. I have my own bathroom luckily and the shower is the usual type where you have a shower-head on a hose, only in this case there is no bracket on the wall for the shower to attach to. You have to hold it the whole time! And I checked out some of the other rooms because they were just sitting open and they are the same! I already miss my lovely new apartment with its beautiful kitchen and my big comfortable bed. The university seems good except of course everybody speaks French and their english isn't so good as that of the Germans. They don't really want to speak it and they struggle to understand me (because I struggle to speak slowly!). Of course I am only here for two weeks so even if the conversation is lacking I will get by. If I get bored I think I will just take out the good old credit card and go shopping. I found the street with all the shops on it you see and even for a tiny little city it has far more than Galway. Also I must take out my camera and take many pictures so that everybody can see Belgium. The weekend is a long one so I will have 3 days. I will find a travel guide to tell me what to do. See some other cities and places, that sort of thing. Try to make the most of it!

Moving Apartments

Galway has been incredibly hectic the last few weeks, there have been so many people in town. First was the Arts festival and then immediately after the Galway Races. The races were the bigger even I think, town was absolutely packed with people, all dressed up nice, and in the evenings they would block off the streets that the most popular pubs are on and one place had an open truck with a band in it. There was a big stage and ferris wheel set up at the docks and from my old apartment I could hear the music blasting, but unfortunately never got around to going down to check it out. So the streets were a mess and there was a lot of noise but that's to be expected, what was more of a problem was trying to move apartments in the middle of all this, especially seeing as the new flat is right in the very centre of town, where all the streets were closed. So I spent the Friday of my long weekend packing, and then was woken at 6am to move on Saturday! Why 6, you might wonder? Well, my housemate's Dad was helping us and wanted to beat the crowd. And despite the awfulness of getting up to move at 6 it was actually neccesary because when we finished at 11 the parks had all disappeared, we had to walk a fair way with the last few items. Then to unpack, and then to go back and clean the new place!

So basically by the end of Saturday I was shattered. From the new place the crowds out in the streets can be heard so instead of catching up on sleep I went out with a friend to have a look see and did not come home till late. Only to find that the new apartment is quite warm, and it is quite humid outside at the moment, which makes sleeping rather difficult. Then 3 am rolls around and a fire alarm goes off! It stopped quickly enough but what would you know, at 7 am it went off again! At which point more sleep was mostly out of the question. I later found out that some drunks had been pressing the buzzers of all the apartments and finally somebody let them in after they said they were attending a party in the building (at 3 am in a quiet building - what was she thinking?!). So these drunks came in, went up the stairs, set of a fire alarm and then scarpered, smashing the door to the building on their way out. The alarm system downstairs was still beeping in the morning so I called the number on the box and the guy that answered very reluctanctly gave me a rough idea of how I might stop the damn thing beeping, and eventually I figured it out, no thanks to him. Apparently this has never happened before though, not even during race week. So let's hope it was a once off.

So for the rest of the day I cleaned and unpacked the new place, tried to make things nice, and there was always still more to little things to sort out at the old place. I was still so shattered, but spent the afternoon sewing with a friend who is learning to make clothes. I had yet another pair of jeans that were getting worn out, in fact so worn out you could see through the fabric when you held it up to the light! So I cut them up and you see I already made one pair into a calf length skirt, and another into an above the knee skirt, and on this pair of jeans the knees were wrecked so I made an indecently short skirt! I also need to make an apron because I keep ruining my t-shirts while cooking, so there is more group sewing planned for tomorrow. Seeing as it was a long weekend there was no work on Monday, it wasn't absolutely neccesary to go to bed early and catch up on sleep, and the crowds out in the street sounded like fun, it was so packed in the streets that there was no difference between them and a pub, and there was a band playing in a truck again. It turned out not to be a great band but that's OK. Only it was still so humid, both outside and even more so in my new place, in fact the new place is extra warm, perhaps because there are cafe's and restaurants on the ground floor with big kitchens and stuff. So I slept terribly and had bad dreams and today barely worked. I will have to try make the last 3 days of the week really count becuse next Monday I am off to Belgium!

So the new place is really amazing, I love it. It is a little small, but still has loads of space, and it is really nice and grown-up, like a real home and not a student place. Like how on Friends they live in apartments but they are really nice. The kitchen is awesome, it is big and we have a full size fridge and freezer and a microwave (been without one a whole year!) and the oven seems to be good. We have big windows and there are already loads of nails in the walls so it is already perfect for hanging all my pictures up! The couches are comfortable, way better than what I had to put up with the last year. The coffee table is glass and I keep banging my legs against it, I have big bruises. And still have sore arms from lifting boxes. The guinea pig is at home in the place already, enough so that he chewed through the cable of my beautiful fairy lights. My bedroom is smallish but much larger than I thought it would be, everything fits just fine and the bed is a really good one! The room is dark at night, a bit too dark maybe, everytime in the night that I try to turn on my lamp or grab my bottle of water I knock everything over! And when I awoke on Sunday morning, after my first night here, to the fire alarm blaring, I tried to get out of the wrong side of the bed, the side I used to get out of but that is now against the wall. So clearly I was not immediately successful at getting out of bed.

So here are a couple of pictures of the new place and now I must go and eat something and get a very early night!

Adventure filled weekend ...

This weekend has been incredibly long considering that it was only two days! Though if you count the last half of Friday then it is actually two and a half. Friday evening I gave into my food obsession and celebrated Pi approximation day (22/7) with approximations of pie! There was more reason for overeating with friends though - for this weekend I have a guest from Germany staying with me so I must do my best to show her a good time. So after making lots of delicious food that was much appreciated by everyone (though I swear I'm still full), Saturday was spent on Lough Corrib.

We drove out to a friend's place and hopped in a row boat (because he lives on the lake you see and they have that sort of thing, three of them in fact) and off we went out into the lake, which is full of little islands. We took the dog with us and he kept trying to snap and the water splashing up from the oars. Apparently the cat doesn't mind being in the boat either so we were going to take him but then some dogs came running down the road and the cat freaked out and ran away. Of course in it's efforts to get away fast it clawed me to bits and managed to rip a hole in my t-shirt! I really like that t-shirt too. So no cat, just the dog, that had to do us. Did I mention that the sun finally came back out? Sort of that is. It's not hidden by rain, but the sky is not overly blue. Mostly cloudy.

So I think we must have been on the lake for near three hours, and I had a go at rowing! It was great, but I have big blisters on my hands and my muscles are sore! Not just my arms, even my calf muscles and everywhere. We decided to stop on a little island.

 

It was heavily inhabited by bugs. Loads of little flying insects. Luckily not midges or other things that bite and itch. Although later I was told that the lake is actually full of nasty things like leeches. Luckily I didn't know that before I was walking around in it. The island was very small so it was easy to walk all over it and take lot's of pictures. There were a couple of blue damselflies but they did not want to stay still for the camera, and there was one large dragonfly.

The dog has this weird thing about playing catch - he likes to play with rocks. He goes of and picks up a big rock in his mouth and brings it over to you, then you have to throw it and while he goes after it I think it is unlikely that the rock he picks up is the same one. He doesn't much like the water either so you can't throw the rock or stick very far, otherwise he just stands there in the water looking out to where it landed, looking so sad and pathetic!

The row back was just as much fun as the way there, I don't think I'm very good at it and we were not rowing anywhere near evenly so we went in zig-zags. We tried to see who could row hardest but that ended with my oar popping off of it's metal holder-thingy and me going flying backward with the momentum of it and dropping the oar in the water. It was OK though, it's not like we were going fast enough to lose it! There were so many bugs flying around that at one point somebody realised there were bugs in my hair, and not only were there flies of some sort in my hair (caddisflies I think), but they were mating! I let a photo be taken before freaking out and insisting that all bugs be removed from me. A spider fell on my leg at one point too but I did very well in not jumping or yelling, I just flicked it off, no shrieking at all!

So of course after such a long day a very early night was required, so that today we had some energy left to go to the beach! Of course the brief stint of sunshine had disappeared, but that didn't stop us. It was humid but foggy and when we arrived at Fanore there were loads of people swimming but you could only see about 100 metres into the water. We went for a walk up the beach, which was covered in washed up jellyfish.

The water was cold but not so bad, what was worse was all the jellyfish. It was OK at first but then there were more and more jellyfish; the purple ones are harmless but the brown ones nasty, and I saw two in the water. Every time something touched me I thought I would get stung so I did not stay in long. Now at the end of a long day it is time for a movie, finally getting around to watching Tomorrow When the War Began. It is of course already not as good as the book and it has just begun. That's OK though I have popcorn.

The Macnas Parade

Despite being the middle of July and the middle of summer the sunshine here in Galway lasted only a day and a half last week - it is bloody cold and now it has started raining again! That awful light misty rain that get's everywhere and leaves you soaked before you know it. On Friday evening I went out to see the new Harry Potter movie and it was raining when we got out of the theatre - I arrived home to find that my mascara is far from waterproof and that I had great dark panda-eyes. Luckily though it did not rain yesterday much because I think that they would not postpone a parade for the sake of a bit of rain here, and I really wanted to see this one. It is a part of the Arts festival and I missed it last year, though I heard from another spectator's comment that this was the best one yet so that's good. It is not just a parade but also a huge dramatic performance with some big idea behind (which I really did not follow at all, but this year I think it was a little abstract), music, a lot of people dancing and acting and some loud fireworks. Macnas means 'joyful abandonment' (so I have just learnt) and has been around for about 25 years. The costumes were really amazing!

Like I said above, I'm not really sure what the story was supposed to be this year - there was a lot of noise and a lot of smoke from the fireworks so it was difficult to listen to anything that the people in the floats were saying. There were some really good drummers, and lot's of people on stilts, those curved bouncy sort. I was of course as near to the road as possible taking photos, as I do, and the stilted people have a bad habit of leaning over and getting so in your face that you worry they will fall down. A lot of the small children seemed to not enjoy it so much, it was a bit loud and scary.

At one point, I think just ahead of these guys on stilts with the animal masks, there were some girls all dressed in silver dancing around. They did an OK job at pretending to do ballet, except that they were clearly trying to dance in synchronisation and one of the girls at the back was so terribly off, the rest of the group would have already landed before she even began her jump or leap. Again though, the costumes were great.

So at some point, between these two floats I think it was, one of the costumed people decided that of all the spectators I was a good one to be picked on. This guy was covered in face make up to make him look all wrinkly and flaky, like his skin was coming off, and he had a big cape on I think. I don't really remember because I did not actually get a good look at him, the first thing I knew was this face coming closer and closer and then instead of backing off this demon-guy spread his cape, grabbed me and dragged me out into the parade. He was really strong too so there was nothing I could do, I struggled futilely but could not get away while random other spectators took photos of me. My own friends did not see in time to get a picture, because next thing you know he lets me go and I rush back to my place, only now I was not so keen to be standing so close to the parade.

The parade was good but it seemed to end very quickly. It ended with another ear-splitting bang and then the crowds began to dissipate. There is another week of the Arts festival but I doubt I will make the most of it seeing as I am not so culturally inclined - I would have liked to see the acrobatics show but it sold out before I even had the chance to consider getting a ticket. I would very much like to get some working helping in the costume department for next year's Macnas parade. For now however I must work a bit harder, I did well this morning and now it is lunchtime, I must try to not procrastinate after lunch seeing as I must meet with the ole' supervisor tomorrow. So I will leave you with the lasting impression of what appears to be a rhino in a wheelchair:

Sunny Galway (it does happen sometimes)

I guess it is high time to update this even though life is a little dull at the moment so I have no exciting things to say. I will just say less exciting but somewhat funny things instead. Today is hot and sunny. Unfortunately it is Wednesday. I am at work, because I am a good student and do not skive off, although I have spent about 3 hours of today giving zoology museum tours and not doing my actual work. It is difficult to get motivated though when all I want to do is go outside and enjoy the brief sunshine. It is so good today that I even risked wearing a skirt! Of course, I do have spare clothes in my office desk for when the weather suddenly changes or I arrive to work soaked from torrential rain. The google weather forecast tells me that there is a chance of rain today and also every other day. The BBC weather forecast tells me it will start raining by the weekend. This does not bode well, I do not want sunshine while I am at work.

However, seeing as that is what I have, I decided to go off to the library just as an excuse to get outside for a short walk in the sun. As I was reaching one of the entrances, which like the others has an electronic sliding door, three people were walking toward the door from the other side. They reached it before I did, these three people walking side by side, and of course the door opened as it should and they continued walking with barely a pause, not even thinking about it. Which is why they failed to notice that the doors did not open overly wide and one of the blokes on the end did not quite make it through the door. He mostly banged into the door, really loudly, making it shake a lot. Then he just stood there looking a bit confused. Then he began to gesture and say something. These people were Spanish I think so I don't know what was said but I'm pretty sure it would have been along the lines of 'would you look at that, the door did not open'. Finally he stopped just standing there and moved along so that I could continue on my way, only now I had something to laugh about.

So yesterday another funny thing happened to me, which once explained is not actually overly funny but for the beginning at least it is. I was quite pleased to find a letter in my mailbox from the health board, which was hopefully an appointment for a consultation. I opened up to find that yes, it was an appointment letter, only the date said the 2nd of January (which first of all had me a little concerned because I will not be here on that day) but then I saw the year and looked twice and realised that this is surely not my appointment. Since when are you given appointments 12 years in advance? Of course I immediately assumed it must be a mistake, they surely are not giving out appointments for 2024, so I went and called up the hospital. After being told that I am on a waiting list I explained that I had just been given an appointment for 2024, and seeing as this cannot be possible can they tell me when my appointment is? So, then I get the explanation, which makes it much less funny and just another story of the messed up system here with overworked hospitals where a lot of little mistakes are made. So, it turns out that when put on a waiting list the computer system automatically gives you an appointment date in the very far future but this is not really real, you are just on the waiting list. Only somebody printed this out and then somebody else picked it up and must have put it in the outgoing mail box and so I got this letter. It happens sometimes, she told me. On the upside, the very kind secretary on the phone had a look at the waiting list and actually gave me a real appointment, for this year and not in another decade. So you see the explanation really takes the funniness away.

Yesterday I also went to the movies because just like back home it is cheaper to go on a Tuesday. We saw a movie called The Guard and I have no idea if it will be released in NZ because it is an Irish movie and it is very odd to see Galway on the big screen. They make it look a lot cleaner and emptier. They are at least truthful about the rainy state of this county though. And it was a comedy and really quite funny, and had quite a good ending. So if it is released in NZ I do recommend it, then you will see a little of where I live. On Monday as far as I can remember nothing exciting or funny happened but on Sunday I got rained on, and brought a bright pink umbrella, and a square muffin pan. I just couldn't resist the novelty of square muffins and cupcakes. On Satuday I watched the movie Happy Feet which I had never seen before and was quite different to what I expected - it's interesting to see all the ecological save-the-planet overtones that they are putting into children's movies these days. Great idea in my opinion, they should do it more often, in fact they should probably include subliminal messages in all television to encourage people to recycle and boycott large fisheries and stop using so much oil and all that other bad stuff.

But as you can see I am clearly procrastinating and should be working, although now it is 4.30 in the afternoon the day is practically done so I might as well just go home. Work is too hard. I should buy a lotto ticket. And go enjoy the sunshine before it disappears.

Dreary Galway

So right now I should be working. It is 10 am and only Wednesday, but I am feeling terribly un-motivated already. Which is unfortunate seeing as I have two weeks to make another draft of the paper that I am supposed to be getting published and apparently needs a lot of work and a good spin because my actual work is just not that interesting (so says a certain deprecating, disparaging supervisor whom I hope never comes across such a comment). Not only that but I have a presentation to prepare for my first conference which I am sure will also not be good enough for the aforementioned supervisor, but on the bright side by the time she returns from maternity leave it will be far too late to protest, in fact it will probably be completely forgotten, so I should just not worry too much and say whatever I please. Another significant positive note is that I get to go to Belgium to to some work for a couple of weeks in August. Maybe it will be sunny there. Because it certainly is not here. It was nice-ish on Saturday. That's probabaly it for July. Now it is overcast, which is somehow very de-motivational. Of course if it was sunny I would also rather not be working. So I will get my procrastination out of my system now and then try to get some work done.

The disappointing thing about being back in Galway is the lack of shops. There are of course shops here but not enough and they are too crowded and I have no money to spend anyway so shopping is difficult. But even basic things are so hard to find sometimes. I need headphones which you think would be easy to come by but no, there is very little to choose from. I was making cupcakes last week and they needed to be frosted but you know, there was no icing sugar at the biggest supermarket. Luckily they have it at a smaller one but still, you would think that the only really large supermarket here would have something so obvious as icing sugar. Everything is on sale at the moment but the shops are so crowded and current fashion is a little overated, not to mention overpriced, so I have been sewing instead. Of course there is only one fabric store here, it is not cheap and the selection is vastly limited. So lately I have not been making new clothes but changing old clothes. I fixed two dresses, turned an old skirt into a top and I have a pair of jeans that don't fit but might make a nice skirt. Plus I am teaching friends how to sew because it is the new thing, everyone wants to be doing it. Unfortunately my penchant for clothing is not always a good thing. I probably have too many clothes, seeing as the bottom of one of my drawers broke as I was trying to press my things down enough to make it fit into the dresser.

Wandering through the shopping centre that is near where I live I am continiously surprised by the presence of two new foot-spa clinics - the type that you have maybe seen on the news that involve pools of tiny fish that eat all the dead skin from your feet. What is with all those people, why do they want little fish eating their skin? And there are two of them! In this tiny city with the bare minimum of decent shops there is suddenly a thriving niche for fish pedicures? I must admit, the one thing about Galway is that there are always new businesses starting up, you would think it is a good location for entrepreneurs - loads of new cafes right now. Of course they don't generally last very long. So I wonder how long will the toe-eating fish fad last? Hopefully not too long because it's really quite gross and surely not at all hygenic. Besides, think of the poor fish, what a life!