Monday, 26 May 2008

Saturday, 17 May 2008

Chill in Brussels and party in Amsterdam


I took Friday off as i was planning to spend a long weekend in Brussels with a friend and former colleague – Chituru. Since I missed the easyjet special, I had to take the train which took 6 hrs through north of France, Luxembourg and finally Brussels. When the train arrived at the central station….I was a bit surprised by the abundance of black people at the station – it felt like I was in Africa again. . . the train station did not look that ‘pretty’ though and trains were very old aswell . . . I guess having been in Switzerland for this long has spoiled me to a certain level as the stations are more organized and cleaner – owing to the fact that they never got bombed throughout history, the trains are not that old (not German magnificent either) and the fact that there are not that many foreigners in Switzerland as in other European countries due to restrictions has created a sort of bubble for me.

Went to a festival at about 17h00, a celebration of spring with all kinds of music….but listened to a lot of Arabic music through-out the day, quite a cultural experience and had a watermelon – which seems to be a delicacy this part of the world. Came back @ 00h20 or so, had water to dilute our alcohol intake and then continued to talk about world issues until 05h00….and the main issues were an African point of view about Zimbabwe & Mugabe, Democracy versus dictatorship and being a foreigner in Europe.After all those deep discussions, my head was dizzy so I went to lie down a while, awakened later on that Sunday morning to have breakfast @ 11h00, slept again to gain more rest during the late afternoon

At about 23h00, left Brussels for a club in Amsterdam and stayed until we were escorted out. Instead of going home at about 04h00 – headed for a bar 100 meters down the road and waited until sunrise…..then we headed back to Brussels 4 hours later. When we got to Brussels we went straight for my luggage, even though time was not on my side - had to wash the necessary parts though cause I was to have another 6hrs sitting down straight.

I feel I am still recovering from last weekend, but that is not happening as I am in the middle of a conference about new generations and demographics organized by the economic commission for Europe where in lay men’s terms they are talking about why Europe east and west are not making anymore babies and what should be done to assist the process of reproduction….another story for another day….right now I shall continue with my book Hannibal, pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham – on that note I learned on my train trip to Brussels that Carthage people are what we call Tunisians from a Tunisian who was sitting across me.