Mish in Gent

Showed Mish around the city centre a bit today, the weather has been lovely and sunny (but nowhere near as hot as the 37 degrees he experienced in Turkey or the 47 degrees in Egypt!). Tomorrow we will be nutting out plans for travels and work after we leave Gent at the end of July.

This is Mish at Graslei, the chill-out spot in the city centre along the canals that used to be the medieval port.


I guess from now on this blog will be more like 'renelleandhamishsomewhereineurope' but I decided to keep the same blog, and will post for the both of us :)

Hope you are all well,
xxx

He's HERE

Here's some guy I found on a train. Actually that's not true, I found him at the airport.

He arrived late last night, fresh from Turkey.

He's in Europe now. Yay! I missed him lots.

Mission: Accomplished

I've finished.

6 years, 2 degrees, 2 continents and 3,325 teaching hours later, I've finished!!!

I had my LAST exam this morning, so now I'm officially a (qualified) bum. I would like to extend a MASSIVE thankyou to all of you for your support and patience with me throughout this entire crazy Uni experience. It's been a whopper of a ride!

Photos from Hamish's Egypt adventures

Check these out!! Pinched some photos from a guy on Hamish's tour's Facebook. Lol. Coz mish took a film camera so he has no digital photos to email me lol.

Here he is on a camel!!! (hunched over guy in black shirt lol).

Here he is, on a Felucca sailing boat on the Nile river!

This is his tour group

Just one more exam

So I had my Penal Systems exam today (both written AND oral exam, bleh!). Got Nature Conservation tomorrow and then its alllll overrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hamish is now in Turkey! He arrived in Istanbul this morning, starts his tour on saturday. Gobble gobble.

I would really like some carrot cake. They don't put vegetables in cakes here. Obviously these Europeans are unaware of the delight of cream-cheese icing!!

Mental health afternoon

Today was Thanh-Chi's birthday, so I decided to have a couple of hours off outside in the sunshine to help her celebrate. Just as well because I think I would have started throwing things if I hadn't got out of my room for a bit hehe. This photo above is Graslei - an area along the mideval port canal right in the centre of town which is lined with cafes (and currently, lovely flowering baskets). It's a really nice place to sit in the sun and chill out, and as you can see, is lined with students (the ones who have finished their exams already, lucky buggers). Its usually filled with people enjoying the atmosphere of the place.

This is me, on the canal at Graslei, being my usual dorky self :)


This is the entrance to both a club and a really nice cafe that sells apparently the best coffee in Gent. That's Auriane and Thanh-Chi (both French). 'Gand' is the French word for Gent :)

We had warme appeltaart. Mmmmm

On the way home, Orestis and I stopped for Gelato. Mmmm Gelato. I tried Speculaas flavour (Speculaas is a kind of cinamon-type biscuit that Belgians (and Dutch) eat as a sort of tea/coffee biscuit) OMG nean speculaas gelato is GOOD. I also tried Marscapone and honey flavour (apparently marscapone is some kind of cheese?) It was weird. Creamy and yummy but weird. And of course, I had chocolate too. In this photo, I had my eyes closed coz it was so yummy. I can't wait to try the real deal in Italy!!

I'm MEGA excited about stuff after exams. On friday night (after my last exam) there is a party for the end of the Erasmus semester. I think many of the ~800 odd erasmus students will be in attendance, and I plan on drinking my share of the beer. So that leaves saturday to recover. And then on Sunday we are embarking on a ~50km bike trip through some towns around Gent, which will be wonderfully scenic (windmills, rivers, flemish farmers). A lot of students are leaving at the end of June, so we are trying to do as many things together before then as possible. And then of course on the 28th, Hamish rocks in to Gent. And then on July the 10th, Amy rocks in to Gent!! And then, on the 19th July, the Geentse Feesten begins! Yes, 10 days of crazy festival madness in which 2 million people flock to the city of Gent to celebrate like mad people! (the festival is 186 years old, and was originally created to give the people something to do, so they wouldnt get bored and create havoc). Lol.

Right, back to study.
xxx

Here I am !!

Ok I have been fielding complaints about the lack of blog posts over the past week hehe. Sorry, I just didn't want to bore you all because I don't have anything exciting to report unfortunately. I have mainly been holed up in my room, studying (or at least, trying to study, but mostly just staring into space etc lol).

I have been going for evening walks and bike rides which has been nice, took some photos of the Boekentoren (aka Book Tower, aka 4th tower of Gent, aka University library);

The book tower is kinda famous in Gent eventhough its kinda heinous (I think I wrote something about it already?) Anyway I suppose for a building built in the 1930's it is pretty awesome. Plus they got extra height by building it on the highest point in the city. Check out the moon - this photo was taken at 9pm (gets dark here at about 10:30pm at the mo).

This is why they call it a tower I guess :) If you want a book, you have to fill out a form and wait while someone fetches it from the tower for you (not allowed to go up there).

I got myself all worked into a tizz today because I realised that Hamish will arrive here next week (Sat 28th at 9:35pm Belgian time). I've spent sooo long waiting for him to get here, I just can't wait for him to finally be here. Yesterday he was able to go on a separate trip to Petra, Jordan!! I'm so happy he had the chance to go, it would be an amazing trip for sure. He got to cross the red sea and go past Israel and Saudi Arabia, into Jordan. Quite the traveller! He said Petra was very vast. Though I will have to wait til he gets here to pick his brains for the full scoop - communicating by txt at the mo. I'm sure I can get him to post about some of his adventures once he gets to Gent!

As Mish would say, "everybody likes a bit of Connery". tee hee.

Stuff

Found NZ kiwifruit in the Aldi yesterday :)

Hamish is visiting the Pyramids and the Sphinx today. How unreal is that?!

I have a cold, so feeling kinda poo. Only 2 more exams left!

Love to all,
xxx

Hamish in Egypt

Mish touched down in Egypt! After many frustrating attempts to call him and getting an earful of Arabic, I managed to talk to him. He's pretty overwhelmed by the place at the mo, guns at the airport, pushy people trying to make off with his luggage, the sheer size of the place, and the fact that its 37 degrees!


Some interesting stuff about Cairo; in Arabic the city is called القاهرة (Al-Qāhirah) which means "The Vanquisher" or "The Triumphant". Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city (so no idea why we call it Cairo). It has a population of about 17.285 million people!!! (no wonder he said it looked 'like a never-ending sea of rooftops').


I think he's very brave. Aint no way you'd catch me goin there alone! His tour begins on the 7th June, and he will get to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings, the tomb of King Ramses II, Mt Sinai, ride camels, play in the sand, all that ridiculously kool stuff we'd all want to do in Egypt :) Go Mish!