Looking for a brewery and a canal…

My mother is most probably coming to Brussels next week to keep me company while O goes to India. It makes me think of the last time my parents came to visit us, in October last year. They had one wish each, my mother wanted to see a canal and my father wanted to visit a brewery. So, we decided to take them to Affligem as we have a friend who lives nearby and it is a nice area close to Brussels (can’t remember if it has a canal though).

It says “Stop the night noise!” on the posters, I guess the neighbours are tired of drunken people in the streets…

Off we went, O and my father in the front of the car, my mother and I in the back, and the GPS in the middle… We left Brussels and got on the outer ring (motorway), where I expected O to turn towards Ghent but he was following the GPS instructions and continued driving on the ring. I questioned his decision but he trusted the GPS more and didn’t want to listen to the back-seat driver. It is true that we hadn’t been in Affligem for years and maybe the GPS knew a better way!?

Interesting way of displaying art – in the windows for passers-by to see instead of making it visible from inside the apartment

Eventually the machine told O to turn off the ring and head towards Antwerp, which he did while I kept saying that I thought that we were not going in the right direction. At the same time, I didn’t want to insist too much and make it into a typical husband – wife discussion (which is very, very rare that we ever have!) in front of my parents. Anyway, when we were almost in Antwerp, O finally realises that yes, maybe something was not entirely right about the GPS instructions so we stopped at the next exit where we checked the GPS settings. Apparently when he had chosen Affligem as our destination, he then clicked on “Important sights / monuments” (or something similar), and somehow changed the destination to … Antwerp!

The Swedish colours!

Oh well, we were almost there by then and as there is a canal (ok, ok, it is actually a river, Schelde) in Antwerp, and my parents are very flexible, easy-going people who are just happy to spend some time with us, we all agreed to continue to Antwerp! Despite the change of plans, the lack of a brewery and the grey weather, we spent a very nice Sunday afternoon in the city. We walked along the river and then continued up in the antiques / flea market area.

And even a Swedish flag! (not the same house though)

And lesson learnt [for O]? To listen to his wife and not trust the GPS  However, you might recall the last time we went to Antwerp and we once again had GPS trouble?

Some “fleas”

Mirrors for sale

Headless mannequin family, anyone?

Hispantics – do they only sell hispanic antiques?

What I love about Belgian cities – there is always something interesting to look at on buildings (Brussels has murals of comic strip characters)… Here a poem by a Flemish poet and singer

Has anyone heard of Jürgen von der Lippe? I didn’t buy his record…

Nor did I buy “One more little kissy”

Plastic chairs

Or wooden ones in big and small sizes

There is something about empty frames that I really like

I did actually buy something from one of the flea market shops but I will show you that another time. Something that really is quite ironic considering the Belgian reputation of … being crazy drivers!

Two generational girls’ weekend in Amsterdam

Most of you guessed right – I was going to Amsterdam last weekend! It is one of the best perks about living “in the middle of Europe” – travelling easily and quick by train to Amsterdam (2 or 3 hours depending on the train type), Paris (1,5 hours) or London (less than two hours)!

I have been to Amsterdam several times and my aunt went a few years ago, but my mother and my sister hadn’t been back since we celebrated my 16th birthday there in 1991! And since my sister was 8 years old back then, she didn’t remember much…

“I amsterdam” - the new Amsterdam slogan! I also like the WoCo-slogan – Wonderful Copenhagen. I wonder, does Brussels have a slogan? You can find this slogan on Museumplein, the big square between the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum, but it is difficult to get a good picture of it without lots of tourists posing for their friends!

The first thing we did on Friday morning was to head to the Van Gogh Museum – thinking that during the weekend it would be too crowded. I visited the museum in 2007 and my aunt in 2008 but my sister and my mother had never been there. My favourite is the almond blossom painting – to the right. When I visited the museum 4 years ago, I got a text message from my friend ErkaPerka telling me that she had given birth to a boy, V who just happened to get the same [Swedish version of the Dutch] name as Van Gogh’s nephew to whom he dedicated this painting. I bought a postcard of the painting, framed it and gave it as a present, I wonder if he still has it?

There was also a Picasso exhibition at the museum but we didn’t like it too much, or maybe we were just “museumed out” by then? My mother said that she and my father are thinking of going to Danish museum Louisiana to see the Picasso exhibition there, which incidentally my blog friends Marianne and Olgakatt saw a few days ago!

The museum shop at the Van Gogh museum as well as the shop at Museumplein had lots of irresistible products and we spent a long time browsing through beautiful postcards and posters, books and small trinkets. My sister bought me and herself beautiful Delft-inspired (the blue and white tiles) bracelets, and later on my mother bought one for her sister, and then my sister and I had to buy one for her!

In 2005 when I visited Amsterdam with a Flemish friend, he had a loooong list of stuff he wanted to EAT and poffertjes were one of the things on his list. Our Dutch friend R brought us to this café on Museumplein to eat poffertjes (small pancakes), but I don’t recall if the skating rink was there then?

Amsterdammers are not the most rule-abiding people, are they? This sign says “No placing of bikes here”

We were staying at a NH Hotel (Spanish hotel chain that I can really recommend) in the Museum area and close by De Pijp-neighbourhood which is full of interesting restaurants and the famous Albert Cuyp-market. After a late lunch on Friday we wandered around the market, looking at beautiful flowers (so cheap!), cheese (not so cheap) and typical market brick-a-brack…

Albert Cuyp market!

A garden on the pavement in De Pijp neighbourhood

The restaurant part of Albert Cuypstraat – I would have wanted to try some Surinamese or Indonesian restaurants but maybe next time?

An interesting shop as I didn’t see anybody wear a helmet – not the cyclists, nor the people on mopeds / scooters / motorbikes!

Bikes, bikes, everywhere bikes… and bridges seem to be a favourite place to park your bike.

Our hotel on the left, the Rijksmuseum in the background and a canal…

Another canal, in the antiques area of the city! On Saturday we walked to the centre of Amsterdam…

The bloemenmarkt (flower market)! Unfortunately I had managed to change the settings on the camera without realising and all the photos became very grainy   (O who was in Singapore had the small camera so I was using the SLR camera)

We couldn’t resist buying some flower bulbs…

I love the Amsterdam houses! We walked around the Negen straatjes (the nine small streets) area, which is very cosy but unfortunately it started to rain harder and harder and in the end we took refuge in a café before going back to the hotel…

De Pijp by night – with the Christmas lights still up!

Sunday was supposed to be another museum day, we had planned to visit the Rijksmuseum but Dutch artists were occupying the museum in protest against budget cuts (national elections this week). So instead of waiting in the looong line outside the museum in the rain, not knowing if we would be able to enter, we decided to take a canal boat tour!

Taking photos through a rainy boat window is not great…

but at least you get a feeling of the bad weather!

In the afternoon my mother, sister and aunt headed to the airport while I met up with my Dutch friend R for a hot chocolate before taking the train back to Brussels. I was very pleased to find a FT Weekend left behind by another traveller, and also to actually get a seat as the train became very full before departure!

A second Amsterdam post will follow shortly…

På spåret*…

I am meeting up with my mother, my sister and my aunt in an European capital tonight! After work I will be taking the train for 2h51min** and I will end up here:

A speciality for this country…

Ha ha, not the greatest photos of the city but I had forgotten that my older photos are on another computer…

Unfortunately we will be one month too early to visit this yearly beautiful tourist attraction:

Spring flowers galore!

So, have you guessed yet? Where am I going?

*) På spåret (On the track) is a popular Swedish TV show where stars compete to guess train destinations all over the world… You’d probably need to be Swedish to enjoy it
**) I could have arrived an hour sooner but it would have been a little more expensive… My tickets cost 78 EUR return, I could have travelled for under 50 EUR if I had travelled Friday evening to Sunday evening.

What I did for 10 days in January…

I came back to Brussels last Thursday from my working holiday in the Alps! Ten very intense days as the trip included 250 10- & 11-year olds but I loved it.

And Marianne, you were right, I am not a skier… Despite having lived in the Alps THREE times (Geneva x2, Annecy in France)! I had only skied three times in 1994-95 and didn’t enjoy it much, but for O’s* sake I tried again and unfortunately it didn’t end well.

I fell badly on the first day of skiing and hurt my knee. It wasn’t too dramatic but it did mean that I was taken down from the mountain head first in a emergency sleigh pulled by a skier! I heard from some parents that it had impressed the children who saw it I have always claimed that I will never / never wanted to be a skier and I think that I can safely say that it has been established now… Fingers crossed that I won’t need an operation on my knee! It is quite ironic that I, the least sporty person ever, has a sport’s injury!

The children had ski lessons every afternoon with professional ski instructors!

The last day I took the ski lift to the top to enjoy the sunshine up on the mountain.

The slopes were very icy, we were told that the snow actually dated from November and the snow cannons were busy making artificial snow every night.

I missed one excursion because I couldn’t walk on the ski slopes… I was quite disappointed as it was to a farm where you could buy my favourite cheese “Tomme de Savoie” but luckily we could place orders afterwards and the cheese and other products were delivered to the hotel on the last morning.

A new version of the classic “NO adults allowed”-sign – Only adults allowed! I guess the girls realised that they couldn’t keep us out…

Night watch sign… I had the night watch three times but was only once woken up by some German boys who couldn’t sleep (and spoke to me in German!?).

*) As O would love to go on ski holidays together. I have promised him that we can go to the mountains but I will stay somewhere in the sun and read a book… Or maybe I should try cross-country skiing, it seems less dangerous?

Alptopp…

När du läser det här sitter jag på en alptopp och undrar kanske vad jag har gett mig in på… Berättar mer när jag har kommit hem om en vecka eller så!

When you read this I will be up on a mountain in the Alps, maybe wondering why I agreed to this… I will tell you more when I am back in a week or so!

500 miles to drive home for Christmas (and back)

Maybe you think of this song when you hear “500 miles”:

It is one of my favourite songs from my childhood’s car journeys. My parents had a tape with Peter, Paul & Mary plus Abba’s Arrival album that we always listened to in the car.

But most likely, you think of this song instead:

However, currently I am thinking of the [Swedish] 500 miles (=5000 km) that we are going to drive in the next 2,5 weeks! I know, it is completely crazy, especially considering that it is one of the snowiest European winters in a long time… But what can you do when you have a Spanish husband who loves driving? And anyway, we wouldn’t be better off with plane tickets as Europe is experiencing another airport / plane chaos like the one in May – the only difference is that this time it is due to the snow and ice and not a volcano.

The plan is to drive to Sweden today; on New Year’s Day we will drive back to Brussels and then the next day go to Spain to celebrate Epiphany (Trettonhelgen) with O’s family (approx 2800 km return). On the way back we have a dinner in Paris with friends who live in Australia. Phew! Fortunately I have an appointment at a luxurious spa in Brussels on the 11th, I think that I might need it…  Since I wrote this scheduled post, the plans have unfortunately changed due to something very sad, and I am not sure what we are going to do now once we have celebrated Christmas and New Year’s in Sweden. I will write about why another time.

Maybe this is the song that we should listen to in the car today (as O just said when hearing this song – “He sings Driving home for Christmas, not flying”…I rest my case):

What a French, an Irish, a Danish and two Swedish girls did in Geneva last weekend

I haven’t had time to blog this week, as I started to work (again) on Tuesday for the same European project office where I worked in May-June. Also, in the evenings we have been busy trying to sort out what greeted me on Monday morning when I got back from Geneva – approximately 15 big moving boxes that O had delivered from storage. Did I mention that our flat is very small? There is stuff and boxes everywhere! But I don’t complain as we now have sheets, towels, duvets, winter clothes, plates and glasses in abundance! Unfortunately we still haven’t found the dish rack, laundry drying rack and more clothes hangers so we might just have to go to Ikea soon…

This coming weekend will be busy, lots of activities and it is O’s birthday on Sunday which we will celebrate by going with friends to a museum here in Brussels for lunch and a bit of culture! Will tell you more about that next week. As usual I haven’t had time to answer all your comments but in the mean while I still want to share some photos from the lovely girls’ weekend in Geneva.

The Geneva hostess, P No 1 had the above recipe on the kitchen wall but we didn’t do any cooking at all during the weekend. On Friday before the other girls arrived from Dublin and Copenhagen, the two Ps just talked and talked. Last time we saw each other was in May when P came to Brussels so we had lots of catching up to do. We did go down around the corner for lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then had a nap. I had after all gotten out of bed at 04.15 and P had been helping her husband choose “Cocktail of the month” at his new bar the night before…

You can almost see the Lake Geneva at the end of the street from the balcony. The weather was great during the whole weekend but a little bit too hazy to be able to see Mont Blanc in the horizon.

When the group of “us five” was complete, we walked down to the lake and sat in the sun at “Bain des Pâquis”. Bain des Pâquis is the public “beach” in Geneva, which includes a “buvette” (a simple bar / restaurant), saunas and changing rooms (also open in the winter for people who like cold baths). Speaking of “us five”, when we were in Bosnia on a study trip during our Master’s we were “hosted” by the SFOR forces and a very funny misunderstanding took place when I asked a friend to take a photo of “us four” (one of us five was missing) and the other girls thought that I wanted a photo of the soldiers! Other misunderstandings include: Rosé – not José when we were in the south of France in 2005, and during the Geneva weekend when P No 1 was talking about a “Pâquis priest” (Pâquis is the neighbourhood where she lives as well as the public beach) – not a priest from Pakistan as Irish O thought!

The late arrivals had a simple lunch of “viande des Grisons” (air-dried meat) and a Greek salad – these dishes are summer classics at Bain des Pâquis while the cheese fondue is a winter classic that I have never had there (but in lots of other places).

After dinner with a 6th [Finnish] girl who did the Master’s with us, we headed to Carouge (on the other side of the river Rhône) where P No 1′s husband G has his new wine bar called Vert Bouteille. What a cool place! Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of the interior but he has done everything himself – from building the bar to scouring old mid-century furniture and planning the wine and food menu! The best part? He had Spritz al Aperol on the cocktail menu and immediately started making us some when we arrived!

Ten years ago when we studied in Venice nobody outside Veneto (the region of Venice, Padova and Verona) had heard of Spritz al Aperol – or at least not the Italian students we met in Bologna. However, forget about the Bellini cocktail, this is what the locals drink in Venice! Nowadays you can even order a Spritz al Aperol in Brussels! (see link to a recipe under the category “Travel links” on the right-hand side of the blog)

Despite that we are ten years older than during our student days we still managed to stay out until 03.30  Sleeping arrangements were on the floor and sofa in our hosts’ living room but we slept so good (and late). The next morning we had a long brunch in the middle of the river Rhône.

The brunch buffet included of course some Swiss specialities such as Gruyère cheese, viandes des Grisons and birchermüsli but also lots of other dishes. Probably the 2nd best brunch I have ever had after the champagne brunch with P No 1 in Warsaw…

A brunch with a river view in all directions!

You can’t go to Switzerland without stocking up on your favourite Swiss food stuffs! All five of us have lived in Geneva; P No 1 since 2001, Danish L and I in 2002, Irish O in 2004 and Swedish Å in 2005 and we all have our different favourites. I always buy rösti, Å and L buy Gruyère cheese and O get chocolate. After shopping we ended up at Bain des Pâquis again, sunbathing while chatting away and in the evening we had a great Vietnamese dinner and then drinks in a bar close by. We discussed where our next girls’ weekend should take place – maybe it is time for Dublin?

On Sunday morning the other girls left, while I went to one of my favourite places in the world, my father’s uncle’s adoptive village in the canton Vaud (between Lausanne and Montreux). Unfortunately he passed away two years ago but I wanted to see his Swiss widow M whom I hadn’t seen since 2007, which was my parents’ and my last visit. I am the only one in the family who can communicate with M in French and we have been keeping in touch via letters and phone calls. It was lovely to see her again but that’s another story… As a parting gift, I got a box of locally made chocolates and this enormous courgette from her garden to give to my French hosts in Geneva!

10th Anniversary: Girls’ Weekend in Geneva

This morning we got up at 04 (well, O got up at 04 and I 15 min later) in order for me to be at the airport on time for my very early morning flight. I had coffee at the airport with a Flemish friend who was flying to Copenhagen and then I boarded the plane for one of my favourite places in the world: Geneva, Switzerland!

From a very young age I dreamt about  living by the Geneva Lake, where my father’s uncle lived with his Swiss wife and there was never any question about which language I would choose to learn after English – French, bien sûr! (the choice was between French and German at the age of 13) The dream came true, twice! I lived in Geneva for one year just after high school (1994-1995) working as an au-pair (nanny) and then again for 5 months in 2002 when I did an internship at a small human rights NGO.

No wonder I have been looking forward to this weekend in Geneva, but also because this month it is incredibly 10 years ago that I started a Master’s in human rights in Venice. My oldest friend and I had decided to do the same master’s programme together and in Venice we met three wonderful girls who are still among our best friends, Irish O, French P (No 1) and Danish L. We also have lots of other friends from that year who we meet regularly (usually for weddings!) but we are the core group and we try to do at least one girls’ weekend per year. Last year we meet in Copenhagen for a double hen party as both French P and Irish O were getting married. Other girls’ weekends have included a hen party for a groom in Venice (it was a hen party and not a stag party since we were 5 girls and just one guy!), and a beach holiday in Ste Maxime in France.

I was the first one to arrive to Geneva today and the other girls are dropping in around 15. P No 1 and I (P No 2) have already had a few hours of chatting, drinking coffee and eating bagels, and we are looking forward to more girls’ talk over wine in P’s husband’s new wine bar in Carouge (a cool area of Geneva) tonight.

It will be a great 10th anniversary weekend, I am sure!

On the road again: a detour to Provence

Well, no, we are not travelling again but 2½ weeks ago we hit the road when we drove south. We usually drive to Spain via the French Atlantic coast, via Paris and Bordeaux. This time, since we were not heading to Zaragoza as usual, but first to Calafell in Catalunya, the shortest way was via the French Mediterranean coast.

Taking the Mediterranean way to Spain, it was the perfect excuse to stop by one of my best friends, Swedish L who nowadays live in Provence with her French boyfriend F. They live 1003 km from Brussels, in a small village in the region of Lubéron, north of Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.

I didn’t know that Valencia and Vienne were in the same direction (Not really, they are French towns called Valence and Vienne, not to be confused with Spanish Valencia and Austrian Vienna)

Driving in France is so much nicer than driving in Germany (when driving to Sweden); less traffic (if not driving when all the French are going south), less queues and less crazy people driving 200 km/hour. However, there is one thing I definitely prefer on the German autobahn – the toilets!! Another drawback is that you have to pay toll on many French (and Spanish) motorways, but they are usually in a very good condition so we don’t complain too much.

Driving along the Rhône river

O loves listening to Radio Autoroute (107.7 fm) and I am in charge of understanding the traffic announcements. At one point they announced that there was a car driving in the wrong direction on the exact motorway section where we were driving. It took me a while to understand in what direction the car was travelling as I got confused – was the car driving south on the north-bound side, or the reverse? It turned out that the car was on our south-bound lane but driving north – scary!! Fortunately the driver had probably discovered his / her mistake and had stopped or maybe it had been stopped by a so-called patrouiller because the alert was called off. The patrouiller is not like the American highway patrol, ie not the police, but what I have understood the motorway company’s patrol cars that are usually first on the scene when there is an incident on the motorway (accident or a car breaking down etc).  

Happy we were not driving north through Lyon (the Rhône river is next to the north-bound lanes on the left). Mental note for next time: find a way to drive AROUND the city (we still haven’t found a way to avoid the périphérique (ring road) of Paris).

It was O’s first time visiting Provence, but I spent three summers in the 1980′s in the south of France with my family and was back in 2005 (girls’ weekend in Ste-Maxime) and 2006 (wedding weekend in Aix-en-Provence). Hopefully we will be able to drive to Spain via Provence many times in the future, especially as our friends L & F became parents to a small baby girl last Monday (11 days after we had visited them).

Provence is famous for its rosé wines and of course we had to go to the local wine cooperative and buy a few bottles to bring with us when we left

Our friends live on the same property as F’s parents but in their own little house (jokingly called the Pool house as it is next to the pool). F’s parents live in a typical Provençal mas (farmhouse), even if this one is not an old one but only 20 years old. The whole setting is very picturesque; the two couples share custody of the old diabetic cat Lucky (pronunced in French, bien sûr), F and his father complain that the village butcher is flirting with their women and between their homes and the village is a huge sunflower field and the wine cooperative.

O was surprised at how similar the landscape was to his region in Aragón, only the Lubéron mountains are lower and there are so much more tourists here than in Aragón. We discussed why – maybe because the Mediterranean sea is 1 hours’ drive away instead of 3 hours? Or maybe because holidaying in Provence (and especially la Côte d’Azur – the coastline) has been popular with both French and foreign tourists since the 19th century*? The French are also better at preserving old houses instead of just building new homes, which means that the villages have kept their charm unlike their Spanish counterparts (especially along the Spanish coasts!)… However, the locals are now complaining that the foreigners have pushed up the prices on the village houses and the old-style mas in the countryside which means that the younger generation can’t afford to live in the area. O and I would love for some rich Brits or Dutch in search of the sun to come to his village in Spain and renovate some of the crumbling old buildings!!  

Lubéron landscape

Unfortunately we only had time to stay for less than 24 hours in Provence as O’s sister and niece were waiting for us in Spain. We had to wave goodbye to our friends, who we knew would be 3 next time we see them… We had another 560 km to drive before we would reach our second destination, Calafell in Catalunya.

*) The nick-name la Côte d’Azur was coined in a guidebook to the region, published in 1887 (according to Lonely Planet: Provence & the Côte d’Azur)

Priorities and Privilege: Holidays and Travels

A few weeks ago a blog reader asked me: how do you manage to travel so often and to so many places? Quite a pertinent question, especially as I am on holidays at the moment – in Spain!

When I was in Israel for work in 2006, I spent a long weekend in Jordan visiting the desert of Wadi Rum and the city of Petra

I would say that my travels are thanks to both priorities and privilege, and my answer to the blog reader went something like this:

1.  Geographic location! Living in Belgium it is quite easy (and cheap) to travel to the neighbouring countries - France, the Netherlands and Germany. Our day trip to Germany and The Netherlands last Sunday didn’t actually cost us a cent since we don’t pay for fuel for the car and our friends invited us for brunch and the drinks (in other words, we didn’t “go Dutch” with our Dutch friends ).
2. Also as I have studied and lived in so many different countries (7 so far) and as I stay in contact with my friends, it means that when travelling we rarely stay in hotels. Of course it isn’t completely free to stay with friends – we always bring gifts and make sure that we take them out for dinner at least once – and offer to pay for groceries etc. And we are always willing to house visiting friends (except for at the moment as our apartment is tiny).


Malta – another place I visited through work in 2006

3. Being married to a Spaniard means that I “have to” go to Spain 2-4 times a year, and of course I go to Sweden as many times since I am Swedish. We stay with our families and don’t have to spend money on expensive hotels and meals out.
4. When we lived in Puerto Rico, thanks to O’s work, we usually combined his business trips to the US with holidays and used his air miles for my plane tickets (he still complains about not having any air miles left over). It is actually also the way we used to travel in my family when I was a child – my mother and us kids would sometimes tag along when my father went on work-related trips. In the summer of 1982 we visited Paris where my father had a conference (or training) and then we continued [driving] to Bretagne (Brittany) and back home via Switzerland to visit my father’s uncle and his Swiss wife.
5. In Europe we usually drive or use low-cost airlines – planning ahead and booking tickets when they are cheap. When I was a student I criss-crossed Europe by train and it is still one of my favourite ways of travelling. In the BeNeLux*-countries there are (I hope still!) reductions in train ticket prices on the weekends.


There is always room in the travel budget for a Lonely Planet guide (for the record: I haven’t been in South America, Argentina, Egypt, or East Africa – the books have been gifts or in anticipation for travels that have fallen through)

6. Plan your holidays around the public holidays! A colleague of mine used to complain that I seemed to have more holidays than him – it was just because I combined public holidays with taking [fewer] days off. Every year in January I used to check when Easter, 1st May, Ascension, Pentecost, 21st July, 15th August and 1st November would fall (weekday and dates) and then plan the holidays accordingly.
7. In conclusion: it’s all about budgeting, visiting friends and family and using long weekends for shorter trips…

I lived and studied in Venice in 2000-2001

When I check my old calendar, I notice that pre-Puerto Rico-move I used to have at least one trip or visit from family or friends per month. I don’t feel that we have fully taken advantage of living back in Brussels yet but fortunately I have the following trips planned for the rest of the year:

August: Currently in Spain staying with O’s sister and niece in an apartment my sister-in-law has rented by the seaside (south of Barcelona). On Sunday we will head to Aragón, O’s region in Spain where we will stay with his parents for a week. We drove down to Spain, staying overnight with my Swedish friend L and her French boyfriend in Provence.

September: Girls’ weekend in Geneva with my French, Irish, Danish and Swedish girlfriends. Staying with French P and checking out her husband’s new cool bar! I am flying in and out of Geneva really early on Friday and Monday morning, the cheapest tickets mean getting to the airport before 06. Later on in the month O and I are going to a secret location for the weekend – staying with friends and flying with a low-cost airline meant that our tickets were about 100 EUR for two (and are my birthday present for O, hence the secrecy even though he might not read this post…).

October: Swedish-Cypriot wedding in Cyprus! We are going for one week and renting a house with friends, which is cheaper than staying a hotel.

November: Nothing concrete yet, but might go back to Provence for a weekend to visit our friends who are becoming parents in a few weeks’ time. Will either travel by train or low-cost airline, depending on what is cheapest…

December: We are celebrating Christmas in Sweden and will probably drive the 1000 km to my parents’ home.

We should also try to squeeze in visiting my German sister-in-law in Munich, American-Italian friends in London, friends in Ireland and in Amsterdam, Swedish-Norwegian friends in Oslo etc but some of those travels will probably just have to wait until 2011….

My father’s uncle lived in Switzerland for over 50 years and we would go there every summer to visit him and his wife. One of my best friends lives in Geneva and I will always have a space on her sofa (or floor)…

That is how I can manage to travel so much and often! I don’t deny that I am privileged, with having a maybe generous travel budget, as well as wonderful hospitable families and friends, that permit this lifestyle. However, don’t make the mistake to think that I am used to 5-star hotels and all-inclusive resorts – I have only been on one charter (package) holiday in my life (to Marrakesh in Morocco). Oh, and the Caribbean cruise we went on last December? A last minute deal – travelling just before the school holidays, not having to pay for the plane ticket to Puerto Rico (geographic location again), not drinking any expensive cocktails or doing any gambling meant that we didn’t spend that much money.

*) The BeNeLux countries are Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.