Jeu de Balle

One of my favorite spots on a Sunday in Brussels is the Jeu de Balle Square in the Marolles neighborhood. Ducking under the towering Palais de la Justice, in the lower part of town, the Marolles have always been a poorer, worker’s neighborhood, deemed somewhat unruly. It’s precisely for that reason that the Palace of […] Read More

Antwerpen

In the nearly 12 years that I lived in Brussels, somehow I never got my sister Sabine to discover Antwerp. Even though it is possibly one of my favorite places in Belgium. So we were set for a day trip to the city which is only some 40 kilometers from Brussels, due north, just before […] Read More

Brussels street art

People don’t really know much about Belgium. At best, it boils down to this: Atomium, Manneken Pis, chocolate, French (!) fries… and comics! Belgium has such a rich tradition of comics – its best known export would definitely be ‘The adventures of Tintin‘ by Hergé. However, there are numerous others like Lucky Luke, Gaston or […] Read More

Encounters

…and just when I was hitting a bit of a low point, and thought I’d spend another evening locked in, despite the sunshine, I got a message… Georgios from Chicago, whom I had met a few times in Hong Kong over beers, texted me that he was in town. He was heading to Paris, to […] Read More

Grumpy

I’m grumpy today, simple as that. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep after last night. Maybe it’s pre-return blues. It was a nice, sunny day – and finally not hot and humid but really agreeable! But I only left the house at around 4. Again, several plans for the day kind of fell through, and […] Read More

Ultimos días

I am melancholic. I just feel like I am saying good-bye all the time now. Earlier throughout this trip, every good-bye to a friend or a city also implied a new beginning in the next place, new friends to be made, new places to be explored. But with just over two weeks left, there is […] Read More

Cerro San Cristóbal

I always pushed it back to ‘tomorrow’, and in the end, I didn’t see it at all: Cerro San Cristóbal, the hill that dominates the city of Santiago. On a good day, you can see much of Santiago lying to its feet, and the Andes Mountain range in the back of the city. On a […] Read More

Santuario de la Naturaleza

After two late nights in a row, and only falling asleep at 6 am in the morning, I still peeled myself out of bed at 9 something, hit the shower and then the metro, to meet up with Hannah and her Colleagues of Beyond English. Beyond English is a social enterprise that provides English lessons […] Read More

Santiaguino

Returning to Santiago was a great idea. I really would not have any energy for a new country or city. Here, everything is smooth, even if I stumble. I reactivated my bip!-card for the metro – as If I had known I would come back, I had indadvertedly carried it along for the whole trip. […] Read More

Cool Summer

It’s a cool, cool Melbourne summer. Unlike last year when the temperatures hit 44 degrees for a couple of days in a row, this summer is markedly cooler. The first few days here were hot and I was at the pool every day. But we also had a day of rain, and temperatures that warrant […] Read More

Melbourne photo course

After 16 months, I finally invested some time into a little photo course. Well, not only a camera course, to learn how to handle all the buttons on my Nikon, but, at the same time, a walk through Melbourne’s lanes. Entitled ‘Photographing Melbourne: A Walking Tour with a Difference! Lanes & Arcades‘, our guide was […] Read More