Living Spree: Good Times She Wrote

I haven’t blogged in far too long! I have so many stories, not all of which my grandmother wants me to put on the internet, so I’ll save those for some December coffee dates with you friends when I get home. ;) I will however tell you a few of my fondest memories and laughs of my times sailing the sea with my gramma!

My gramma is awesome. She's game for anything, she parties til 2 a.m., she looks like Angela Lansbury (clever title, eh?), she gets henna tattoos with me, she dances, she laughs at all my jokes, and she shops til she drops. We get along so well, and we have some fun times everywhere we go!

Oh how we danced! There was always music everywhere, and we were spoiled for choice. We danced to Shakira, Lou Bega, Michael Buble and a bunch of Italian stuff we’ve never heard before, but whatever it was we went all out and pretty much owned the show. That might be exaggerating… People move differently over there, the Spanish can dance like no other, and my North American dancing stuck out like a sore thumb. You’ve heard of ‘White Girl Crump’? Yeah, I rock it.

The excursions were a blast too! My favourite was Capri, and if I ever win the lottery I’m gonna move there in a heartbeat. We had perfect weather, so everything was sunny and lovely, and I am in love with fishing towns. Despite the expectations of many, we were able to safely navigate our way around the ports and return to our boat on time, although one day we cut it really close and made it back just as they were starting to take up the planks! We got carried away with all of the great shopping! So fun!

It was great hanging out with my grandma; she’s a really cool lady and a ton of fun and it was so cool that I got the opportunity to go on this trip with her!

After safely navigating our way back to Belgium Steve Martin style by planes, trains and automobiles we were happy to be home. Mum was very proud of us for returning in one piece, and for reorganizing our luggage multiple times so that we could meet all of the weight requirements. We’re pretty much heroes, and now I feel confident that I could totally take a trip by myself someday!

Despite all the amazing places I’ve seen this past week, I still love coming home to Ghent. It has really become a home to us, and I’m sad that this is the last week we’re spending here, on this trip at least. I really can’t wait to comeback someday with friends or family or even by myself. What my parents are starting to realize is that this trip has sparked an interest of traveling in us, and being loving parents, they aren’t sure how they feel about that yet. I have always liked the idea of going away for school, even if it’s not that far. Visiting my older cousins in residence when they were going to school at NUC in Calgary always looked so fun to me, and now that I’ve travelled, I realize what an amazing opportunity it would be to go to school away from home and live in residence and make lifelong friends all over the world. Such a fun idea! I need to look into English classes at the U of Ghent.

I am still in a passionate romance with Ghent, it has the best vibe of all of the places I’ve been. It’s laid back, but sophisticated and really oriented around education and arts, which I think is alright. There is always something going on, we’ve discovered. We’ve been here for almost two months and we’ve seen music festivals, a literary festival, and a film festival (going on this week! Wee! So excited!) And today we walked in on a surprise stew cook off and architecture showcase! THISCITYISGREATANDIT’SPEOPLEMAKEGOODSTEW! I’m really excited for the film fest, and maybe it’ll give me street cred if I help out with organizing Abe film fest this year.

I am running out of things to say, so I’ll just say that I’m stoked on living it up during my last week in Belgium, and am even more excited for South Africa next week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are some moments cruisin’ with my grandma captured on film: