October 30

We stopped again at Mieke while she was there and ended up having lunch there, with some attempt of terror by her father Jos. Anyway, we moved back to Geert and Kathleen later on who were pretty much interested in our Boom Ball experience.

It was getting late and we didnt do much actually besides talking and enjoying MTV and listenning to Tool that Dylan was getting fully into since the concert in Leuven is approaching!
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October 31

Happy B-day to me HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

The great thing that really touched me is that the first person who wished me happy birthday is Dylan. I'm used to not expect anything to happen on my birthday but I was really surprised when he actually gave me a gift too! I really so deeply appreciated it!

I received some wishes afterwards and of course my mother sent me a email card with lots of little drawing!

The day went on and I was so active and joyful as I felt that the day started pretty well (the only time in my life I enjoyed waking up on my birthday was to notice the surprise that Gil had prepare... she was so enthousiastic about it and I missed that). Dylan seemed pretty enthousiastic as well and it gave me a good morale! And it was Halloween, we needed to go scare people and do something spooky!

Geert offered us to rent some movies (scary movies at first) so we went to the video club and finally did rent one scary movie (Hostel... an horror movie about backpacker being kidnapped and charcuted, pretty fitting for us :) And the second one was simply a movie that we quote so many times while travelling along the road: Team America World Police!

I had contact Stan to try to meet him and he also came to Tienen so I could see him again and we went for a walk in Tienen and a drink in Stan at a cafe who had some halloween decoration, some sugar bets as pumpkin (Tienen for those who don't know it is the Belgian capital or Raw Sugar and live according to its sugar bets factory).

There was also a sort of Carnaval things and we walked into it to enjoy a crowd in a party mood and took some Jenever. It was looking promising and I was thinking we could still do something up for Halloween and party it over.
We passed back at Geert and Kathleen and took some cheap foamy kids tools and plastic guns and head to Leuven, hoping that the student city would be pretty active for that fest or at least the foreigner students.

Stan drove us there, and we walked downtown. Our first encounter was with the riot police! WHAT!!! They take these little monster seriously!
Then further more and more police.

Once downtown, we looked at some cafe and they seemed either empty or moodless, it looked like they were expecting some kind of party but the crowd was absent.
We finally didnt go to spend more money on alcohol and hang on the streets and try to make silly things with the things we had as disguise.
Mainly, nobody reacted... they simply either ignored us, didnt laugh or had a bad mood. Stupid belgian.
It was at least a relief when we managed to get a smile.

Later Gil surprisingly called me to wish me a Happy Birthday, I was surprised and I wasnt expecting news from her... and that brought into me the will to meet her again before I would leave!

So afterwhile, we had enough and simply walked to the station to catch the last train and black ride it to Tienen. We learned as well that there was actually an extreme right demonstration organised in Leuven! In Leuven! A socially mostly open city! Stupid Belgian!

Back in Tienen we got into watching the movies. Hostel! the actors were stupid and at first it wasn't too bad to think of them dying since they were pathetically cliche in their closed-mind travellers thought. By the way, in Amsterdam they speak Dutch not German... its not the same language!

A dutch business man doesn't not come from Austria either! Anyway, we noticed that the director had simply pictured its character according to him, no surprising since he was a blatant moron! Advice: don't watch the making of of Hostel!.

Team America: Laughing laughing!
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November 1

So we had a long night watching the movies till early morning and we got up still by morning. The day went on and we were getting ready to leave again to Brussels, I still had the keys to Achim so I had to handle them to him before he left to Germany for the week end. We left just on time to catch a ride before dusk. And did with a man going to visit his daughter studying in Brussels. We were left in Forest, a suburb I had never been before and we took the metro until we saw a control agent in and walked the rest to Achim.

October 23

We needed to leave early in the morning from Mieke's place and we used the day to hitch-hike in direction of Tienen through the national road which did all fine. From the Leuvensesteenweg in Mechelen we reached Leuven within 2 interesting rides with a Belgian and with a Afghan-Belgian.  Then we were left at the Tiensepoort in Leuven and we hitch-hiked again to catch another ride that brought us to Tienen, where Dylan felt surely some memories and splecial thought since he lived several months in that town.

We first headed to Mieke's parents house to meet her father who was ok at first sight but somehow straight forward in an awkward way. As he was leaving later, we moved to meet the neighbours Geert and Katelijne who are a really nice young open-minded couple, it was refreshing to meet them and discuss with them while there. Really the atypical belgian but their interests towards the other and the will to help! I greatly appreciate the few times I passed there afterwards.

When Mieke arrived we were going to have dinner at her parents and so did we, in a squarely cold way... but well, I didnt feel uncomfortable extremely long as I had the impression that there is nothing anymore that you can do to make yourself accepted in these kind of cultural difference situation (I reckon my time with Gil's family).

Back to Geert and Katelijne and meeting with their young children, we simply had a relaxing time, warm and cosy!
I loved it!
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October 24

As we stayed out late with the computer (uploading the picture to this blog), watching tv or playing at the play-station we had a lazy day and woke up late.

So we didnt even go outside and enjoyed simply the cosiness. And the food was leker later on!
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October 25

This was another lazy day in Tienen, we simply prepared ourselves to leave to Brussels after the meal and more discussion with our nice hosts. But we needed to take the train cause it was getting late and we wouldnt make it to go to the folk dance party in the evening with Achim (HC:euritmix)

Day 9 Rilland naar Mechelen (Tienen)

Dst 80.94        tm 4:19:59       avg 18.6          max 41.8         odo 2183.0

We had a good barbecue with liesje and tom then pretended to ride home.

hooray, early morning setting out on a day of four countries

We left from Tienen on our Nederlandic expedition :)