Saturday, September 16, 2006

Lazy Saturday morning in bed


I feel so great this morning! I woke up to the sound of an incoming text message only to discover that I had slept through my noisy cell alarm! Again! Well, at least today it’s the week-end, it doesn’t matter if I oversleep :-). I smiled to myself, remembering that I don’t need to go anywhere today, I can just laze about in bed, reading, thinking, updating my blog (of course!).

So I allowed myself another hour, lying in bed, thinking. So much to think about these days! Feelings to cope with, major decisions to be taken, the amazing life itself to come to terms with!

The prospect of a possible move to Moscow sometime in the distant future, scary as it might be, does not, at least, call for a hasty decision. Moscow is the last place on this planet where I would actually consider living and working … Lots of prejudices on my part, of course, but most of them turn out to be solidly grounded. A very recent article in “The Economist” provides the reader with a shattering picture of Russia today. It’s drastic population decline, especially driven by the startling death rate which is more than twice Western Europe’s. Apparently, male life expectancy in some parts of the country is now not higher than 53!! Heart disease rate is probably the highest, everywhere, ever. Murder is 20 times more common that in Western Europe, violent deaths and suicides are higher than ever. The booze is to blame, of course, for these appalling statistics. Other factors are smoking, pollution including radioactivity and a totally inefficient and corrupt health system. Not to mention the mafia related murders which really make you wonder how safe Moscow really is.

Is Moscow the place to live in these days? Do I really want to do this … Do I really want to leave a civilised country to move to Moscow? I love Belgium and my current life … I wonder … Difficult subject for a lovely Saturday morning, eh? I will think about it tomorrow :-). It does require a level of seriousness which I don’t seem to posses today …

PS Lovely picture - courtesy my friend

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Forgive me, blog


I have just realised in complete shock that I have neglected you, blog, for some time now. Which is something I feel very sad about. Because some very interesting things happened lately. Some I can share with you, some I can not. Unfortunately.

Anyway ... Last Saturday I met my lovely friend Richard in Antwerp and spent the most wonderful day. The weather was absolutely incredible (and not only after Belgian standards), sunny and warm all the time which made us smile. We would have smiled anyway because we usually have a great time together, every time we meet. Richard is unchanged, of course. Still completely crazy and still makes me laugh. This time there was the three of us - the two of us and Prince William! Or, rather, a big picture of Prince William's face which appeared in all pictures that Richard was taking. Or most of all anyway.

We wandered the streets, Richard took pictures of rubbish as usual, we discussed all sorts of interesting things, took a lovely boat ride (but too uneventful to be very exciting), ate light lunch and dinner in two of the numerous restaurants of the city. Eventually said goodbye to each other (and Antwerp) around 9pm to jump on our trains (going to Brussels and Leiden respectively). Stay well, little one! Good luck with your marathon in October!!

I have been in Lyon since Tuesday morning, for work. I hadn't had great expectations in relation to Lyon but so far the stay has really proven a complete nightmare. First of all, yesterday evening when we got to our hotel (or, rather, the one which we thought we had rooms booked in) we were told that there was no reservation in our names. Somebody had called and cancelled it. The hotel was a Novotel and it today turned out that we had reservation with another hotel in the same chain. But apparently it was impossible for the lady at the reception to check in the common database and see that we did, actually, have rooms booked. So we had to stay for one night in another hotel and change hotels again today, which was a complete pain. It seems that most hotels are fully booked here this week due to the soccer match Lyon - Madrid.

Secondly, in this new hotel only 25% of the rooms have internet access and mine is not one of these ... Again, it was impossible for me to change rooms as, of course, rooms are fully booked here too! So I had to stay at the hotel bar to update my blog (I have wireless access here). At least the guys here have been quite civilised and did not yell, whatever the match result was.

I actually look forward to flying back home ... This will happen on Friday, if everything goes according to plan and no unpleasant surprises occur (you can never be too sure in Lyon!!) ... I look forward to sleep in my four poster bed again :-) I miss Brussels!!

About trust ....

Some recent happenings in my life got me thinking about trust and relationships ... How hard it is to actually get to trust somebody and how easily this trust can be broken. Is trust something that you must deserve or is it rather something that you receive unconditionally from the very beginning, as a matter of course being, only afterwards, put to the test?

Can a relationship survive without trust? They say it can't and I tend to agree with the general view. Without trust the partners would actually torture one another and themselves at the thought of what the other's actions could be. Suspicion is the recipe for disaster in a couple's life. And not only. It's more or less the same in any kind of relationship, friendship included.

What is the connection (if, indeed, there is such a connection) between trust or, rather, mistrust and jealousy in a partnership? I think jealousy encompasses mistrust. And some dose of lack of self confidence, I suppose. Is the ability to trust your partner something that you can educate in time or is it something you are born with? Are some people more suspicious than other?

What if we have clear evidence that our friend or partner has lied to us ... And they persist in hiding the truth (or blurring it) even when offered an honorable opportunity to make a clean breast of it. Sometimes love is strong enough to make us disappointment proof and lead us to go on. Which is really amazing. But the image of that particular disappointment will continue to haunt us, probably.

Can trust be measured by degrees? I think not ... I think it's either you trust somebody fully and irrefutably or you don't trust them at all. But, then again, who am I to jugde? I have always been a black or white sort of person ... Too radical for my own good!!