How was Brussels, you ask? Brussels was grey. Brussels was boring. Brussels was everything I remember and everything I've heard about it. Luckily, the Hyatt was beautifully designed in Parisian art nouveau and the bar was staffed with lovely men.



Jana, Jen and I mostly ate -- the restaurants are fabulous and it's no wonder the Belgians eat out more often than any other European country. From the "classique" Brasserie Georges to the trendy patio at Lucas, everything was delicious.



We also mostly drank. Champagne, wine, beer, pastis. We met a crazy Iranian in the bar of the hotel who is either very well connected or entirely fictional -- we're not sure which. But he was definitely charming and entertained us over two nights with his stories of his S+M dominatrix girlfriend and the Iranian ambassadors villa in Morocco.



But, three days was more than enough and I shan't be returning to Brussels by choice.

Is it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium Continuing my tour of places I visited, but don't really remember during my study abroad bus tour of Europe I'm going to Brussels this weekend with some mates from work. Purported to be the most boring city in Europe, we're at least staying in a luxury (but affordable) hotel. I plan on enjoying mussels, frite, belgian beer, and a scenic tour of Bruges. More importantly, I plan on enjoying not being in London for the Notting Hill Carnival which turns Kensington into chaos everywhere. And heck, I might even plan on enjoying a Belgian.

Ummm. I don't know. My answer to Giovanni's question about what I'm going to be doing with all that time I'm spending in Italy on my own. Umm, I don't know. Probably much the same as what I do here. Shop, eat, go out, not speak to anyone, look suspiciously at anyone who talks to me, daydream. Oh yeah, probably soaking up art and culture, but I'm not looking at any big life change -- I'm not expecting a torrid holiday romance or to suddenly fall in with a group of expatriated socialites. I'll do my best to resist the tourist entrapments of unfolded maps and cameras dangling around my neck, but I'll be a tourist and as it's hot hot hot there will no doubt look like the fat american abroad. No, it will be a trip of reading books, sightseeing, listening to my iPod and running the looping self-deprecating monologue in my head.



I'm training for it. Breaking in new walking shoes. Going to the gym. I'm considering self tanning my pasty white legs. Buying new luggage. Reading up about what do see and do and buy. Staying for five days in the seemingly beautiful Lungarno Suites on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Then a further five days in Rome at the Hotel Locarno in Rome. They're meant to be nice hotels. I'll need to spruce up a little.



I'm choking down the irony that my three closest mates here love Italy. Go all the time. Oh sure, they're all in relationships and much more seasoned travelers than I, and they speak the language, and I'm undoubtedly a pain in the arse to travel with, so it's not surprising I'm going on my own and once I'm there I'll choke down that chunk of irony with a glass of Chianti. Or several.



I'm looking forward to being severely intimidated by Italian men.



When I went to Greece on my own it seemed so brave. It was a "I'm conquering Europe and don't give a fuck" moment in my life. I wanted a beach holiday, no one else did, so I did it alone. It was heady, empowering. But two holidays later, and several pictures of buildings and places with no people (or indeed, no visual record that I was actually there) the solo explorer thing is old hat.



Crikey, I'll need to buy a hat. I've a head like a watermelon, and they're almost always unflattering, but last time I was in the sun I spent days peeling skin off my scalp. That will be fun.

From an email I wrote to Tim regarding the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival:



You sound surprised by the thought of people dressing up like garlic. (Yes, they look like big baby

diapers. No, I never wore one myself.) There's garlic beer, and garlic ice

cream, and two days of drunken stinking tourists from the central valley. It's

major business in Gilroy. Poor neighbouring Morgan Hill, their Mushroom

Mardi Gras never took off in the same way. Of course, there was even less that

Watsonville could do with it's artichokes.



DO YOU SEE WHY I HAD TO FLEE?

Tonight. Take thirty modern-day o-level students, lock them in a 1950's style dorm with fried spam and runny custard, a group of sadistic control-freak teachers, and a 1950's curriculum and you get, That'll teach 'em. I love British television.

Tout ça change... On the Amèlie Poulainization of Montmartre.

It's official. It was bloody hot this last week. Yesterday broke Britain's records for hottest day with a stifling 100 degrees fahrenheit.



During the heatwave Tim came over for dinner. It was nerve wracking. My flat was arid. Cooking meant sweating in the already stifling kitchen. I hadn't cooked for anyone in ages. We hadn't really spent any time in each other's company. Oh, and due to a watermelon allergy I had a rash down the side of my neck. Tim had made a series of high expectation statements about "saving up" for the evening. The pressure was on. I was eager to impress, but all of the obstacles were there.



It turned out ok. Our breezy email conversations translated well in person once I got over my nerves. It was strange, after 8 months of emailing, to have him in my flat in person. We talked for hours. Dinner was fine, although that holy grail of French cooking (and Three's Company plot mandatory), coq au vin, was unremarkable. Tim's a charming flirt who spent the night surveying -- and no doubt mentally critiquing -- my cd collection. (I knew I should have hidden the Betty Buckley albums.) We talked movies. Work. Italy. He's encouraging me to holiday there but I'm terrified of doing it on my own. At one point, stretched languidly on the floor looking at DVDs (I knew I should have hidden Barbra in Concert) I realised that I miss the company of men. The physical energy that bounces around the room. The mix of testerone and chest hair. The sexual buzz that's still perceptible in non-sexual situations. Giovanni once told me I spend too much time with straight women. He's right. At work. At play. My social circle is one big ring of Vogue-reading-fresh-painted-sexy-modern-man-trapping- womanhood. I'm crap at making friends with men. Especially gay men. Tim was a test. A mission to make a gay male friend. A test I was trying to see if I passed. I think I did. Now I just have to find a Tim I can date.