Entering the metro post smurf sighting

TGIF | Which Smurf do you most identify with?

Happy Friday!!  Perhaps you are smarter than me and you already knew this, but the Smurfs are Belgian!  You could not imagine my (perhaps infantile) delight when I stumbled upon this statue.

Since I'm already writing a post about Smurfs, I doubt I'll hurt what credibility I have left by mentioning what this made me think of...do I have any fellow Bones fans out there?  Ok, well, probably not, but anyway - there's this episode from Season 3, where they end up kind of by accident at Brennan's high school reunion.  (Well, not really by accident.  There was a murder nearby, which is why they were there in the first place...I could give more of a full recap, but I think that this might be better.)  Anyway!  Brennan tells Booth her most embarrassing high school story, about how a boy she had liked stuck a Brainy Smurf on her locker, humiliating her.  Booth doesn't get it at first, but then does later, and it's really sweet...okay, okay, so maybe I should stop while I'm ahead, but if you like Bones, you'll get it.

via http://bonestheory.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/in-search-of-a-hero/

At home, in Brussels

This is the view from our (shared) apartment at the YWAM base here in Brussels.  I know it's not a double rainbow, but could be worse, eh?

En Route to Sint Niklaas, Belgium

We volunteered at a festival last weekend.  No pictures of the actual festival (typical), but the design nerd in me was loving the typography used in the signs at the train stations along the way.

We stopped at Antwerp to change trains; hopefully I'll have a chance to go there soon.  (Mostly because of Dries van Noten, but that's another love letter disguised as a blog post.)

What a Difference a Flight Makes

Ahhh!  What a difference a short flight can make.  While it's definitely beautiful here, it's in a different way: the air is crisp with the feel of fall in the air, the entire mood of the city changes constantly throughout the day as the sun goes back and forth behind the clouds, occasional church bells have replaced the frequent calls to prayer, the sounds of French mixed with English and (occasionally) Flemish fill the streets, and I have to constantly remind myself to reply to people in French instead of Turkish.*

I hope that all of my American friends are enjoying their pumpkin spice lattes, by the way - I didn't have a chance to get one before I left.  My consolation is that I'll be thinking of you while I'm eating my (real) Belgian waffles.

*Not that I really have any right to infer that I'm very conversant in either language, but there was a Groupon for Rosetta Stone a couple of days ago, so I ordered all four levels of the French version.  There are also enough French speakers here on the DTS with me that I'll hopefully(!) have a chance to make up for the last eight years I've spent mostly forgetting the small amount I learned in high school.