Brussels sprouts

The white Christmas didn't eventuate - warm (for Scotland at this time of the year) and wet instead. And now we're having a freezing (but the sun keeps it above zero during some daylight hours) Christmas/New Year hiatus.

I'm enjoying a couple of days of sleeping and reading and not much else - took a quick trot around the sales yesterday, but managed only to buy two things that under closer inspection in natural light need to be returned (a top with lipstick on it, and a pair of navy - not black - wolford tights). This was a rather pathetic effort. My shopping instinct/interest seems to be waning - maybe just a symptom of post Christmas retail exhaustion (although I kept my Christmas shopping fairly minimal this year anyway). All I managed to come back from Brussels with was a jar of chocolate spread from Le Pain Quotidien and some beer picked up at the airport for the simple reason that it's so much cheaper than here.

As you've probably gathered, then, we've just been to Brussels. Flew out from Glasgow Prestwick on Boxing Day to Charleroi (which despite what Ryanair says, is not really anywhere near Brussels), tempted again to fly into obscure airports by the promise of a flight for a penny (plus of course taxes and charges, which for the 2 aforementioned airports should be zero, given their state & services). Much confusion ensued, because the promised connecting bus to Brussels didn't really connect - at least not in the strictest meaning of that word. It was quite late, and when it did arrive, was mobbed by the huge hoard of passengers waiting to be whisked away from Charleroi. A bigger hoard than would fit on the bus. And we were practically at the back of the seething mass, not having developed very good mob mentality instincts. Uh oh. The bus was almost full, and it looked unlikely that we would get on, but then a bigger bus (twice the size) arrived - I suspect this was the one that was supposed to turn up in the first place. All those still outside headed for the big bendy bus, only to wait while the drivers of the 2 buses engaged in a heated and animated conversation. Probably about football. I looked at how many people (about 15) were waiting to get on the big bus, surmised that it was unlikely to leave with such a small load, and managed to blag our way back on to the almost full bus and take the seat of a small child. Our bus promptly left.

An hour later and we had been dropped off at the arse end of Gare du Midi - leaving a lot of people standing around looking confused by the complete lack of signage (or evidence that we were actually in a train station). We navigated our way to the metro, managed to buy tickets (yay high school French) and then discovered that the Metro we thought we were taking was actually an underground tram. Eventually we found our way to our hotel, having travelled by 4x4, plane, bus and tram to get there!

The getting there was the worst bit (getting home a bit of a pain too) - the rest of our time in Brussels was fab! More on that after lunch...I might even venture outside to buy a paper!