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Brussels is a funny kind of place to be in summer. The center is full of tourists while the business areas feel almost empty, though it’s a funny kind of empty. There are still people around but not in a productive getting-things-done kind of way. Restaurants are closed and cafés feel very empty.

Having spent a year here as a student I’ve really enjoyed coming back just for two weeks, finishing off the year by playing the role of a journalist. I really love the feeling that you’re doing something worthwhile, that you’re creating something which will inform people and perhaps even show them things from a perspective that they hadn’t perceived before. I love that as a journalist you have a legitimate reason for calling up the most important people, the most informed groups and can talk to them. Yesterday I talked to the Iranian embassy, interviewed a professor about North-South wealth disparities in Belgium, then talked with and organised an interview with Shell Oil. Oh, and went to an EU commission press conference. This all going on while sorting out a hellish mess with my Belgian bank.

Then, just to finish off the year in what might feel like a successful way, I plucked up the courage (sad, I know) and accepted my friend Julie’s kind invitation to a dinner party at her house. I was only hesitant because my French, though greatly improved from how it was at the beginning of the year, is nowhere near colloquial fluency level. In time it will perhaps be but I was worried about missing basically everything that was going on. I hate that! I shouldn’t have been worried though as the evening was really fantastic, Julie’s place is an absolutely beautiful loft-style space at the top of a house in Uccle. I’d never really ventured into Uccle though so going there was a treat.

Today’s been a bit of a bum so far as my German housemate who I was going to have breakfast with blew me off having said we’d mutually call each other when we wanted to go out. Sadly, when I called her she’d already finished at the café we were going to go to and was on her way to a Brussels tourist trap with a friend. A bit disappointing. Coffee though later with some Spanish girls for one last time.