Our friend Cedric showed us this movie, set inside a post office in Brussels. It stars Jean-Claude playing himself, returning to his home country after his rise and fall. The movie is in French, which instantly makes Jean-Claude sound sophisticated, and it is a comedy as well as a commentary on fame and martial arts. It also offers a glimpse into the daily life of Belgians and how they view risk and responsibility. A great film, very enjoyable, it greatly raised my esteem for M Van Damme.

Policier: Central to Unit 27. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s robbing a post office. I need back-up.

I’ve seen so many things. I was born in Belgium, but I’m a citizen of the world. I’ve travelled a lot. It’s hard for me to judge people and it’s hard for them… not to judge me. Easier to blame me. Yeah, something like that.

I love watching movies based in Belgium, seeing my host country captured on film, feeling as if I am part of a larger cinematic experience. We’ve just seen Tintin and the secret of the unicorn, released here before the US and Australia. It certainly captured the essence of Brussels, with its cobblestone streets and terraced houses. My favourite scene was right at the beginning where Tintin is rummaging through the flea markets at Place du Jeu de Balle (Ballgame Square), as it’s just down the road from our place. Maybe I should go hunting for a secret map too.

This week we are spending our winter holiday in a lovely and relaxing location – our home in Brussels. The kittens seem very happy to have us around – Mint is getting plenty of extra treats from Adrian, and Pepper spends hours curled up on my lap, getting cranky at the laptop when it takes her favourite spot.

It has been a very lazy holiday for me (though Adrian has been burdened with grants and reviews). After starting the day with a sleep-in, I might pop out to the boulangerie for a fresh baguette for Adrian to use to make me lunch. Then, after a nap, we might find the energy to pop out and explore the city. We have visited the Leuven Markets and sampled our way through the Winter Wonders (plaisirs d’hiver/ winter pret) Markets in Brussels, returning home with Hasselt speculaas and vanilla snowballs.

Yesterday we visited the Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen / Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique) to see the Destination Mars exhibition. I should have noticed that the woman at the door only charged us regular admission even though we got tickets to the temporary exhibition, too. This could have served as warning. Sadly, the Mars exhibition was only a tiny room with a few televisions and, for some reason, plasticine models of little green men. The only highlights were the scale models of two of the Mars rovers – 2004′s Spirit/ Opportunity and 1996′s Sojourner (incorrectly identified as Rocky).

However, the museum redeemed itself with the world’s finest collection of Iguanodons, with a note stating that they were still standing in their incorrect kangaroo-like positions, as they were too fragile to be repositioned into their cat-like posture. We also saw some very delicate crocodyliform fossils from the same coal mine in Bernissart, Belgium. All the fossils were a lusterous black, giving the army of Iguandons an impressive glow as they paused in their march through the gallery.

We arrived home safe and sound on Tuesday night.

On Monday, as we had to catch the bus from Jen’s house to the train station, I made poor Adrian leave about five hours early to ensure that we wouldn’t be stuck in some sort of horrendous Roman traffic jam. Roma Termini was full of people – queueing, waiting, sleeping, and complaining. All tickets had been sold out for the rest of the week:

No seats were available in the train station, so we wedged ourselves and our luggage against a wall and waited for the minutes to tick past. We caught the train from Rome to Milan slowly north without incidence, and we were able to check into our hotel around 11:30pm. Our next train was set to depart at 7:10am. Adrian begged me not to make him get to the station five hours early again, and I agreed. I set both phones on to wake us up at 6:00am, and we even had time to grab a panini at the station before boarding our train to Zurich.

This was my favourite part of the route – what a difference between Italy and Switzerland, suddenly we were surrounded by snowy peaks, brightly washed houses, and crystal lakes. At lunch time we were in Zurich, grabbed some pizza and giant pretzels, then found our next train. I was so happy to finally see some sign of our progress:

As all the high-speed trains had been booked out, we had the rare chance of catching the INT90 from beginning to end, stopping at:

Zurich (Switzerland)
Baden (Switzerland)
Brugg (Switzerland)
Frick (Switzerland)
Stein-S (Switzerland)
Rheinfelden (Switzerland)
Basel (Switzerland)
St Louis Haut Rhin (France)
Mulhouse (France)
Colmar (France)
Selestat (France)
Strasbourg (France)
Metz (France)
Thionville (France)
Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Arlon (Belgium)
Libramont (Belgium)
Jemelle (Belgium)
Marloie (Belgium)
Namur (Belgium)
Bruxelles-Luxembourg (Belgium)
Bruxelles-Schuman (Belgium)
Bruxelles-Nord (Belgium)
Bruxelles-Central (Belgium)
Bruxelles-Midi (Belgium)

At one stage, I thought that the train announcer said “Nous n’arrivons jamais.” (We are never arriving), but quickly realised he was saying “Nous arrivons Jemelle (We are arriving in Jemelle), which was much better news. Later, when we first heard “Dames en heren” (Ladies and Gentlemen), all the Belgians cheered, because Flemish announcements meant that we were getting very close to home.

At 8pm that evening, we got off the train at the very last stop, pointed the way to the Eurostar for some stranded Brits, and then a short walk later were finally home with our kittens.