Suspension

I'm zooming through France on a train and I feel completely relaxed. Real life seems miles away and I said to Rohan that I don't want to go home, he asked why and I thought for a while before responding that its because there are some parts of being on holiday that I adore, he asked if it is the being away from work part. He may have a point.

But here in this train, with green countryside and petit villages whizzing past my window, time seems suspended. Everything else is in a distant fog of memories past and an unfolding future, a cette moment,  there is just this. The sound of the train clicking over the tracks, the movement sideways as we lurch and the whispered voices of people discussing the progress of the Wimbledon final. Real life is just a scratchy, intangible constant that I cannot quite grasp.

I've been here for just over a week and yet it seems like a lifetime. Was it only last Saturday that we caught the tube to St. Pancras and then the Eurostar to Brussels?  Here in Belgium life is a melange, a mix of culture, language and political viewpoints. An invisible line divides the country into French and Dutch speaking parts and in both I feel like a lazy tourist as so many people default to speaking English when they realise you are not Belgian. In this country I've been shown so much kindness, and experienced moments where I thought the universe was trying to bring me together with strangers by bumping me into them in the most unlikely of places.

So to the travelogue, stop reading now if you are already bored, dear reader.  We navigated our way to the right platform for Liege-Guillmans upon arrival in Bruxelles-Midi (or Zuid depending on your language). Not realising that the trains had a 1 and a 2 for premiere and deuxieme (1st and 2nd) we jumped into the nearest carriage. Luckily  the conductor seemed to have no idea what our Eurostar any Belgian station tickets were (a groovy ticket where you can use your Eurostar ticket for the 24 hours before/ after your train to go anywhere else in the country), and so we were allowed to stay in first class while other people got kicked back to second class....ah the luxury of that on intercity trains is not to be snubbed at (particularly as holiday season starts and 2nd class is filled to bursting with families, suitcases and gypsies imported from France to scam unsuspecting travellers). I had a minor panic when the signs started saying the train was going to split in half and thanks to SueSherwood, my year 12French teacher, I was confident I was in the right section. This of all things should prove that I am suitably qualified to teach year 7 French. Well that and the fact that I used perfect French to extract baby photos of Joanne from her mum who speaks no English - I will remember those Carnivale pics forever!
Before our last stop the peacefulness of first class was invaded by a group of scouts and their leaders. Unlike Joanne's dad, whose scout name was Koala, due to his resemblance to the animal, these leaders had names like 'cheeseburger' and 'bimbo'.

At the space age station of Liege, Joanne was waiting for us. It's so lovely to be able to arrive in a foreign country and see a friendly and familiar face waiting for you at the station. She took us out that night to a traditional Belgian bistro, where Rohan was brave enough to try the traditional meatball with liegonais sauce which is made from a sticky, heavy paste of apple and pear. Of course there were frites and beer, with Rohan beginning his quest to taste as many Belgian beers as possible. I'm less adventurous in my beer drinking and was taking every opportunity to drink Kriek - a cherry flavoured beer that is my favourite. At home it is stupidly expensive, but here in Belgium you can buy it in the supermarket for a dollar next to the soft drink. Cue my lunch for the next week of baguette and beer. While beer, baguette, waffles, frites and chocolate doesn't sound like the most nutritious of diets Rohan managed to lose 3.5 kilos while in Belgium (and not just from his wallet getting lighter) - perhaps there is a market for a new, crazy diet in this. The Belgian Beer Regime anyone?

Sunday morning Joanne drove us to Carlsbourg in the south of Belgium, where Geert has a country house. Geert examined my PhD thesis and so I nearly fainted when he emailed and asked me to be part of a panel talking about emotions at the conference. He'd also invited the other members of the panel to come to his countryhouse to see some of the south and to do some work before the conference commenced. He told me it was about drive and that while old his country house had been renovated and had 7 bedrooms we could sleep in. In what seemed like the state of Belgian hospitality and kindness, Joanne drove us down, despite the fact that it was a 3 hr return trip for her. As we ventured further and further into the greeness of Les Ardennes, Joanne asked me how well I knew Geert. Hmmm, not that well I suddenly thought, conscious of the fact that I was about to spend the weekend with a man I'd met for one minute two years ago in Portugal,and a whole lot of academics I'd only heard of through reading their work. Joanne filled me with confidence when she said, 'is he going to chop you into pieces and kill you, there's nothing out here?' When we arrived at the house though, there was a convivial atmosphere and after having coffee from the magic pudding coffee pot (never empty it just seemed to magically refill all day), she seemed happy to leave us with Geert and confident that we wouldn't end up diced and filleted. Sunday was like a blur as Geert took us to Bouillon to see a castle built in the Middle Ages. As we sat drinking a Kriek not far from the entrance, I mused on the motley combination of academics sitting here, I couldn't quite believe that I was here and part of this.

We kept driving and then left the car and hiked down through the trees (no murder involved and funnily enough, no work either) to a tiny chalet on the banks of the river. This was the house of Carol and Lyn, our hosts for the evening. An old cafe, they now run a pizza and beer night once a year for friends to empty out their beer kegs. Tonight was the night, and as you can imagine Rohan was pretty happy about that! So with a table of ingredients before us and the wood fired pizza ready we each made our own dinner and chose a beer to go with it. Carol cellars beer past its use by date, he and Geert have a theory that it goes bad, and then, if you wait a bit longer, it gets good again. I'm not convinced of their theory but Rohan was happy to give it a try. The Belgian sun was streaming down late into the night, and over and over again I was catching myself in moments of  happiness, as language, academic, and social boundaries between us all dissolved.

Early the next morning Rohan and I woke up and went walking while the rest of the house was still and sleeping. We strolled  from one village to the next, watching people begin their days and the sun start to inch across the sky. With Geert's rail card and instructions in my pocket, Rachel another Austrslian, Rohan and I set off for Ghent. After Wendy had become lost on the Belgian train network earlier in the weekend, Geert was like a protective dad making sure we got where we needed to. I loved the antiquated nature of the rail card, a paper card with 10 journeys, into which Geert inked our destinations with his felt-tip black pen.Two and a half hours later, I had inadvertently ignored Geert's instructions but had managed to get us where we needed to go. Geert had told us to get off at Brussels-Nord where we would wait 30 mins for our connecting train. With the Eurostar firmly in my head, I got us off at Brussels-Midi, and had a minor meltdown until I discovered there was a train leaving for Gent in 1 minute. Take that 30 minute wait! I had navigated the system without the 'lost traveller' ticket Wendy had received. I love this notion too, being given a special ticket for those who get lost on their journey so that they don't have to pay any extra. I've got an image of Paddington Bear at the station with a lost traveller ticket stuck on his back. I wonder if there is a life equivalent, a pass for those who lose their way so that they don't have to pay too high a price for losing their way on the journey.

At Ghent we wandered out into the sunshine and collided with Rachel's friend Monica from the US at the map of town. This would not be the only time, Monica and I would meet in the streets! A week later after the conference, Rohan, Joanne and I were walking the streets of Brussels, a thriving, busy city filled with 1.19 million residents and tourists. We rounded a bend in a quirky little corner of the city filled with antique shops when I ran straight into Monica who was spending two days in Brussels at the end of the conference. In a city  thriving with people, our paths crossed again and we hugged and talked about the fact that she hopes to come to Australia soon while on sabbatical. Belgium was full of these quirky coincidences, we jumped on a train to Brussels and ran into another academic from Australia, jumped on a different train to Liege and ran into a PhD student I'd met at the conference as well - sometimes our world seems small rather than large and lonely. Moments like this remind me that we are not easily lost from those around us, and that the connections we make with others form ever expanding concentric circles, like ripples in a pond.

Our days in Ghent were spent wandering through the streets with Darren Hanlon lyrics in my head as a soundtrack 'down cobblestone streets throughout the town'. Ghent has an impressive history, and from 1000 -1550 it was a central  European city, 2nd in size to Paris. According to my travel guide from the city, as one of the largest industrial cities Ghent became one of the birthplaces of the socialist movement and of trade unions. There are buildings from throughout history still intact in Ghent from the beautiful St. Bavo's cathedral, to the Belfry where a dragon has been watching over the city since 1380, to the castle of Gerald the devil (what a great name!), to the great butcher's hall where meat was sold in the Middle Ages, and the castle of the counts, everywhere you step in Ghent you are awash in history. In one street you are cast back to the Middle Ages, to another you can almost sense soldiers marching through during the war. Then, you return to the present where the streets are lined with terrace cafes and both locals and tourists drinking aperitifs and tasting beers, each with its own special glass. Although summer and peak season the streets are not ridiculously crowded, most tourists by-pass Ghent, seeing it only as a passing station on their way to the much more crowded and popular Bruges. In continuing my anti-tourist tradition, we did not take the 30 minute train to Bruges, preferring instead to wander our way down as many little lanes of Ghent as possible, finding treasures in tiny shops and snapping photos from St. Michael's bridge as the canal glittered in the glow of the lights at night.

All of which makes it sound as if I did very little work while in Ghent. As I had self-funded my trip I felt I could take a 'fluid' approach to my conference attendance. I went to the opening afternoon of sessions, hearing about the challenges facing those of us working in teacher education, and catching up with Amanda who I work with who was also at the conference. Weds morning I 'took' the morning off and did some more exploring before heading to work, to see Rach's session. She was presenting in the same session as Monica and I was in nerdy excitement when I realised Monica was presenting about third space theory as this part of the conceptual framework I have used for my work this year. Rohan met us at the end of the session and we went back to the elaborate cocktail bar at Amanda's hotel for an aperitif before heading across the road to at Le Duc. The food was great but clearly something was lost in translation as the English translation of one of the dishes said it contained 'dragon' - the mother of dragons Danerys would not be happy with that. I decided not to take my chances with the dragon and settled for scampi instead.

Thursday was my session, a discussion room and I wasn't sure if many people would turn up. Due to Geert's reputation our room was full and there was lively discussion as I defended and discussed  my choice of methodology with an academic from Poland. She was sceptical at first but by the end asked me to send her some work, and suggested we try and find a way to work together and for me to go to a conference in Poland next year. We'll see, as this 'let's work together' is a bit like of the academic equivalent of 'I'll call you'. That officially marked the end of my conference (I had already decided to ditch Friday) and so I promptly turned my brain off, before to started to deconstruct and analyse everything that was said in the session.  Even if nothing else comes of the conference, I was glad to have had this opportunity and to work in a discussion room style presentation. A highlight for me was meeting Rach and discovering someone who has a similar approach to our work as academics.  In one keynote, the speaker had talked about the need for each of us to know who we are in our work. This thrummed through my brain, and now three days later in London, I find myself caught in the continual reconstruction of my identity as a teacher, teacher educator and academic.

The real work done, my holiday begins and we head back to Liege to Joanne. In the next instalment we will taste frites in a cone, drink at the Maison du Peket and  walk every inch of Bruxelles in the Joanne walking tour.....


Sent from my