In an attempt to escape the dreariness of the dormitory and the awful weather, Stefano, Joe and I decided to drive to London. It was great; I was proud of the precision with which we scanned and compared insurance documents and statistics about kilometers per meter. We first stopped in Antwerp--basically we just drove from one city to the next, looking for the city center and marvelling at every single beautiful thing that every town has to offer. Usually we were making fun of Catholocism. Gent had a castle with enough passages and fun stuff to climb on to bring out the scrappy eight year old in me. In one restaurant we started talking with a woman half sipping her coffee and half tending to her fat little dogs...she and her husband spend eight months of the year running a restaurant in Greece, and the rest of the time they pack their beagles into the car and visit friends all over Europe. The fat owner bumbled over and sliced us off big fat pieces of fatty chocolate cake made by his fat wife.

After wandering around on the jetties on the beach just before a storm, we coasted in to the Calais ferry crossing. Sadly enough, the ferry was 200 euro, not 19 like we thought. So we drove to Bolougne and slept on the beach under the stars, and climbed the cliffs the next morning. The rest of the time we drove from town to town in Belgium trying not to spend money. The equally poor Joseph filled himself with chocolate and beer, while Stefano and I were surviving on a diet of peanut-butter & mustard rice cakes. At night they scared me silly with stories about Belgian axe-murderers, cannibals, and freak truck drivers. As awkward and uncomfortable as that puny car was, we managed to sleep in until eleven on a random side street in a town we didn't know the name of. We had a picnic by the river in Namur, but our blankets and bottles of unidentified brown liquid (tea) led passers-by to think that we were runaway teens. It wasn't the first time someone has made that mistake about me, and I'm sure it won't be the last. The weather was unbelievably awful and matched the somber mood that ought to accompany a visit to Waterloo, I guess. The countryside was really gorgeous. At one point we thought we would drive to Luxembourg just for the novelty, but that was a stupid idea, and rumor has it that Luxembourg is a stupid country anyway. This morning I woke up late for the time we had to return the rental car, so I went in my pajamas. The study-abroad coordinator rode by on his bicycle as I emerged from a mechanic's garage in an old-lady night gown and a track jacket with a sleepy Italian on my arm. I may have managed to salvage a reputation after the Belgian male-roommate snafu, but now I'm sure Jorg thinks I'm completely insane.

I guess I was just more glad about spending time with such great people. It's wonderful to hang out with people who have all of their identity issues taken care of. It's all a done deal. No insecurities, no flip-flopping around, no excluding people, no nothing. It might have something to do with the language barrier, but Stefano is invariably happy-go-lucky, and if he ever judges people, he certainly doesn't make it apparent. Really, he inspires me to keep my door open and force people to eat my habitually disgusting bulgur wheat concoctions. And Joe is completely comfortable with himself and his quirks and unique habits. Stefano and I cursed his name for about forty minutes while we waited for him in driving wind on the top of one of the cliffs by the sea while he wandered around collecting shells in the tide pools below. Maintaining an adecquate sense of wonder is not to be underestimated.

I lent out my extra mattress to a Spanish girl this week, and I just found it in the room of an Estonian basketball champion. I also just met a guy who is the eighth fastest rubics-cube solver in the world. Walking superlatives are everywhere.

And, Serbia is cleared of genocide? What?

As I screw around in the Netherlands, life goes on.