The next place I’ll be visiting will be the city of Leuven, the absolute oldest University City of complete Europe. And of course I had to enjoy the student life there.
Dirk, the Nys family father, insisted on driving me to this city, some 42 kilometres Southwest. And when the visiting neighbor insisted on bringing me too, nobody interfered! How generous!
I arrived at the address of my next guesthouse of Wouter and his Colombian girlfriend Elisabeth, who live almost in the center of Leuven.
As I got inside and dropped my backpack in the room I got appointed there, I handed the couple the Gift that I took with me from the Nys family. It was a basket filled with some home-made jelly, a tea percolator and various flavors of tea. And Elisabeth admitted that she’d always want a percolator and she could even use it for coffee!
After drinking a big glass of water – it was over 25 degrees C – they wanted to visit their Colombian friends who had moved to a new house, nearby. So I got on a mountain bike and we all cycled around the center of town along the railroads to this villa park where they lived.
When arriving there we weren’t alone. A group of eight young Colombian and Mexican exchange students were already enjoying the first days of beautiful weather here, drinking the beer Leuven is proud of: Stella Artois and passing around a bottle of tequila and Colombian rum. After a few beers I had to try that too, according to this group. It tasted pretty good, but I knew (I learned after “Antwerp” that I had to slow everything down).
I am not really used to drinking rather a lot. And as they spoke only Spanish, their drinking speed reflected on their speaking and it got all very difficult for me to understand, ha!
Following some singing, chatting, and more drinking, they organized a soccer match in the backyard. I was amazed by their stamina. I decided to participate and quickly realized that I wasn’t a great soccer player. Southern America eventually won with 50 to 5, but the score became irrelevant due to the intense heat; everyone was focused on the game rather than the score.
Around 8.30 that evening we said goodbye to this group and cycled back home, where Elisabeth started to prepare spaghetti dinner.
But what about the next days, I started to think. At Ludo’s place on Friday I was invited to visit the radio studio of Studio Brussels, the most popular radio station in Belgium, next Wednesday.
If I could stay another day in this great city of Leuven I would go to Brussels on Tuesday. With two inviting hosts in the city of Brussel (and the capital city of the European Union) I could make it to the radio show without any troubles and then carry on through the West of Belgium, on my way to France!
Wouter and Elisabeth were pretty tired after this whole afternoon and they offered me to take me out to town tomorrow night, if I would stay another day.
After a few phone calls with my upcoming hosts in Brussels, everything was arranged! I would stay one more day in Leuven tomorrow!
