We're not there yet, but getting close - very close! 2 more full days to go! I never expected things would go so fast and so easily. Sure enough, all the days start to look and feel the same - and the number of moments of just killing time are increasing. Dates and days are blurring - although it's easy to remember: in 3 days it's Wednesday, and then we're out!
OK, in terms of today's exciting stuff, here we go:
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Today, I finished (!) the work on my 1993 diary book. There are still some small things left to do, which I can't do now - I need the diaries first, which are at home. But 99% of the work is done! Yay, that's one of the big to-do's off my list!
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It can't be left out... Food remains the "excitement" of the day; we were spoiled today. Fried eggs for breakfast, yummy spaghetti bolognese for lunch and very tasty Indian food for dinner - even the rice was good this time!
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This message came in today, to prepare us for the finger prick test that will be done on day 13. It asks us to stay in our room on Tuesday as we will be called for the test LOL. What happens is, we all do a antibody test, which is very rapid (15'). If from some reason that would turn out positive, there is a normal swab test to reconfirm. We're obviously only released if it's negative.
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So far for the exciting developments of the day. While in quarantine, I thought it would be nice to look back at our previous months, since we left Malaysia in March. I'll do that mostly in pictures.
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Our journey actually started in Taiwan, where we went cycling in March. We cycled for 3.5 weeks; during that time, Malaysian borders closed to foreigners (until mid June) and subsequently, Japan (where we wanted to go after Taiwan) also didn't allow foreign tourists anymore. Our options were very limited: stay in Taiwan for as long as all this lasted, or... fly to Europe and stay in Belgium. We did the latter.
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Once we arrived in Belgium, end of March, we had to go in quarantine! Yes, this is our second quarantine indeed! Only, in Belgium it was different: we were lucky to be in a big house with a big garden, and so we had a lot of space to move around (here's me doing laps in the garden, 200 laps or 12km...) and lots of activities to do: painting, cleaning, gardening, ... Very different from being locked up in a hotel room for 14 days.
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During our stay in Belgium I started to bake sourdough bread - from scratch. It didn't all go well from the first try, but all in all went quite well and gave us delicious fresh bread - while the lockdown was still in full force and it was a burden to always go for good fresh bread.
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Once we got out of quarantine, Belgium was still in a very strict lockdown. We were allowed to go out for walks, runs or bike trips however, and so we went several times to the forest just outside Leuven and enjoyed the early spring. we could not meet up with friends and family however, which was very weird.
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Once the social restrictions this eased up a bit at some point, we could finally enjoy some good times with our friends!
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Nevertheless, it was still a strange time; this is Leuven market for instance, reopened but with limited stalls, big spaces for sufficient distancing - and as you can see, few people.
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Fantastic mussels and good Belgian beer. Life can be very good!
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Once I was out of quarantine, I started to run a lot, building up to more than 650km in 2 months. Mid June, before leaving for the France cycling trip, I went twice to the Ardennes with Dirk for some good, challenging trail runs (40km and 30km, using ExtraTrail trails, excellent stuff!) and did that once again just before returning to Malaysia.
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Once European borders reopened, mid June, we left on a bicycle trip - to France.
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Good times in France!
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And cycling again...
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Our cycling trip came to an unexpected end when I was down with fever for a few days, and we decided to head back to Leuven. I had to do a covid test and until I had a result, I had to... quarantine myself! The test was done and was... negative! So after 4 days, I was "released" again... Unfortunately, by then, covid measures became more strict in Belgium again, so it became harder to see our friends and family once more.
It was a pity we had to abandon our trip but on the other hand, corona was on the rise again in many places in Europe and therefore it was a good thing to be back home, in Belgium, without the risk of getting stranded somewhere or having to go into a quarantine again at some point...
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We definitely enjoyed our time in Belgium, and spending more time with family and friends - even though there were still a lot of restrictions on social contacts which caused a lot of limitations...
We also cycled a lot, just around Leuven but we also made a longer trip in the Ardennes for roughly a week - a wonderful trip!
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| We had a beautiful summer in Europe! It even became very hot for some time, too hot to be pleasant. |
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End of August we went to Leipzig, Germany for a few days to help move our son.
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Last winter we bought an apartment near Leuven, which is still under construction, and will be finished towards the middle of 2021. We were able to check the progress of the works, and also visit contractors who will be doing bathroom, kitchen, flooring, electricity and make our choices.
In a way, it would have been good if we had this ready this year, as we had a very unusual covid-caused problem: the difficulty to find a place to stay. Normally we can always stay with friends, and over summer we can also often stay in friend's houses while they go on holidays. But now, most people did not go on holidays, or much shorter. Also staying with friends was not really possible, due to social distancing requirements, social "bubble" rules, people working from home (so it would be disturbing to be around all the time), even due to quarantine of course. A very unusual summer indeed... |
On September 9 we left Leuven, one way return trip to Kuala Lumpur. And from there... the 14-day quarantine aka covid-prison story is in this blog! One big thing coming up on the blog: our plans for the next days, weeks and months. Or years? Nah...
