Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Gert came home and invited me to attend a political reception with him last night and I went, curious to meet these people I had made assumptions about for a year without meeting them.

They were lovely.
One couple had family who had moved to New Zealand and they were taking a cruise there, flying into and departing from Australia. Not only that, they had been teachers and are travellers ... we had plenty to talk about.

I met a Greek woman who had been here so long, and the chairwoman was so much more than I had imagined ...

The reality of people is often disarming I think.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more: on a personal level the reality of people is indeed often disarming.

Last December, Ludo Van Campenhout (City Council member) walked into a small Chinese restaurant near Antwerp city hall accompanied by his wife.

I couldn't help but overhear the conversation - and on a personal level, it sure was disarming :)

Anonymous said...

I envy you, that you can enjoy a political group. Here, that is the one group that needs cleansing. But there's hope—our business was bad, but is now cleaned up impressively.

Di Mackey said...

Hi Peter, do you know, I've never overheard a conversation in a restaurant ... I think I'm just hanging out in the wrong places :)

Shashikiran, I was studying political anthropology as my university minor back in 2002 and I guess part of my enjoyment comes from finding myself, quite accidently, living in Europe and able to occasionally get up close and see how things actually work here. But yes, they were nice people and I liked that.

I wish you all the best with your system ... if business is cleaner then surely there is hope for politics.

Lever said...

Isn't that just great? :D

I love the way our preconceptions just pop and we realise that everybody's the same really.

Birds of a feather flock together, so the saying goes :)

Di Mackey said...

Lever, you're back :)

Sometimes I have to fight with the idea that people aren't their political beliefs too. Or with the fact that I can't always understand the complications of defining European politics ... which are so much more complicated than New Zealand politics, with so much more history driving them.

Erin said...

Applause for Lever, Applause for lever:

I love the way our preconceptions just pop and we realise that everybody's the same really.


Yeh!

Go lever!

Di Mackey said...

Aye, everyone is the same but sometimes the ideology of those people we can relate to and enjoy is disturbingly out of touch with who they seem to be ... maybe the shaping of tradition and habit is like a comfortable shell that requires cracking.

We talked of travel and Belgian things ... a good night.

A nice evening