New Friends ...

How odd it is to wake to the sounds of a living breathing city this morning ...

Last night a group of us had dinner at Shannon's place, here in the middle of Brussels, talking the night away over pasta, red wine and all kinds of other delicious food.

As is usual in this Belgian life of mine we were a multi-national group ... the 3 Americans, the Canadian, the Pole and this New Zealander, with a Belgian calling by later.

Conversation was varied ... I talked with a European about attitudes towards immigrants, to an American about the guy from the Bronx who generously shared his haul of bagels with her on a flight home after she had spent months here in Belgium starved of them, to the Pole about her hometown and then globialisation and its effect on countries flew round the room.

At one point, laptops were opened as we priced traveling to Italy, Spain or Poland together ... Florence may have emerged as a winner. Over here, Ryan Air flies people to places for the price of a taxi fare back home in New Zealand.

Yesterday I wrote of my old friends, today it's more about the possibility of new friends who make me wonder if one day we'll spend time together and talk of those days when we lived in Belgium ...

And so it is that this morning I woke slowly, savouring the sounds of the city as it came to life. Back in my Istanbul life I lived in Mecidiyekoy. It was Istanbul central, with a heartbeat all of its own. I heard life as one kind of Turkish when I lived in my small apartment above main street.

I missed the noise of it when I first moved to Belgium. I missed the sound of people talking to each other across balconys, kid's playing outside, the calls to prayer, the fighting cats, the car alarms ... noises that simply don't happen in my everyday double-glazed Belgian life.

So I was delighted this morning, as I lay there listening to the trams rumble by, to the lighter sound of the cars speeding over cobblestones, to the sound of the street being swept, of people talking and shouting to each other ... I was listening to life outside the windows again.

Looking out from the window alcove I can see it's another blue sky day ... the florist is open and there's a woman standing at the tram stop with a huge bunch of flowers; there's a street sweeper already working and the cafe has its tables and chairs out on the sidewalk. I can see buildings that are so obviously old European, with the neighbours living their lives through uncurtained windows across the road.

I'm loving the heartbeat of this corner of Brussels city this morning ...