Today was a really great day. And for once, I will abandon any irony, because happiness does not sit well with it.
Sunday started by a massive hangover caused by yesterday’s mixture of wine, beer, gin and tonic, becherovka, and Tatra tea. I AM still young!
I ran to church, still with the brutal hangover, and profoundly enjoyed the squeaky chants.
Then the time came to fulfill our civic duty and cast a ballot. It was very Belgian-style elections: the post was not able to deliver our documents necesseary for the procedure (despite a 2-week-long term, within the perimeter of 500 meters). We apparently were not the only ones: at an election bureau located in a street called “No worries” (sans soucis), a gentleman with a doomsday book of thousands of pages looks up every lost soul’s name and writes a personal elector’s number on a yellow post-it. Done with the officialities!
Now to the urns. Easier said than done. The nuns that were leaving the election bureau just before us looked marry, but… the (French) instructions, that consisted of steps including “handing in your ID/recieving a chip card/putting the chip card in a machine/selecting your preferred party and candiates/taking the chip card out/printing out what you have just typed in/folding the paper/going to another booth/unfolding the paper/scanning what you have typed in and then printed out in another computer/folding the paper again/putting the paper in the urn/handing in the chip card” left us a bit insecure.
But we managed, with the help of the very typically relaxed, kind, and unofficial personnel.
There are very few things more pleasant than voting without any knowledge of the personal issues and filth related to the specific parties. You just vote according the the programme and feel good about yourself, which is absolutely buck-passing, emotionally rewarding.
And then, with the hangover a little mitigated by the uplifting post-election feeling, I take off to Brussels Fashion Days in this amazing, filthy, remote neighborhood around the canal, where Brussels, thanks to the maritime atmosphere in the docks, for a moment feels like Hamburg (but dirty). My favorite spot in the city for its spaciousness and beautiful light.
The pleasant 25 degrees of a globa-warming era mid-October only added to the sensation.
The fashion festival was a little underwhelming. Which made me actually happy, too. Czech fashion will definitely find a place here.
That brings me to a modest conclusion: It’s not about the perfect conditions. It’s all about capacity for happiness that I have discovered within myself lately.
