I love the continent. I love mainland Europe. It has taken a bit of time to get used to the funny keyboards and laid back lifestyles, but slowly and surely, halfway through the week, I think that I may have got it sussed.

Take yesterday for example - besides wilting in the impossible heat that only a sun-a'holic cat would adore, Girlpants and I managed to shop, pack and head to the station in good time for our train. Cue small family run café next to the train station and two orders of coke and croque monsieur, and 50 minutes later, we had missed two trains and moved onto new drinks. It wasn't until after I had launched into a full minute of ranting about of the time it takes to grill a cheese and ham toastie sarnie, that I realised that this is the life over here. You don't have to rush to catch that all important train as they have bloody good train services over here (unlike the UK) and looking at life, there was more to life than schedules. Relax, eat your meal as each moment counts. In the end, we only got into Antwerpt 30 mins after we had planned, sauntered down to the river, looked around, relaxed in hotel and then went for a curry, which was, lets face it, a daft idea given the heat.

But then again, if you're on the continent, you have the great mainland lifestyle of cold beers sipped in a civil manner, until the wee hours of the morn....