Languages have never been my forte, I can barely string a coherent sentence together in English never mind French. When travelling abroad I find communication very difficult. Take France, I feel that I have a pretty extensive French vocabulary but more often than not I find that I am unable to use them in the right order. Frequently I have to rely on animated gestures and sound effects to get my point across.
This is becoming a bit of a problem; my niece, who lives in Brussels, is three years old and loves to talk. Her French is better than mine and I've been trying to learn it for over two decades, that's bad. What's really bad is that her English is almost as good as mine...
I'm in Brussels this weekend for the annual Brussels Running Club winter event, since this is the 29th the official title is the "29ème HIVERNALES DU RACING CLUB DE BRUXELLES". It's my second time running and I was looking forward to it. The race starts on the outskirts of Watermall-Bosvoorde, south of Brussels. The route briefly brought us into the town but by kilometer 2 we were on the way into the forest where the rest of the race was staged.
It was below zero, a little colder than I would have liked, and it took 3 or 4 kilometers to warm up properly but once I did the run was thoroughly enjoyable as it had been last year. My rubbish French meant that couldn't understand instructions from stewards as I ran past them, instead I had to pay careful attention to signs indicating the route as there was a 20K sharing parts of the same route and I didn't want to stray into that territory.
My finish time was 55:52, about average considering it was a 9.5K run. When I crossed the line we had warm tea with sugar (I think it a Belgian thing and it really works) and plenty of water. Looking forward to the 30th annual race next year!
Here's a link to my route: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2160274
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1 comment:
Things are a lot worse than you thought. Your niece seems to understands Dutch. She's been hanging out with a Dutch-speaking 4-year-old for a few months now and I have just caught her following instructions given in Dutch by her friend's mother. Scary, huh? Marie
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