Sat 6 March - "Would you like to go to a Concert?"

That sounds great, why not. We were both invited to meet up with N again, our first language exchanger in Belgium, who we hadn't seen in almost 3 months. Through our various emails to each other it was hard to actually establish what kind of concert we were going to see, what kind of venue it would be at, and how long we planned on being there for. Even when emailing in English and French you are still left none the wiser. Your French isn't good enough for her to understand everything and the same for her English.

We were being picked up by N at Nivelles, a town about an hour away from Mons via 2 trains, and headed somewhere. N asked us if we'd like some dessert. Yes please! "What did we like?" Not too fussy, as long as it's sweet and filling. We then pulled up in a supermarket car park. "Let's get some sugary dessert," she said. So, are we going to a café for some, a bar, or...no, the supermarket. Eh?

Oh, we were buying dessert to take away. To take away where I had no idea. N also asked us what drink we wanted. Again, when will we be drinking? "Will there be a bar at the concert venue?" I wondered. "Yes, of course," N cheerfully replied. Okay, so for some reason I just bought one of those of awful, add only boiling water to, packets of (decaffinated) capuccino. I'd never in a million years buy the stuff but didn't want to seem rude and offend her by buying nothing.

We ended up wolfing down our dessert (tiramisu, the same one you get in every supermarket in England. Delicious.) and capuccino at someone's flat, but not hers.

We finally arrived at the concert venue, which turned out to be in someone's rather enormous and extremely flash apartment in an area right on the border of Flanders. The concert was in fact a gig and was the first performance by 5 friends who had invited along about 50 of their own pals to witness them cover a whole range of rock songs.

The gig was then followed by a party where everyone, naturally, spoke French. N introduced us to several of her friends who seemed only happy to practise out their English and then have to listen as we made the best use of our pigeon French. Actually, it was a very useful evening for French practice as N preferred chatting in French as she didn't feel confident enough speaking English.

The evening was actually great fun. Luckily, there were free drinks. I knew I should have bought some wine at the supermarket. I had a feeling this was the kind of concert she meant.

N also insisted on driving us all the way back to Mons (about 45mins away), only for her to have to come all the way back as she was currently staying at the flat we had eaten dessert in, her boyfriend's place. It all eventually made sense.