The Tao of Thao

The joy of living with no regrets

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

An invitation

As I am a maniac when it comes to planning and time management, I really do not like last minute invitations of any sorts, I would rather stay home and spend a quiet time to read unless the invitation comes from good friends and my baby sister whom I don't often due to her working schedule.

When I was scratching my head yesterday trying to fight boredom, a friend texted me "caught some fishes, wanna come over for dinner?", I couldn't help but smiling at that text, such a sweet and original invitation for dinner, I thought. It reminded me of friendliness and gave me this very warmth feeling which I can't describe. The invitation is casual but when it comes for the very first time, it shows a willingness to want to be friends. Home is a place of privacy and no matter what, when people open their home for the very first time to welcome us for dinner, it is like part of their privacy is shared with us. I used to entertain and love having friends over more in the past even people whom I first meet. Over time, you learn that there are not many real friends in life, and those who stand by you when you need them are those you want to keep forever. It is sad to lose the faith, I will work on that in the next couple of months.

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague told me that it was strange to see how the people who live in Brussels entertain themselves as compare to Paris or London where there are more foreigners who go there and enjoy. My answer was that most of the people who live in Brussels are not Belgians, most of them are foreigners. When you are a foreigner living far away from your home, you always seek friends in the new place, it happens that Brussels is full of foreigners, so it brings the understanding between many foreigners closer. Moreover, after a couple of year living here, befriend with Belgians, the conclusion is that it is not easy to be invited to a Belgian's home. That does not mean Belgians are not nice and friendly people, it is just a culture thing, also the fact that this is their country, their home where their family and friends are here, they have no need to seek new friends ;-) like we do.

So, when my friend, who happens to be Belgian texted me this invitation, I really do appreciate because for me it is a very kind gesture even though maybe it has little meaning for him.

I am going to London for the coming long weekend, which starts tomorrow ;-) for the first time. Unlike the previous Milan trip, I am pretty much excited. I still remember many English lessons in the text book we had in VN, we had one about the River Thames after the first lessons when the character Mary and Peter say "Hello, how are you? what's your name?, how do you do?..." ;-). It was well describe the activities along the river, and I wished that I had been there.

Some dreams come true, I suppose ;-).

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