We are busy!

Hello! Belgium has been a blast these last couple of weeks. Our company has been super busy performing, workshopping and training, I couldn't be happier to see 15ft6 taking off so well. We are working our way around Belgium, performing in different festivals in small, lovely towns. The past three weeks, we have been in Opwijk, Aalst and beautiful Ghent. The circus festivals in Belgium are so cute, caravans, flags, crochet stalls, little flea markets and delicious food is all included! Like a little bit of paradise for me :) In Aalst and Ghent we didn't just do our "Dynamite and Poetry" show, we also contributed to two different cultural programmes hosted by Circus Planeet, the circus school in Ghent. These programmes are excellent, brining disadvantaged children together to tap into their talents and learn exciting new things. The energy the children bring is infectious, they are so eager to learn and so enthusiastic about circus. Working with them really reminded me how lucky I am to work in this field! At the end of both weeks we all came together and created shows, they were similar to cabarets, but with children and professional artists. These shows were the perfect opportunity to practice our Russian bar act and my aerial hoop act, which are both very, very new!

While I am not performing I am out making the most of the wonderful weather in Ghent. I know the Summer doesn't last very long here, so I try and make the most of each sunny day! In Ghent you can get the best of nature and the quaint little city centre. I live near a man made beach which is surrounded by forrest and backed by a canal. Walking around this is perfect for enjoying some green! And then there are so many great places in the city centre to enjoy, there are three really cute cafes, Huis Collette, Julie's House and the Bohemian Garden, these are all worth seeing if you are planning on coming to Belgium. I was lucky enough to be here for the annual flea market which takes over a lot of the small side streets of Ghent on the first weekend of September. It was hard to resist buying things, even though I definitely have triple the amount of things I had before coming here! Oops!

Here are some pictures!

Barcelona

Going to Barcelona was really spontaneous. We were in Switzerland and it was absolutely bucketing down with rain and I had reached the end of my Australian style tolerance of Winter. I looked online found some cheap tickets and was blessed enough to have a friend living in Barcelona who very generously gave us a free apartment in the heart of the city. We were there for about a week, and it was there I learnt I am not very good at being on holiday! The city is really cool, but I was so consumed with trying to see the 'real Barcelona' in one week that I really forgot to relax! I think those Lonely Planet travel books are a bit of a curse, they entice you in to seeing everything and before you know it the week is over and you have spent a lot of time worrying that you are missing out on all of the things the book says will give you the Barcelona experience! But anyway, we did get to enjoy the city, the atmosphere and the people. The highlights of the trip were the beach, the delicious tapas, the markets, again the food, and spending time with my dear friend Pepa Plana. When she came in to the city, she took us to the yummiest tapas place and gave us a speedy tour of the city. To here dismay, no matter where you are in Barcelona, there are tourists everywhere, it is difficult to believe it is where the locals live, but they are hidden in there somewhere amongst all the Americans! 

Pepa lives in the Delta region of Catalonia. It is about a 2 hour train ride from Barcelona. This region is surrounded by the river and the sea, while the land is dotted with rice paddies. Pepa owns a 100 metre long house which has been converted from a chicken farm. It is a massive, very impressive project her and her partner have taken on. Being in the Delta region gave me the real Catalan experience. We ate amazing seafood tapas and rode along the beach with beautiful old bicycles. This little trip was very memorable!