Ooh la la

...we went back to Nua's shortly after for a fun night of karaoke...

Kim and Anja, my karaoke partners in crime
























Anja having a good time with a French boy called Florentin

and me being squeezed by an Irish boy called Ivan

Spice up your life!

Might sound surprising, but I've been up to more than watching tennis during the last few days! :p

On Thursday evening, Elke and I met up in Brussels to celebrate the end of the exams. We started the night by going to Le Roi Des Belges to drink a cocktail. Last time we were there, we tried the delicious Road Runner (vodka, amaretto, coco) and we just hád to have it again this time. We exchanged birthday presents (my birthday was in late December, hers early January, but due to exams we hadn't seen each other for quite a while) - Elke got me a long necklace with a big black amulet, I got her two candle holders in green mosaic glass from Germany.

After catching up on everything we didn't get the chance to tell each other during the last two months, we headed to Nua for some karaoke. I immediately caught the eye of some boys who tried to approach me by telling me "it's our friend's birthday (yeah right) and he thinks you're a real cutie, can't you give him a kiss?". This way too typical moment led to me and Elke exchanging some quick glimpses with two guys who were sitting at the other side of our table and who had also witnessed the scene.

We started talking to the pair. One of them was called Mike; he is from L.A. but is spending about a year in Brussels for his job (some EU function). His friend's name was Wim, a Flemish guy who works as a security guard at Mike's job. They turned out to be really nice and we spent the entire evening together.

It was a night of red wine and lots of singing. Sometimes that turned out okay (Elke and I are getting really professional in performing 'Super Trouper', for instance), sometimes eh, not really okay (never ever again am I going to sing 'Under Pressure' in front of a whole bar). Mike and I even sang a song with some homeless guy called Jesus.

Elke opening her present.
The karaoke moderator. He almost managed to steal my camera.

Mike.

Wim.

Mike knew the girl with the pink hair. Her name was Christina, she was American as well, and she lives here because of her dad's job. I think she was very high, but she was lovely.

Tuomas, some Finnish guy we met at the end of the guy. I thought he was nice, Elke thought he was plain boring because he was talking about the origins of his name.

Cocktails and karaoke

My best friend Elke and her boyfriend broke up a while ago, so last week I took her on a fun night out.

First we went to my favorite Brussels bar 'Le Roi Des Belges' where we had a delicious cocktail called Road Runner (vodka, amaretto, coconut). It looked like milkshake, but it definitely didn't taste so! We were having a good chat whilst enjoying our cocktails, when four guys on the other side of the room started to point at us and say things. We thought they just wanted to harass us so we tried our best to ignore them as much as possible. After a while they came over to us. Even though we weren't really in the mood to do so, we had a little chat and figured out two of them were pretty decent blokes.

Elke and I then headed off to Nua, the karaoke/party bar of the Irish pub O'Reilly's. We invited the guys to come with us and after having finished their drinks all of them came, but - fortunately - only the two nice ones (Mario and Samy) stayed longer than half an hour.

I'm a huge karaoke fan (not a very good singer, though) so it didn't take long before I jumped on stage. Elke and I sang two ABBA songs ("Knowing Me, Knowing You" and a killer version of "Super Trouper") and one Alanis Morissette song ("You Oughta Know"). Elke did a solo performance of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", while I gave The Libertines' "Don't Look Back Into The Sun" a go. Mario and Samy also did a song or two, maybe three. I can't really remember everything they did, but I do remember their amusing interpretation of Amy Winehouse's "Back To Black".

Definitely something we should do again soon!

Here are some pictures (fortunately no pictures of me, I become a wild beast once I'm on stage :p)!