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Spring Festival in Leuven yesterday, and I can tell you, it was awesome! Most fun I've had in months, even though I was completely exhausted afterwards.
I was invited by a friend, otherwise I wouldn't have known they were hosting it nearby this year, but I'm really glad she told me. Got to meet quite a few new people and even managed to talk to them, even though my grasp on Chinese is still pretty poor (but that's okay, most of them are learning Dutch, so we all just blunder our way through the conversations ^^)
it got a bit weird at dinner, though. I wasn't used to the food, so I had to look for things I could actually eat. Also ran into some trouble with the chopsticks, 'cause while I can use chopsticks, I just can't use them with my right hand. Result: people offering to get me a fork (turns out, there weren't any), me explaining that the chopsticks weren't the problem, but that me being left-handed was, and a cramped right hand afterwards xD
They had this whole show afterwards, which was amazing! Lots of famous people too, they somehow got the ambassador of China to come, along with the head of the Confucius Institute, the major of Leuven and the head of the school that was hosting (and you'd expect him to be able to speak English, since it's a very international school, but apparently, he... can't. Really can't. It was a bit embarrassing, actually.)
There was this amazingly funny sketch/musical thing about a bunch of guys trying to court a Chinese girl. I didn't understand all of it, but enough to get the gist and the actors were all really good. I wish I could've taken pictures, but the places we had weren't too good, so I couldn't get a good shot. There was a group of little kids who did a ballet act, and they sat near us after they'd finished their act. Poor things were all exhausted, it was way past their bedtime. Eventually their parents took pity on them and left. I think some of them would've just fallen asleep in their chairs.
All in all, it was really amazing. Took the train back with some more friends, but in the end we were all too tired to actually talk. We spent most of the trainride just sitting there with our eyes closed. Somehow we still managed to get into a conversation about the spicyness of the food (if I ever want to survive in Chengdu, the city I plan on going to, I'm going to have to learn to eat spicy food ^^)
And people keep telling me that I've lost weight, while actually, I didn't... Well, I'm not complaining.