July 2026

Hello!

The summer so far has been super nice, although some weeks were insane heat-whise! If you’re here for the Brussels summer, please invest in a fan before they all get sold out everywhere, trust me!
This brings me to how we posted about the heatwave and it’s impact on schools and education systems, it’s scary honestly! But heatwaves aside, I also worked with Sara on a short video to introduce the YPARC Toolkit to teachers and educators so they can tailor their teaching system with our many examples, and it seems to be doing great! I’m happy about how it turned out 🙂 

It was my first time in the city of Ghent, for the Gentse Feesten, and it was so much fun! I went with some friends I made at the ESC on-arrival training, we all gathered there coming from Brussels, Antwerp, and Oostende, and had a blast! If it’s taking place and you’re here in July I really recommend it! The entire city turns into a festival with soo many stages with all kinds of music, and many food and drink stalls. It runs for a couple of weeks, and the day that I went it was absolutely packed, so you can expect it to always be very lively! Pretty sure hundreds of bars/restaurants host cool concerts during these weeks too, so there are plenty of vibes to choose from!

I also had some of the same friends I made on the on-arrival training visit me for a weekend in Brussels, we saw the Spain vs Brussels world cup game and it was fun being the only ones at the bar rooting for Spain. The day after we went to a concert and had late dinner before saying goodbye for a while.

Overall, for me it was a more relaxed month, I would say, where I spent most of my time enjoying the sun and good weather in Brussels, apart from that day over in Ghent! Planning some trips to other places over the next couple of months as I feel like I’m missing out on the opportunity of travelling to neighboring countries or to more rural parts of Belgium, but I won’t sleep on it!

This month I really felt how I’m going to miss life in Brussels and at QUEST once my ESC experience is over, which is a bit sad, but already knowing I’ll miss it a lot means I’ve been having a great time :’)