It was the usual mundane work at office midst of the dark, wet, cold gloomy weather in the peak winter of Brussels. I was getting fidgety about doing something exciting, so decided to take a long walk in the woods to grab some fresh air. I had long heard people talk endlessly about the woods close to my office, but I had never got an opportunity to explore it.
I was, rather waiting for the spring to set in to explore the woods. But the boredom got to me and decided to take a walk into the woods. I pulled over my overcoat, a woolen cap and geared myself with enough warm clothes as if I was going to the alps!
I plugged in my favorite numbers from my all-time companion – my ipod, and set my foot towards the woods. The temperature was around 3 degrees Celsius and the wind was howling as I stepped into the woods. There was a beaten path that I decided to take. I carefully watched the caution signboards with drawings of deers, some wild animals that resembled wild dogs or something at every few meters from the entrance. I had a secret conversation with God and thought to myself, how I only wish I witness atleast one of these animals!!
Well, I just to move on and walked deep into the woods to witness some spectacular scenes – from huge wide green trunked trees to little flowers on the trunk. It was getting to be lot of fun while I chased little butterflies, saw some slimy worms crawling on the tree trunks and yellowed leaves lying all over the place.
The only sound I could hear was my own steps, deep and clear. However, as I was walking close to a turning, I could hear something – the crushing of leaves and deep heavy breaths. My heart sunk, again had a close conversation with God and told him I was just kidding when I wished to witness those animals. To my surprise, it was someone who was jogging in the woods! We were both surprised to see each other in the middle of nowhere. We exchanged a quick smile and carried on.
I walked till I started to feel thirsty, but didnt want to take the same way back. Trusting my sense of direction, I decided to take another route which I hoped would lead to my office. I got back to the mode of enjoying the nature again and kept walking. After a while, I noticed a large area to my right. Curiosity grabbed the best of me, and I trekked through some wet, slimy, slippery leafy path to landed myself at a race course pitch! I was astonished and looked far into the field and noticed buildings on the other end of the ground. I thought this was my best chance to get to civilization, and crossed the ground. All the offices were locked and looked like there had been no operations for quite a while now. Just then, I could hear the horses and walked towards them. They were all locked in stables, which opened to a busy street.
My next idea was to find an opening into the street and walk back to the office. Unfortunately, I noticed that there was fencing all around the race ground. My attention was grabbed by the stables, where there was an opening on the top. I must tell you – those horses are one smelly creatures! They looked nothing like how they are pictured in movies – clean, fluffy hair and nicely groomed. Anyways, my goal was now to get back somehow. To my luck, I found one stable which was empty, but the opening was pretty high. I gave a nervous smile to all the other horses, and pulled myself up to the opening and jumped on to the street. People passing by the street stopped to give me a weird look. Well, I just got up, and started walking as if I never noticed them 
As I followed the street to my office, I found that there was this huge gate which directly opened to the race course grounds!!!! I had a hearty laugh and finally got back to the office, as good as new.
