Lately

I have been learning some fun and interesting Belgian sayings lately. Pépé and Benjamin have been my principal instructors.  Here’s what I know so far:

           

            Il y a une polichinelle dans la tiroir= there is a puppet in the drawer= there’s a bun in the oven/she's knocked up

            On ne trouve pas de l’argent sous un pied de cheval=You don’t find money under a horse’s foot= money doesn’t grow on trees.

            Quand les poules auront les dents=when chickens have teeth=when pigs fly

            Après le semain de quatre jeudis=after the week of four thursdays= when pigs fly/ never

            I have also learned to recongize more impolite words, but those shall not be repeated. Besides, I don’t know how to spell them! We had an enire conversation about Darth Vader too. Darth Vader is Dutch for Dark Father. So much for the surprise and shock factor for Dutch Speakers. Julia explained that in Icelandic, they call Darth Vader what translates directly as black head. I cracked up at that point---great mental image. Everyone else laughed too when I finally got enough breath to explain.

            Today we had our first day of ‘éstages’, that is, field work/experience. We took a tour of a facility for handicapped adolescents and took notes. I frantically copied from some friends, and I understood a little of what the official said. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what his post was. I have a lot of gaps to fill in.

            We got off early for all this and the facility is really close to the school, so we ate lunch together at a friterie between the two.  We all had the ‘student box’: a ‘bicky’, drink, and small fries. The ‘bicky’ was a hamburger with cooked onions and some kind of amazing sauce, as well as pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. America may be famous for hamburgers, but man, these Europeans make a pretty mean burger too! The ‘small’ fries and turned out to cover most of the tray, and were quite good with and without mayo. Only the male in our group was able to eat all of his meal. We had a good time, and I was able to participate a little in a discussion of Lady Gaga. Her name sticks out in a French conversation, despite the accent. I guess she always sticks out, come to think of it. Elle est bizarre!

     This week we got our student id cards, and I discovered the universal, humorous quality of school photos. At first glance, my photo looks almost normal, until you notice the look of complete and utter terror. Ha. And mine wasn’t the only humorous photo. We had a good time swapping photos and laughing/moaning, just like kids everywhere.

            I was really excited today because I was able to understand most of what Madame Potar said during class!!! And she speaks like a machine gun! Or someone from NY! (Plunkdawg, anyone?) AND I had a dream last night where I had a small conversation in French. They were being very rude and told me to shut up. But it was in French, so it still made me happy. I am also starting to understand more of conversations in general, which is such a huge relief. You really have no idea how wonderful it is to understand spoken language until you can’t. 

Tonight I am going to try to make cornbread and gravy for dinner. With broccoli. From my reconnaissance(French-English word!) on the back of the cornmeal box, cornbread does not exist here, so it will be American. Hopefully. With a little bit o’ luck!

Random Things I Have Stumbled Upon

1.                    Icelanders and Belgians don’t know their national anthems and don’t give a rip. 

2.                    Unopened milk isn’t kept in the fridge. And I suspect that there’s some kind of sugar added or something; it tastes different.

3.                    Sandwiches are wrapped in foil or put in plastic containers, but never saran-wrapped.

4.                    I found a Belgian who likes peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter and banana sandwiches!!!

5.                    I guess Belgians do eat breakfast. I thought they didn’t, but I have been corrected.

6.                    Europeans drink lots of coke, pepsi, sprite, and other sodas, but I have yet to see any rootbeer.

7.                    I haven’t seen any reusable water bottles, metal or plastic.

8.                    There are no comics in Icelandic or Belgian newspapers. Although comics originated in Belgium.

9.                    Belgians are speed demons when it comes to showers. I am still working on catching up.

10.                It’s a Belgian tradition that a broom stands for every birthday. Marianne bought Alice’s mom 40 brooms as a gag for her 40th birthday.
11.      The date is logically written day-month-year instead of month-day-year. Crazy Americans. 

Horses, Hercule, and Happy Birthday

   The horse show yesterday night was actually a show put on by a sort of school for stunt horsemanship. It was pretty amazing; the teacher had 4 miniature horses in all kind of formations without any lines or direct control on them, one student stood on  two galloping horses, and there were a lot more acts. The professor, an old man, looked a little frail (on purpose) but was standing on one foot on cantering horses, hanging on to the tail of a cantering horse, and driving his team of minis at a gallop in hairpin turns. It was very impressive. The show itself was actually in France, so that was kinda cool to see how easily it is to be international here.
    We just got back from having dinner at Veronique's (Marianne's sister). We ate a lot of good food (cheese-stuffed mushrooms, roast ham, a luxurious French potato dish (the potatoes are cooked in butter for 3 hours before being baked with ham), bread, some kind of creamed fish-sticks for appetizers, and then cake and coffee. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera) and a lot of good conversation too. (A note on Belgian table manners: napkins don't go on your lap, you don't unfold them to use them, and you fold them instead of crushing them. Also, bread goes on the table next to your plate, not on the plate.) I am understanding a bit more during group conversations, which is a very very welcome improvement. Jean-Luc (Veronique's husband) is very friendly and interested in politics and history, so we had a discussion about WWI and WWII. He was saying that WWI was a lot worse than II because all the survivors had absolutely no support when they tried to go back to being civilians. I mentioned All Quiet on the Western Front and he knew the French version. Julia told me that our school was used as an English hospital during WWII, which I didn't realize (wow). We also had a good discussion about Hercule Poirot and comics. Apparently there is a small village in Belgium with an actual Hercule Poirot recorded as being born there, so they say that that is his birth place. Hercule is also the name of their greyhound. He was found in a well in Spain, with a broken hip and leg, with 6 dead dogs. He is rather shy, but improving.
    I took my 5 lb bible with me to church today so I could read the scripture in English. It helped a lot in guessing the gist of the sermon. Everyone at the church is very friendly and I like to go.
       Julia and I gave Gilles his birthday present today: a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jam, and a spoon to eat it with. Simple, quirky, and well-received. Gilles had Jean try it, and poor Jean bravely said he had to get used to it. I guess it's only Americans and half-American ex exchange students who like peanut butter. Speaking of which, one of the dogs found my peanut butter stash in my suitcase and ate a package before I caught her. Dagnabbit. Thank goodness it was only one dog and one package. I might have cried if they had eaten all of them. Belgian Peanut Butter is just not the same. I have moved my stash to a safer spot, so everything's under control now. Although I do have 6 dogs in my room at the moment. The more the merrier.

PS: Marianne, Jean, Gilles, and even Julia liked my American cookies. Gilles says they're not what he calls American cookies, they're Alaskan cookies, and he's used to Wisconsin cookies. Even so, he liked them.  Jean (the artist) happily remarked that there was a rainbow in his cookie. And Gilles also noticed that they were the colors of the gay pride flag, so that was perfect. Success.

  

Not-so-Innocent Notions

Today I had the innocent notion that making American chocolate chip (except there are no chocolate chips. I decided m and m’s would do) cookies would be a good thing to do on a Saturday. I had been mulling this over for several days, so I already had flour and sugar. All I needed was baking soda and some brown sugar.  I knew the little store nearby doesn’t have baking soda so I set out for the bigger store further off. After walking through the rain and searching for baking soda for half an hour (I DID find corn meal, though!) I had the brilliant idea to ask. Turns out baking soda isn’t used for baking here; I continued the search at the pharmacy. I made it home and triumphantly asserted that I was going to make cookies. Then I discovered that there was no butter. So off to the nearby store I went for butter (note: all butter here is salted. Unsalted does not exist). Even with conversions, I’m not quite sure if the scale here is functional, so I just guesstimated everything. 3 hours later, I have succeeded at putting the first batch in the oven. Unfortunately, I think they needed more flour, so they are rather melty. Oh well, I’ll just have to eat the bloopers. Ufda. I miss Costco. (Everything here is in teensy packages).  And my wheels. My kingdom for Garfunkel! It’s amazing how difficult doing something little like making cookies can be in a foreign country. I’m discovering a lot of those.

Tomorrow is Gilles’ 21st birthday (not a big deal here; the only new thing you can do is get into a casino) so yesterday night Jean organized a surprise party for him. 6 or 7 of his friends from around here came and spelled ‘Joyeux Annie’ (happy b-day) in balloons for him and hid in the living room. When Gilles arrived with Jean he was very pleasantly surprised. Julia and I came and hung out with them for several hours while they drank, smoked, ate birthday cake, and took turns wearing a balloon hat.  They were very friendly with us and did their best to speak as much English as they knew. They were mildly horrified that Americans (or at least I) live without drinking, smoking, sex, and eating( they don’t think Americans eat  much because I turned down some chips and remarked about how Belgians eat).    They made a bargain that if I tried to sing a French song they would try to sing an American song. So I tried Toi plus Moi, but discovered that particular tune is unpopular with this particular crowd. Champs Elysee went over much better, and they joined in. Then they tried to sing Yellow Submarine, which was quite humorous. We said goodbye around midnight, but apparently the party continued until around 5. I didn’t notice, because I slept like a rock. A very happy rock.

This week has gone alright. I am understanding more, slowly. I had my first real test Friday in Psychology. I think it went alright, but the grading system here is very different. 50 percent is passing, but next to no one earns 100 percent. 100 percent is if you go above and beyond perfection. Teachers grade tough. So we’ll see.

Tonight we are going to a horse show, so that should be fun. Tomorrow I am going to try to catch a ride to church, and then we are eating at Marianne’s sister’s place. Jean and Gilles are here through Monday because it’s a holiday. I’m not sure if we have school. I’ll have to find out. Jean showed me some of his art today---wow. He’s in his second year at art school. He really likes Halloween, which doesn’t really exist here. He has a lot of cartoons with vampires and witches and ghosts and whatnot---makes me feel at home. He also showed me a lot of his studies, which are also really cool.

Fall is barely starting here, with the first leaves falling. No frost yet.

Other random fact: because I just got done telling my family that we never eat beef here, we had steak and fries today for lunch. And spinach. Nom.

YUS! I finally got the flour right and my cookies look American and amazing! And they taste good too! Phewf. Only 4 hours. Now I can share the superb nature of American cookies! (Cookies here are hard and more like biscuits---not soft). MUAHAHA, I feel accomplished. Saturday’s mission is now complete.