Belgium Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceg6NQKHd70

Three Wild Weeks: la fin

So here's everything else I didn't have time to mention in my last post.
I have started a CPR class after school at the Red Cross. It's a requirement for the Education certification, which I won't be earning, but it certainly won't hurt me or anyone else if I know how to resuscitate unconscious folks. Plus, it's actually quite enjoyable. Nothing like the exchange student role-playing a cranky motorist with a fractured neck who wants a cigarette to make classmates giggle. And my calls to 112 (equivalent of 911) are pretty laughable. Last week we got to work with a manikin to practice compressions and shocking the victim with a mimed defibrilator, and tomorrow we get to work with fake blood. Muahahaha.
We've been analyzing poetry in French class, much to my delight and my classmates' horror. I understand enough of the vocabulary to pick up on major themes (most of the time) and the teacher's explanations reveal the connotations and ideas I'd missed. So I learn a lot of new words. Thankfully the teacher is patient and doesn't mind explaining words like 'hatched' and 'halo'.
In government class we are learning about the Rights of Man, Child's Rights, and the Belgian Constitution. Once again I am astounded at how the political mind here works. You'd think no one had ever read 1984 or Anthem. My teacher explained capitalism by saying that 'they're greedy and want to keep all their money for themselves'. Over 50 percent of salaries here go to social security. The Constitution gives you the RIGHT to lodging, food, clothing, medical treatment, and basically everything to live in dignity, besides the right to Social Security. You also have the RIGHT to paid vacations and time off. The king is the head of the armed forces, but he has to go through the EU to actually do anything(moreso than the President of the US has to go through congress), and Belgium is basically dependent on the EU for all military direction and power. Salaries are automatically increased with inflation. All this besides the fact that the country still has no government. Aiyaiyai. Ironically the more capitalist US provides free transportation to school, but the socialist Belgians have to pay a small fortune out of pocket for trains, buses, etc. to get their kids to school.
Speaking of government messes, I also FINALLY received my Belgian ID card! I am so relieved to have this laborious saga of frustrated visits to the Hôtel de Ville finished! So now I am properly papered and have my cool little plastic card that looks like I belong here. Hooray!
Here are some sayings I've picked up lately:
Coup de pompe= blow of the pump= when you suddenly get tired
Froid de canard= Duck Cold= It's super cold out! (My Grandfather liked to say 'colder than a witch's tit' but I'm not sure if that was just him)
The weather here is really warming up. The sun has been shining and it's light when we walk to school now. I'm having a hard time believing it's only February!
Last Friday I took the train to Chimay with several other girls to help with an AFS activity with the local school for their language festival. The students had to try to communicate with us without using French. So I spent the day speaking English, and was pleasantly surprised to see how much the secondary students understood. Most of them were a little shy with me, but they were with each other too. Gotta love those awkward middle-school years. During our lunch break we went and walked around a bit, enjoying our soggy memories of Chimay and the absence of rain.
Saturday I was once again on the train for our AFS mid-stay orientation in Libramont. The train for the last leg of the trip was absolutely crammed with AFS backpacks, sweatshirts, smiling students, and a dozen different languages clattering along all at once. It was good to see all of us imported Wallonians again. We played games, reflected, bemoaned our Belgian waistlines (AFS is also known as Another Fat Student), and of course enjoyed fries and mayo together.
We did an exercise with stereotypes about each others' countries that I found particularly interesting. For the US, here's what came to mind for the others in our group: Fat, McDonald's, junk food, egotistical, athletic, and the one that surprised me: war. It actually came up twice. I am inclined to think that that's because the US is a world power, so when we get into war it's a well-known and criticized conflict. I don't think we get into war more than other countries, necessarily. As for the other stereotypes, there is indeed a basis for them. As far as I have noticed, Americans fall more often at the extreme ends of the health spectrum than Europeans. We have a lot more morbidly obese folks and a lot more athletic people. Here there really aren't any athletes (I think this is because athletics are not a part of school life, which makes it a lot harder to get involved or go professional), and not many people are grossly obese, they're just mostly comfortably a few kilos overweight. As for the McDonald's and junk food stereotypes, I actually eat more junk food here in Belgium than I ever did in the US. The Belgians eat chocolate and speculoos and other unhealthy things like they're going out of style, as far as I can see. McDonald's and Quick are also pretty popular. I also learned that the US is the second most obese nation---Mexico is number one. As for being Egotistical, yes, we Americans are. We believe we are the best country in the world, and we lack exposure or interest in other cultures. I think this is because we have no need to ever leave the US---it's not like here, where the nearest IKEA store is in France and Dutch-speakers live just a few kms away. The US is enormous, and English has become THE language to learn and speak in business and the world. We don't need to leave or learn another language, ever, really.
I have more to say but no more time. A tantôt!

3 Wild Weeks: Part I

Well, I am very behind on writing down life. Three weeksish of wonderful stuff to catch up on! Here's the first installation.
I adore inservice days---2 extra days of fun!
Wednesday after school I got to go to Benjamin's house to hang out with him and Sharon for the afternoon. I met his cats and family, took a grand tour of their new house, and had a very Belgian dish, chicon gratin (endives wrapped in ham covered in a white cheese sauce baked with more cheese-nom). We looked at photos, talked religion, and just hung out. We had fun like teenagers everywhere do. It's a huge comfort and satisfaction to have friends here!
Thursday I enjoyed sleeping in and finished a scholarship paper( that wasn't the fun part, but I managed to remember my English lexicon sufficiently to write a 5 paragraph essay!) and then Julia and I spent the afternoon chilling. We watched 'She's the Man' and had to keep pausing the movie because we were laughing too hard. Good girl bonding time.
Friday I invited some friends over from school for lunch to experience an American breakfast: pancakes, eggs with bacon, and fruit. Plus jam, milk, peanut butter, syrup, and whipped cream for the pancakes---they thought that was pretty weird. Marianne and Sabine were brave enough to try some peanut butter, and all the Belgians daintily folded their pancakes into fourths like crepes. Overall the food was a success, but I doubt it would have turned out that way had it been at the proper time of the day---I have heard several Belgians expressing slack-jawed horror at the thought of eating ham and cheese in the morning. When we had finished the American experience, we hung out and played cards. I taught them Egyptian Rat Slap, which was a big hit (oh I'm punny...) despite the name, and they taught me a rather complicated but fun game that I forget the name of. I also showed them how Skype works---my Belgian friends and Alaskan family got to wave at each other and laugh at their respective disastrous accents. Bawnjoor (Bonjour). Mawkdawnalls (McDonald's). Sooopair (Super). Laughter and smiles don't need to be translated!
That night Jade took Julia and I out on the town with another girlfriend. We'd never been out before, even this is a principal weekend activity for youth here. 'Going out' to bars, clubs, and discothèques is not considered sketchy or dangerous for youth here; it's a very different atmosphere than in the US. We enjoyed the ambiance of an Irish and a tropical bar amongst the normal Belgian pubs (cafés). We had fun screaming during foosball matches, slurping banana milkshakes, playing soccer with a baguette, butchering DDR (video game), chomping fries in the grand place, and chatting with friendly bartenders until 5:30 AM. Yeah, that's how much fun we were having! We walked home and flopped into bed at 6:30 and slept like rocks. Dead and happy rocks.
Sunday we bundled up several dogs in doggie coats and drove to the sea for a greyhounds in nood walk. We had a wonderful promenade along the blustery beach under a blue sky, watching the greyhounds and whippets blast by like the racing dogs they are. Afterwards we humans enjoyed a hot spaghetti meal inside. I learned that Italians and polite Europeans eat pasta with a spoon. You take up a little bit of pasta with the spoon and then use it as a base to twirl the noodles around your fork. Easier said than done, but I started to get the hang of it without too many typical impolite-spaghetti-eating crises. Jade helped me decipher a bit of Dutch on some flyers on the table. Dutch is extremely similar to English, so I could understand just about everything written. Pronouncing it, however, is another story! After the Dutch lesson we teens made paper airplanes out of the flyers and had a sword duel with our coffee spoons. Despite several accidents with creamer and some wayward jetliners, it was a great goofy time. Fittingly, on the way home from the dog walk I watched 102 Dalmatians with Catherine's little daughter. What fun to sing Cruella DeVille in French! Greyhounds in nood is her perfect anithesis.

Explanation...

So my last post is all in big red letters. Because I copy-pasted my post from a word document into the title box. BECAUSE Blogger has changed their posting so I can't copy-paste from a word document to the normal text box and I forgot to type it here instead of in a word document. The end.

5 and a half months in Belgium---half of my exchange has flown right on by! This last month I have been noticing some drastic differences between my arrival and now. For instance, I can talk in French without thinking, and I sometimes talk to myself in French instead of in English. I can have REAL conversations with friends, and I understand their conversations, even in noisy, crowded cafeterias! Switching between French and English is basically effortless now, although I may mix the two or forget some words (normally English). Two of my teachers asked me to read out loud in class like everyone else last week, and even if they laughed at my cute American accent, they understood what I was trying to say. People are willing to make jokes about my accent now because they know me and know that I will understand the joke and that I won’t be offended. I have found several previous misunderstandings too: for instance, Tournai is the town of 5 bells, not 400. I don’t know how I goofed that. It’s one for each of the 5 towers of the Cathedral. Also, people don’t use ‘duck’ as an insult… the word is ‘conard’ NOT ‘canard’. Basically means stupid. On top of all the language improvements, I am feeling like Belgian things are ‘normal’. I can refer to my host home as home and Julia as my sister without getting that little weird awkward feeling that is very familiar to exchange students. Also, I actually am starting to have a Belgian social life with Belgian peers. I went to the movies with a couple girlfriends last week (I actually understood the entire film!!!) and I got to go to another friend’s yesterday to hang out. I have a solid ‘group’ I hang out with at school, and I feel comfortable and at ease in the crazy Belgian school system. I had heard that exchanges get better after Christmas, and I can now confirm the rumors. Last weekend was a blast; our AFS committee organized a trip to Disneyland in Paris! (I had no idea that there was a Disneyland in Paris until this year, but hey). I had never been before, so it was fun to see the giant stuffed characters and princesses walking around and singing and whatnot. My favorite was Mulan because she wasn’t even Asian. I got a good giggle out of that! The castle was beautifully built, and the ‘main street America’ looked pretty typically American…it was interesting to see how America was ‘exotic’ and what the stereotypical idea of the USA in the Euro mind is. The highlight of our day was definitely the roller coasters. I kept my eyes shut through Space Mountain, but by the second time through Indiana Jones and the Aerosmith roller coaster I was riding with my eyes wide open and screaming for fun instead of from sheer terror. Disney has the roller coaster design down pat---they weren’t jerky, they locked you in well, they were wild but not so wild that your nerves were a mass of jelly by the time you got off. Good fun. Disney has also figured out that when you are locked inside an amusement park with nothing else for innumerable kilometers you will pay 6 freakin’ Euros for a ham sandwich. Shudder. We thwarted them during the dinner hour however, and bought slightly less extortively-priced sandwiches at a gas station on the way home. The night before Disney and our extremely early departure and the night after our late return several girls with AFS came to spend the night here in the house of dogs. We had lots of fun chatting and eating pizza and showing them around. It’s amazing how showing someone else around a house can make you feel at home too. Some of Jade’s friends were also there, so it was a bit of a hotel. Good times. I’ve been quite busy with school and everything else that must be done, and stages is coming up. I’ll be working in a preschool…gulk. Another adventure.

Goede tijden (Good times)

Time for some catching up...We took advantage of our last few days of vacation to get into all kinds of marvelous mischief!
Thursday Julia joined me as an honorary American (after all, she does watch more American shows than I do and beat my English class score!) to hang out in Bruges with 6 other American AFSers. It was a drizzly day but we had a great time climbing the enormous belfry, wallowing in nostalgia with American food (Subway, Hershey's chocolate, and Reeses), and checking out some Van Dyck masterpieces at the Groeninge Museum. We also bought some Chocolate de Bruges---it's supposed to be the best in Belgium. I don't know if it really is the best chocolate in Belgium, but the Banana chocolate was absolutely divine. The Birthday cake chocolate was just weird. We hung out at a friterie and experimented with some new fry sauces (no mortalities, but there were some teary eyes from the Samurai sauce) and hung out at the Snuffel Backpack Hostel where we spent the night. I had never stayed at a hostel before, but I really enjoyed Snuffel's funky décor, free board games, fellow students, and cheap prices. We sat around brushing the dust off our English with some Belgian beer and a couple girls whipped up spaghetti for everyone. It was great to see some familiar American faces and find out how everyone's been doing the last 5 months. It's also great to hear some real American English, complete with Midwestern twangs. We ran into some other American tourists in Bruges too, and quite a few other students who were touring around for the holidays.
After chocolate and speculoos with breakfast Julia and I caught a train home. Two hours. We got home in time for me to struggle with some Belgian Identity card paperwork before the Hôtel de Ville closed. I love Belgians and Belgium, but their paperwork system and method of organization is about as efficient as using toothpicks to build a bonfire. It's been 5 months since we applied for our identity cards, and we still don't have them. This is slow even for Belgium. Luckily we don't actually need them for much of anything, or I would really be insane.
Saturday we met Jean-Pierre in Antwerp and he showed us around the town where he used to study. Antwerp is one of the largest cities in Belgium and a fashion center. People wear a lot more bright colors and bolder styles than here in Tournai. Tournaisiennes and Belgians in general wear almost nothing except for neutral colors (black, gray, white, beige) and in very safe, moderately cute styles. Almost everyone shops at the same stores, and they also wear the same outfit for two days in a row. In short, if you want to dress like a European, you rewear your clothes and wear nothing that will attract much attention. It did me good to see some wilder styles on the streets of Antwerp, and we also found an awesome little vintage shop. I came away with a bright green 80's sweater (it put my classmates into shock when I wore it yesterday) that I adore and Julia found some smokin' vintage sunglasses. Her optimism seems to have worked, because the rain dispersed and the sun actually came out after she bought them. We also got a taste of haute couteur in the Museum of Fashion, where we saw a collection of Stephen Jone's hats. I had no idea you could still make a living doing nothing but making hats, but this Englishman is really an artist. He had hats in the shapes of igloos, frying pans, birds, lily pads, and so many abstract shapes and designs! We had a lot of fun looking at those.
Antwerp is also Ruben's hometown. We took a tour of his home---beautiful big old house that he redesigned himself with lots of old furniture, significant paintings, and gilded leather for wall paper. Very cool. We also got to see his Descent from the Cross and Crucifixion in the Antwerp Cathedral---very powerful in person. There was a statue of Rubens in the main square too, complete with a scarf for the holidays.
Good tourists that we are, we also checked out the statue of Brabo throwing a giant's hand into the Scheldt. The story goes that a giant, Antigoon, was exacting tolls from the people who wanted to cross the river Scheldt and if they couldn't pay he cut off their hand and threw it into the river. The hero Brabo thus cut off Antigoon's hand and threw it into the river, freeing the people of this injustice. Some say that the name Antwerp comes from this story, from the word 'hand' and 'werpen' (to throw) but there is some argument on that point. At any rate, there is a large statue commemorating brave Brabo. We also admired the statue of the 'Wopper' a giant who is called on by exasperated parents to control their children. Wopper Street is also where Rubens happened to live.
After stopping by a European version of Walmart (not a sort of store that's easily found here), we spent the night at Jean-Pierre's in a small town in Flanders. We watched some ENGLISH television and visited the castle and priory of the village, and then drove to Zsomethingsomething in Holland to check out the harbor and scenery. I thought Belgium was flat, but I'd never taken Holland into consideration. Flatter than a crepe. We had a lovely stroll along the beach and learned a teensy bit of dutch (I now know how to say cheese (kaas), taste (smaak), with (wet), and the (het. Dutch is actually a lot like English. I can usually guess at what most of the words mean, and sort of pronounce them. Dutch sounds like a backwards combination of American and British English; I actually really like listening to it. Anyways, we had a lot of fun, and after all this time in Flanders I had to work a bit to switch my brain back to French. (In Flanders it is better to speak English rather than French because of the tensions between Wallonie and Flanders and just about everyone speaks English).
Today Jade came home! It's great to finally meet the person I've been talking to and whose bedroom I've been living in for the last 5 months! Touchtou now has two 'mamans' and spends his time being crazy over one or the other of us. Tonight we're going to have some nice hot raclette with Cécile and Pépé to help warm Jade up after coming back to the wet Belgian winter from the Australian summer.