der hooten es gooten

Well, Belgium was pretty but it pretty much depressed the Europe out of me. That is to say, when you’re surrounded by a bunch of sophisticated, well-heeled Europeans who speak at least four languages fluently and live in ritzy old houses and bike everywhere in their United Colors of Bennington way… well… I’m kind of hankering to watch football in my sweatpants and eat Rotel from a plastic bowl while drinking something like bud light. And I don’t even like football! (Or bud, really). It’s just that I’m realizing at heart, I’m not very continental. I’m pretty American. And the best thing is…there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

So before I talk about what Belgians do v. well, here is a list of things that Americans do best:

1. We’re actually friendly
2. Customer service exists
3. Stores being open at normal hours
4. Stores being open at night
5. Stores being open in the wee hours of the morning
6. Cleanliness
7. Margaritas (and other blended drinks)
8. Mexican food for that matter
9. Did I mention genuine friendliness
10. Marching bands at halftime are cool
11. Wide open spaces. Nature! Natural wonders.
12. We like people. We really really like them.
13. Fast food is… fast!
14. We actually welcome immigrants. And integrate them.
15. Cheddar Cheese. Peanut butter. Rotel. All things spicy.
16. Our dogs are bigger than rats and we pick up their poop
17. We can drive
18. Air conditioning
19. We work hard, and hard work is actually rewarded
20. You don’t need a reason to smile at someone

And now, the things that Belgians do best:

1. Beer
2. Chocolate*

*Ordering transposable based on personal taste

Okay, I know I KNOW there’s lots more than that but I was only there for two days so what can you expect? I brought back a bunch of Coté d’Or chocolate from Belgian supermarkets (just as good as the boutique stuff) for Christmas gifts but then I ate it all. Sorry about that… French chocolate ain’t so bad, either!

Other notes from Belgium…they speak Dutch in the North (well, along with perfect French, English, and German no less) but I didn’t realize this. So panicked a bit on the train when everything switched from French to a language that sounds like… well, English, actually, but as if they were purposely messing words up. Also met the Belgian version of Zoolander at one of our hostels. All looks, no little gray cells…well it was hard to tell as he was a v. dab hand at Uno, and we played it for about 5 hours! (Given that all it did outside was rain, get dark, and rain some more.)

It’s almost time for another weekend, hopefully I will put some pictures up of the Christmas Market soon i.e. hopefully I will brave the cold and take them.

Until then,

ik zie je, & pas goed op jezelf.

(say it out loud and just see if it doesn’t almost make sense!)

fries with that?

A few mornings ago I woke up very grouchy, this probably lingering over from the awful movie we had watched the night before. Les poupes russes, not a bad movie per say except in its moral, which was basically: be a slimy lecherous French guy all you want, in the end you will still get the girl. Then I got out of bed and fell down the stairs. This did little to improve my mood.

Note: My bag and laptop kindly were willing to sacrifice themselves for me and broke my fall, otherwise I probably would be convelescing at the moment.

It's great, I just learned that Amiens has the largest Christmas market in the north of France. This would explain how overnight thousands of pine trees were lashed to lamposts, so that where used to 1.5 people could fit on the sidewalk, now .5 of a person can (how the trees are still green remains a mystery, I suspect it's something similar to the way they process their eternity milk). Also lights are strung everywhere, merry-go-rounds are sprouting up, there's an inflatable fake snow globe in front of l'hotel de ville...and I have never seen so many French people actually at their workplace during normal work hours. Each store has meticilous decorations up, the effect is v. beautiful except for that the pastel huts lined through centre-ville kind of look like a shanty town, a bunch of temporary housing for displaced elves (I think it's the fake snow).

Finally the point of this post was to say I've discovered what the hardest part of speaking french here is -- ordering english products in french. McDo's is awful. A big mac is a beeeg mac, ketchup is keeeeetchup, and unless you put ridiculous stress on the wrong part of the word you will not be understood, or worse, you will be addressed in english that against all odds is even worse than your french. This happens at the Irish pub as well, there's one girl who I'm sure means well but I for the life of me can't figure out how the french say "pint" (so far I've tried "pant" and "peent" and neither have worked) and frankly I'm tired of ordering cidre and then specifying "grand" with my hands to indicate that I don't want a demi, i.e. a wee shot-glass of cider. Unfortunately my inability to mispronounce english means that she assumes I cannot speak french, so I end up having to conduct my entire transaction in broken english, culminating in getting say 2 e 40 back in change, which is french-english for say 3 e 50. And I thought our numbers were easy compared to theirs! None of this four-twenty-nine-teen stuff for me. It will be nice to go to Belgium where they've chucked that system and instead of saying sixty-ten say seventy (well, septane) and instead of four-twenty say eighty (octane). Meanwhile I'll just content myself to answer "voulez-vous du sauce pomme frites?" with a resounding and heartfelt NON.

Will have up pics of elven hooverville soon. For the moment, artistic moments in Parc St. Pierre:



And btw the weather here is morbidly rainy and depressing, do not let these pictures suggest otherwise!