Week In Review: Week 6

Another installment of my random snippets from the week:

• Hary is back from Syria! He is tre gentil and brought me back some famous Syrian soap. It's the same recipe that some famous queen used and it smells really nice. It's a dark green color. The first time I used it, I washed my face with it, and after a moment looked down at my hands--they were brown! Panic! I was afraid that it was actually some kind of middle eastern self tanner and that I'd stained my face khaki green. Thankfully it all washed right off. Crisis averted.
• When talking to my conversation students about food it came out that they all love Chinese food. For fun we thought we would hold our Thursday class in a local Chinese restaurant. Let's just say it wasn't quite a disaster.
• I must be one of the most awkward people alive. I mean, I know I'm not the MOST awkward person, but I'm pretty sure I am somewhere toward the top of the list.
• 8 weeks until I graduate.
• It's in the 30s this week. Last night it fell bellow 32. Hello winter!
• Friday I was asked if I was Romanian. Again, close but no.
• Friday we also had the youth over for the evening. Afterwards we took a couple of the ids home and were invited in for tea. Along with the traditional nuts that go with tea they also brought out: pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds, candy coated chickpeas, Syrian bread, olive oil and spices, 2 kinds of homemade cheeses (she even goes to the farm herself to get the milk!), tomatoes, cucumbers, 2 kinds of homemade cookies, apples, oranges and pomegranates. AND she also brought us out huge bowls of pasta.
• All of this took place between 10:30-12:30 at night.
• Yesterday I tried again, and 3rd time is a charm, made it inside the Laeken Cathedral. It was more impressive than I thought it would be, even though it's under renovation.
• I also took the more direct route there, which took a whopping 9 minutes.
• I felt like walking so I kept going towards the Royal Palace. I not only saw a race, but saw hoards of Chinese tourists visiting...the Chinese Tower. It was odd to me.
• This week I also got my first taste of Antwerp. It's Flemish and much more orderly feeling than Brussels. Hary gave us a tour of the docks.

OK, that about does it. Week 6 is finished, on to week 7 here in Brussels. This coming week is my midpoint here! Picture of the soap below (I'll try to get some more up later):

Hidden Brussels

So this afternoon I started flipping through a guidebook from the downstairs bookshelf. It's called Secret Brussels and has all kinds of fun facts and hidden gems of the city. One interesting fact I learned, when reading the section on touring the city's sewers, is that Brussels has so many rats that it comes out to about 2 rats for each human living in the city. Gross. Also, apparently, hidden away in the middle of the city is an urban farm complete with sheep, chickens and an orchard. I have definitely added that to my "to see" list.

This week I also came across a hidden gem in our neighborhood. After dropping off the car at the shop (Dad: I was right, it is a Renault), we walked home and passed a little park. We decided to go in and Janee showed me what just so happened to be a cave where, supposedly, Mary at one time appeared. Right in the middle of the neighborhood was this cave, with an alter inside, along with pictures, petitions, and ceramic "thank you" tiles all along the cave walls. Outside the cave were little booths containing the stations of the cross and several statues.

It was a strange departure from our Moroccan neighborhood, but fascinating nonetheless.

Week in Review: Week 5

It's Sunday--you know the drill! Week in Review take 5:

• Friday we took a quick day-trip across the border in France to go to a Flemish tapestry factory. When we got there they told us it had actually been moved...back to Belgium. Oops.
• While we were in France we took the opportunity to eat at KFC. It hit the spot.
• Saturday I went to Morocco. And by that I mean I walked outside of our door. This weekend is our neighborhood's carnival/garage sale/market weekend where they shut down some streets and bring out the market stalls. It smelt, looked and felt just like Morocco.
• There was also a marching band of clowns. That bit was not very Moroccan.
• We sat for a couple of hours on some steps, just eating apple beignets and watching everyone walk by. It was QUALITY people watching.
• Those kilos of chocolate I told you about last week? Yep, a dangerous thing to just have sitting in your room.
• Classes are going well--we finished our third unit this week. One more unit to go until it's midterm.
• My conversation classes are by far my favorite.
• Friday night Janee made a Pakistani dish she learned in Africa. It was pretty tasty.
• Hary is still gone to Syria. He will be back in Brussels early Wednesday morning. I am looking forward to some good stories!
• It has been warm this week--like upper 60s and even into the low 70s. I feel like we had our winter and now we are on to spring. Something tells me that when winter really does get here I will be disappointed.
• I took yesterday to do some class reading and paper writing. I only have 7 more papers to write in my entire graduate school career! Who's excited?!
• I need to get busy on post-grad./pre-tirement/sabbatical/quarter-life crisis trip planning. Who's got ideas?
• There were ponies at our little street fair yesterday.
• In Chocolat fashion I decided to buy some chocolate with chili peppers in it. I know this was a really dumb observation, but it was HOT! And sadly too hot for my weak taste buds.
• When we finally made it to the Flemish tapestry factory, it was right outside of Gent, Belgium. We went into the little town and had a looksy. I was very impressed. It was a bit like Brugges but not as frozen in time.
• Also, this week I figured out Google Talk/Voice. If you get a call from (325) 455-0440, answer! It's me!
• I know this is unbelievable, but just this week I had my very first, real deal, made fresh on the street Belgian waffle. It pretty much lived up to the hype.

OK, some pictures below to enhance the fun! Bonne journée!

Castle in Gent

Moi at the canal in Gent

A very small portion of our carnival/street market

People watching and sneaking a picture

A closer look at the apple beignets. In typical fair fashion there was plenty of fried food all around.

Ponies!

My first real waffle

Pardon My French...

Non-English speakers don't really get why I'm giggling all the time. Here are just a few examples:

Asse: The Belgian town Janee and Hary are looking at houses in.

Key fuck: "How are you" in Arabic, for a man.

Daim: A Swedish brand of toffee. Milka also makes a Daim (good) chocolate bar.

Hella: Arabic for "now"

Bonus points if you use more than one in the same sentence. With a straight face.

In other news, Janee and I are going on a day trip to France tomorrow!

Good Medicine

Well, the allergies here are brutal, so I gave in and made my way to the pharmacy. Today I'm feeling a bit better. I'm not sure if its because of this:

Or this:

What's in the boxes and bags? Oh, but yes, it's over 8 pounds of high quality Belgian chocolate. Now a lot of it is Janee's to give away when people come to visit the baby and a lot of what I bought includes Christmas gifts, so I won't get into it much, but this is proof of our first stop of the day. On the way to Janee's dr.'s appointment we stopped at the Neuhaus Chocolate factory. We picked up a bunch of good deals, but also got to sample, well, just about everything.

My kind of brunch. : )

Thinking...

Last week I had an afternoon to myself while Hary and Janee went to look at some houses. Because our house is in the process of being sold (long story) I also had to vacate the building for a couple of hours so it could be shown. I decided to finally go look at some of the touristy things in the neighborhood I hadn't had the chance to see.

I bundled up, checked my window for the general vicinity of the cathedral, went downstairs, locked my door and then headed in that direction. Unfortunately the streets I chose to take did not take me in the exact direction I wanted to go, so I ended up touring some of the sketchier bits of our neighborhood. Finally, I had almost given up on finding my way there when I turned and looked over my shoulder.

Oh! Cathedral, there you are!

So I turned around and headed back behind me. I then realized there was a tunnel between me and the church. I debated for a second and then quickly made my way through the tunnel.

Finally I made it to the cathedral where all the royal people of Belgium have been buried for ages.

And it was closed. Riiiiight. It's closed on Mondays...which is the reason I didn't get to see it the LAST time I was there. I had a look around the outside and then made my way over to the cemetery next door, which I figured would also be closed. But, even though it should have been closed--it was my lucky day! It was open! The Laeken Cemetery is the oldest still functioning cemetery in Brussels and is known as the "Belgian Pere Lachaise."

I put on my headphones and listened to nice depressing music and made my way through the cemetery. There's a smattering of different styles of gravestones and a lot of them are really old. The cemetery was also quiet and filled with yellow-leaved trees which made it seem like I had slipped into a different place when I made it through the gate.

I wandered around for a while, poked my head into some little chapels, and walked along the old paths. It had something of a secret garden feel to it.

And then finally found what I was looking for. This cemetery is famous for one if its gravestones--not just any gravestones, but one of the original cast's of Auguste Rodin's Thinker. I got to get up close to it and walk around it.

I thought how unusual to be by something so famous all by myself with no one else interfering. And I soon figured out why.

I had a good look through the rest of the cemetery, all of it fascinating. There were rows and rows of World War I casualties, which is always sobering. And to be honest, some of the other grave statues were even more moving or impressive to me than Rodin's. This one for example:

Overall, I was just enjoying myself and thinking how nice it felt to be outside, enjoying some of the positive things Brussels has to offer. After about an hour I made my way back to the exit, to find this:

The gate was closed. Uh-oh. Not only closed but locked.

I was locked into the cemetery.

Thankfully after a little searching I found a groundskeeper doing some raking. He didn't seem too happy with me disturbing him or with my pitiful attempt at telling him in French that I was locked in. But whatever, my pride willingly took that hit because he let me out--which was all I cared about at that moment.

On the way back to the house I also saw a signpost that definitely would have saved me some time earlier in the day trying to find the cathedral and the cemetery.

And then to put the icing on the cake, when I got home I couldn't get the key to work.

It's not everyday that you get locked IN a cemetery and OUT of your house. (Oh, and then it started to rain.)

It was a ridiculous afternoon, but hey, it makes for a good story. A couple more pictures below:

Week in Review: Week 4

Is it really October? Week 4 has come and gone as how my first of 3 months in Brussels. I did some touristy things this week and have lots of pictures that I will hopefully get up soon. But for now, week 4 in review:

• Because coffee here comes in such small (but intense) doses, and because I am around so many Arabs, I have taken to drinking a lot of tea.
• Syrian coffee is NASTY. Bleh. It tastes like a combination of black pepper and tar.
• Hary went back to Syria this week. Because of a strike in Brussels that cancelled all flights Syrian Airlines called with a new plan. They loaded up all the passengers on a bus at 3 AM and drove them to Amsterdam to pick up a flight there.
• Going to the airport at 3 AM has one plus--They have the only Starbucks in town (in the country?), and it was still (already?) open!
• This whole week I have been suffering at the hands of Belgian pollen. Belgian cough syrup has a whole different taste to it--it tastes sweet like vanilla for the first millisecond then tastes like black death. You also have to drink it from a spoon which causes you to have to taste quite a bit more of it then when you shoot it.
• Friday we got up early and made a quick trip to Aachen, Germany (pictures to come soon). In an hour and a half we had made it through 3 countries--Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. There and back we made it across 4 national borders on a 1/4 tank of gas!
• Yesterday (Saturday) Janee and I were forced into staying for lunch at the house of a couple from our church. The couple is Italian and Moroccan and we were joined by two Belgian born Spaniards. We had quiche, Moroccan tagine, and pecorino cheese. It was a nice mixture of cultures.
• Mario, the husband, also worked selling coffee machines for years. I had the best coffee I've had since I arrived in Belgium at their house.
• Logsdon friends: I bought a sweater vest this week. International sweater vest day soon?
• My French is slightly improving. I'm decent at understanding, and not being able to breathe out of my nose has drastically improved my accent.
• I still think Arabic is more fun. For example: hella is Arabic for "now."
• Cool cool is also Arabic for "eat up!" which I hear a lot when in Arab homes.
• The worst day of allergies this week I abandoned my plans to be the a super tourist and decided to spend the entire next to the heater writing papers. The good news is that I only have 4 papers (and 7 journals) left in graduate school!
• One day this week I got locked IN a cemetery and OUT of our house. In the rain. (more on that later)
• Friday night we had the youth over. As entertainment one of the youth brought his magic tricks. I was imagining quarters coming out of ears, but this kid was legit! Like a less satanic David Blaine. In our living room.

OK, so that is week 4 in review! Things are going by so quickly, I can't believe I am already down to 9 weeks left!