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March 01, 2003 : the bike, the bike, the bike
Most of today stemmed from the fact that we're scooterless but bike-ful. Yesterday I put my new handlebar (purchased nearly half a year ago) onto my bike (the bike I haven't ridden since we got the scooter), aired up our tires, and had both bikes outfitted with lights so that Eva and I could still be mobile in light of the present scooter-less situation at hand. So now that we're mobile, we're lock-less. Our one surviving lock is located on the scooter which is locked in a shop that doesn't seem to worked up about fixing our flat tire. (no need for speed when there are hundreds of newer-model scooters needing to be fixed up) So this morning we headed over to Driekoningstraat to buy a lock at the Krak. I have to ask Eva if that's the right word, but I'm thinking it is. It's one of those variety stores comparable to the Dollar General back home. But less bright lights and less bins. Ok, Dollar General is comparable to Zeeman and Wibra, Krak is more like an army-surplus store without the army goods. At least it's just like the army surplus store in Springfield, Missouri. (sans gas masks and uniforms.) Since we have no lock, I go in to look at locks while Eva waits. Then she goes in to buy locks while I wait. We end up buying an awesome 'U' lock and a cheap cord-version all for under 10 Euro. See, it's a great store! We proceed to do some shopping only to realize that it's going to rain and we have to do laundry. We hang out in Blokker for a bit and then head back to Krak to buy some light-bulbs (which consequently work in our fixtures back home, but it appears that our living-room lighting has a short in it somewhere, so we've been reduced from 4 ceiling lights to 1. It's been this way for 3 or 4 months, I just figured I'd nip it in the bud and fix it today. Then of course we lost the receipt so we can't take back the perfectly good light-bulbs.) In the process of buying the light-bulbs, I spend our change for washing. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but Eva did and so we had a minor spat about my "not caring enough about the laundry" and "spending the laundry money." She had simply handed me her wallet and said, you pay for it, thats "all I've got." To which I figured she meant that the change was "all she had." To make things up to her I went to one of our favorite Turkish markets (the lady-run one) and asked her in Dutch, "Ik heb een vraag, kun ik heb twee 2 Euro en een 1 Euro munt voor mijn 5 Euro?" She was making a joke and said, "no" and shook her head quite sternly. I looked at her like, "What?" and said, "Ok...sorry..." to which she broke out into a huge smile and laughed, "Grappig, eh?" And I did a nervous laugh, took my coins and left. I thought this would smooth things over, but it didn't solve it completely. We came on home and I pulled the table under the light-bulbs, placed a chair on the table, and gently climbed toward the ceiling. As I mentioned before, nothing worked. The bulbs were fine, but something else is wrong. I suppose this means it'll go back on our list. As I mentioned, our spat wasn't any better. I didn't realize that Eva was suffering from a bout of woman-pains, and that I should be more sensitive. So instead I thought I'd leave her alone, and so I rode off on my beautiful bike with awesome handlebars, got out some money, and headed to Aldi. (a surprise for Eva) I got our basic Aldi purchases, which this time around included frozen pizza, and headed back home. She was surprised, and the affects of my effort to please her and her taking a couple of Advil, made all the difference. We basically hung low the rest of the day, and only in the evening time when Joris was over burning some CDs for Sabastian, did we venture out again. Leila and Susan invited us over to hang out with a couple of their friends, one of which I actually hung out with back on the first day/night I met Leila and Eva. He's the one that made the extremely curried rice back in 1998. And I had never had curry-flavored anything before--the event I've recalled a few times since then, though now I'm curry-friendly. He and his boyfriend Chris, are actually the first gay male couple I know to be engaged. On top of this, they're the first gay couple I know that have gotten engaged and can actually legally marry. Now that's cool. I suppose the only other additional things worth mentioning about the night was my being unaware that what I was drinking was champagne in addition to amaretto. I had thought I was drinking some sparkling water and amaretto mix, and by the time I realized that it was "all alcohol" I had already had enough for the affects to simply take hold of me. In my eyes I was the only one "really having fun" and even convinced Leila to sit on the kitchen floor with me and visit for awhile. I haven't talked to her sense, and maybe she didn't find it as agreeable as I did, but the floor-talk was jewel-like for me. I miss Leila...the central character who weaves the story of Eva and I together. Besides all of this, the man-from-the-past, Nico, also casually mentioned that he thought web-blogs were completely ridiculous and online-journals a completely vain and arrogant effort. Now what was I supposed to say to that in the state I was in? Let me just say this one thing in defense of my own journal now that I'm in a better state of mind: Eva led the stumbling me home and we climbed into bed. We listened to the rain on our roof and wondered where the leak was in the neighboring house. If they didn't know yesterday, they sure will now. IN THE NEWS:
March 02, 2003 : rain
The blue skies are gone. It's back to the Belgium I have so grown to love. :) I was beginning to think that blue skies were here to stay, and then I remembered all of those gray drizzle days of before. (as if I had forgotten) We primarily spent the entire day in the house. It's true that we woke up around 1, which was fine considering that we went to bed around 5. We rented Ghost World last night after we bough new 20 Euro speakers for our computer at MediaMarkt. We were dying to try out the new setup, and since it was raining buckets outside, and we had so much laundry to do that we weren't about to haul it all out in the rain, well, we stayed in. Ghost World was the perfect rainy Sunday movie. Not a tear-jerker, not a laugh-your-ass-off, but a good movie with believable characters and real-life scenarios. We had originally wanted to watch it when we lived in San Francisco. We had even headed out a couple of times to see it, but in one instance I think we ended up in traffic (which made us grossly late) and another attempt left us at the wrong theater (at the wrong time). We were also going to try to catch it at Cartoons in Antwerp, but I vaguely remember it only being showed one day and we found out the day after. Once again, I sing the praises of the former Tellme laptop workhorse Sony Vaio, Pentium II 365 (something like that) with 128 Megs of RAM, 6 gig hard drive, and the DVD drive we have only recently learned that we can love. After the movie we were going to do laundry, and then suddenly it was 6:30 at night, and then suddenly it was time to get fritjes, and after our walk to De Witte, we found it closed. (on it's busiest night!) And so we walked around to every spot where the two of us thought there might be a frituur. We ended up at one that Eva and I pass on our way to the Berchem station. We got our regular deep-fried meal to go (no wonder I am not losing weight, but just staying consistently girthy) and spent the rest of the evening catching up on emails, tv, War and Peace, and our future plans. Our talk over the future made us both a little animated (as usual) and left Eva sleeping on the couch and me reading War and Peace and then sleeping like a baby in our bed...to be resolved tomorrow. God we're both so stubborn sometimes! I would like to say that we "didn't let the sun set on our anger" but I'm afraid we both drifted off to sleep thinking the other as a complete oaf. A momentary lapse, only an oaf for a bit... We were trying to have a normal conversation about what are options are for next fall. I think we're both so un-excitable at the moment (regarding Fall) that we should back-burner it if we can. The only problem is that part of it can't be back-burnered. If we do, then we've already nixed the one as an opportunity. (**sigh**) This is worse that the dream-apartment fiasco of last fall. Trust me, it's much, much worse! (only the apartment was really unimportant in the grand scheme of things) IN THE NEWS:
March 03, 2003 : smoothing things over
I told you we would resolve it today. Eva got up from the couch, let the house, and by the time she was at the station we were both trying to call each other to mend the hairline fracture of last night. At least the squabble was about something concrete. It's not something vague and shadowy, it's about something distant, important, and open-ended. Ordinarily we'd both say, "Cool...anything is a possibility." But I think we're past that already. So today I got up when Eva got up and I took our 200 lbs. of laundry down to the laundrette around the corner. We salvaged one of those grocery pull-buggies (the sort that older people take to markets) and so I carried the loads down the stairs in three separate trips and strapped the two IKEA bags and one dufflebag to the buggy and proceeded to the laundrette. I have come to the conclusion that doing laundry in the morning isn't so bad. No one is there there, and by the time I'm finished, I still have the entire day in front of me. It was so much in front of me that by the time I got home, Eva was asking me to come to Mechelen to have lunch with her. It was one of those moments where I'd either make it or not, all based on the amount of time it took for me to tie my shoes. I road my bike to the station, locked it to a pole, and ran to the platform only to get there and realize that I had another 5 minutes to spare. I rode the train to Mechelen, rapped on her window, waited for about 15 minutes, and then Jenneke and Eva both came out at the same time and the three of us had lunch at cafe De Vier Emmers that Eva once called 'poncy' but now she loves. (she has since sworn off labeling in such a way, as it is limiting and judgmental) I dropped them back off at work and headed to my platform for the ride back. It wasn't a cold day in particular, but it wasn't altogether warm either. There's a lot of water in the air, like invisible mist, which makes it a lot colder than it would seem if you looked outside and saw the sun shining. Basically, I'm not complaining. I came back to Antwerp, puttered around the apartment and then rode my bike to the scooter place at break-neck speed in order to pick the scooter up. I get there with jelly legs only to have them say that it's not ready yet. (this after Eva had called and they had said that we could pick it up at 6) After Eva got home, we headed to Tram 8 (not paying because we were only riding it two stops) and rode it to the stop by the Grill House only to find/be reminded that the Grill House isn't open on Monday nights. We returned Ghost World and since we couldn't decide on what/where we should eat, we went to a cafe, Lambik, across the street to talk it all over over a drink. It was a great place, and the two of us thought (I'm taking the liberty to speak on Eva's behalf as well) that we came up with some pretty good ideas about Project Harvest/Autumn/Herfst/Fall. We left in good spirits and came home to frozen pizza and salad. For the second night in a row, the hairline fracture raised it's head and Project Harvest/Autumn/Herfst/Fall made us wildly animated so much so that I went for a walk and 30 minutes later was outside of Tom and Ilse's asking them if I could come in and just sit on their couch. It's the first time I have used/abused them as my 'own' friends and quite frankly I only have two more places I can think of where I could show up at 11 at night and just "hang out." I didn't spread any nasty rumors about Eva, they simply listened to me, Tom oohed over my cheap-o MP3 player, and then Ilse brought me home in her super-charged testosterone mobile. (car from work) Since the two of them know Eva pretty well, nothing seemed altogether new to them and I think they thought it was funny that I had only just realized the procrastination qualities in my beloved. I suppose that does mean that Eva and I are literally made for each other. I'm the sort of procrastinator that gets things done in the end. (tight-deadline) and Eva's the sort that just puts it off until tomorrow and tomorrow sometimes never comes. But she's really pretty, smart, and fun to be around on top of the procrastination bit, so I think it'll all work out. :) I came home and it was all over. We actually laughed about it. I think we got over our Project-Six-Months-From-Now and I doubt we'll be highly animated about it again. :) IN THE NEWS:
March 04, 2003 : tuesday
In Very Brief format: I went to pick up the scooter. I was unaware that there was a transportation strike on today. There weren't any trams, but I only figured it out after realizing that every Tram-stop I passed had: The store closed at 6 and I had less than 10 minutes to make it to the scooter shop which was a 20+ minute walk away. I didn't think I'd make it, but still, as it was the only option, I ran. I made it to the store (not before 6, but they were thankfully still open), I paid for the scooter, but when I tried to start it, it wouldn't start. Since I"m a girl, and the scooter people were male, they insisted that they try it as well. (didn't work) and so I played dumb to the fact that I knew that when we had picked the scooter up by the library, the gas-tank-lid was off, therefore causing Eva and I to suspect that someone had peed in it. (that's the only option we see as plausible) I'm mortified about telling the people in English (I've attempted to do most of my conversation in Dutch) that someone might have peed in the tank. Even after the mechanic unscrews the lid and says, "this smells a bit strange" to which I also smell it and say, "um, this smells like gas to me. But then again, I'm no expert." I suppose I was trying to will the scooter into working regardless of the fact that all arrows pointed to it's being abused. I left the key there, along with the scooter, and when I picked Eva up at the station, I made her promise to call the people and tell them a long-winded story about how I wasn't there to pick up the scooter but that she had seen the cap off and assumed that someone had probably peed in it. To which she swore she would. It's a little depressing being duo-transportation-less, but I suppose we're doing alright. IN THE NEWS:
March 05, 2003 : poor
So Eva went to work today and called me so I could transfer some money over from one account to another so she could buy lunch. Then I go to check my balance at the bank and I realize I'm just as negative as she is, which means she'll have to transfer some over for me. Basically this means I'm not going to do any type of shopping today and I'll have to wait for Eva to come home to buy the broccoli for our veggie pasta/pesto and chicken meal. You see, it's supposed to be the "beginning" of the month, but instead, our accounts show that it is the "end of the month" which means that we'll be "A. OK." in about 2 more days. Until then, it's pasta and veggies. Thank goodness this is what we're used to having! Here's an interesting link that my friend Marc sent us: Gayometer I took the test and apparently I scored right in the middle and am 43% straight, which means that I'm "a happy and well adjusted lesbian babe." So I suppose this lack of fundage will mean that we won't be getting the precious scooter out of the shop for awhile. We still don't know if they've found the reason for it's "not starting" yesterday. I suppose I shouldn't have played so dumb. Of course some ass has peed in our scooter. It's a hole. I can't imagine any drunk university guy with his friends who could pass that opportunity up! (once it was uttered) More later. One other thing is that I downloaded an eggtimer (I knew it was going to come down to this eventually) to help me structure my days. (optimize) So now I'll be limiting my job hunting, surfing, reading, eating, to increments of 5, 10, 15 or even random increments like 2.23 minutes. Whatever. If you'd like one to to help you optimize your computer experience, feel free!
March 06, 2003 : thursday
In Brief: - We had lunch around 3, splitting a not-so-great frozen pizza from the corner store (the cheapest one, we should have gone to Aldi) and I introduced Joris to the delicious snack of Bacon and swiss Tiger Nuts. (I was going to find a link, but I can't seem to find one) - When it was close to time to pick up Eva, I was just out of the shower and decided I'd meet her on the street. (she had called and knew I was in the shower and therefore didn't expect me) I love spying on her when she's walking down the sidewalk, listening to her music and completely unaware that I'm watching her. I suppose it might be considered a bit creepy if she wasn't my girlfriend, but it's still fun! - Since Joris was around, we didn't know what to make for dinner. I suggested that we make hamburgers, buying our baguette and fresh-ground-beef from the Turkish market on the corner. If anyone is leery of meat quality, it's me. But now for 3 months I've been trying to convince her that she should try their ground beef. It's dark red and looks like good quality. Besides, we like the lady that runs the store and the place is spotless. - Eva still wasn't convinced. The same girl who ate meat of all types under varying degrees of freshness and/or quality when she lived in Paraguay. Me, the one rooting for it, the same girl who didn't eat ground beef for several years because she couldn't handle those little round hard bone-like bits or the squirrelly little fat balls. - We bought 300g and headed home. While Joris continued to download music, Eva relaxed in front of the TV, I made dinner for the 3 of us. Heleen had called in the meantime and had we known before, I would have made dinner for the 4 of us. I made hamburgers with melted ementall, pan-grilled red peppers, beef-patty with garlic, and then included a slice of avocado. Yum! The bread was a bit hard, but I had toasted it...but Eva and I were both won over by the meat. - Joris goes home after dinner to get the key and then returns to finish up his downloading and tells us the story about their mother. (ask Eva) He soon maxes out the hard-drive space on the computer and retires back to his apartment. Eva and I hang out a bit longer with Heleen who leaves with her spaghetti-loving friend who has known her since they were three. IN THE NEWS:
March 07, 2003 : friday protests
I should just get used to it. I know it's going to happen every Friday and then again on Saturday mornings. The witnesses show up. It stems from my brief encounter with them last fall/early winter. I was expecting a package and so I hurriedly ran down the stairs only to be asked if I was troubled about the events of the world. I don't really remember what I told them to make them want to come back to convince me, but they come, each and every week. Twice. Now I've got it down to where I peek through the windows to the windows across the street which sort of give me a fuzzy outline-reflection of who is ringing my doorbell. Heleen called me mid-morning to ask if she could come over for awhile and just "hang out." Sure!, I said, and told her to bring along some breakfast. Half an hour later she showed up with croissants and a pastry each. We hung out for the most of the day, I was working on clearing up the computer and picking up the house. (less of the latter, but still an attempt) She was trying to convince us to go to a Drag King night in Utrecht, and by this time I was sort of convinced we should go. (if Eva got her paycheck on her account today) Turns out we had three options. Lisa called to remind us that we were supposed to go to Dirk and Sophie's house to give him a lesson in how to update his site. (this is a different Sophie than Lisa's Sophie of last week) We thought this option included dinner and we weren't sure if it would last the whole night or not. Tom also called to ask us if we wanted to come over for dinner, and, having forgotten about the first option, and still not knowing about the Utrecht option, I told him we'd call back. Then the Drag King option. Who doesn't want to go see a Drag King show. Apparently some of Heleen's friends are having issues on whether or not it is alter-ego, all-out-transgender, or merely for fun. I imagine it's a combination of all or some of the above depending on who you are. Regardless, it's a good time. As I mentioned, then Lisa called. Having been reminded of our previous plans, I canceled with Tom and Heleen and promised her that once we get our car (still hopeful) we'll show up unexpectedly in Utrecht and have a great night with her. I met Eva at the station and we headed to the far end of the street that runs under the train-tracks to pick up the scooter. When walking to the station to meet Eva, I had noticed huge police/SWAT team vehicles leaving the Armory and headed in that direction. I followed them (not on purpose, as it was the way I was headed anyway) and sure enough, under the station, unloading right next to Eva (she was calling me and I was across the street watching her) dozens and dozens of riot police. We took pictures. It was a protest by the dock-workers to protest the new harbor policy that says that ships can use their own staff to unload/load their ships. (this is what Eva told me) We had to completely detour our way to the scooter-store and walk across entire lanes that were closed at rush-hour on a Friday. I don't think that anyone was going to be overly violent, because the police vs. dock worker numbered one to one. (it was still pretty exciting!) They had even stopped a tram. I kept thinking, "if I hadn't had to meet Eva, I would have been on that tram stuck there in the middle of a riot and completely confused!" :) We pick up the scooter, pay the rest of the bill, and ride away. It's a really smooth ride, but there's a bit of lurching. It idles quite nicely, but when we stop for a moment (at a light) it seems like it's going to die right then and there. We did some shopping at Del Haize and Eva hadn't been there since the remodeling of the wine/entry section. (they are currently changing the look of the lighting) I don't really remember what we bought, but it wasn't much. We couldn't remember if we were going to eat dinner at Dirk's or not, so we snacked a bit, listened to live coverage of various real-time-translated UN security council representatives, and then went back downstairs to the scooter. (so apparently there's going to be a war sometime on the 17th/18th?) 20 minutes later, after cursing, kicking, and manhandling the scooter, we nearly give up. We come to the conclusion that if we try to start it and it doesn't work, that we have a better chance of making it work if we roll it to a new location. Neither of us is very happy at this point, and both of us become "experts" in how to start the scooter. Finally, after a stroke of luck/genius, Eva starts the scooter and off we go (having it die a couple of times) to Dirk's. By this time we're late, and I'm still extremely disappointed in the fact that the scooter doesn't seem "fixed" and I can't seem to get over it. It's not until after a tour of their house and an excellent dinner fixed by Sophie, that I'm ok with the fact that the scooter is going to have to go back into the shop. (read: waste of more money) After a great lesson in html, Dirk and I retired to the living-room where Lisa, Eva and Sophie were vegging out into front of the TV. We watched Dirk manipulate his cats (sort of like put them in a trance), I ate my apple crumble (I'm not a desert fan, but am attempting to branch out an not be "little miss picky") and I vowed to give Sophie and Dirk a laser pointer for next Christmas. (for the cats) We made bets at the door on whether or not the scooter would start up. I was trying to be optimistic, and only 5 minutes later we were off in the dark on our way home, both of us trying to convince ourselves that whatever problem did exist with our scooter, it would work itself out and be fine in a couple of days. IN THE NEWS: AND:
March 08, 2003 : transportation woes
In Brief: - Needless to say, that after many attempts and aching calves (more Eva's than mine) we gave up, retired the scooter to it's under-the-eaves-location, and cursed our start-less scooter. - We took our bikes. I drove Eva nuts because I wanted to make sure we had everything before we left. Lock? Bike lights? Gloves? Keys? She was ready to go when I was still doing the gathering. In the long run, however, I do think she was pleased with our lights. - The wind was so strong by the park that it nearly blew me and my saddle-bagged bike over. I'm only including the saddle-bags because I think it created wind-resistance which impeded me. - After stocking up on ramen and sauces, we stopped by the movie place and rented Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I had wanted to see it for some while, though Eva wasn't mad about the idea. We wouldn't have rented it if she could have come up with something to give Hedwig some competition. - We rode on home and I started making our dinner--Thai. It's the first time in long time that I've made it, as we ran out of our varying types of curry paste weeks ago. It was delicious. Perhaps some of the best we've had. :) - While making dinner, I settled down with the beers in our fridge. First I had one raspberry, then another, and then started drinking Eva's Hoegarden. Oh well, I was having a blast! Eva was sewing a patch on one of our quilts and I was a bit tipsy stirring Thai sauce and taste-testing the rice which seemingly was taking forever. - After our meal, we settled down with Hedwig. It was a good movie, not one to buy, but definitely one to watch. In other words, it was entertaining. - After the movie, Eva fell asleep while I watched a lot of the extra-bits included with the DVD. (Not all of them, as they included a completely commented-over full-length film!) - Finally, as Eva was looking more and more comfortable and asleep curled up in a ball in the corner of the couch, I turned off the computer and we went to sleep. IN THE NEWS:
March 09, 2003 : censored sundays
In Brief: - Today our scooter decided to start like a charm. It was a welcome surprise, but one we didn't plan on receiving. Just yesterday we were thinking that we were going to have to take it back, and then today it seems to work fine. There are still some jolting issues (like the fuel isn't getting to the appropriate place in a consistent manner) but other than that, it's great to have it back and it rides great! (Will the now minor strange scooter faults work themselves out in the end?) - Since the day was pretty nice, and we had to run a couple of errands, we went off to enjoy afternoon joy-ride on scooter. We passed one of the local soccer club stadiums and have come to the conclusion that we've got to go someday. - We made our way to the open-on-sundays grocery store and bought celebratory champagne (this is why the entry is considered censored part, and please note that it has nothing to do with us or our future. It is, however, a really great story.) The place is absolutely packed and no one seems to care that the prices are 20cent inflated, but seem to just happy that the place exists in an area with decent amounts of parking and of course the fact that it's open. - Having no reason to hurry home, we took a leisurely drive back through Berchem, stopping for gas on the way. We can't help but look at the gas-take lid without thinking that some guy peed in our tank! - On the way home, we noticed that a huge open grassy lot on Mechelensteenweg (it should have been a park all along) is apparently going to be a construction site. It's sad. It's even got a nice sized tree. - Also, we notice some ugly purple graffiti on the side of the Konick brewery. If you're going to do ugly graffiti, do it on an ugly building. I'm sort of torn on the graffiti issue, not really, I suppose it would be best if it never happened. But then again, if an ugly concrete wall somewhere is blank, they why not allow people to make something interesting on it. (interesting not meaning the pointless tag-like scribbles scrawled in purple.) For instance, I like the animal farm all-out drawings (of animals no less) and the fact that it's name is somewhat political in nature, but why they have to put A.F. on the side of people's houses as if they are a dog peeing on the lamppost or something, well that doesn't seem that cool to me. - We got home, and patted the green scooter and lavished it with kind words. (I learned from my Geo Metro that this is the way to treat machines, they like the attention) I also noticed an additional keyhole on the neck of the scooter. Sure enough, the starter-key fits and after playing with it for a minute or two, I realized that we can lock the front wheel of the scooter in a complete obnoxiously angle that makes it nearly thief-proof! What a find! - We took showers, and headed to the movie-place to drop off Hedwig and stop by at Eva's brothers' apartment. (the celebratory champagne has nothing to do with them either) - We celebrated for awhile and then watched the final episode of Mol. (the mole) Joris and Jasper have two channels, and so the variety of having two channels in color, well, it makes Eva and I a bit jealous. - Eva and I buy frijtes because we're all upset-tummied from all of the sugar that we ate in the afternoon and the fact that we're not used to it. Consequently, I ordered all of our fries in Dutch and promised the De Witte and Zwarte that we'd be there next week as well. (Nichole and Jennifer should be arriving next Sunday...and should be ready for a hearty meal of fries or Grillhouse at evening-time.) - We headed home, watched a little TV while we ate our fries and settled down on the Magneet. Eva wasn't feeling so well, though after fries and 3 cups of stomach-settling herbal tea, she felt a lot better. - When we got ready for bed, I came up with another "learn Dutch the fast and easy way" plan, and so we took one "action word" and I learned the now, past, and future tense of it all in relation to personal pronouns. The word: nemen which means "to take" and in reference to "Manny" my teddybear. gisteren (yesterday): Gisteren namen wij de beer. Morgen (tomorrow): So if every night I could practice so hard for those 15 minutes, it'd do me a world of good. IN THE NEWS:
March 10, 2003 : scooting troubles
Since Eva seems to think my "brief" journals funny, I shall attempt to do the same for today. - In the morning I did my usual round of production work on getting De Magneet together. It seems to be content-heavy this time around and I'm dying to know how I'm going to fit it all together. - For lunch I had, as usual, my now famous soup--Knorr Pumpkin and Tomato "just-add-water" version. I also added some egg-drop-soup mix that my aunt sent me, and the end-product was delicious. I keep expecting myself to hit-soup-burnout, but it seems I can't shake this habit. I've eaten myself sick on many an item here in Belgium, or at least gone through "phases" of food-loves. Various cheeses, breads, drinks, etc, and I even thought I was close to losing my love for the vegetarian fake-meat slices at Del Haize, but I was mistaken. I still like Wasa crackers with fake-meat, raspberry and blackberry yogurt, and my beloved soup. - I went downstairs early on in the day to test-start the scooter. It seemed to it' getting "better" the longer that we used it. It started first thing. Good, that meant I could take the scooter to school tonight. - I spent the rest of the afternoon updating my journal and making a CD for my fellow student at school in Hoboken, a CD of some of my favorite Dutch/Flemish songs, ranging from K3's Feest to Stef Bos's Mijn Stad. - At a little after six I left on the scooter, drove to school, and was amazed at the scooter's ride. It sounded really great and was a smoother ride than it had been previously. It's a much better mode of transport than late-rides to Hoboken on the tram. I dont' know why they don't attempt to make the trams arrive at tram-crossing points at around the same time, because most of the time I just miss the second tram that I want to catch, which makes me late. - I arrived 15 minutes early and chatted with the members of my class. One guy who hadn't seen me in his class before thought I was the new teacher. I suppose this means that my Flemish sounds pretty good, right? But then of course, all I have to do is try to have a discussion with my teacher during the mid-lesson pause, and I realize I'm lightyears away. (she sometimes gets a little carried away and speaks really quickly.) - Muloud, my friend, appreciated his CD and also brought me a gift; a book in Dutch. I really think he's a great guy and I imagine that we might start hanging out a bit outside of school just to help our Vlaams. I think I'll ask Tom to come along, as I think Tom would get a kick out of talking to him in broken English, French and Dutch. - During the pause I ran into Frank, the teacher from my first Dutch class the first year. He's currently subbing English classes, and asked me if I would like to come in and talk to his classes about America. He figured speaking with a native speaker would be far more applicable and useful to them than studying "how to write a coverletter." - Had I known that the English classes were longer than my Dutch classes, I wouldn't have cut my own class for the last half. Tomorow I'm doing the same thing with another one of his English classes, but instead of taking off half the class, I'm simply going to go after my class is finished--30 minutes instead of an hour and a half. - What they mostly wanted to know was where I was from and what it was like there. They also wanted to know how big Belgium was in comparison to my own home-state of Missouri. I did an estimation and will try to get back to them on the specifics. They aslo wanted to know what happens to a person in the states if they have no health insurance and they break their arm or have cancer. I can talk over my own country in terms of my own experiences, but I must admit that I'm a little unprepared in some cases; insurance being one of them. - I also told them what an impact 9-11 had on my living here, and how I was so afraid when we first got here. I told them how I shuttered at the fact that my school in Brussels was in a seemingly muslim community, and how when Eva and I were househunting, I had grimaced when we were looking in areas of Antwerp where men roamed the street praying with their beads behind their back. (I should do research. It's not the rosary, but I dont' have any idea what the name of it is, and I've lived here too long to not find out.) I actually got a bit emotional when talking about it (my self-professed fear) and as it was the first time I had ever really talked about it openly, and the fact that it was an audience of Belgians, I was sort of moved. (I think they didn't know what to say!) Regardless, I'll do native-speaker talks whenever possible. I think it's a great experience and even better to be an ambassador of sorts in these awkward times. - After school was out I headed down to my scooter and sped away. It started right off and was doing so well I was even singing a song in Dutch when 5 minutes from school (I found a damn-good shortcut that doesn't have me going through a wooded area behind the catholic school) the scooter literally gave up the ghost. I was speeding along and then it suddently started losing power. No attempt to give it gas helped. It was pointless. We had had experiences like this before, and so I simply got of the scooter to restart it (as we had done so many times in the last week) and it didn't start. It also didn't start after I had walked it along the street for a half hour, trying in vain every 5 minutes or so to re-start it. - To be quite honest, I was pissed off. I was in a decently good neighborhood, but one were scooters were prevalent. I just knew that if I left it there I'd return to its having no tires left, as both tires are practically brand new. - Having no credits on my phone and having almost no battery life left in the phone, Eva was calling me every 10 minutes or so to see how I was getting on. I parked the scooter in front of an overly-well-lit laundrymat, locked the front wheel in its sideways position, and headed for the tram for which I had to wait only 15 minutes. - I got home, made dinner, and tried to focus on the positive things in life; good looking and smart companion, good thai food, a comfortable living space...and then I proceeded to calm down a bit. Thankfully Eva was patient, as she could tell that I was a little stressed at the turn of events. Thank goodness Spring and it's beatuiful weather is around the corner. Each morning shows us blue sky, and someday in the future, those blue skies will stay through the day. IN THE NEWS:
March 11, 2003 : scooting troubles part II
I worked most of the day on De Magneet, though I didn't have a chance to spend as much time as I would have liked. Since I considered the scooter to be in a vulnerable position, I decided I would head back this afternoon and either A) see if it worked or B) move it to a better location and actually lock it. I hopped on the tram, got off by the Pita restaurant where I had previously boarded the tram the night before, and headed to the scooter. I have neglected to mention the fact that it was very much raining at this point during the day. Obviously, as steering a scooter doens't allow for an additional hand to hold an umbrella, I was well on my way to getting soaked. Of course I attempted to start it again. The past week has proven that "one never knows" and I found my attempts completely futile. I started walking it in the general "direction of home" and 20 minutes later, as I was on a street I had only been on a few times in my life, I remembered a scooter store in the general vicinity. As if walking a scooter isn't traumatizing enough, going in to a scooter shop and leaving the broken scooter next to a line of new-model scooters is a humbling experience. I wouldn't want one of those if I could have my green one running, but it looked so small and fragile next to the souped up versions, with its cracking green paint and slightly battered plastic casing. You hear me scooter? We miss you! We don't want one of those scooters where we would have storage space beneath the seat. We want only you! I'm sure that statement doesn't pull much weight. The man at the scooter place looked at it and summed up his theory (in addition to my theory) that if it was the kick-start, then it'd be a chunk of change. I told him I'd think about it, and I was thankful that he wasn't the pushy-salesman type. Obviously with a scooter like my own he could see I couldn't really afford for him to be overly pushy. (the word 'afford' being a pun) I kept walking it and passed a newspaper store when the word LOTTO came jumping out of me. Why not, right? I mean if down on my luck, I'm down on my luck. It my opinion it was the perfect moment to buy a lottery ticket. One ticket with the computer picked numbers for tomorrow night's drawing, and 4 scratchers. (I won 5 Euro on my scratchers. Just enough to cover the cost of the scratchers) I dropped off the scooter at a nice location, secured the back-wheel with a lock and headed home completely soaked. I walked to the tram-stop and realized once again that this probably wasn't or was (depending on how you look at it) the day to buy lottery tickets. My tram was 15 minutes away and I was a 20 minute walk from home. I walked. At home I worked on the De Magneet some more and readied myself for going to school tonight. At 6 I headed to the tram-stop and as I stepped to the platform I looked down the tracks only to realize that the tram I had really wanted was already nearing the next stop. (read: 10 minute wait) I made it to school where we had yet another great lesson. Lut, our teacher, separated Muloud and myself, and put us with a couple of different students. I suppose variety is better when learning a language, but I think I learn more when Muloud and I go through the cards 3 times and really "know" the stuff as a few others (not all of them) only have enough time to go through it once. After class was over I headed over to the English class again, and this one was more animated. Their first question/discussion was over the word "reservation" as they couldn't get their heads around how one could "make a reservation" and then "have a reservation" and did that mean that they "got a reservation?" to which I told them that it meant they "had a reservation." We talked in reference to hotels and restaurants, and I think it was clear in the end. There was even a guy in the back who was a Garth Brooks fan. (not kidding!) and after class he told me all about his collection and how he missed Garth back in 1989 when he did a show in the Netherlands. This class wanted to know more about healthcare, politics, and just "how big" the US really was. I didn't get emotional this time around, and we had a great time. This is really something I could start looking forward to. I have any number of topics I think would be great to talk about. I cought the tram and headed home. At the now famous cross-roads, where the trams are NOT timed appropriately, as I was getting off my tram to switch trams, the tram I wanted was pulling out of the stop. Bad lotto day, right? At this time of night (10:30ish) trams are very few and far between. I want to the stop and it didn't even HAVE a light blinking telling me "where the next tram was." They obviously didn't have one "waiting at the terminus" and as I was looking up, the tram I'd eventually take passed on it's way TO the terminus. I gave it about 20 minutes. So I walked. I walked in the direction of the way I'd want to go, and ended up back at the tram stop by the Pita plac. I glanced up and read that I had 15 minutes. I walked to the frituur across the street and ordered a viandel. (it was consequently named something else on their photos, but she understood what I meant.) When I paid she rattled on and on about something, and then she slowed down when I told her that i was learning dutch. (I think she thought it was funny/cute. That's one thing I love about it here. People love attempts.) Eva called me while I was eating my viandel at the tram stop and told me that she hadn't picked up the scooter with her mom tonight because she "didn't have the keys." What she didn't realize is that I had set everything out for her. I had assumed that she wouuld come home, switch on the computer and see the keys sitting there. I had also written her a very explicit email letting her know that the scooter "wasn't locked to anything" but that it was just waiting to be picked up. (read: she didn't need keys) This sort of dampened my already dampened day, as it meant that the scooter would now enter its third day of day-messing. Tomorrow. Once again, bless Eva's heart. She bought a cheese pizza, waited for me to eat her half, and calmed me down when I was home. I swear I'm going to write a letter asking them why tram drivers down pause at stops when they see that another tram is pulling in. All I'm asking for is a pause. Then again, maybe I wouldn't pause either at 10:30 on a weeknight when my working-day is only a little over an hour of being finished. IN THE NEWS:
March 12, 2003 : scooting troubles part III
I had planned to go to school today, as I almost always seemingly plan on going to school. In light of yesterday evening's not-picking-up-the-scooter, it was scheduled for this morning. Well, as most things worked out, it ended up being closer to mid-day and then lasted on into a bit of the afternoon. We dropped back off at the place and he said that Eva should call in the afternoon to find out what the problem was/if he fixed it. Seeing as I had to "stick around" to find out about the computer, I spent most of the afternoon finishing up De Magneet (it's finally finished) and Joris came by to burn some CDs. Eva called the scooter-shop at 5 and was told that he "didn't have time to look at it" and that he'd look at it tomorrow. (I'm not holding my breath that he will look at it tomorrow or if he does, that the solution will simply be a spark-plug.) Such is the story of life with an old scooter, one that ran perfectly until the front tire busted and someone peed in it. If/when I ever get another motor-powered vehicle, my first purchase (if possible) is going to get a locking gas-tank lid. It seems to me it would have saved us a lot of time and effort. When we were coming back from dropping the scooter off, Eva's mother and I talked about the prospects of getting a car. Obviously we're at a cross-roads, as we cannot buy a scooter and a car. In fact, we don't know of we can buy either one. (we'll have to evaluate our finances) Rita (Eva's mother) said she might do a bit of sponsorship on the car to help us get a better one. (meaning she'd up the price of our dream-car to 500-600 instead of our measly 200-300 price-range) I told her that was a great idea and that I'd even make a sticker for the car that said, "sponsored by Rita) to which she laughed so hard that we nearly didn't make it through one of the stop-lights. I suppose sponsorship is a good idea, seeing as how I'm hoping to teach two of her children how to drive in it...the only catch being that they have to pass the written first so we can display the "L" in the back window and do it legally. She also said that she's going to be going to Brazil during the summer and so Eva and I could use her car if we wanted to go on some trips. The only drawback to this being the fact that it's HUGE and drinks a lot of gas. Seeing as how we're poor and Rita added the fact that I had to promise that Eva was to never drive the van EVER, I think a smallish, gas-friendly car is more along the lines of what we're looking for. Small, cheap, sort of reliable, and with a lockable gas-tank lid. (first purchase after fix-a-flat, a container of oil and a plastic gas-container for the trunk) I made a dinner of rookworst (cutting it into smaller pieces than usual, because we were dividing it between three instead of 2), carrots and potatoes. And while shopping for potatoes, Eva found one that was perfectly shaped in a heart. (we haven't eaten it, and probably wont until it's almost sprouty) Joris went home to catch the football game on TV, and Eva and I managed to spend a few moments of quite-time together before her father showed up. He's getting divorced from Rita tomorrow and since he has not residence in Antwerp anymore, he needed a place to stay. We had originally thought he was staying only for the night, but it seems that he's staying until Sunday which is when Nichole and Jennifer will both arrive. It looks like we'll have a full house for the next week or so. Have I mentioned the fact that we live in a small apartment? While I was working on a few changes that Eva had given me for De Magneet, she stumbled upon a good internship opportunity for me that would last the whole of next year. (not great income, but paid and legal) She want to bed, I pdf-ed De Magneet to the editor, and I penned my best please-hire-me-for-your-internship email ever. One never knows if I shall even receive a reply. Sometimes I get replies back immediately, and other-times I never hear back at all. We should, in the coming weeks (after Spring Break in the states) hear more from a few other schools I've sent application packets to. Other than that, it's all wait and see. I'm sick of "wait and see" and am ready to stop applying the phrase to every part of my life/our lives. Oh sweet glory to be able to say with resolution, we shall do this or that. I should at least continue this journal until then. IN THE NEWS: Furthermore, Antwerp itself is in crisis. The elections are in May, and the current people in government have been found to be buying goods ranging from expensive clothes to furniture on government credit cards. Since the current group in power are the people that that we want to stay in power, the right-wing part, the Vlaams Blok (who we don't want in power) is expected to really use this against the current party when campaigning.
March 13, 2003 : divorce
Divorce is supposed to be negative. That's a fact. (supposedly) As I am a child of a father's second marriage and my mother's first, I'm a product of a successful divorce. I don't know how successful my sister would call it, but she seems to have turned out alright, and I certainly have. My divorcee father and my first-marriage mother have been great parents. And had he not removed himself from the institution of marriage, then I wouldn't be here. I remember being in church as a kid and hearing the phrase, "nothing good comes out of divorce" and thinking that it couldn't be true. I am a product of a divorce (per se) and though I saw my classmates move away amidst family breakups, divorce is what brought my family together. (loosely speaking) If there was ever a family to deserve a divorce, it is Eva's family, the Corderys. I'm not going to use this time to side with either party (mother or father) or point any fingers or divulge any sort of familial information, it's just been a long time coming (3+ years I think?) and so it's time for it to be over, and today it happened. A free man and free woman entered a world with three adult children who can all honestly say that, though it is highly unfortunate, everyone is glad it's over. And as a side-party to the last 2 years, I must admit that I'm pleased as well. Congratulations on all accounts. (once again, sort of.) We celebrated (sort of) with a meal. Eva's father bought the three children currently in Belgium, and the honorary me, dinner. It was great wine, but 'ok' dinner. I got a vegetarian fake-meat dinner with rice (mother, you'll be happy to know that I ate most of my salad) and Eva got a organic-steak and potatoes. Mid-meal we switched. After dinner Jasper parted ways to discuss a post-trip ski trip party, and Joris, Eva, their father, and I, headed up the street for another couple of beers and economic/political discussions. (always) Since it was a school-night, we dropped Joris off at the apartment and the three of us headed home, Eva's father to the couch and Eva and I to the loft. Apparently things went well enough today with the divorce that he'll be able to stay in the boy's apartment next time. It's not that he's not welcome here, it's just that our space is so small. It's sort of strange to put a father on the couch, right? Apparently they parted as "friends." I have a feeling we know more to why it ended friendly, but that's more for another time. One last thing, however, Eva heard from the scooter place and it's absolutely dead. The fuel filter broke up and was sucked all through the motor. I suppose we'll see if Rita's mechanical friend can fix it, because scootering around town is literally THE way to get into and out of town quickly. But if it doesn't work, we've still got two bicycles waiting in the wings. I must admit, however, I am bit devestated...more along the lines of truly devastated and downright sad. IN THE NEWS:
March 14, 2003 : should have.
I could have gone outside. De Lijn is on strike and instead of shutting down the trams (like last week) they simply keep the transportation going and you just don't have to pay. I could have literally gone all the way to the coast (by bus) and all the way to the Netherlands or Germany. But I didn't. I puttered around and started working on a new project, a daily journal spoken with text to speech. I've been looking for something to automate this process, instead of a weekly spoken journal by myself, and I think I just might have landed on it. During my search, I landed on: VoxWorx. It's deadly cool, and though it takes awhile to get used to the computerized voice, it's great. I actually listened to the most current journal entry, and when the computerized voice said, "Scooter come home, we miss you" it could have made me cry! I'm running a little late on the period, so I suppose I'm just typically hormonally-induced emotional. Eva and I wanted to go out to dinner tonight and so we headed into town with no particular place to go. We ended up at a building built in 1596 (wow!) and eating another good meal. (I'll try to post the specifics about the restaurant later) I tried my dutch out on the waitress and the cook, and when Eva went to the bathroom, I went down to pay. Eva came down and I was chatting away with her, promising that if we had time, when Nichole and Jennifer get here we'll try to stop by. On the way home we rented The Man Who Wasn't There. We didn't actually view it, we simply had it in the case that we wanted to watch it. Ah the pleasures of having a DVD player! IN THE NEWS: On a more serious but promising note, Federal officials said that life expectancy for Americans reached an all-time high of 77.2 years in 2001.
March 15, 2003 : the little parisian cafe on my street
Saturday was gorgeous. Eva and I headed for some Drie Koningstraat small-time shampoo Kruitvat shopping and some small-scale Aldi shopping. The day was gorgeous. Antwerp in springtime is second to none. (non-nature, city-speaking) We ate at a breakfast-place there, and turned in our winning lottery card for 4 more that weren't. Eva and I came home and started working on the state of the house. She took over the bathroom and I took over the kitchen. We fixed all of our drains (removed excess hair and gunk) and sorted various piles. (we tend to be pile-people, as living in such a small space doesn't allow for individual places) In the afternoon Eva and I decided we should go to IKEA. Not for anything in particular, but for some space-saving tidbits. (we're always on the lookout!) We insist that our apartment is IKEA-friendly. It's certainly not showroom-ready, as nothing, save the bed, is IKEA furniture. Nonetheless, it's the sort of space that IKEA room-designers would salivate over. Every time I go to IKEA I look at their spaces (such as their "showroom" in which our bed does exist) is so stuff-less. Of course one would want their space-saving rooms if you have an apartment is as small as ours. But once you add "stuff" into the picture, it's not so "quaint" anymore. We decided to take our bikes to IKEA (any scooter-opportunity makes us a little heavy-hearted) Eva's bike is still a mountain-bike and is geared for taking fallen logs and speed on dirt-trails. My bike, however, has been transformed into a city-scenery I'll-get-there-sometime-and-while-I'm-at-it-I'm-going-to-enjoy-it ride. I'm still a girthy-girl on bicycle and Eva's a slim-girl on a speed-demon. I kept up with her only because I was trying to ride consistently; at a nice pace. I was dead tired after fighting the wind, and by the time we got there, I was ready for the hotdog and drink we purchased/split! :) We bought things we needed and a couple of things we didn't. All in all it was only around 30 Euro--including two plants. Eva and I are going to see which one of us can keep a plant alive the longest. (she chose a cactus-relation and I chose an ivy) The way home saw me struggling just as much as I had on the way there, though it seemed that no matter which direction I went, the wind was always at my face. (except in very narrow streets) We came home and went out to eat with Eva's father. He loves a restaurant just up our street, with a big Flemish cook and his French-speaking wife (we think)--in their living-room turned dining-room. Before we left Nichole called to let us know that due to nerves (her own) her and Jennifer would be coming a day late. The nerves led us to over-dinner-conversation, and we came up with the concept that this cafe and it's personable French-speaking server, it'd be a fine Parisian-replacement. (and it's just up our street!) It's cozy, everything is fresh with delicious sauces, and you even get gratis appetizers and gratis "after dinner alcohol." I don't know why Eva and I continually overlook it, but it's always a treat when we go. After stuffing ourselves senseless, we came home, set up the DVD and speakers and watched The Man Who Wasn't There. It's worth seeing. The three of us found it a bit depressing and I tried to see the somewhat-innocent-man and death-penalty commentary in it. IN THE NEWS:
March 16, 2003 : dirty windows
Today we headed into town on the free tram and headed to the market. I had only two things on my list: beans and flowers. Nichole wanted a bouquet of "I'm sorry I made us late" flowers and Eva and I found 50 Tulips for 10 Euro. Red. They're gorgeous. By the time we came back Eva's father was gone and the house was all to ourselves. As much as I wanted Nichole and Jennifer to not miss their flight, it was great for Eva and I to have some breathing room before they got here. Having half-cleaned the apartment yesterday, today saw us finishing up the next round. We were sitting on the couch when we realized our beautiful view of the sky and street was grossly masked by the film that years of rain and street-construction dust does to windows. With a sudden burst of energy, Eva and I started working on the front windows. I squeegeed, and she showed me the Paraguayan newspaper version. I said, "Don't you have Windex?" I was half-joking and half-serious. I remember as a kid I had loved helping my mother clean the mirrors and glass surfaced portions of our house. The squirt and the wiping clean. I think I used to squirt and wipe clean over and over again because I loved the disarray of the spray distorting the image of my face and then the wiping clean to my reflection. By merely using the squeegee, I ended up with streaks, much like the version that people get when they don't know how to clean their car windscreen properly. My father too, taught me that at a young age. And I've got the streak-less version down pat. Soak with the sponge side, wipe with the squeegee side, wipe of the squeegee with a paper towel, and then overlap the dry window and the remaining wet. It's nearly streak-less. So we combined efforts. Eva's was work-intensive. The people in Paraguay, apparently not wanting (or having) the money to buy a window cleaner, simply taking newsprint and rubbing the grime away. I took to squeegeeing the entire surfaces of our front windows and then using the newspaper method to get the corners and streak lines. We sat back down on the couch and marveled at the sky; blue like we had never seen before, and the windows so clean it appeared that we didn't have windows at all. Now we just waited in our little apartment for their arrival, listened to the news, watched the perfect-park-day turn into night, and settled into dinner. IN THE NEWS: And:
March 17, 2003 : a car and the arrival
Before heading to Berchem station a bit earlier than usual to pick up Nichole and Jennifer, we received a phone-call. I had assumed it would be them calling from the airport to let us know that they had arrived safely and that they were running a bit late. Instead it was Rita, Eva's mother, letting us know that her mechanic-friend had found the perfect car for us, that it had already been purchased (by Rita, so we'd just pay her back) that she was going to insure it through her insurance company, and that we might have it by Friday. Wow! It's a Diahatsu. Japanese. Small. The man seemed to think it was in perfect condition, was the perfect car, and a great deal. It's all done and taken care of. Now we just have to pay back the appropriate people and we have a car. How can this be possible?!?!? Not only is it bizarre that we are going to have a car that we've never seen/picked out, but all parties involved seem to be in agreement. I really don't know what else to day, except for the fact that we're sort of in shock. We still have to get the scooter taken care of, and will try to get it in running condition as to give it to Jasper, or keep it for city-driving, but really! A car! On the way to the station I hunted down every car along the street that was a Diahatsu and considered what ours would look like. I mustn't forget my priority purchases once we get the car are: gas-lid-lock and fix-a-flat for the trunk. We didn't know when Jennifer and Nichole would arrive exactly, and as there is really only one train every hour arriving from Schiphol airport, we knew they would either be there then, or an hour later, or an hour later, and so on. We walked the platform and prematurely assumed they were going to be on the following train, when in the distance we saw them approaching. They looked fairly refreshed, and the four of us settled in for breakfast at Panos. Eva left for work, and the three of us headed home. They seemed to be in good spirits and had had a nice flight. We situated their things and headed into the city for a quick tour (pre afternoon dropping-dead and early-evening re-awakening) We hit all of the hot-spots; tram-ride, Groenplaats, Cathedral, Schelde, quaint-streets, points-of-interest, and even passed a few: Geen Orloog/No War! signs. While on the Groenplaats, Jennifer asked me what made people able to tell a tourist/American from the rest of the masses of people. I told her that I wasn't the best judge of that, but before we took their picture in front of the Ruben's statue, I simply said, "Look around, how many fleece, jeans, and people without coats/scarves do you see here?" And then she laughed. :) We then headed to Del Haize to pick up enough food to feed the four of us for the rest of the week. They were surprised by the smallness of the isles and selection of goods I have long-since-forgotten are different than things in the states. By the meat isle, Nichole says, "I want to eat some meat." And though it sounded sort of barbaric and funny, we bought enough to have ciabatta-bread hamburgers when we got home, to which they both replied that our meat tasted meatier and delicious. Needless to say, that after wanting meat so badly, mid-hamburger, Nichole drifted off to sleep and Jennifer and I chatted a bit before she too went to sleep. I couldn't leave them on their first night here, and though I had every intention on going to Dutch classes, it seemed more important to hang out with my friends who had just traveled 2000 miles to hang out here. When Eva got home we headed into town. Before we left the both of them said, "hey, try to make us more European looking and Nichole took one of Eva's old coats and Jennifer added a scarf to her own outfit, and the four of us boarded a tram, wondered around a bit in town, and ended up at Caramba, a Mexican restaurant I haven't noticed since my first week living here. (when I had already started thinking that I'd miss Mexican food) It was delicious. We drank the smoothest/tastiest/strongest margaritas we've each ever had, and it made the rest of the night warm and cozy. After dinner we headed over to the wine cellar-bar (I can never remember the name) to let them sample some additional Belgian drinks. We each ordered something different and sampled each other's order. Not wanting to miss the last-tram, we headed to the station at Groenplaats, saw that a tram was 2 minutes away, ran down the stairs, missed it by 1 minute, and waited for the next one. (only an 8 minute wait) Once on-board the tram, at the next stop a guy sat down in front of us, turned around and it was Jasper, Eva's middle-brother. At our stop, I invited him to an additional round of drinks at a bar on our street. De Ijzer. It's a pseudo-happening place we always seem to pass-over, much like the Parisian cafe two doors down. It's yet another place we've added to our nice neighborhood list. I suppose one doesn't have to live "in town" at all. It's just taken a year and a half for us to realize it. We parted ways and came home to listen to Bush's address to the American people streaming online. Since Eva's not an American, and since she had to work tomorrow, the three Americans watched the slightly-pixelated face of our (our country's!) president and then mulled over his words. They arranged the couches to make a bed, and I crawled into bed where I immediately settled down into one of the few times out of the year when I snore. At least that's what they said. IN THE NEWS: And on a more serious note: President Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a final ultimatum tonight to go into exile within 48 hours or face attack by 280,000 troops poised for war in the Gulf region.
March 18, 2003 : all over antwerp
Today we went shopping. Tourists love to go shopping. We basically covered everything between the Meir and the river with our last stop being a second-hand store. I used my Dutch in every available situation and was pleased with the results. As I'm not really used to trekking all over Antwerp for 6+ hours at a time, and since I was not on a vacation-induced high, I was exhausted by the time they were trying on the various gold-mine-finds at the second-hand-store. Over the course of the day, Jennifer discovered the wonders of the worsten-broodje Nichole discovered a brown second-hand retro shirt. What did I discover? I realized again that I love it here. Jennifer remarked, "man, Andrea, I realize why you like it here so much. It's beautiful, accessible, and really nice!" Of course she's not seeing the gray-sky winter-mooded people that sometimes occupy the bodies of these friendly Antwerpenaars (myself included) but she's right. I've landed myself in a great place with a great girl. (just though I'd throw that in!) By the time we got home, it was nearly time for Eva to get home. An hour later and we still couldn't figure out what we were hungry for or where we wanted to eat. We finally decided on the 20 Euro China-meal, but when Eva called, she found out that they're closed on Tuesday nights. Step 2. I stepped up and said I'd cook. I had all of the ingredients for a feast with fake-chicken breasts including a side salad! When Jennifer and Eva went to rent a DVD, Nichole and I bustled around trying to romantic-up the place. I kept up with the cooking and she cleared off the table, readied the plates and glasses, and with 5 minutes of prep-work remaining, they got home. We made them stay in the library/bedroom (the other side of the curtain) while we finished up setting out the meal. Finally, all was well enough for them to take their seats and for us to start eating. Preparing food for 4 may be hard work (not as hard as Tom's efforts!) but it was well worth it. Since I've previously gone on and on about the quaint little Parisian restaurant up our street, well I'll make up a side-note that tonight's dinner was a quaint-little-vegetarian-friendly restaurant in the middle of our living-room/dining-room/kitchen. Two romantic candle-lit tables for two stuck together. After dinner we watched About A Boy, and that's a gem of a movie to come across. For some reason the trailer made it out to be a decent movie, but not as great as it seemed to be. The four of us crowded around the old Sony Vaio laptop and laughed and nearly cried several times. In an effort to not be sexist, I'll say that it was a movie for "sensitive souls" therefore not labeling it a "chick flick" but opening it up for anyone. :) This must be a good week, eh? A car, good friends, good food, and a very old DVD playing-computer. Somehow we're living in blessed times, as long as one doesn't define luxury or blessed as a dollar amount. Memo to self: When living life with more money, remember living life with less money and how wonderful it all seemed to be and then save the money I would be spending if I started living a life where my spending habits grew and grew to match my means. I know, we all said that in college over varying chicken, beef, and pork ramen noodles. :) IN THE NEWS: Just a side-note to myself, I think this is a good concept, because it's simply saying, "we wanted more time for inspections but didn't get it. In the event that Iraq has the weapons that the inspectors would eventually found if they were given more time, we'll help you out." It may seem sort of after-the-thought, but I think it's a nice step to returning Freedom fries to their name.
March 19, 2003 : the day it all began.
I spent the morning sending my two friends to Amsterdam for a day and night of typically-Amsterdam-like-activities. They originally planned to go to Paris today, but Amsterdam seemed to be a nice replacement city filled with wild and crazy Dutch people who nearly all speak English. (a plus in this case) I spent the rest of the day working away on my laptop listening to the BBC. (anything news) and working on a couple of projects. I have been wanting to add an audio entries to my journal but wanted to do it in the awkward text-to-speech format. Now once a week I'll have a new journal entry posted over to the right, next to that red arrow. There's some sort of feeling in the air, and as I can vividly remember the day the war started last time around, I suppose it's the same sort of energy in the air--though this time I am more aware of it, and I won't spend the war-night walking around in a nearly-vacant suburban mall with my father before we head to our Wednesday-night church meeting. (Unless I want to be over-the-top and decide to go to Wijnegem Shopping Center.) I know the "oil" version of why people don't support war, and the "he's a tyrant, but we shouldn't mess up the alliances of the world over him" version and I've heard the "it's too far away" version which includes the "it has nothing to do with me" version. Today, however, it seemed so pointless really, all of the efforts that so many people put forth to be against it. I cut a white swath of fabric out of an old bleached cotton scrap and hung it from our bay window. I don't suppose many people will see it, but it seems the only comment I (we) can/could make. Hopefully, if all goes well (actually regretfully so), I'll be doing a project which compares the tv media of the US vs. the media of Belgium from the coming weeks. I have friends back home who will faithfully hit record when they watch the nightly news. As it approaches, I become more and more prepared to simply want the troops of my own country home quickly. It's going to happen, right? So let's just put it all to rest quickly and then get back to focusing on providing more health-care to American's with less money, providing cheaper and better education for college-age students, and cutting out more of the belching emissions of so many factories and cars back home. I spent the day with the radio on, sitting here sorting out the love-hate relationship I have with my homeland, sitting here sorting out the "nerves" and views of my newly-arrived Midwestern friends, and sitting here reading the emails from my praying parents. Before Eva got home, I headed to Del Haize on the bike. Replacing the scooter with bike will be easier the sooner I forget with what speed the scooter sent us from place to place. I actually found myself at the supermarket in a timely manner, being able to maneuver around cars with seemingly better ease then the gas-powered, quick A to B scooter. As I mentioned, it will just take some time. When Eva got home, I started making dinner and opted to eat the heart-shaped potato we bought last week. I figured I should use it in an us-centered meal, and not actually let the heart sprout, so the heart-shaped potato ended up in my pork and veggie casserole. We listened to the radio for the rest of the night, ran a few late-night errands, and headed to bed. It seemed so obvious that it was going to happen, but we set our alarm for 2am for when Bush was going to give his speech. To be honest, the memory fails me. I don't know if it was sleep or news-overkill which blocked it from my memory. Eva says that we woke up the best that we could and listened long enough to know for sure and then we went back to bed. I was sound asleep the moment it all began. I'll remember today more for the white-flag hanging out of our window, eating the heart-shaped beloved potato, and the news I listened to all day, the cyclical BBC World Service which repeats, adds, and deletes a conglomeration of news-bits all day long. And Eva? I don't' know what she'll remember from the day it happened. I suppose she'll remember more of the "moment' it happened that I do, but I suppose it's basically the same thing. Months of journal entries with closing IN THE NEWS items of concepts for and against the motion that began tonight culminating on one day that was much the same as any other day, though beautiful here. And tomorrow will be another, and so on an so forth. IN THE NEWS: And I have another link of sorts: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
March 20, 2003 : new set of wheels.
Eva came home from work today saying that she "had a surprise." I had one as well, as the house was spotless. :) Her surprise was that her mother had gotten the car all set up for us and that she was going to bring it by tonight. We were hoping that Nichole and Jennifer would make it back from their day and a half in Amsterdam to come along. So we waited. Eva called her mother and found out that the car was in Broechem, just waiting to be ours. Nichole and Jennifer finally arrived (Amsterdam seemingly not as wonderful a place as they had originally hoped/thought!) and though they were exhausted, the four of us trekked up to the apartment, bought an assortment-pack from the De Witte frituur across the street, and took it to her brother's place. I'm not so sure they were fans of fritjes either. Jennifer seemed to like most everything except the bitterballen, and Nichole stuck to her fries and ketchup. Finally the moment Eva and I had been waiting for. The 6 of us got into her mother's people-mover and headed to Broechem. Still her mother wouldn't tell us any details about the car. It's "small and excellent" is all she'd say. Ok. We rounded the bends and circled our way through the outskirts of Antwerp, and finally were on the very street. Achterlo. We pulled into the driveway still not being able to see it. (it was practically parked behind the house!) There it sat in all of it's glory. It was too dark to see, but we could see it's boxy 1980's frame and could tell that the color was light and the insides brown. That's all. Apparently they couldn't get the back license-plate on, so Rita had asked her farming neighbor to attach it. Rita's and I drove the car down to his house, pulled in the driveway, and then her friend (not the farmer) had to re-park it in reverse. Rita's friend took me into the car and pointed out all of the obvious specifics. This is the brake. This is the window-washer. This is the fan button. This is that and that is this. Here are your papers, on and on. It's a 4-speed with reverse at the right instead of at the left, etc. What I've neglected to mention is that once we pulled the car into the farmer's work-garage, we realized that it's not a Diahtsu at all! It's a Nissan Micra! It does have a Datsun sticker (for some reason) to the left, but it's a Nissan! A wonderful reliable, still profitable company! ha ha ha. We laughed about this for hours. The two men started doing the man-thing of trying to put on the license plate, and the four of us, well actually the three of us "girls" who consider ourselves somewhat tool-inclined, couldn't help but watch and get a little laughingly frustrated at the effort these two men were making. "I think it's time for the women to try to put the nut on the bolt," I joked and the 5 of us women thought that was pretty funny. Needless to say, we let them do it anyway. Sometimes one just has to let a "man" do his "man's job" or else he'll think he's inferior or something. Whatever. So the car. Oh my god. It's beautiful. Apparently a couple had it for a really long time and only drove it from the garage to the grocery store and back to the garage. It's in mint condition. Spotless. The cigarette lighter has never been used. The car smells like new-car, old-car smell. It's got a wonderful brown interior. It's all heavy-duty metal and brown plastic. It's got beautiful brown seat-covers with fake fur on the backside. It doesn't have a radio, but that's for later down the road. We're going to love it. After the plate was placed, we sped off down the road half-blinded by the fogging windows. Eva hunted for the defrost/defog and I wiped with my shirt-sleeve. 5 minutes later we were filling up with our first tank of gas. (consequently, this picture is a little bizarre, because I look wide and eva's legs look broken!) We took it to the Pink House so we could meet Marc and his boyfriend. It's so great to see Marc so happy, and it seems that the both of them have landed a great guy. I had only 1 beer and then switched to juices. The 5 of us packed into the Micra and dropped Marc off back home. In route we stopped at a Nacht Winkel and I manned the car. I was a little tense about the whole driving situation, as now I could see our lives changing all over again. Mobility after having slight-mobility might prove to me life-altering! I could see the map of Europe opening before my eyes, unfolding to reveal endless miles of bi-ways and highways. It's just too exciting! When they came out of the store Eva was without water (a road-tripping necessity) to which I was a little miffed. Granted to others this seemed a bit more miffed than I actually was, but that was car-stress-induced. (hopefully that will wear-off after we've had some time to get to know the car and for me to get used to driving here) Then out of nowhere this drunk guy and his cute big dog come to the car and finish up the conversation they were apparently having inside with the 4 of my passengers. The dog jumped onto the side of the car and I could have melted into the seat right then and there. Like I said, I'll become a little more laid-back with time. It just takes time. We dropped Marc off at his house and the four of us headed on a road-trip. We went to Leir. Why not!? And then wound our way back home. Oh bliss. Oh glory. Oh Debbie Diahastu turned Debbie Nissan. I don't know, will the name stick? Regardless, Eva and I are in love with our new set of wheels. IN THE NEWS: The first shots of war set off global protests on the streets and drew dismayed responses from world leaders today. President Bush's main allies stood firmly by him as U.S. flags burned from Berlin to Bangladesh.
March 21, 2003 : ghent and brugge
Today we headed out in Debbie Diahatsu which is now Debbie, the modern woman with a hyphenated Datsun-Nissan. First we headed to Knokke and down to Blankenberg to the very windy sea-side and then on to Brugge. Mid-journey I had to borrow Jennifer's sunglasses because the sun was so intense. I swear they have been two of the luckiest souls to visit thus far. (my mother coming in a close second) We've had nothing but beautiful weather...weather almost perfect for their American fleece. :) Unfortunately, today I was a lot like my father. I suppose that's the wrong sentence to say, as I mean today I was a lot like him when he is stressed. I was stressed about time and our 2-hour parked car. I was stressed about their not seeing everything you can see in Brugge in two hours and then coming back to our car with either our first parking ticket or no car. (towed) I made them run from location to location until Eva finally told me to "chill the fuck" out of which I completely deserved and will hopefully remember the next time I come under the spell of time-restraint vs. good time. We then went on to Ghent where I calmed down over a couple of beers at Ghent's version of Hut Roze Huis. We discussed "passion" not in relationship to people but in relationship to our own lives. Out of all of us, Nichole seems to have the most "direction" in this respect. She at least has some sort of idea what she would do if she could do "anything she wanted to do." The rest of us seemed pretty hopeless. It was at this particular cafe that Nichole fell in love with Orvaal beer which comes in it's own perfectly sturdy glass. Consequently when we were about a block away and headed in the direction of the rib-shack, Jennifer revealed that very glass from her satchel. Now if that's not a keepsake, I don't know what is. We ate at the rib-shack until we were stuffed senseless (I opted to get stoofvlees instead of meat-on-the-bone-that-you-have-to-fight-for) and Jennifer, who opted for steak, requested a potato that consequently never came. Eva asked our waiter about it, and since Eva's the Dutch-speaking person out of our lot, she kept filling us in that the entire staff kept talking about Jennifer's potato. One would think that for some reason they were completely potato-less or something. Like she had asked for something as bizarre as a taco. We never figured it out. After our great meal, we retraced our steps, passed Ghent's Het Roze Huis cafe, took a left, found our car, and headed home. We almost had an accident when a man pulled over to the side of the street like he was either going to flirt with a scantly-clad woman on the sidewalk or go into the frituur for some fries. While I was passing him (with oncoming traffic) he decided to pull back out and we missed being hit on both sides by a few hairs and my promptly stopping. This pissed off the man driving the pulled-over car, and I think it had more to do with the fact that he had another male in the passenger seat and somehow they had interpreted my passing him as being similar to remarking that he had a small male-member. He spent the following 20 minutes following us and bright-lighting us, following us around round-abouts several times, and being right on little Debbie's back bumper. I though the more we got outside of the city the less he would be apt to continue in his following but he persisted. At a certain stoplight I simply headed onto a highway not caring if I was entering a highway that was a tube directly to Siberia. (which it wasn't) And he didn't follow. Men named Richard driving in cars. Now THAT's a nice title for a film or short-story. If you're not a native speaker of English you'll be happy for the helpful info that Richards often go by the name Dick. (back in the days pre-slur) Richards in their cars seem rampant here. If you hear a car coming down the street with boom-boom music pouring out it's sealed windows, you can bet your last Euro coin it's a Richard. If a car is going 160 km/h on the highway blowing the doors off of Debbies and Grettas and Panda 750s, you can bet it's a Richard. If you're wondering around in Wilrijk late at night with a broken down scooter and two identical Peugeot silver sport-hatchbacks are racing in the same direction with one car in the lane designated for cars going the other direction, you can be that it's 2 Richards. What luck! I know there are a few female versions of Richard, though I don't know what their name would be. Girls don't tend to hang in packs in the parking-lots of closed shopping centers talking about woofers and how to install neon lights under their beloved tweaked-out autos. Unfortunately, some do tend to be drawn to Richards, but that's just something we can't help. They giggle a bit and flutter their eyelashes... Thank you for this opportunity to rant. We finally got ourselves directionally organized in Ghent for the ride back to Antwerp. Nichole was passed out in the back seat, Jennifer was nodding off, and I think even Eva curled up into a ball a bit leaving me the sole alert driver. Somehow we made it home even though I was sleepy as well. We had run out of time to get together with our friends and so we met up with Bart, Patje, and Tom at Poppi and remained there for a few hours before closing down the bar and the four of us headed home. I daresay Jennifer and Nichole aren't used to the sort of late-night hours "going out" here entails. Apparently Nichole usually goes to sleep around 10 or so, which means this past week has had her internal clock all in a tizzy. It's a shame they aren't staying here longer. Not only would it give me longer to calm-down about having a car/driving, it would give us more opportunity to see more of Belgium and set their clocks to the late-night adventures we sometimes happen upon. IN THE NEWS: ALSO IN THE NEWS:
March 23, 2003 : easy like sunday morning
I only had 2 and a half hours of sleep last night, so when 5 am rolled around, Eva (who had actually had nearly 7 hours of sleep) woke up quite refreshed and I woke up nearly nauseous. We packed up little Debbie (I'm not so keen on the name yet, though everyone else seems to be) and we headed to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands. Not a soul was on the road. I had figured it would be sparse, but it was really sparse. Excellent. We didn't leave until nearly 6, but still the traffic was light all the way to the airport. I passed the turnoffs where my parents and I had misjudged exits and looped through road-construction twice and we passed the neatly organized Dutch farms. We dropped them off at the departure area, and Eva and I headed to park. When we finally got inside the airport and found their ticketing station, we noticed that the line for the security was strikingly long. (as in maybe a 45 minute wait?!) We had gotten there with plenty of time to have them check in and for us to have breakfast, but the length of the line caused us to nix the breakfast and simply hug and part ways. I had the most splendid time with them both. It was great to meet Jennifer again and get to know her outside of the untouchable-clique she had been in when I was living in Joplin. Talking about that last night was hilarious, because here she was in our living-room! Whereas 5 years before, Kathleen and I were on the outside (and loving it) wanting to be in the "cool group." It's such an after-school-special sort of story, but obviously one with a happy ending. Besides, Kathleen and I had a wonderful time in college and though we were not specifically part of any group, our own circle of friends was made up of great people with whom we had a blast. (in fact, we should have a reunion someday.) Now regarding the fact that we were not in the middle of Holland at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, Eva and I decided to take advantage of it. We headed in the general direction of Tulips and wound up at the sea. Since I had been crabby at our last sandy effort in Blankenberg, Belgium, this more than made up for it. Before getting out of the car, Eva and I took a cat-nap in our car. (reclining seats!) We listened to the World Service on the BBC on our crank-radio and napped in the sunshine. When we woke up, the 20 or so cars that had been there when we got there had multiplied themselves to fill nearly have the lot. It was a beautiful day in the Netherlands, and the Netherlanders were out in full-force. And now it was only 10 in the morning. Mountain bikes, road-bikes, sit-and-see-the-scenery-bikes, people and their dogs, just people, and the two of us. We walked to the beach and marveled that it was only the latter part of mid-march and that it was so beautiful. Nichole and Jennifer had had some of the most beautiful weather one could EVER hope for when coming to Belgium on a trip. It kind of has me wondering if we are in for a dry-spell (read: drought) this year. Everything was pseudo-green, but not the sort of green I know that this part of the world is supposed to show you during spring-time. It's usually so well-watered that the green is so intense one must look away. And added to the fact that this green is so intense in gray weather, well you can imagine what it's like when a sunny day happens to happen. Wow. Color like you've never seen. We walked along the beech, and took a path leading off from the sand over the dunes. It was the most hysterical climb, as it was stairs made of sand. Eva originally started the hill running, but soon she slowed to a steady climb as it seemed that the sand was sucking our legs in. I had the most horrific time, as I suppose my weight added to the sucking, and I swear it was the most grueling subtle climb I've ever done in my entire life. (not kidding.) After such a climb, we sat down to rest for awhile. The Dutch people are so insanely friendly that all of the passersby greeted us and in fact an older couple sat down to chat. Though they didn't do the proverbial, "your dutch is really good," they seemed to understand most everything I said. They offered us a piece of candy to suck on, and the four of us sat there in the sun thinking of things to say to each other and greeting the passersby. Two of the passersby happened to be two men with their daughter. It was pretty obvious somehow that they were together, it didn't look like they were brothers or just friends. We got that vibe as well, and apparently the Dutch man sitting next to me said, "Well I think that is two men with their daughter. I suppose that happens these days." (something to that affect) Later on, during our quest for the right road to lead us to our waiting car, Eva remarked that she didn't know if that had been a snide remark or simply an observant one. She also neglected to be arm and arm with me for a bit. Maybe it was because it seemed like every group of people was in family-mode. Don't forget, dearest Eva, that we're in family mode as well when we're together. She just felt sort of uncomfortable. I was a little shocked, as being uncomfortable in the Netherlands, of all places, on a beautiful day, in a nature reserve, with hundreds of nature/sport/sun-loving people around...well, I felt pretty damn good. (we held hands in the car.) :) We finally found our car. I think we had walked for nearly 2 hours, and as it was noon, we were rather famished. We figured we would either stop in a little town and have lunch or stop at a highway Burger King. (still an occasional treat 2 a year) If someone would just open a highway Arby's somewhere in a half-day's drive, Eva would be the happiest girl in the world. We ended up with a Burger King, and looped back around to hit the right road to take us to the Sunday-open camping store in Eindhoven. By the time we were only minutes away from the store, I was exhausted. I was ready to pull into a kerk parking-lot and take another nap and listen to the BBC. We thought we'd have problem finding the place, but two turns into the city, we found exactly what we were looking for. We didn't have money for anything, and we don't actually need anything, but we went so we could "kick some tires." We talked about tents like we were interested in buying one and looked at equipment we would buy if we were rich. We looked at hiking boots like we were on the verge of becoming regular outdoorsmen (outdoorswomen) which we're not, but it was fun anyway. Eva bought a cup-holder for the car for 80 cents, and a to-go-insulated cup for me for the car. (2 Euro) Now we each have a cup to take if/when we ever get up so early as today. (which remains to be seen) We wanted desperately to stop and see Heleen in Utrecht, but realized we didn't have her number, a phone, and didn't know a go-between person for the number. We've decided that some weekend in the near future, we're simply going to stop buy and surprise her. So friends who live far and wide. (namely Leuven, Amsterdam, and Utrecht) prepare yourselves. We're now mobile enough to simply "stop by!" We finally made our way back home to Antwerp, and I must admit that I was more exhausted than I've been in a long time. I crawled onto the couch and didn't leave for quite some time, curled up in a ball with Eva taking good care of me. To tired and so well taken care of, I can't really recall what we did after that except go to sleep when the appropriate time on the clock said, "bedikins." (Eva-word) IN THE NEWS (War-related): ALSO: ADDITIONALLY:
March 25, 2003 : blowing my head apart
I went to Brussels today to meet with Steven, the director of the transmedia program, about my project ideas. I had written out a rather verbose 12 page paper detailing the concept and ideas, sent it to him, and today was a small day-of-reckoning. Would it work? Did he think it was a good idea? etc. Sure enough, as usual, I got to school and found no Steven. It's not that it's usually late, he's just always busy, and as my meeting with him was not the first one in his day, meetings run over/late most of the time. Instead of 1:30, it was 2:30, but he still managed to give me a whole hour. An hour and a half later, I came away from the talk with my head on fire and my mind racing. On the train I opened up my notebook and just lay it there in hopes that intermittently I would be overcome with a brilliant idea and pencil it down. I think I wrote about 5. None of them brilliant, per se, but at least they are ideas. Steven wants me to rethink the umbrella concept of the project. Is it going to be held in a house because the house is symbolic? Is the house simply a way to categorize? Is the project about me? Or simply me commenting on living here? These are just a few of his questions that he wants me to think over for the next week or so. Other than that, the smaller projects seem pretty strong. The bricks are fine, the concrete sucks. So it's not back to square one, it's back to mid-building. I came home and Eva was just finishing up the translation of the project papers into dutch. She said she'd meet me after my Dutch lesson and we'd both go over the papers with Lit, my teacher. I took the car to school again this evening, and gave myself just long enough to get there. At a particularly awkward intersection (3 tram lines, a bus-stop, and 4 streets colliding) the man sitting in front of me, not really paying attention, went forward when the green light for the people next to us (going straight) turned green. At this particular place we have a green left-turn arrow. Two trams were there and oncoming traffic for his turn. Once the tram was out of the way, and it was our turn to turn, there the guy sat over in a corner of the intersection with a nasty front dent on the corner of his hood. At least it wasn't me and our precious little Debbie. (I'm just not mad about the name. I can't help but think of Little Debbie snack cakes.) Tonight at school it was a madhouse. Seeing as how our class is now rather large (probably around 20) and the fact that only 4 of us are non-Arabic-speaking, sometimes it gets a bit out-of-control in the area of language. One girl in my class literally talks all the time in Arabic. She adds comments, she makes jokes, she comments on Dutch in general. It's annoying most times, but tonight it was terrible. Every Arabic-speaking student seemed willing to strike up an Arabic-conversation at any moment. It was a little out of control. It didn't help that our first lesson was a bit hard. What made it even more difficult is that my partner had only been to class one time the entire year. Later on we broke up into groups and I was the American with 5 Moroccan men. Our teacher had brought food and food-prep equipment, and so we were supposed to use the imperative tense to have people make food for us. (or follow a recipe) I made my guys tea. One of the guys made me some toast. Apparently none of them had actually understood that I was from the US, as I am ever so keen on using the words "de vrenigen staten" instead of "amerika" as a sort of cover. :) A couple of them were shocked, but most sympathized that my country was going to war, and how not everyone in my country agreed. Then I showed them were Missouri was on my quickly-drawn outline of the US. Missouri. They liked the name. It seems in any language people get the misery-Missouri joke. I also tell them that it's not really a miserable place, it's just a joke on the name. During the afwas (dishwashing) time everything came to a head. As the only girl, the men thought it was funny if, as the only woman, they pressured me into doing the wash. I wouldn't have it. We went back and forth on it. I told one guy, I'll dry if you wash, to which after the fact, we all admitted that women and men were het selfde. Somewhat equal. Then came the "heb je een man?" questions. No I don't have a boyfriend. No I don't have children. No I am not married. I figured it was the perfect time to just SPELL IT OUT to them; I have a girlfriend. I sort of have a wife, though it's not legal because I'm an American. A what? All 5 of them were shocked. One was completely bowled over. You are a woman with a woman? Dat is slecht! (That's bad!) Dat is neit normaal! (That's not normal!) And he kept shaking his head and the other guys egging him on in Arabic. I showed them a picture of Eva from my wallet, and tried to explain it more. The one guy could not believe it! He kept laughing about it the rest of the night. The other guys simply said, well that's fine, I guess, that's fine. Have a good life then. I made these two guys, in particular, laugh even harder when they said, "a man with a man, that is ok as well, but we like women." I said, "Ik hou van vrouwen ook!" It was shock and awe (borrowing it from the current war terminology) and humor too. After the class Eva turned up with the papers and we talked about my project with my teacher. She's going to talk to the headmaster about the shoe project and see if she can find me a space to have the show. What luck! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have a lot of thinking to do about the cohesion of the project, but other than that, I get excited every time I get to talk about it. In the car-ride home, Eva and I talked about why I would tell the guys that I was a lesbian. Nichole, Jennifer and I talked about it as well when they were here. It's not that I am flaunting it, I just want people, especially in situations such as this, that it's just a fact. One of those facts like the fact that I floss my teeth every other night or so. I wouldn't do it if it hurt someone, or it hurt someone indirctly, but if someone asks, I'll say yes. I'm a lesbian. And that's that. (I hope that makes sense.) Eva and I came home, parked the car, safety-locked the steering wheel (I have managed to find an additional way to lock it more securely when we park it in foreign countries) and I made pesto and veggie pasta. Eva goes back to work tomorrow after two days of unwind. (stress-related doctor prescribed work-absence) Tomorrow it's back to the real world. IN THE NEWS:
March 26, 2003 : supposing I was bridget jones
Today I tried to check a few things off my list. The list included many things that didn't get checked-off, but there were some additional elements of surprise (for Eva) that did. Namely the washing. I took the clothes down to the laundromat, stuffed the washers full (actually just the right amount) and sat down on the sunny front step of the building. Susan came by walking her dogs and I took her to show her Debbie (the car). I still haven't made my mind up about calling her Debbie, but apparently that's what has stuck thus far. Maybe we should christen every vehicle of mobility Gretta. I don't know. Apparently we're going to do a champagne party on Saturday with Eva's mother...so I suppose we must have a name that sticks by then. I returned to my sunny spot only to find that the sun had suddenly retracted itself (moved on, really) and my spot was not shady-cool. I returned to the car, opened the passenger door, and worked on some Dutch lessons. I figured in the car I could read it all out-loud and no one would bat an eye. The laundry finished, I headed back home to drop off the stuff and pick up Eva. I figured it would be fun if we drove somewhere for dinner tonight. I was thinking fritjes in another town, knowing all the while that we didn't necessarily have money for the fritjes in another town, so once I met Eva and discussed my plans with her, we both decided it was better for me to simply fix rookworst, steamed veggies, and mashed potatoes. Eva was shocked at the fact that I had even found money to do the washing. As she has stated many a time that I don't care about saving up the 2 Euro pieces and larger coins to do the laundry, I have to admit that I had a rather large inner-smile when I told her that I had been saving up Euros here and there just for the laundry. :) Joris came over and the three of us went to the videotheek and picked out Brigit Jones's Diary. Maybe it was me that picked it out, as I am a home-movie fan of humor and lighthearted flicks. Eva's still keen on seeing One-Hour Photo, but it looks creepy. I usually like somewhat creepy films, or daunting ones. Maybe I'm getting old. (don't forget that my birthday is only a few weeks away and I shall turn 27!) Eva finished up some work and Joris quizzed me on Vraags and Waaroms in Dutch. We even discussed "Waarom is de lucht blauw?" to which I answered Daarom something about particlesje in de lucht een de son. And then we looked it up online because it's a question we've all known the answer to once in our lives but have since forgotten. It's the sunlight and it's colors being broken up by the particles. I was somewhat right. Now why is the sunset red? I've since forgotten that one as well. :) The film was great. I was troubled a bit by her target weight of 135, as if I was suddenly 135 again, I would look like a starved out victim of some horrific eating disorder. 135 was what I weighted back in 1994, and slowly, over time I have added 20 and then another 20 post-graduating from college. I suppose I should slowly digress to target weights of minus 10 times 6 or so, and then I'd look healthy. Now I'm just the ideal poster-child for somewhat girthy paintings of 300 years ago. Bridget also had a great little apartment and a great tight circle of friends. It made me re-remember how great it was to live alone and how wonderful having a circle of friends looking out for you (and vice versa) was. Once significant others enter the picture, all circles become changed and misshapen a bit. It becomes couple-parties instead of friend-parties where you all sit around and blah blah blah until your heart's content. There's something to be said for both sides of the story, but I must admit that I look back to alone-time as being fruitful, and though together time is fruitful as well (!) alone-time is priceless. Everyone should be alone for awhile in their life. The movie ended and we watched the deleted scenes and some of the additional DVD-perks that VHS people miss out on. Once again, DVDs are just plain cool and I still think it's sort of funny to think about how long we could have been watching movies during the end-of-the-month poor spells, but didn't. Joris kissed us farewell and Eva and I crawled into bed. We've decided that we should simply set our worries to the side occasionally and get back to being two carefree lovers (it's only appropriate in the sense that lovers tend to be a bit more romantic and carefree poetically speaking!) and not worry so much about the thing piling up a le carte next to our already decked out plates. Ahhh...analogies are so fun to make sometimes! IN THE NEWS:
March 27, 2003 : walking
I picked Eva up at work today. Not because we simply can, but because we thought we might head into Brussels to pick up Eva's radio. We didn't get in touch with the people so it literally was simply a pick up. (which is also fun!) We came home and I was ready to make Thai when I realized I didn't have any beans. So instead, we splurged and bought fries with the last few coins we could scrape up. I must admit that Jennifer's generosity came in handy, and I suppose I should tell her so. If they had not bought nearly every one of our meals while they were here (something we were not keen on taking advantage of, but she insisted as a way to show thanks for the guiding and shelter) then we would be more than poor at this very moment. There are a few freelance projects I've done as of late, that should be finalized soon, and since the beginning of the month always symbolizes a fresh bank account and meal vouchers, we should be breathing easily soon. (one would hope!) After dinner Eva and I took a nap. We haven't done that for awhile. It didn't start off as a nap, of course, it started out with my reading a children's book in Dutch, and the sentence structure was horrifically kort (short) and seemingly more difficult than regular sentences. I suppose I should take to reading Wablief again. Yes, maybe I should. I wish I could stumble upon a nice job prospect in Belgium that would force me to get my Flemish act together. Nothing like a date looming in the future to usher me into the next round of language knowledge! After the nap (I hate falling asleep in my contacts and furthermore, I'm not a fan of falling asleep in our loft-bed with the lights just feet away from my face) I woke up cranky and yet motivated. Eva called Leila and did one of their string and can conversations and I begged Eva to simply ask Leila over. To which she declined. (I'm not sure who declined, Eva and her asking or Leila and her coming over.) Eva remarked on the entry of yesterday and her knowing what I meant about having a group of friends. And even at the frituur there was a group of three people huddled over their fritjes gossiping and having what, in my mind, I would consider to be a good time. I can't blame it on hormones, this sudden overwhelmingness of friend-want, but I suppose it doesn't help that Nichole and Jennifer just left on Sunday. Though they were staying with us, and not people I can simply call and say, "Let's meet for fries," I thoroughly enjoyed their company, and our late-night last conversation was second to none as far as quality goes. Eva was busy doing what Eva does best during idle moments; surfing. I decided to load up some new music and go for a walk. I've taken a late-night walk by myself twice in the last week. The city seems so mysterious and comforting late at night. I know Eva doesn't really want me to go alone, but she "let's" me in some sort of gesture for me to have some "work-out" time to myself. It's true I think about an assortment of things, lip-sync to the music, and turn the volume up more than I would normally do. I suppose I might eventually end up taking the car out for drives, but sometimes I fear I might end up in Germany at the end of my drive. Or somewhere in France or the Netherlands. When I'm thinking so hard, it's hard to tel |