Things and Stuff

So it's been about a week, and what has happened?

Brice went on to this farm near Liverpool to learn about joinery and live in a teepee/wigwam. (I told him he had to go to that farm because he got to live in one. If I could, I would, just to say I had.) Miguel and I then had to get used to having the apartment to ourselves again, ourselves and the cats, that is.

We're all doing fine, though Miguel did get hit by a car today! Ok, it was more like, the car was backing up very slowly into him, but he is totally fine, not even a bruise. We banged on the car though to let the woman know we were pissed.

Oh, I've been trying to come up with something to put on the walls (they are kinda boring as of now) and it occured to me I could paint them with a design or a mural or something. Since we are living in a very art nouveau neighborhood I want to do something, well, art nouveau-y. I've been doing some sketches to test things out...


Feel free to leave thoughts or ideas!

So now, just to remind you all that I have cute cats, I present you with...

1) Plotting kitty
And 2) Sleeping kittyAnd, for good measure, both cats together on my awesome new (used) chair!
In other news, both Miguel and I got our hair cut today (at different places), he's not so happy with his, but I love mine! (this picture also featuring my semi-new glasses!)And since this is already a picture heavy post, I may as well include another couple from good old photobooth! (Sophie the just plain cute and Cleo the camera hog)






























Oh, Miguel and I went to see "He's Just Not That Into You" tonight (the premier here in Belgium, cue "ooh"s and "ahh"s). It was pretty good, cute. Not anything AMAZING. Also, Jennifer Anniston has seen better days... (Does saying that make me mean?)

Anyway, Brussels is fine otherwise. Really nice weather, outdoor cafes, trees with leaves, indoor picnics, friends, it's pretty good! I do miss home though, and am really looking forward to my visit!

So, I guess that's it for me for now! I hope everyone is doing well and had a great Eastover!

Dear Mom and Dad

And really, whoever else reads this and might have $44 lying around... This is awesome.

Can I have it? Please?

Today I did something fun...

I met up with my best friend from kindergarten here in Brussels!

I had searched for her on facebook a month or so ago, and added has as a friend (stalker that I am) and she added me back! And it turns out, that her mom lives in Brussels! Since she lives a country over, we decided to meet up the next time she was in town. So that was today!

I was a bit nervous as I waited for her (for all of 5 minutes) at the De Bruckere metro station, seeing as we hadn't seen each other for roughly 19 years. We walked over to an Exki (a sort of healthy fast food shop) and sat and talked for hours! The time passed so quickly, that she missed the train she had intended to take. So, with another half hour to kill, we went over to O'Reillys for another while and sat on the balcony overlooking the Bourse (this building).

So we are going to keep in touch, and hopefully hang out a lot more! And that is my news. The end!

Happy Eastover!

Brussels is pretty dead today. Everything is closed and people are at home, at church or traveling. There's not much to do but relax and plan dinner (lamb, potatoes, green beans and lots of chocolate). So... here is my picture of the day!

I hope everyone has a nice holiday, and I'll probably be posting again soon.

Something new...

I'm going to try introducing a new "segment" to this blog called "Picture a day." Some will be of Brussels, some will be of elsewhere. Some will be old, some new. I think you get the point.

So, without further ado... the Picture of the Day!

So in Belgium, and really, in Europe, there's not a lot of AC. AC is walk over to the window, open the window, and step back. The only problem is (for entomophobes like me) bugs fly in. I also do not yet own a flyswatter. Problem?

Not any longer!

I have 2 cats, under a year old... they are the best bug-catchers out there! They may knock over a vase or two in the process... but psh, I would do that with a fly swatter!

So there you have it.

Also, there is a piano bar downstairs that has great music, and it wafts up into the apartment.

So this is what it would be like...

For those of you that are not francophones (and can't figure out the picture) this film is called Make Love with a Belgian. Yup.

It's been a while...

I apologize for the lack of posts, I've been slacking off. I'd like to say I've been busy, but I haven't really. Here's a brief account...

-I went to a park with Miguel, which was fun

From Living the Expat Life...

-I got sick with some crazy sinus/cough thing and didn't leave the apartment for about 2 weeks. I was full of green snot, had no voice, and was up all night a couple nights coughing. It was lovely. Miguel took good care of me until I finally went to the doctor and she fixed me up with everything BUT antibiotics.

-Somewhere along the line, I think before I was sick, Miguel and I went to the equivalent of China Town here and took pictures of products with funny names.

-Just after I got back on my feet, a good old friend came to visit! Brice! He's still here and hanging with us. He's a lot of fun to have around and bum around town with. He also does the dishes. :-)He also takes a lot of pictures and is fun to go to bars with. We went to one called Delirium on Sunday and tried a bunch of kinds of beer. My first was one on tap called "Pink Killer" (a grapefruit-y beer which, happily, didn't kill me), then Barbar (a tasty, strong honey beer) and then I had a St. Idesbald Blonde (all, as far as I know, Belgian).

All the while we were looking around the bar (there was a lot of beer-kitsch), talking to random people (mostly tourists, but interesting tourists), Brazilians, Americans, Aussies, Brits, etc. We noticed that there was a lot of money (esp. US dollar bills) on the wall. We decided to write on one and donate it to the cause. The bartender put it up for us! (He also took this pic of it for us...)Greenwich St. represent! Brice then went to bum a cigarette off of these guys who turned out to be British soldiers that served in Northern Ireland (he sure can pick em!). They were friendly and bought us a few rounds of something, no idea what. They were already quite inebriated...

So then was the long walk home followed by a bit of a same-day hangover. It was a lot of fun though, and totally worth it.

So that was one of our adventures. Our other was last night. After getting my tax refund (and stimulus check! btw, I think "stimulus check" should be a euphemism for something!), we decided we needed a celebration! We decided to FINALLY go to the restaurant we live above, Au Vieux Bruxelles! We got a bottle of pinot gris from Alsace, a starter of a selection of sausages, Brice and Miguel each got mussels (Mig with garlic sauce, Brice with blue cheese), I got a vol au vent de poularde (kinda like a chicken pot pie), all of it came with frites, and then we got a couple of desserts (mini creme brulee and a mini dame blanche-- vanilla ice cream served with melted Belgian chocolate. Everything was totally delicious and we will be going back there. I did try the mussels, and while I'm not a fan yet, they were certainly palatable and I will try them again. Dad, you would love this place!

So that's the latest of my adventures. I would like to share with you a funny thing about Brussels. Most of you have heard of the Manneken Pis, aka. the peeing boybut fewer people have heard of the Jeanneke Pis, aka. the peeing girl! Yep. There is such a thing, and now, finally, I have a picture!So there you have it folks. I hope you have enjoyed this post, and I will try to post more soon!

Weird Brussels

So the other story I had to tell was about this picture. You see, behind this police car there is a garage for people that live in that apartment building (right across the street from ours). Now, people park there pretty frequently, and then when someone that can park in the garage wants to get in or out, lots and lots of honking ensues, which prompts us to look out the window at what's going on. Most of the time it's one of the Congolese causing the trouble. Well, when we got back from the movie on Saturday, this police car was parked there! Please note the arrow pointing to the no parking sign! So there you have it.

Saturday Night Movie in Brussels and Strange Occurrences

So Miguel and I decided to go and see a movie Saturday night, because there are tons out that we want to see. The choice of the night was Milk. It just opened here last Tuesday, so we were actually on top of it this time. So a Saturday night movie date was the name of the game. We got our tickets in advance this afternoon to avoid the queue, so we thought we were way ahead of the game. Ha. Ha. Ha.

So we set off with plenty of time to get a good seat and catch the trailers. To start out, if I haven't mentioned it before, we live in a great neighborhood in Ixelles, Boniface, right by the Matonge. This is a mostly Congolese (Afrikaan) area, and the people there tend to be a bit different from your average Belgian/Bruxelloise. They like to walk in groups of 2, 3 or even 4 people and block off the whole sidewalk. This reminds me very much of Siena on market day, so I've decided that playing chicken is a great idea, and now for the most part I don't move an inch. I've decided that I, too, am entitled to a piece of the sidewalk, and so, when confronted by these groups (several times a day) I square my shoulders and prepare for impact. And, unfortunately for my shoulder, I normally get hit pretty hard. So I got slammed more than a few times on the way to this movie mostly due to my own stubbornness.

So we get to the theater pretty much without incident, and go in with our tickets. I stopped to get some popcorn and Miguel went downstairs to get seats. You usually have to get there quite early to get a good seat. So I get my popcorn, and head down to meet him, and I see this huge crowd of people. Well, I thought it was huge at the time, but it was going to get a lot bigger. So I kinda push my way through, looking for Miguel, and he finally finds me and says that they've blocked it off and aren't letting anyone in. Ok. So at the time it was 6:50pm, and our movie was set to start at 7:10. As we wait, the crowd grows. It starts to fill up the entire downstairs lobby. If there had been a fire, most of us would have been trampled to death. We all stand around, wait, look at each other quizzically, tap our feet for ages. Then, a staff member comes out and called for all those going to "Salle 8" (we are 7, so it's a no-go). So by now it's 7:05, and everyone is antsy from all the standing around, my popcorn is half gone end everyone is fed up. Then, we see these people sneaking around the empty snack counter into the theaters. So the people at the very front of the line see this and get pissed off. It's now 7:08. Someone opens the velvet rope, and we all charge in. Luckily, miguel and I were near the front. We grab our seats, and watch the auditorium fill up. And it did fill up. This is a huge one, and nearly every seat was occupied.

So we settle in for the trailers. This is a weird thing about the UGC Toison D'Or (the theater we go to normally). They show the trailers before the start time of the movie. At 7:10 when the lights go down there are commercials. The same commercials. Every. Single. Damn. Time. The kind of commercials that make you mutter to yourself, I paid for a ticket why? Nevertheless, we got through those and the show started.

I'll say now, Milk was an excellent movie. So well done, well acted, etc. But I'm sure many of you have already seen it so I'll move on.

When I go to the movies I like to be transported. I like to soak in the film and, if it's good, stay in my little reverie for as long as possible. Well, this is not possible at the UGC on a Saturday night. We get out of the show (along with the mob), and we're going up the maze of stairs to the ground level, and a woman kicks her foot back while walking, and it connects, very painfully, with my shin. Now, had we been in the US, or maybe any other civilized country, this person would have looked back and apologized. Not here. She was walking in the middle of the staircase, so she couldn't have thought she kicked the railing. So, with the full knowledge that she just kicked someone, hard enough to give them a bruise, she walked on, talking to her friend. This made me angry. So angry that on the walk home I pity the people that tried to defend their 12 inches of sidewalk.

So that is why we don't go to the movies on Saturday nights.

And here's an odd story from Friday night. Miguel and I were walking back from happy hour with the American Club (which was fun) and Miguel says "Look, a guy peeing." Now, this was 9:30 on a Friday night, there were quite a few people walking around, and this guy (Afrikaan) was taking a piss on a white van while talking on his cell phone. As the owner watched in horror. Finally, his spoke up and told the guy to move off. The guy proceeded to walk around to the back of the van and continued peeing and talking on the phone. The owner then came around to tell the guy off again, that it was his van, etc., and the peeing guy was all apologetic, and patting the owner on the shoulder, etc., while we looked on, rather horrified/disgusted. So gross.

And there you have a bit of weird Brussels.