would you like a bag with that?

Whenever I move to a different country, I know that life will be different from what I experienced in the U.S. I expect and understand all of the big differences, like currency, language, and business hours.

But sometimes little things completely astound me.

A few weeks ago I went to Quick, the fast food place across the street from my apartment to grab a meal to go. I was surprised when the cashier put this giant bag with handles on the counter in front of me, and then patiently waited while the cashier got my fries, burger, and even my drink and put each of them in a smaller bag. Then he took the three bags and put them in the big bag for me to take home.




I really, really don't understand this. The fries and sandwich could easily fit in one bag together. I got stuff like that all the time in the US, the fries never beat up the sandwich. The lived in toasty harmony until I would bring them home and put them in my belly. And seriously, I can carry the drink. I plan to actually drink on my way out the door thanks!

I wondered if it was unique to Quick. Maybe that is their thing, excessive packaging.

But today I felt lazy and stopped by McDonald's for a McChicken meal. I had to try very hard from laughing when the cashier put this bag on the counter:



Yep, every thing has it's own bag (well, except the drink because I snatched it up before the guy could even try bagging it, ha!).



There was even a handy drink holder in the bottom of the bag, which is another handy wasteful piece of packaging.



So it isn't just Quick, it's BELGIUM. I just don't understand it. You have to pay a nickel to get a bag at the grocery store and many other retail places, and there is a strong push for environmentally-friendly living. Yet these fast food giants have to waste three bags for a take away meal? Strange.

Fat Tuesday

This past weekend I made my first trip out of Belgium, to Maastricht in the Netherlands to take part in the Carnaval celebrations. The first festivities began on November 11 (the 11th day of the 11th month) and culminated in the parades and balls taking place from Sunday until today.

It was a fabulous experience, the city was full of people of all ages dressed up in weird and wonderful costumes. I took tons of picture and they are in my flickr uploadr just waiting for me to add the proper captions, so I will share those later.

Today I just want to share my favorite float in the entire parade, I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculous-ness of it. I have no idea who this is supposed to be, but now I really want to make something like this for Burning Man.



I could watch that every day and still laugh. Just thinking about those little feet shuffling along under a GIANT HEAD makes me LOL.

And now Lent begins. I am thinking about giving up speaking English (to people who speak French) for Lent. Either that or Nutella.

Or just not do anything since I don't really practice any specific religion.

But, I do need to work on my French and probably shouldn't be so free about eating Nutella by the spoonful, so Lent kinda comes in handy.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

It's been just a little over a month since I have moved into the new place, and slowy but surely I am making it my own. I am still missing living room furniture, but that will come in time. My tax refund will come in handy.

One of my new officemates has tons of plants, most of which can have a cutting taken from them to grow new plants, so I got some free greenery for the new pad.

Here are my new friends on day 1 when I put them in water to grow roots:



And today, about a week later I put them in some soil, so hopefully they will flourish and fill my tiny studio apartment with brand spanking new oxygen!



Also today I ventured down to La Batte, the oldest and largest open-air market in Europe. There was almost everything that you can imagine. It had pretty much everything that one would expect from an open air market, tons of fruits and veggies, clothes and shoes. But there were a few unique things that I had never seen at a market before:

• live roosters, geese, ducks, rabbits and chickens (I don't think for pets)
• live peacocks and fancy birds (I hope for pets)
• racy lingerie (leather bits and naughty nurse outfits)
• buckets of tobacco (like 2kg buckets of loose tobacco for rolling your own cigarettes)

I ended up with the rather boring purchases of some almonds, zuchinni, and a rotisserie chicken.

But next Sunday, who knows...

delayed gratification

Happy 2009 everyone! I hope that so far the new year has been fabulous.

New Year's Eve was not as exciting as I hoped it would be. My plan was to move into my new apartment in the middle of the city and then go down to the river and watch fireworks. On NYE 2007 I was in Melbourne, Australia on the banks of the Yarra sweating like a mad woman and watching the fireworks usher in the new year, so I thought freezing my ass off on the banks of the Meuse on NYE 2008 would be the start of a river and fireworks NYE tradition for me.

But alas, it was not to be. Because lots of little inconveniences all got together to make the day become the exact opposite thing to what I wanted.

First, I woke up to knocking on my door. It was the dorm people asking if I was leaving today, I said yes, this afternoon. Then I was informed that no one would be there in the afternoon so if I wanted my deposit back I had to get everything done before noon. So I knew I would have to rush around and clean and pack everything much more hurriedly than I wanted.

Next, my boss called to say she would not be able to take me to the appointment with the landlord to get the keys because there had been freezing rain overnight and the roads were really, really icy. I said I could take the bus and do the appointment no problem, since the bus company's website did not say that they had suspended service due to the weather.

So I check out of the dorm, and thank goodness they let me leave the 120lbs of luggage I have in the room until that afternoon when the ice melted so I didn't have to lug it all over town. I go to the bus and a nice young man comes to the stop and tells me that the buses are not running because of the ice.

Grr..I call the boss back and we talk about rescheduling the appointment for Friday. Not really what I want to do, but alternatives are running low.

I go back to the dorm and they let me stay 2 more nights there. But, then boss calls and says she's going to try to make the appointment. She is my hero.

Then, all of it becomes moot because the landlord's agent calls and says the previous tenant missed her appointment and did not give back the keys yet.

So, my glorious celebration of the new year was in the crappy dorm room, hearing the echoes of the fireworks down in the city. The flashes of light in the sky behind the tree line reminded me of a WWII TV show or movie, probably because I was in the concrete bunker dorm room. I called some friends and family to wish them happy new year and then went to sleep in the early hours of 2009.

Turns out that the previous tenant had a small fender bender on the icy roads that morning. I got the keys and moved in on Friday. I am loving my new apartment, even in it's current empty unfurnished state. I have more drawers and cupboards than I have stuff to fill them, but I am sure that will not last too long. Turns out the post-Christmas sales here start on Jan 3 and last until the end of January, so I am sure these rooms will be full and my bank account will be empty before I know it.

culture shock: food

I heard before I arrived here that Belgians pride themselves on having good food and good drink.

With the amazing selection of fabulous beers I will definitely not argue there.

As for the food selection, I haven't explored the culinary options in the city enough to render a valid judgement. But going out to eat has been an adventure.

Mostly because my French is not perfect. I know many food related words, but not all of them, so I will have an idea of what I am eating but it never is what I expect.

For example, the first week I was here I ordered something that involved ham. I recognized "jambon" in the title as ham so I decided to try it. What arrived on my plate was something wrapped in ham, some sort of vegetable. Turns out it was endive, wrapped in ham and baked with cheese. It was pretty good.

The next week I decided to order something that I felt sure I recognized: "grill burger". I assumed it would be a burger and fries, but it was actually a hamburger patty, on a salad with fries. No bun. This also came with my choice of sauce, I guessed at one and it was pretty good.

Speaking of burgers, I am sorry to say that I have eaten at McDonald's or Quick (Belgian McDonalds) a bit more than I should (since really I shouldn't at all) because I have been cowardly about dealing with trying converse with a waiter in French. But even in the fast food world there have been some surprises.

Like, the fact that here it seems people do not expect their hamburgers at fast food places to be cooked completely. The first beef burger I had at Quick was pink in the middle, more pink than my American-E.Coli-fearing senses were comfortable with. Since then I have switched to chicken, like this Very Important Burger:



I confirmed my suspicions about the done-ness of the burgers when I was in line at McDonald's and they were putting trays of burgers out to be boxed for customers, and I could see red juiciness dripping off of the burger patties down the side of the bun. Now I am all for a good medium rare steak, but fast food burgers need to be well-done for my tastes. So I have stuck to the McChicken, specifically the 'large' McChicken meal, which is the same as the American 'medium' McChicken meal but twice as expensive.

At the moment McDonald's is having a special set of burgers called
Stars of America, I am curious about them, but I don't know if I will be able to get over my fear of pink for that.

By this time tomorrow, I will be in my brand new tiny studio apartment. I will be right in the heart of the city and have my own kitchen so I will no longer be dependent upon fast food and microwave dinners, then the real food adventures will begin!

Tales From Burning Man pt. 2: The Neighborhood

So, where did I camp at Burning Man?

I was part of a camp called Nosefish, and we were in the 3 o'clock plaza.



For a complete map of Black Rock City, click here.

It was nice because the plaza is a big landmark, so it is relatively easy to find from wherever in the city. Also, we were very near ice and port-a-potties, so that was pretty convenient.

But, by far the best part was having some awesome neighbors around the plaza!

We were just a hop, skip and jump from the ice tent, so we could see when there was no line and pick up ice rather conveniently.

This was not a good time to get ice.

Right across the street was Camp Hokey Pokey, which, every day at noon did the Hokey Pokey. That was awesome because, well, that's what it's all about. Plus, I didn't have a watch so it was nice to know when it was noon.


Across the way was the Red Eye Diner, which had a full menu of delicious, delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. I had the Pennsylvanian, it was tasty! But you can't go wrong with anything on the menu, or the daily specials.

It was always hopping when the kitchen was open.
And, there was a S'mores camp just down the street from us off the plaza which served s'mores every night. We were fed well.

There was spectacular entertainment. On the corner across from the ice was camp Truthiness, which played the Colbert Report each night.

As the week went on, the Word, Notice, and Tip of the Hat lists grew

And then there was the Bad Idea Theater, which was my favorite neighbor! Each night they played horrible, horrible movies, and they were hilarious. The people were awesome and the bar always had great punch and even snacks available. We sought shelter in their bar during the duststorm all day burn day.


Then there was camp Manha Manha, which was my 2nd favorite neighbor because they played the Muppet Show every night! So after explorig the city for a while, I would usually sit and watch an episode or 2 of the Muppet show until I started falling asleep and then would stumble to my tent.



Do doo do-do-do

There were many other great camps in the plaza as well, there are pictures of all of them in my flickr burning man set.

The art peice that was meant to adorn the center of the plaza didn't show up for some reason, so the Cave of the Echo people, another neighbor, moved their art peice to the center of the plaza:



Our camp had 2 main activities during the week. By day we handed out otter pops during the hottest part of the day. It was so much fun reaching out to people and sharing our frozen sugary goodness with them. We saved alot of lives out there, and it was especially fun getting hugs from super hot guys who appreciated me giving them an otter pop. And by night we had the mez screen, which displayed an image of the people that were dancing or sitting or whatever in front of the screen. The image was digitized and altered (blurred or pixelated or turned into swirls or popsicles,etc.) and people would spend hours mesmerized by it.



It was a great place to be, I am so glad I was able to camp there. Hopefully next year we will be placed just as well.

Tales From Burning Man pt. 1: Dust

One of the most exciting times I had after graduation was going to Burning Man with Sparkle.

Back in January, when I had just returned from Australia and I was just about to hit rock bottom with my depression, I was visiting Sparkle on the day Burning Man tickets went on sale. She came home from work that day and told me that she had bought 2 tickets to burning man, and one of them was for me, if I wanted to go. I had been wanting to go to the Burn for years, but have always found some excuse (usually school work or lack of money or both) to not be able to get a ticket and such. Having that ticket there for me made me get my priorities in order about going to the burn that year, no more excuses.

And, it was by far the best thing to do after finishing my Ph.D. I highly recommend it.

After Sparkle arrived in Vegas and we picked up our rental car (a Vibe, which made the rental car guy giggle and was also appropriate for burning man), and we started packing up our stuff to leave the next day. Before the night was over, though, we had to cut up some re-bar for our tent stakes. Hamsterdad had re-bar we could use, we just needed to cut it, and he seemed fairly confident that it was a relatively easy task. But, in fact, it was the opposite of an easy task. It all eventually got cut, but it was not fun.



We made the journey in about 11 and a half hours. When we reached the gates for Black Rock City, the greeters welcomed me at the gate with big hugs and then made me roll around in the playa dust since it would get all over by the end of the week (I had no idea how bad it would get). Then I rang the newcomer bell, it was such fun!

Everyone was saying "Welcome Home!" Since I was (and still am) essentially between homes at the moment, it was good to hear.

We arrived early to Burning Man, and got to see the city and all of the art rise up around us. It was quite a sight. Of course, the man was already up when we arrived.



We spent our first day on the playa setting up our tents and exploring the city. Then, on day 2, the wind arrived, and with it the dust. The morning was relatively calm, and we rode around the city on our bikes, taking a break at center camp. Here is center camp before the storm arrived:



And here it is during the first round of the storm, about 15 minutes later:



It settled slightly, and we were able to trek back to our camp from Center Camp, and spent the rest of the day waiting out the storm in style:



Eventually the sun went down and the wind calmed down, and when I went to my tent to get prepared for a night on the town, I discovered that I had accidentally left my tent door open slightly under the rainfly. So, everything was covered in dust:



We explored the city at night, seeing some awesome art cars, but did not get too adventuresome. Spending the day laying under shade structures in a dust storm is surprisingly exhausting.