Work for a week

Last week I pounded some pavement and went to a few interim offices, Belgian's version of a temp agency. Monday rolled around and my phone was ringing off the hook from 2 out of the 3 I inscribed with. Through one of the interim offices I got a job for only this week. I'm working at the kortrijk expo-center, which is exactly what it sounds like. A giant building where they hold exhibitions, and sometimes concerts aswell. I'm working in the kitchen, making sandwiches.

this morning was my first day on the job. Had to start at 7am so we got up at 6. I had packed a whole bunch of goodies the night before for me to eat at work. Stuff for the morning, stuff for lunch, even a little after lunch snack. A soda for lunch and a sports bottle of water for me to sip on throughout the day. Little did I realize I wasn't going to need all that today...

I had a map of the place given to me by the interim office pointing to where I needed to go. I was instructed to go through the "meeting center" door, go up the elevator and go directly to fabiene (which is a girl by the way) so at 6.45am I'm at the door where I was instructed to go and I cant get in!!! Its security locked 24/7! There's a door bell there and it reads: ring here. Ok, so I ring. Twice. And no one comes. I've walked around the building one way but all signs are pointing to the 24/7 locked door I just came from for the "meeting center". At this point I call Gregory in a panic saying I cant get in, what am I suppose to do, and all that other eeeeeeek! Type stuff. Then a car pulls up and luckily the woman inside is going exactly where I need to be so she shows me the way, which, by the way, the "door" I was suppose to enter through was actually a loading dock. And this fabiene chick I was suppose to go see directly, didn't get in till 8.30.

but anyway, despite the early morning drama, I made it in and was sent directly to work making sandwiches. We worked in teams of 2 and knocked out a bazillion sandwiches all morning long. The ones I mostly worked on were the 4.00 euro, high priced sandwiches of 1. Brown bread, lettuce, mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomato and herbs; 2. Brown bread, lettuce, salmon, cucumber and tomato; 3. Brown bread, lettuce, cream cheese, radishes and herbs; 4. Brown bread, lettuce, bacon, mozzarella cheese and sun dried tomato and 4. Mini sandwiches with a variety of spreads and lettuce.
towards the end of the day I worked on other types of sandwiches but those are the ones I did until about 1pm.

by mid morning break time started. A standard 15 minute break which is the same in Massachusetts. But that's as far as that goes! 15 minute break at 11.30 for me. I figured this was just a sit down break, or have breakfast if you wish. No. This was it. I didn't eat at 11.30 because I thought my lunch was coming up soon. But it wasn't. If you want to eat, you better damn be sure its done on your 15 minute break because that's all your eating. I mean, you're allowed to pick at the sandwich fillings. As one woman said "you don't have to just look at the food, you can have some too" but you cant make yourself a whole sandwich! And I didn't really want to pick at the food I was handling to shove into sandwiches because I felt funny. I did have a piece of apple tart though. So from 6-3pm all I had to eat was a fun sized box of honey pop cereal, a slice of apple tart, a couple of slices of egg and a piece of cheese. Hello!! I was dead by 3!How was I to know that they were going to slave drive me and not let me have a lunch break while I break my back making sandwich after sandwich after sandwich that never ended.
I'll be better prepared tomorrow.
I just want to sleep now, though.

oh and ps--the "chefs" in that kitchen are all French and they're all assholes too!

Because Julia RULES

Julia childs is AWESOME. I used to watch her cooking show when I was younger. She was crazy. And when she got old she became even crazier. She used to put a lot of alcohol in her recipe's.

nevertheless, I couldn't help marvel at the great lengths this man went to to give her a grand dedication. I mean seriously, you know you've made it when someone makes corn field-art of you, huh.

someday I'm going to have a corn field and I'm going to hire mike to make me a dedication to Richard Simmons, my other hero.

julia lies in good ole Massachusetts. so all my little people over there, go check her out for me, will ya?!

how to kill yourself slowly by wednesday in 10 easy steps

1. wake up everyday early

2. power walk for at least 1 hour everyday

3. tuesday, go spinning later in the evening, because walking an hour is never enough

4. from spinning go directly to swimming

5. swim 20 laps in 40 minutes

6. wednesday, hoof it all over town to intrim offices to get a job.

7. eat mcdonalds for lunch (clogged arteries always aides in the killing of oneself)

8. paint a murral on your window for halloween

9. do laundry

10. iron clothes

How my ex-pat experiences are different than most other woman's in Belgium:

I run across a lot of Belgian ex-pat blogs, primarily from women living in Belgium. Everyone that I read they all share similarities with each other, but not with my own life. Here are some differences:

* I don't live in Brussels. I don't even live in the outskirts of Brussels. I don't live anywhere near the Brussels region of the country.

* I live in west Flanders.

* I learn Dutch, not French.

* I am not a trailing spouse.

* I have worked here. I am now an unemployed foreigner. I'm looking for work.

* looking for work is harder than just not being able to work from being a trailing spouse because I NEED to work. And Belgians don't have equal opportunity laws like in America. I don't get money from the government so the government doesn't want to help me find a job and the normal employers don't want to hire a foreigner.

* that's real life. That's not vacationing.

* I don't have a husband that gets paid by an American company. I don't have a husband.

* my life does not revolve around jaunts to Spain, Italy, Ireland, Poland because my husband has work to do there.

*my life revolves around trying to make ends meet with one income and my insanely high American school bills that Belgian pay checks don't figure into their pay allowance.

* I don't attend clubs or meetings

* all my friends are Belgians which makes meeting and keeping friends hard. I don't surround myself with only Americans

*in fact the only Americans I DID know lived in gent and I hardly saw them anyway



personally, I feel if you only surround yourself with people like you and don't get down to the knitty gritty of real, everyday life, then you're only pretending. There's nothing amazing about an American who went to Brussels to be with other Americans in Brussels and go around having vacations 100 times a year.

or maybe I'm just jealous I don't get to go to all those places.

but really, that's not life abroad, that's partying abroad.

My butt will thank me..

...If only I could lay off the junk food.
today was the first day I had to take the bus back from my class. Monday I didn't go to class and Tuesday dimitri drove me home. Wednesday there is no class and today I was determined to find a bus that will take me home before 1pm. Well I did find one. It dropped me off in the next village over, which isn't so bad because the villages are really small and we live close to the neighboring one.
let me give you a rundown of my day..

wake: 7.10am
leave house: 7.30am
arrive in kortrijk: 7.50am
board train:8.00am
arrive in roeselare: 8.24am
walk to class: 15-20 minutes
class duration: 2 hours
class ends: 11.00am
walk to train station: 15-20 min
wait at train station: about 20 minutes
board train: 11.42am
arrive in kortrijk 12.pm

now here's the tricky part. I can take a train to rollegem, my town that leaves at 12.56pm or i can find one that leave s a little earlier but to a neighboring town. i choose the latter as i really want to get home and if I don't get home before 1 then I wont get to eat lunch with Gregory and I like eating lunch with Gregory.

wait at train station for next bus to aalbeeke: 20 minutes
bus ride to aalbeeke center: 10 minutes
walk home from bus stop: 30 minutes!

wheeeeeeew and its up hill most the way too! All this walking I'm doing will surely shrink my butt. But the thing with that is we need a new shopping strategy. We haven't been shopping all this week so its either spaghetti, go hungry or buy something. I didn't have time to get any pastries at the train station so I thought I'd wait till roeselare this morning. No, nothing en route except for a sandwich shop, which I didn't want a sandwich for breakfast. There's a cafeteria in the VDAB so I thought I'd have breakfast there, as I get there a 20 minute-half hour early anyway. Weeeeell the cafeteria wasn't open so early so I thought I'd wait till break. I don't know if it was still too early for food but all that was out was candy!!!!! I could have bought candy from a machine a 100 times over by then! But by 10am I was nearly gnawing my arm off so ibought 2 candy bars. Ate 1 right then and there by shoving the entire ting in my mouth, and the other while waiting at the train station to return home. I was disappointed I had to eat crappy candy for breakfast but I didn't have much choice.
then for lunch I admit I suggested French fries. My bus stops right in front of the best frie stand around, and it was open and it looked gooooooood. Gregory thought it sounded good as well so then it was fries for lunch after my well balanced breakfast!! Luckily I walked so much today and there's spinning tonight so maybe I can reverse some of the damage I did!

if I can actually go grocery shopping on time and buy healthy stuff I should have an amazing butt by the time the class is finished!

Changing of the seasons

Every year its the same thing. The weather turns colder and I get a cold.
my "changing of the seasons cold" started 2 days ago when I woke up with an incredibly scratchy throat. The same kind of scratch that feels like a pool of snot had been resting in the back of your head all night long and now that's its morning, and it shifted, it burnt a hole in your esophogeal lining. I knew right then and there it would only get worse. The next day presented itself with a bit of a stuffy nose. Today I have a full blown head cold with sneezing, a stuffy yet drippy nose, my throat feels like its closing off as my brain swells larger than life, trying to push its way out of my skull. I'm tired. I'm cold. And I'm moany. The perfect, text-book example of a head cold. And its all thanks to the weather getting colder.
I'm sure it didn't help walking down the windy streets at 8.30 in the morning yesterday with wet hair. No, in fact, I considered that the seal on my death wish. And here I am today barely willing or able to lift my head up for the shear weight is just unmanageable.
I had such great aspirations today too. I had planned to lock myself in the shed and make myself a paper mache skeleton hand for my mailbox and if time permitted maybe even a couple of skulls, or perhaps some cardboard gravestones, as I would love to have a mock grave yard scene in my front window.
but alas. Only the dishes and a couple loads of laundry got done. But I did catch up on my E! True Hollywood stories, some music videos and an episode of "just shoot me" not quite the production I had in mind, but meh. Whatever.
*************************************************************************************

tomorrow, hopefully I'll feel a little better. I do have to get up early to go to my new verbal Dutch class that takes place quite a few towns away. A 20 minute train ride and then a 15 minute walk to get there. On the way home I have to take the train AND the bus. What a public transportation production! 4 days a week that's going to be my schedule. I don't mind it so much, as it does get me up and out of the house early and I have a place to be and something to do. The only real good thing about all the public transport, besides keeping my carbon footprint on the world to a minimum, is that the vdab(unemployment type government facility that's running the class) will repay me for my transportation. Not only that but the class is free! So it stinks that I have to fork over the €6.50($8.33) for my round trip train ticket 4 days a week, not to mention the €1.20 ($1.54) for the bus trip home, at least we'll get it back at the end, so its not all lost.

but when you're not feeling well and you have to get up early it really stinks.Fall rocks but I wish I could have an easier transition without so much turbulence!

Weekend recap

This weekend was not calm by any means. I feel like I've been on the go the entire time.
Friday night:

pasta night at pieter-jan and vanessa's house. They had hor derves of mozzarella cheese blocks with a sun dried tomato on top held together with a toothpick and something I cant remember the name of but it was melba toast crackers with minced olive "spread" on top. Both were amazing. the women prepared a whole meal of home made red sauce with lots of veggies in it and a home made cheese sauce. Both spaghetti and macaroni were served along with slices of French bread. We were all stuffed by the end.
the men then cleaned up while the women took a walk outside heeee-hee! Afterwards we played a game and didn't get home till 1.30am!

Saturday:

awoke at 8.30 a half hour before my alarm and was surprisingly very awake. Got ready for spinning only to hear from gregory's sis-in-law she cant make it (again) Gregory got up not long after (surprisingly) we went to the bakers for pastries and then around 2pm left for gent with pieter)jan, Vanessa, janne, Thomas, christoph, and sylvia.we walked around for ages. I bought a book and a cd.
later, after returning home we went to christoph's house for pizza and a couple rounds of a video game called BUZZ! Its a multi-player music quiz game. I'm shit at it.
went home at 12am.

Sunday:

awoke at 7.45 very annoyed that I got up early again forced myself back to sleep till 10.30. got up, ate breakfast, took a shower and was out the door by noon. Went to buy a present for gregory's nephew's as it was their birthday party today. Got them a marble erect-a-set type thing. Where you construct a tower of "over 120 pieces" and throw your marbles down and watch lights light up, twirligigs twirl flip flap and the other. Their highly into marbles we heard. Then at 2pm we went to their party. They loved our gift but reading "over 120 pieces" on a box sounds waaay cooler than actually constructing "over 120 pieces" that wasn't waaay cool. Had 2 pieces of cake, 2cups of coffee, a "Christmas cookie" which let me tell you, is really only a normal bread roll shaped, what I thought was a mitten. What's so special about it that it gets the name "Christmas cookie" one can only guess. So yeah, one of those and a cp of hot chocolate. Needless to say I was full and feeling a bit sick. gregory's already hungry but I think I'm set for the night.

after the party we drove to a town named roeselare because that's where my new class is being held. I have to take the train tomorrow and never having been in the town I wouldn't know which direction to walk, once there, in order to actually get to my class. We spent a lot of time there because Gregory couldn't find the vdab (the building I needed to be at tomorrow) . Once found we proceeded to make our way back. instead of taking the road back to the train station, where was our first reference point, and where there happened to be any easily readable sign that pointed straight to the highway, Gregory decided to go down unknown roads and lead us into nowhere land. Thanks to my awesome navigation (guessing) skills, we made it to the highway eventually. Making home I had to do homework, since for my new class I need to present a "topic" tomorrow. I finished my topic, on a new chocolate bar that opened in new York and now I'm here. Its 9pm and I'm ready for bed!! It feels so much later.

this coming week I think will be full of activities too. My class is 4 days a week so it'll be new and strange getting up for t hat in the mornings. Also tomorrow night I'm attending a lingerie party with janne. Apparently this lingerie is stuff that gets sold in stores but its last seasons collections. So bras that normally go for 30 and up are sold for 15 a pop! I just recently bought new bras but I might have to take 15 or 30 euros along with me because, lets be serious. You can never have too many bras!
Tuesday and Thursday evenings I should be going to spinning but we'll see about that and maybe Friday night swimming with Gregory, janne and Thomas. That's if I have a bathing suit by then.

i'm a total halloweenie

its just about october and i'm feeling the halloween countdown clock ticking. i feel so unprepared because i plan to have a party this year, and though i have a definate costume idea i dont have any of the pieces yet. my costume would be easy to make, just a quick trip to the fabric store. gregory's is a little more complex.

without going into detail he would need a suite, either a bald cap or an old mans type wig with thinning white hair. i also didnt get a chance (spent all my money on other things) to pick up some skeltons for decorations, or glow sticks like i wanted.

if aaaaaaaaanyone feels extra generous and wants to donate to the amanda's halloween fund feel free to donate an old suite of any color (it'll be dyed anyway) glow sticks, sketelons or a wig for gregory. oh yeah, and black hair spray for me. as i've dyed my hair black once and will not revisit the fiasco of getting it back to a normal color ever. again.

Long time

Hey,


its been quite a while since I last wrote. I know I know, I'm bad.

I had spent 11 days in the states visiting everyone (hi mom and dad!) and had the awesomest time ever.
some highlights from my trip include:

*not having to share a bed with bear, the gazillion ton german Shepard
*the body worlds exhibit at the Boston science museum
*camping in Maine
*thunder hole in bar harbor, me
*dunkin donuts ice coffee everyday
*hanging out with my friends at the only bar in north attleboro
*hanging and drinking at Dave and busters
*eating amazing Thai food with my fam
*seeing everyone I missed again

my first week back to Belgium was pretty uneventful. I took naps during the day and basically acted like a bum. It was fun, except for the headache I had. During the weekend we went to ikea to look at new beds. We found something we like but haven't purchased anything yet. We also visited our friends pieter-jan, Vanessa, janne, Thomas and Pedro. The boys went to an exhibit about the circa1300 war between west Flanders and the French while we girls did some shopping at molecule, a department type warehouse kind of store. Its not pronounce molecule, like the science word but more like (mall-e-cool-a). during Saturday evening Gregory, dimitri and I went to some little fair in a neighboring village where an old lady sang crazy folk songs and we drank beer. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be but we had fun making fun of the locals that were wearing crazy shirts in support of the political parties they were supporting for the upcoming elections. I'm not allowed to vote, and for the Belgians its not a right but an obligation. If they don't vote they get hanged, or fined or some form of punishment bestowed upon them. I prefer not having to since I don't know what anyone goes for anyone. All I know is that the dude that's supposed to be finding me a job is running and apparently that's how his particular party generally wins; by handing out jobs so people feel obligated to vote for them? I don't know, I don't care. gregorys fam is voting for him; I think I'd vote against him just because I haven't seen anything materialize yet!!!

this week has been a bit more eventful. I went to the werkwinkel, otherwise known as the workshop in English for a consultation with my werkwinkel helper guy that's been appointed to me. He helps people find jobs. Its a government run place and you also must go there if you're unemployed and receiving checks, which I am not but I AM unemployed and wish to work. So he helped me look for big wig names in the funeral business to help get my foot in the door and also set me up with a new course to take. So today I had to go to my first lesson. Unfortunately, I didn't know I was actually going to be attending class. A different man from another office called, and wrote an e-mail telling me to meet with this other woman in yet another location about the class and the class will start on October 2 blah blah. Ok so dimitri was kind enough to drive me to my 8.45am appointment this morning and was waiting outside when the woman says to me "yeah, take that seat there and you'll sit in on this class. la de da de" and I was like shit! I didn't know I was actually going to be taking the class today so I had to run downstairs and tell dimitri to pick me up in 2 hours! What a mess.
but the class went pretty good.

tonight I should be going to spinning with gregory's sister-in-law. We were suppose to go on Tuesday but that didn't happen; she's so unreliable with the dates. It makes me crazy. So cross your fingers I don't die tonight as its been a really super long time since I last went.
and those American donuts will do murder on your thighs.

Random thoughts for September

1. Its currently September 2nd and I still haven't turned my calendar over

2. ...Even though all month long I kept flipping over to look at September

3. My mom says if you turn the calendar to the next month before it actually is the next month you lose a friend. I guess I'm just being really caucious with my friends.

4. This is my last weekend in Belgium until the 23rd.

5. There will be a "huge awesome party" during my first weekend in the states, in gent, that I will be "missing". I don't care about the party as its being hosted by people that think they're the king shit.

6. Gregory is going to the party and is expecting to be very drunk

7...Even though last weekend he said he's never drink again *snort*

8. I plan to be very drunk at some point during my time in the states. Its a must.

9. I'm already planning my Halloween party

10. I have an awesome idea for gregory's and my costume

11. I never reveal my costume ideas to people who might steal them

12. Gregory is a little intimidated by my list of decoration ideas.

13. September 1, 2006 marked the first day my crazy old neighbor talked to me and the butcher lady talked to me.

14. The butcher lady knows I'm foreign (like my non west Flanders accent didn't give it away) because gregory's grandma goes there and she told her, and I expect gave a full description of me.

15. I don't mind conversating with her because she's pretty nice.

16. My crazy old neighbor on the other hand, I'm a little sorry I asked how he was doing. Because now he's being nosier than ever now that he knows he can ask his nosey questions about me to ME instead of Gregory (whose never been good at giving you the gossip information you want. I know. )

behang papier

or otherwise known as wall paper.

new wall paper on the chimney to go with our new white walls.
retro print. its not for everyone, but its def for us.



close up of print:

8 days till lift off

8 days till i go on holiday to visit all my peeps in the states.
what fun!
can't wait!
already have my packing list made.
already have the list of things i want to bring back made.
all thats left is packing it all together, getting there and having fun fun fun fun fun

90's and today

I know history happens all around us every day and has been doing so since time began, but it just feels like its happening so fast these days. I think about the future and think how funny things will sound to my grandchildren. I can tell them about the time where there wasn't a "digital world" (no digital TV, no digital cameras) when they first came out with disposable cameras, and then underwater disposable cameras and then digital disposable cameras. before 1 hour photo processing. when video games were new, when a car phone-a phone literally plugged into your car was a HUGE deal and no one had cell phones. People knew how to use pay phones (and a local call was only 10 cents), and also how to use a card catalog in the library. When we didn't have computers at home as a young child and they weren't introduced into the classroom until 6th grade. Before ipods, when walkmans first came out. A little thing called vhs and the cassette tape. The day we no longer had a world trade center. A time where Pluto was once considered a planet and the day they decided it wasn't. A time where you couldn't travel into space unless you were an astronaut (but were in the works of making it happen) when flying in a plane wasn't scary and you didn't have to worry about people sticking explosives up their butt and blowing everyone up.

the future is going to be CRAZY! I can't wait to see what else lies ahead.

Better Home and garden

This past week has been insanely hectic. As gregory's 1 week holiday he decided that instead of going to the south of France, Spain, Portugal,or even the ardennens, he would do home improvements. I agreed because I too wanted that poo-poo brown color gone asap, even though I would have preferred staying in our friends house by the beach in the south of France for free with free food and drink but whatever.

day1: thrift shopping for new furniture. Found the perfect coffee table and a small lamp aswell. 2 gold mirrors for a look we're going for in the living room and even a couple of trinkets for my little sewing room/spare bedroom (that has no spare bed) lunch. nap. DIY store for paint n shit. Other visits here and there. 7pm: begin 1st coat of paint in the living room. 12am: fall into bed.

day2: 2nd coat of paint first thing after breakfast and dragging gregory's near lifeless body out of bed. Tried to go to a place called depo-rama because we're looking for a "L" couch but we cant find the right one. But depo-rama is closed until september3. Belgian's and their insane holidays. Few hours later 3rd coat of paint.

day3: 4th and final coat of paint to nicely cover all the poo-poo brown. Went to other thrift stores but didn't find anything appealing. Pealed off the paper on the chimney. It left a mess. Decided we needed the help of gregory's dad to patch up the mess. That wouldn't be until the next day. Went out for a drink instead of doing more work.

day 4: pretty exhausted. Cranky all day. Visited gregory's dad's house and grandfather's house to gather supplies to prepare the chimney for new wallpaper. Drive to gent to go to a wallpaper store that sells retro 70's print. Pick out paper. Visit 2 clothing stores and get nothing for me! Buy a stupid CD for Gregory. Go home. Sleep on the ride back. Not long enough. Watch a movie at dimitri's and fall asleep on his couch. Go home at 1.30am

day 5: slept till 10.30am. it was aweome. Gregory and his dad put up sheet rock or whatever for the chimney. I did girlie chores like putting my kidie pool away and washing bathrooms n stuff. Gregory went to the skate park to get drunk (considering how he is on holiday n all) didn't come home till 2am. I was pissed. He puked and I was glad.

day 6 (today): STILL putting shit up for the chimney (how many men does it take to fix 1 tiny wall?) I went to spinning. It was hard today, the last 20 minutes the lady didn't stop at all and I thought I was going to dehydrate and turn to dust right there. But I didn't. I made it and sucked down all my water at the end. Got home and the paper STILL isn't put up, surely this afternoon I'm told. Gregory sitting on his ass while the house is a disaster. Couldn't be bothered to pick up I suppose.

and that's been my crazy week with Gregory home. Oh yeah, this was also suppose to be "crazy Dutch week" but we only made it through 2 1/2 days of consistent non stop Dutch talking.

Dear Friday,

10 highlights of the week:

10. cooler weather. i love the feeling of early fall. mm.

9. e-mails from old friends

8. spinning

7. the good feeling from spinning

6. laughing lots

5. out of laundry detergent so i didnt have to do laundry this week

4. finally getting into my book

3. eating take out chinese with friends, and getting the chips with it too!

2. gregory coming home at 5 one day

1. my tax return money from the U.S. treasury!

crikes

I just found out about the terrorist threats that happened in London yesterday. wonderful that I'm flying to London to Boston, eh.

apparently in London there are no carry on bags allowed anymore. Does this include purses? Because if so I'll be pissed. You cant carry any liquids on, including toothpaste and cream! Or have any bottles of any kind!! So when I'm dying of thirst I can no longer reach into my carryon and pull out that bottle of water. when I think my skin might fall off I can no longer put lotion on. I think if they're going to ban this stuff they need to invent a new way for people to stay hydrated and moist on a plane.

in all seriousness though I think that's really scary. Those crazy terrorists keep thinking of new ways to bomb planes. I don't understand why though. What happened to the days where people flew for pleasure, not for killing people?

pretty soon no one is going to be able to bring anything on a plane with them. Everyone will have to be stripped down of their clothes and handed an airport issued, disposable jump suite with feet (like feetie pj's) and perhaps after a while of that, they'll loosen up and hand out little free sample size of vaseline. Maybe those evian spray bottle thingies. All kind of free sample toiletries you can purchase for a one time use. There will be bathroom monitors. But I guess you risk someone shoving some kind of explosive up their butt, and since their suicide bombers anyway, they could always still take a shit and blow the plane up that way.

feeling: scared

theres either an insanely huge rat trying to gnaw its way through the wall, a ghost making a bunch of racket, or my neighbor doing something crazy on the other side. but let me tell you, theres alot of unexplained, scary sounds coming from my wall. and if its my neighbor, i should throw meatballs at his back door. because before i figured out the area of the sound i thought for sure someone had broke into my back door and was making alot of noise throughout my house. if its an insanely huge rat..i'll just arm myself with bug repelant (the only available thing thats highly poisonous and conviently packaged into an airisol can) and a high stool until the boy comes home to save the say. if its a ghost: well, lets just hope it isnt, ok.

Let's go fly a kite!

last night was perfect kite flying weather. unfortunatly dimitri's backyard was not perfect kite flying grounds, with the trees, powerlines and general house stuff for the kite to get caught in. we managed for a little while, though. the next time it gets windyenough we're going to a field by our house that is perfect for kite flying because theres nothing in the way.

gregory's grandpa gave me this super awesome kite thats superly old. gregory flew it as a child, as did his dad! its of an indian and the kite has the loooongest tail, which is the indian headdress. or is it impolite to say indian these days? i think they're going with "first nation's people." yeah so i have a first nation person kite. (indian sounds cooler)

i tried to have pictures taken but, as we were flying it after 10pm, it was a bit too dark for good pictures. i have a few that i was able to brighten up:


silly pictures:

SQUIRRELS ATTACK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm

this is for all of you who thought i was so crazy for being afraid of squirrels and thinking they would gnaw off my knee caps.

2 years ago the squirrels ate everyones pumpkins (i'm not sure about last because i wasnt there, so you make the judgement call) this year, whats next? all the little jack's in the world? and then all the bear dogs? this just goes to show that i am NOT too far off from the truth, people. watch your backs, your backyards and your dogs.

Survival tips for a Belgian Heatwave

1. Keep all shades down and hide inside your brick house
2. Wear the least amount of clothes as possible
3. Cry when the heat wave has gone on too long and the brick house that once kept you sorta cool has now turned into a nice little brick oven.
4. Now try and open windows for air
5. Cry when that doesn't work, either
6. Try and find ways to keep cool
7. Sink to new lows
8. My new low recently was making a tough decision between American prepere or meat salad for Gregory at the butcher's shop. I stood inside the cold air conditioned building for quite some time making a spectacle of myself.
9. Cry when you have to finally leave the only cool place in town
10. Stick your head in the freezer.
11. Melt like a crayon on hot pavement into your bed at night hoping that maybe, just maybe it'll be better tomorrow

A day by the sea

Friday was a national holiday here in Belgium. Since I really wanted to see the sand sculptures we decided it was a great day for it. Nothing else to do, and 95 degree weather, what's not to love? Unfortunately for Gregory: everything. He was very dehydrated and over heated and had an enormous headache for the entire day. Plus he hates sitting in the sand. So I was unable to actually go on the beach. We had a great day anyway.

when we got there it was about noon so we decided to have lunch first. We walked towards the beach and browsed through some of the shops on the way. We then sat at a restaurant terrace over looking the beach and the sea. We ate mussels and fries, a traditional Belgian summer dish. They were very good and filling. After lunch we made our way to the tram station to catch a ride down the road to where the sculptures were.

this years theme was "stories from 1001 nights" which for those who may not know, are Arabian tales. The exhibit was HUGE. Actually, they weren't even finished with sculptures. We saw a couple of the artists still working on small things while there. I was a little miffed. Why let people in if they're not even done?? Or maybe that was the plan--so you could see how its done?

by the time we finished with the sand sculptures it was around 3.30 or so. Even though I didn't want to leave, Gregory really wasn't feeling well. Turns out its good we left when we did because there was an accident along the way which caused us to have to switch trains and it ended up taking us 2 hours to get back home!

I had videos of the day taken with my camera but I don't think I have the necessary technology on my computer to make it play here for you. Sorry! Also, it appears I reached my maximum upload capacity for flickr for the month so you'll have to wait till I come a knockin to see the rest. Here's a few to wet your appetite:

<--this one is my favorite because i think it represents how gregory was feeling that day



http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-dee/sets/72157594211209773/

a few summer photos

my biggest triumph this summer is getting a pool! not just any pool--a rooved pool. cant get any better than that, really.

(i could totally model for the cover of the box. all i need is a "competent supervisor" standing by the pool with me)

the next photos have really nothing to do with anything. it was a nice summer evening on a square drinking and having a good time: p.s. its actually very dark and like 12am but my nighttime setting on my camera makes it look like day time.

gregory looking like a 10 year old at a baseball game.



me looking like a chipmunk

Dimitri looking like Dimitri and smoooking

the next 2 pictures are of the moon. its been hanging so low and fat like its about ready to explode, lately. my pictures dont do it justice at all. you can't see just how big and close it is. but you can see that it was bright:

**************

Gregory (as i was walking out of the house to meet him at his car): *giggle giggle*

me: what's so funny??!!

gregory: you look funny

me: why do i look funny?

gregory: because you're wearing BIG sunglasses and little shorts.

me: isn't that what summer is all about?

Success

Yesterday was the birthday of our friend, Vanessa. To celebrate, her husband decided to host a barbecue. Since Gregory ans I had only been informed the afternoon beforehand, we didn't have enough time to go buy her a present. So instead, I decided to contribute to the barbecue. I decided I would bring veggies. So yesterday while Gregory toiled away up in his office working on his translations, I toiled away in the kitchen. I made a whole vegetable platter with whatever veggies that I had in the fridge and also a separate bowl of lettuce, because Belgians do things weird here. Most people will just have lettuce and call it "salad". I also made a quick simple dip to go with the veggies and a big bowl of pasta salad. Now, the dip I was a bit weary about because I had wanted to make a different kind but was missing 1 key ingredient. So the one I made was an alternative to the one I wanted and I really wasn't sure how people would like it.

turns out, it was a hit! The whole platter of veggies were gone so fast and everyone was all "mmm..mm..oh yeah this dip is awesome..mmm so great yeah mm thanks" which I was happy about. And then during our meal everyone said the same thing of the pasta salad!

going there I told Gregory "I'm sure everyone wont eat all this food but I'm just going to bring it home afterwards and then it's already prepared so that's easier" yeah. Was I sorely mistaken. All the veggies were gone. There's some dip left but a lot of good that does me when I chopped up all my veggies for the barbecue! There's some lettuce left and probably 1 serving left of the pasta salad. I was so surprised! It's ok though, I was happy that everyone enjoyed it and I was happy to contribute in a way that no one else did.

now here's the big question: who's going to clean my kitchen?????

because i'm bored, thats why

one of those stupid survey thingies that no one ever cares about.


1. What is your middle name? Beth

2. How big is your bed? not big enough! i always have gregory lying on top of MY pillows!!

3.What are you listening to right now? the sound ofthe old radio making a noise because the volume is turned up too high, yet i cant hear the music

4. What are the last 4 digits in your cellphone number? 1924

5. What was the last thing you ate? only the awesomest lunch EVER. a thick, rustic-style piece of bread, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, a bit of lettuce, a couple of chucks of tomato, cottage cheese, a few pieces of pineapple, tartar suace for diping and cranberry juice for washing all the yumness down

6. Last person you hugged? gregory

7. How is the weather right now? sunny and hot. i want to go swimming!

8. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? umm gregory..last night when he called me for no reason from work.

9. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? The mouth. i dont know why. and the first thing i notice about the same sex is the eyebrows. i'm weird.

10. Favorite type of Food? junk food

11. Do you want children? some day

12. Hair color? blonde.

13. Do you wear contacts? no. though many people think i do because my eyes are so blue.

14. Favorite holiday? halloween

15. Favorite Season? autumn

16. Have you ever cried over a love lost? i guess?

17. Last Movie you watched?umm..mean girls. last night on Prime movies waiting for the time to hit 11.30 so i could hop into bed.

18. What books are you reading? NONE! i went to the bookstore in town over the weekend but they didnt sell any english books. i have to make my way into gent for that. hopefully this weekend. i've read about every fashion magazine there is in both dutch and enligh though! right now on my table waiting to be read is Flair, a flemmish beauty magazine; which i like because they often attach a little booklet of deals on hotels or spas. this week its a booklet of hot beach destinations in belgium and holland and places of interest at those destinations.

19. Piercings? i have 2 in each ear although i only wear earrings in the first holes.

20. Favorite Movie? i dont know this is hard. its always been the labyrinth but i havent watched it in forever.

21. Favorite college football team? umm none.

22. What were you doing before filling this out? killing bugs heh

25. DOGS: love em.

26. Favorite drink? cranberry juice or apple juice

27. Favorite flower? lillies

28. Have you ever loved someone? uhh... yeah. everyone loves someone

29. Who would you like to see right now? my mom and dad!

30. What color are your bedroom walls? creamy white

31. Have you ever fired a gun? if a bb gun counts then yes.

32. Do you like to travel by plane? i love it because flying by plane generally means i'm going faaaar faar away, and i like that idea.

33. Right-handed or Left-handed? LEFT! i'm proud of my south-pawedness (even if it has left me handicapped in that i cant cut bread, or anything for that matter, straight. DAD.)

34. If you could go to any place right now where would you go? the beach. better with some friends from the boro

35. Are you missing someone? Yeah.

36. Do you have a tattoo? i do

37. Do you still watch cartoons on Saturday mornings? no. i dont like the dutch-dubbed over verisons.

38. Are you hiding something from someone right now? ummm..no?

39. Are you 18? and then some.

40. What is the wallpaper on your cellphone? a picture of gregory all sleepy-faced

41. Are you afraid of the dark? yes.

42. Favorite hangout: most recently my backyard. but before it was def the pink flamingo in gent. i havent been to any amazing bars here in the burbs yet. theres one at the end of our street but its lame and thats why gregory likes it, but i dont so much.

43. 3 things you can’t live without?(not saying the obvious choices, which don’t need saying to be true) sunglasses, books and inside jokes

44. Favorite songs? ha! its lame but 'rood'. i dont know the singer, and i mentally block out the whole first half of the song. for me the song doesnt begin until it picks up, buts its so catchy i cant help but sing it all the time so i guess thats why its my favorite "vandag is ROOD. de kleur van jouw LIPPEN." love it.

45. What are you afraid of? the dark, teletubbies and SQUIRRELS

46. Are you a giver or a taker?i'm a taker in a different way of what i give. but i'm def both.

47. What are your nicknames? most everyone calls me mandy. i thought for sure that no one would call me that after highschool but its still going strong, right on into belgium. gregory calls me mona lisa, zoetje and babe.

48. What is your dad’s middle name? bwaha the BEST ever..DUFF. thats right, the ORIGIONAL Duff man. don't even try. no one can top that.

49. What do you sleep in? my bed?

50. Stuck on a deserted island, and can only bring one thing? sun glasses

51. Favorite TV commercial? i guess it would be that one where the kid's family turns into a bunch of hot babes. its kinda funny. i HATE the one where that fucking woman says "aan tafel" or those stupid cheese commercials.

52. First thing you’ll save in a fire? gregory's (more than likely) sleeping ass. because if i dont do it, who will?

53. What is your favorite color?red

54. What are the things you always bring with you? sun glasses, chap stick, sweatshirt

55. What did you want to be when you were a kid? a surgon

56. What do you usually do when the alarm turns on? i shut it off. then i sleep until i'm not tired anymore, which is still earlier than what gregory gets up. his alarm sounds all morning

57. What color is your bedsheet?something ugly. i want new bedding in the worst way

58. Who do you want to meet?Alive or passed on? i dont really know..

59. What do you think about before you go to bed? usually the most random of things

Spinning into Hell

I had my first ever spinning class this morning. Lets do a little back round check on myself:

for years now I've done nothing in the physical activity department. Perhaps maybe a brisk walk across town if I was running late somewhere but not much else. If someone's muscles can atrophy and their body become weak in just 1 week, lets all think about what YEARS can do without exercise.
flash forward to the class:
it was hell. It was painful. And it was embarrassing. I was unable to keep up and had to sit my ass on the seat repeatedly. And I was sweating like a crazy person. However, I don't really mind that I did such a bad job in class because it was my first day in years doing physical activity. I don't have the muscle capacity to hold my ass up as long as I needed to. My heart and lungs just weren't used to working that hard. So I don't care because at least I did something. At least I'm going in the right direction now. It can only get better from here. So even though I'm nervous about the next class I'm excited as well to start getting back in shape.

not only am I going to get in shape but Gregory aswell. His goal is to lose his beer/m&m's belly in 2 months. His friend said if he does it he'll buy him a bottle of some nice champagne. And then there's me there to make it more interesting. I said "oh, I thought we were going to do a pool. Guess how many inches (or in their case centimeters) he can lose around his middle in 2 months" his friends liked that idea and whether its been forgotten in the midths of a drunken evening or it'll stick, we'll see. Gregory didn't like the idea of people making money of his weight loss success or failure but he did agree that it would make trying to lose it more interesting. So he said no more m&m's, no beer for 2 months, he'll eat any veggie I put in front of him except eggplant or peppers, he'll go skating 2 times a week and run every other night in between.

so beware, come November Gregory and I might be two hot shitheads! Assuming I can complete a proper spinning class.

A Blossoming Romance

I have a new love. He makes my heart pump so hard it feels as though it just might beat out of my chest, i'm sweating bullets and my legs are shakey. He makes me feel free and alive!
"he" is my new bike. not new new but rather, new for me, old in use.

today was my first ride. i havent done anything in the physical activity department in a long time so it was pretty tough for me. not to mention its hot as hell outside. but it felt awesome to me using the muscles god gave and intended for me to use. he's probably looking down right now rolling his eyes and mumbling "finally.....".

it was a bit nerve racking for me because here in belgium bikers dont care about cars and the cars dont care about bikers. *I* am not belgium. i havent been brought up to ignore the possible hazords of a car running you over. yes, i am probably the only one in belgium that *gasp* LOOKS before crossing the street, and even more shocking, i even LOOK before crossng at a cross walk. or, if you really want to see some belgians die of shock: if a car is coming i dont walk out in the street with the mentality that they have breaks and they can slow down, because if they're close, i can wait the 5.3 seconds it takes for them to drive on by. yes, i will wait until it is safe to cross a street. i am Amanda, afraid of the european drivers.
where we live is right on the edge of nowhere. many tiny winding roads through corn fields and cow pastures. its nice for a bike ride. but what one must remember is, is that many people drive their cars down these roads. and i know that if you drive backroads everyday, you start to drive fast on them. i know this because i would ride the backroads from route 1 all the way home everyday of my life since the age of 17. i would often go 40 or sometimes over. (you can thank justin for that, mom) anyway this is what made me nervous. the fact that the roads are only wide enough for one car. literally, you have to pull over if another car is coming. so having cars drive really close to my sometimes wobbling bike was a bit scary. but i'll get used to it. at least there are no trams here to kill me like in Gent.
i did a modest bike ride without getting hit, beeped at or killed so i'm pretty happy. i even drove on the more main road where you have to drive with the cars. i made it around a rotery with no accidents!

i think my bike and i will get along nicely!

the dog days of summer

last year at this time:

it wasn't a good summer. though we had hot days, alot of it was cool and rainy. i spent my days indoors because there was no place to go and just enjoy the weather when it was good. we went to 2 barbeques. we went swimming a few times, which i would say was the highlight of the entire summer. i never got to go to the beach and never got see the sand sculptures.

now:

its been hot. this past weekend alot was in the high 90's and it'll be in the 80's-90's again today. i sit outside everyday. infact, just yesterday gregory and i did nothing except sit outside on our patio, under our umbrella, read magazines and listened to the radio while he sipped coke on the rocks and i icetea. it was the best day ever. we've been to about 8 barbeques already. we haven't gone swimming yet but i hope we will soon. still on my list for the summer: hit the beach, and see the sand sculptures.

100 euros

Yesterday evening Gregory and I went to our friend, peiter jan's work. His father owns a company that sells garden furniture and lots of plastic goods. We went just looking for a patio set, bust while we were there why not pick up a few other things we need?

so after looking through the catalog and deciding on some furniture, we went to the warehouse to go get it. Since we're friends and all pieter Jan wanted to give us a deal and in order to do that we had to take the furniture that no longer had sets to go with them. So he got a display room table and 6 "left over" chairs. It all goes nicely together, it just wasn't meant to be sold together by factory standards. The table is a charcoal grey with a glass top and the chairs are also charcoal grey and adjustable. They're very comfortable to sit in. We also got a lounge chair that's super comfy for lounging in the sun. An umbrella for our table that has an adjustable top to angle it at the sun. Then we got a plastic container to hold our winter clothes and extra blankets n stuff and 2 plastic containers to hold our trash bag and recycling bag nicely. All of this came to 100 euros; you can't beat that, really. I don't think we could of gotten a whole patio set for 100 euros never mind they few little extras we got.
too bad its raining today..Otherwise I'd be sleeping in my lounge chair.

pictures

i posted pictures up on flickr of my house. i labled it house BEFORE because everything still isnt in order and we also plan to get new furniture and all that jazz. so when looking at the photos dont be scared at all the messiness we're trying to fix that!
although a picture of my bedroom isnot on there because my camera battery died at the last minute. but there is a charming picture of gregory and you can kinda sorta see some of the bedroom. heres the link. have fun.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-dee/sets/72157594167624385/

here are a few pictures from my garden. i havent taken any other pictures yet because we've been doing alot of work and theres still a bunch of crap lying around everywhere. our yard. we have a great sized pattio , a working water pump and a beautiful shed. this picture was taken half way through the weeding process. and these are all the weeds i pulled. 5 large bags and 2 boxes. plus a couple of busted up hands.. and a sunburn.

we also have an evil goose next door with a little duck buddy. yesterday i saw the goose standing on the duck and looking down on him, kinda like how dogs show their dominance. after the stare down the little duck got up, shook hilself of, and waddled into his house. the goose hisses constantly, but for whatever reason i couldnt get him to hiss at me for his picture. stupid goose the goose stalking me from across his yard with his duck in tow. i like to think of them as the duo from "the christmas story" the goose is the evil red-head and the duck is that little squealy kid . the goose staring me down and the duck clearly dissinterested.
my neighbor, the owner of this goose, wont say hi to me, even after i wave my arm frantically with the biggest, most charming smile i can make "Heeeeeeeeeey!" i say. nothing. dad suggested i ask him, to break the ice "whats the deal with your fucking goose." and i did. but i didnt think he heard me. but he might have because we've graduated to a wave back. thats something.


this last picture has nothing to do with the house but is for dad. gregory wearing his shirt. i forgot i took a picture of it for you . he looks stupid because he wouldnt stop moving and i was following him around trying to get a shot. thats his "i'm looking for something and i have a girl on my back" look, i guess.

extremely loud &incredibly close

a book by jonathan safran foer.

i am so pleased with my new book purchase! its so good i cant stop reading it; which is incredibly convenient because i've needed entertainment while sitting in a empty apartment last friday and now sitting in my boyfriend's parents house; blaaahhh. nothing worse when you're not even in your own home to do nothing. at least then you're familiar with what to do to keep yourself occupied. but this book is so good.
i must admit i have a talent for picking out really good reads; i have friends that always want to bring me to the book store with them to help them pick out a book, like i'm some sort of expert or something.i'm really not, and its really easy to find a good book. heres how, according to me:

first you must not mind wandering around a bookstore. i've come to learn that i have better luck just going to the "literature" section rather than a specific genere. but thats me, i suppose if you absolutely know that you love mysteries or that your favorite author is danielle steel or whoever this doesnt really apply to you. but i dont have a favorite author, nor do i have a favorite genere, and i'm guessing those people who have asked for my guidence in a bookstore have the that same problem.

so anyway, i like to look through "literature" i then browse through the books stopping to look at anything that has an interesting cover or an interesting title. these are the first things to grab me. i then read the back of the book, i also read the reviews on the cover aswell. i do this because if it says things like "bitterly funny i laughed through the whole thing" blah blah, i think thats pretty important because i too want to laugh through the whole thing. but if the reviews dont say anything that makes me go "wow" or invoke a type of emotion i wouldnt mind experiencing through a book then i put it down.
after reading the back covers and the reviews i go to the first page. the first page is also very important for me because if i struggle through the first page than i dont want to even bother. if i find the writing style smooth and moves at a good pace and captures me then i'll def be sold. and thats all i do. so obviously the cover and the title dont neccessarily have to be fantastic, but if someone doesnt even know where to begin, like me-i never know what i'm looking for when i walk in, then its a good place to start because then you wont be overwhelmed by all those books.

like this book here, i just happened to be walking by and it was on the top of a stack of books on a table display. a bold red spine, bold red title and a drawing of a boy chasing a flock of birds. it caught my eye. the back synopsos wasnt terribly interesting but the reviews said "dazzling" "heartbreaking" and "beautiful" which sounded better so after reading the first page i couldnt even possibly put it back. heres a little clip:

"...another good thing is i could train my anus to talk when i farted. if i wanted to be extremely hilarious, i'd train it to say "wasn't me!" every time i made an incredibly bad fart. and if i made an incredibly bad fart in the hall of mirrors, which is in versailles, which is outside of paris, which is in france, obviously, my anus would say "ce n'étaispas moi!" "

how could anyone say no to that! and it hasnt disappointed yet!!it really is "beautiful" just as the independant on sunday says.

The apartment

We did most of our moving this past weekend. All we have left in the house are the clothes and dishes we'll need for the next week, a mattress, the desk and chair and a few boxes. It echoes in here its so empty.

we moved the mattress into the living room so we could have something to sit on. Gregory is loving it because now he can watch TV as he's going to sleep. I've told him I don't ever want a TV in the bedroom. Mostly because he's a fanatic. Plus he falls asleep to it and NEVER turns it off. So it'll wake me up throught out the night until I finally wake up enough to realize that its late and he's already sleeping and then I get angry thinking of all the uninterrupted sleep I could of been having. So it was my idea to move the mattress and I figured he could have a treat for a week. However, waking up this morning was no treat, for either of us! We both had stiff necks and backs. uggghhhhh sleeping on a thin, saggy, unsupportive-European mattress nearly broke us. And gregorys tone went from "yay!!!! Mattress in the livingroom for a week!" to" ugh god, can we do this for a week?"

1 thing I didn't think of about the mattress in the livingroom: you can see right through the kitchen window. And what's through our kitchen window? Only about a dozen construction workers working on the roof of the house next door. So I stretched and yawned and did all those ugly waking up things people do only to look over to catch eyes with someone on the roof across the street.yes. perfect.

so day 1 of 7 in the empty apartment is pretty much the same as usual only now I have more room to slide across the floor in my socks. Cleaning must commence. Thursday is a holiday so there will be a cleaning party here. Guests include: me, Gregory and gregorys mother. She invited herself because she's a cleaning fanatic. Saturday everything goes! Sleeping at his parents house for the weekend. And we get the keys to the new place on the 29th. And then everything starts all over, only in reverse.

Niet te veel, hé

yesterday afternoon gregory's friend Dimintri called me. he asked if i wanted to do something. i was very suprised because no one ever calls to see if i want to do something in the middle of a weekday. and even more so, no one ever calls from WEST FLANDERS to see if i want to do something. so i said yes. i was a little nervous because we dont see Dimintri too often and i never hang out with him one-on-one. i just really hate thoseawkward silences when you dont know what to say anymore. it makes me anxious. but there was none of that!

he came all the way to gent to pick me up with his little three year old daughter, Alicia, in tow. wow. what a great little kid, honestly. we drove in the car for well over an hour, do to construction work everywhere. we even stopped at an auto supply store for a half hour. during this whole time she only fussed maybe twice for maybe 5 minutes each because she was thirsty. hell, so was i, Dimitri's car was HOT. she was AWESOME and quiet. who doesn't love that about a child. after the car place we went to the park where she could play. we drank soda, ate apple cake and watched alicia play on everything. it was fun.

to round off my busy afternoon, Dimitri and i even saved a couple of children on our way back to his house. as we were driving along i happened to see 2 small children (one was younger than alicia and the other was probably around the same age or maybe a year or so older) dancing on a small ledge of the upstairs of a house. i gasped and Dimitri said "what??" i pointed to the children and he was worried too so he pulled over. he knocked on the door and asked the woman who opened the door if it was normal for her children to be playing on the ledge like that. she looked confused, stepped outside of the house and saw the horror!! she ran upstairs and grabbed her children. now i dont really think it was our place to question her parenting but we couldnt very well leave knowing there are children on the roof. the youngest one thought it was so funny. she was giggling and waving and dancing. meanwhile i'm in the car wringing my hands together mentally willing that woman's fat ass up the stairs faster. we were hero's.

after returning to Dimitri's house things calmed down. alicia had to go to bed. before bed she was drinking some ice tea. she apparently wanted alot, but in small quantities. so dimitri had to constantly keep pouring her more and more and each time she'd say over and over "niet te veel, hé" which means "not too much, eh" she said it in the most cutest littlest girlie voice that she made it sound like something worth writing about.

Moving

We officially have begun our move. We'll be moving into our new place for June 1st. Well, we'll be moving on the weekend before, really. This is good because if we hadn't found anybody for June, we would of had to pay rent for both the house and the apartment.
as we expected the apartment was really easy to get rented. We put our for rent signs up 2 Sundays ago and its rented already. We never even had a chance to post it on the internet. A few hours after we put up our signs someone called about it, they said they had another apartment to look at on Friday so they'd let us know. Then on Thursday night another couple called about it and they came to look at it on Friday night. They ended up taking it. They needed something right away and we needed to move right away so we both win. Plus we sold them our wardrobe aswell. Anyone whose bought something from Ikea knows what kind of hell their furniture is. For those of you who haven't: they have a DIY policy. Its suppose to be cheaper that way or something but you have to purchase EVERYTHING separate, right down to the screws. And their directions are just poorly drawn men assembling the thing. No words or anything. So you really only have a one page cartoon drawing to help you assemble your furniture. And basically once its up its up and don't bother taking it down because you'll never get it back together again. We wanted something different anyway. Our 550€ wardrobe is now sold for 425€ a little less than what I wanted it to go for but oh well.

so I started packing up today. WhatI could anyway. We know 2 couples that JUST moved andI asked Gregory to see if they have any boxes they want to get rid of. "no I'll ask my mom for some" last night he came home without any boxes."I'll get them tomorrow" he said last night. This afternoon "I'm gonna ask if my grandma has any" why he just doesn't ask the people that are SURE to have boxes I really don't know. But if he doesn't come home with any tonightI'm going to kick his ass. Considering it is my job to get us packed up and out, becausI'm home all day and he isn't. Just because he's unorganized doesn't mean that's howI want to do things.

House

Gregory and I have an appointment to look at a house today. The house is for rent through the real estate office I tried to get a job at. The only house for rent in their entire portfolio. So naturally Gregory called his father to call his friend, the boss, of this real estate agency. The house was for rent at 466€. Too high for gregory's standards. So the boss guy said that he does a lot of business with the landlady of the house and he would try to persuade her to lower it to 400€/month and also drop the 3month security deposit. Sounds like a lot, huh. I thought so too and I told Gregory I think 430 would be a more reasonable drop in price. And sure enough the lady agreed to drop it to 425€/month AND drop the 3 month security deposit. Which i think is ALOT shaved off! And also really good because, since we're breaking our contract with our apartment (if we decide to move into that is), we're not so sure we'll be getting our security deposit back.So if we don't who cares because under normal circumstances we would have had to pay that for the house so its like we're not losing money there.

so we'll look at it tonight and see if we like it. Here are the pictures from the real estate site: it's the house with the scooter in front. its a pretty good size house. I've seen houses where its only the width of this house's door and 2 of its upstairs window. Talk about narrow, eh? red cabinets. Very, umm..porno set? I'm thinking the fridge is separate. i cant imagine a nice stainless steel fridge with an ice maker being part of the deal.

SO if we get this not only will we be saving money in rent, but in gas money aswell because gregory's work is only 5 minutes away BY BIKE. He's excited about that. He would like the exercise.
when we go look at I'll try to take better pictures.


******UPDATE*********
we viewed the house yesterday. i didnt take any pictures because its super messy!! But its an awesome house. gregory's dad also used his power of persuation, or bullied the real estate guy to get the landlady to lower the price to 400. she agreed. so we've agreed to take the house.
but now that i've seen it i can give a little more detailed account of it.
i'll give you all a verbal tour. walking through the door theres a small hall and then another door that opens to the living area. by picture 2 and 3 listed, thats the whole living area. they're currently using it as a dining room and living room. as you can see in picture 3 theres a glass sliding door into a breezeway and what you cant see is another sliding door into the garden. the garden is fabulous!!! it has a small patio and a good sized lawn, aswell as a small shed. i love the back yard and we plan to barbeque this summer!!gregory loves that he wont have to go all the way outside to smoke. i told him the breezeway is fine as long as the back door is cracked open to create a breeze so it wont totally wreak of smoke in there. the kitchen is tiny. the fridge is seperate. but honestly i think their fridge takes up alot of room, so i think something a bit smaller will create more room anyhow. on the ground floor is the bathroom and apart toilet. in the bathroom theres a stand alone shower and a tub. the stairs to the upstairs is through the kitchen. upstairs theres ANOTHER toilet, but the room is larger than the one downstairs. downstairs the toilt is just enough room for that. a toilet. and upstairs has a rather large vanity and a toilet. the current tenents are using that for laundry (ironing and drying racks) which isnt such a bad idea. theres a large master bedroom, probably the same size as ours now and a smaller spare room. theres an attic that we didnt see and i think maybe a basement aswell. the front of the house will be power washed and the door and window frames painted! it should be available in june. we just got the news of the reduction price today so we havent signed anything yet but we're really excited and cant wait to tell our landlady "see you later!"

Belgium has wood

taken from my kitchen window to the street below.


Just in case they forget....


and a completely unrelated wood story. I saw a sign that said "animal center" and I thought it meant that it was an animal shelter because Gregory and I want a puppy (if we ever move out of this apartment) so I got really excited and Gregory was like "oh..That's the name of a STORE. We wouldn't call a shelter animal center, we'd say [insert Dutch word for animal shelter here]" and I argued that they write many things in English and how would i know know that reading animal center in english didnt mean just that. an animal. center.

so my question to you is, do you think they actually SELL wood at this WOOD CENTER or just wood accessories??

NATO

Today I had a job interview at the American embassy in Brussels. I'm not exactly sure how its going to go but my magic 8-ball says outcome looks positive. The only negative part of the interview was that usually everyone working there has to have a European nationality. Little did I know, I could apply for dual nationalities and not lose my American one. But the man I spoke to today said he'd speak to the other 2 people that I would have to go through before getting a job and see what he can do. I've been learning through this job search process how political Belgium is, in that, you really must know people to get anywhere. So I know someone who knew this guy I saw today and he likes my someone and appeared to like me so he's going to try and pull some strings. He said if it doesn't work out than maybe I could become his personal assistant because he's been without one for 2 weeks and is apparently swamped with work. So we'll see.i'm hopeful, but as he said he's not going to promise anything he cant keep, which I appreciate. So my feet are still on the ground but I am crossing my fingers real tight.

Easter

Hope everyone had a good easter. NOTHING exciting happened here. the bunny didnt even stop on by. bugger. oh well, the bunny didnt stop for gregory either. we're both bad children, i guess. we didnt hunt for eggs, go to church or have dinner. we didnt even visit his parents. gregory worked on his translations all day and i cleaned the house, only to have it soiled again when gregory took a break. it went from sparkling, to exactly how it was. we then later went to a welcome home party for a girl who spent the last 3 months in spain. she said yesterday she was lying on the beach!!! ohhh i wish i could be lying on the beach right about now.

today is easter monday and no one has to work. gregory is still sleeping. it looks like we have fairly good weather today and i'd really like to do something. we'll see.

not really too much to report.

sew buttons

sew buttons

FINALLY i have my very own sewing machine! sewing machines are generally really expensive and i have found some inthe price range of less than 200 euros, which didnt really sell gregory. so as i was browsing through a large beauty store (kinda like cvs only without the pharmacy) i found sewing machines on sale for 69.99! so i told gregory and he said i could buy it!! ohhhh yesss. so i walked there in the rain today and hauled that heavy bitch back to my house and set it all up. its beautiful. i thought it would be super ghetto since its considerably less money than the ones i've seen even in the grocery store! but its not at all. it has 26 stitch functions including zig zags, 3 button hole functions, blind hem etc etc. it came with all its little goodies like extra bobbins, seam ripper, screw driver, extra needles, zipper foot, button foot and even a cover for it! oh the possibilites!!

i've had a shirt laying around that i got from a thrift store and i havent worn it since it was considerably too big. i began to hand sew it but i have the patience of a fruit fly and just couldnt do it. but i finally altered that bad-larry today and now i can wear it without feeling like a pregnant woman. i am so so so excited. this is my first very own. i've always used mom's circa 1970's. the old gal was a bit rickety and liked to gradually loosen her tension on ya but she did the trick. i want to make a summer dress for myself. if anyone feels a sudden urge to buy me something, you could buy me sewing patterns. maybe for a chocolate exchange (hint hint, you know who you are) here are some that i really like:butterick b4513 newlook 6377 simplicity

gregory and i are also looking into a new house. keep your fingers crossed. 2 bedrooms, a small garden and garden house and it looks like it has a dishwasher too! how sweet would that be?????????

Belgium package delivery system...Has NO system

Since WEDNESDAY, nearly a week now, I've been trying to receive my package that came from America. They delivered it here to the apartment on Wednesday but since our landlady is such a douche-bag, our bell doesn't work. (however, convinently, her daughter's bell work) so I never received it because how was I to know anyone was here with a broken bell? I have Gregory call because he can communicate with these people better than I can. He calls THE VERY NEXT DAY to have it delivered to his grandmother's house since he goes there every afternoon and there's always someone home. This is not the first time we've had one of my packages shipped to her house. Well to make a long story short it never got there, Gregory has called multiple times everyday, either people have no idea where the package is, or they're reassuring us it'll be shipped out that afternoon, or the very next morning. Last I heard it was found in the "return to sender" corner, but then was going to be shipped out yesterday afternoon. It never made it yesterday afternoon because it went from gent (on Wednesday) to Brussels for days, back to gent yesterday because someone looked at the address on the package rather than being involved in what's going on and looking to see if there's a second address to send it to, bell still didn't work yesterday so we STILL didn't get it and then it went back to Brussels only to be lost yet again. So the lady we talked to said she didn't know what to do anymore. If she doesn't know what to do then who does???????? I am so pissed off at these people. I BETTER get it soon or they're going to start hearing a very angry American person on the phone and I don't think they want that.
oh an ps taxi post-I refuse to pay the 9.90 you're charging me. Maybe if you could do your job effectively then I would pay your fee but after the hassle you're putting us through, there's no way I'm paying that anymore!

Goed Nieuws

OK. I have some pretty good news. This coming Tuesday I have a demonstration of my language skills for a prospective employer. Its within a real estate company. I would be answering phones n giving information about the questioned real estate. I MUST speak Dutch.

I'm pretty scared since I don't speak it much and when I do its only with Gregory. So everyone please cross your fingers, light a candle, pray, do a dance, do whatever it is you do to send luck to someone because I NEED it.

Appendix I

As many of you know by now, last week, to the day, I had my appendix removed. My experience with European surgery wasn't too bad. The only thing I didn't enjoy, besides surgery of course, is the interns, for one. While in the emergency room they needed to take blood and insert an iv. Ok, no problem I can handle that. What I didn't know was that they were going attach the tourniquet for an hour BEFORE even having anything ready or attempting to draw blood. So as I'm laying there with my arm slowly decaying, an intern that clearly had not been practicing on her oranges came up and took another hour assessing her next move like a champion chess player. Now I've begun to sweat and am nearly in tears. I've told the others my arm hurts and they just nod. In my head I'm screaming "HELLO! Patient is in PAIN because of YOU loosen the damn thing" but they didn't until what felt like years later, after the intern poked me WRONG. My arm was entirely purple and I thought for sure I was losing much more than appendix that day. All that and I didn't even get a needle in me. So then I had to endure it again a few moments afterwards, only this time tourniqueting my hand, which still doesn't feel good as its necrotising, but at least it was just a hand rather than my whole arm. The other unpleasant thing was when they wheeled me into the operating room. Once in the room they made me lay on the metal slab they call a table. Now ordinarily that wouldn't matter because I would expect to be knocked out before I even saw the operating table but no, I layed there shivering because its about as cold as an arctic tundra in there. So then this brutal woman comes over, rips off my socks and underwear on a side note: . Those were a good pair of underwear! All those rumors "clean underwear for the hospital" total crap. I had been sick the entire day so I never got a chance to shower, so before heading to the hospital I at least changed my underwear, putting on a comfortable, yet nice pair that I wouldn't mind everyone seeing and they never gave them back!!!! Next time I'm wearing a pair I'm thinking of throwing away, anyway.

she also popped open all the buttons on my johnny, roughly forced my hands at my side where she wanted them; my feet aswell and then left. So all this fussing and hurrying and being forceful, one would think they were ready to go. NO! I layed there like that for about a HALF HOUR. I know, there was a clock there. I mean Christ, I would have rather of layed in the more comfortable emergency room bed with my socks and underwear and blanket than the metal, cold table with nothing but the flimsy johnny covering my privates for a half hour.

after all that I made it out alive. In some serious pain, but alive. The nurses on the floor were pretty nice and helpful, so that's good.

I also should be getting my bandages off either today or tomorrow. Hurrah.

GEEK

You know you're a geek when you officially own 3 library cards. Yes that right, I have THREE library cards in my wallet. You know just in case I want to go to one within the sails network aka north attleboro, attleboro, then hop on over to the Boston public and then skip the country all together so I can evade my late fees and go to one here in Belgium. Quite a scam I have going. I hope by the time I'm 65 I have a whole fist full of library cards. That's how much of a geek I am.
unfortunately, the 2 sections of the library I wanted to go into today was closed. The literature section aka learning Dutch stuff and English books and the children's section (that's the reading level I'm at in Dutch) I don't know when the literature section will be open again, they're working in there, like re-doing the floor or something, and the children's section is only open in the afternoons. I'll go back tomorrow afternoon. It'll give me something to do. I'll have to be incognito though because a friend of mine works in the building next door, and as I was standing outside the library today she saw me from her office window and wrote me a cryptic message of "I can see you.." Very creepy. I don't like people watching me. I don't want anyone to see me going into the library everyday. I can hear the conversation now friend:what do you do in the library everyday? Me: umm..Read children's books with all the other little kids...
GEEK

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is the day of love. Gregory and I didn't wake up very lovingly, I opened my eyes and thought to myself "the only time I wake up voluntarily, with no assistance from my alarm is when I've gone BACK to bed after Gregory has left." this also made me realize how light the sky was, so I looked at my clock and shouted "Gregory it's EIGHT THIRTYYYYYYY" and that was that. We're not doing anything special, just mussels for dinner and and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.

Yesterday was Justin's Birthday. I called him, hope he got it (HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY AGAIN JUSTIN) I also went out to dinner with a friend yesterday. Its not very often I go out on a weeknight without Gregory, so I was pretty excited to be doing my own thing. He had work to do anyway and its always boring sitting there while he just came home from work and then he goes straight back to work. Victoria and I ate at a Turkish restaurant and had Turkish pizza. It was super good. Afterwards we headed for one of my favorite cafés (Pink Flamingo) and had a drink.
I didn't get home until 10 and Gregory was still working so it looks like I didn't miss a thing besides TV programs but who cares about that! I had fun. I hope justin had fun on his birthday too.

Let it Snow, etc...

Yesterday it snowed here. I heard there was a nor'easter over in Massachusetts aswell. Our snow certainly wasn't a storm, but to Belgian standards it was a lot..It covered the ground! What a mess though, very slushy snow. Fun to watch though.

last night Gregory and I also went to see "Walk the Line" with our friend Els. What an excellent movie! And for anyone who has seen it, and doesn't know, both Reese witherspoon and the dude who played Johnny cash had to learn how to sing for the movie, and from watching Oprah I know that Reese tried getting out of doing the movie because she would had much preferred lip syncing. Well for people who couldn't sing or play instruments they did an AWESOME job. Really worth a watch. Though be warned, it is 2 hours 20 minutes long. Another highlight to last night is that Belgium FINALLY came out with salty popcorn!!! Boy was I in heaven. They had a "menu" option. A menu in Dutch is the same a value meal in English. So I got a "normal" popcorn with SALT and a "normal" soda. My salty popcorn had a few handfuls of sugary popcorn in there but whatever, it was still good to eat tasty popcorn at the theater.

Saturday night I went to a lingerie home sale. There's this girl, Muriel, who designs, makes, sells her own lingerie. I think she's even sold to people such as pink. Her company name is lafilledo <-click to see her website. she makes really nice stuff. you can browse her products here http://www.eroyin.com/Main.php?taal=en I think for the summer I want to get a bathing suit from her. Perhaps the "crazy" bikini shorties paired with the "dream" push up bikini top. OR if she has a new line out maybe something diffrerent. we run in the same crowd so i can always just go over to her house and buy something there rather than at a store. i think it would be better to ask the designer herself how things look on you than a store clerk anyway.

(almost) free dinner

last night Gregory and I had dinner at our friend els' house along with our other friends, Laurent, laurance, Colin and Eveline. It was good and fun. We had a vegetarian lasagna. Gregory didn't much care for it, he complained (to me) that it didn't even have meat in it. But seriously, he was the only meat eater at the table, what does he expect?! It had carrots, onions, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds along with a tomato cream honey sauce (the only thing Gregory liked about it) and only cheese on top, so it wasn't a big ole cheese bomb either. I thought it was really good. And then for dessert I had made cookies and Colin and Eveline brought over a chocolate mouse cake. Now, the dessert is where the ALMOST free dinner comes in. I had planned, and tried to make banana bread. It was perfect for me because I had just enough ingredients to make it, and that's why I chose banana bread. But as I posted yesterday it went horribly wrong. So I had to go out to the store and buy more flour, and more eggs. Luckily I already had chocolate chips in the house and half way through the directions I realized I was out of vanilla!!!! But I substituted some vanilla sugar we had in replace of vanilla extract. It may have had an impact on my cookies, either that or it really wasn't a good baking day for me because, though they tasted good, they came out way flatter and crispier than ever before. People still ate and enjoyed them though.

oh, and on a completely unrelated note, I finally got my letter of recommendation from the professor last night. He wrote it in English (why????) he also gave me the disk in which he wrote it on. Is that like don't ever bother me for this ever again?

heh

The most interesting this i've seen in a while:


a man peeing on the roof for well over a minute. the funny thing, he didnt even know someone (me) could see the whole show from my kitchen window. keep it in your pants, buddy or next time i'll take a picture.


Worst thing that happened all day:

i fucked up my banana bread. it looked, smelled and tested as done. when i tried to take it out of the pan, a wall collasped and a pool of banana goo came out. what happened?!?!

Emerged

Hello,

I haven't posted in quite a long time, I know. Nothing has really been going on for me to say anything. When I arrived back in Belgium I had to wait to see about a job in a nursing home. Turns out that it was only to be for a kitchen aid for a couple of weeks in a far away town so I didn't take it. Then I heard that the professor, who I previously worked with was going to finally (after hounding) send me a letter of recommendation along with an invitation to go to the university in Brussels to see about a job as a prosector. He has yet to e-mail me, and I've been e-mailing him!!! What the hell! So this week I've sent my resume to a big funeral company that does embalming and everything, along with various other jobs such as a legal secretary and a help desk person.The legal secretary job called me back and boy was I NOT prepared for all the questions they were about too ask. Such as : what interests you about becoming a legal secretary? I was thinking "shit, I just want a job! All my answers I awkwardly pulled out of my ass because I had no answer for them. I don't give a shit about legal secretarial work. I just want a job. So needless to say I didn't get that job. I have a feeling the help desk people will call either today or tomorrow. Both companies make you fill out an online application form with all the same questions that can be answered by looking at the attached resume. The legal secretary's form came in first and they called the very next day, so based on that I'm assuming the help desk people will call today considering I filled out their form yesterday. I hope they don't ask me questions like why I want to work as a help desk person. I mean, is that really a career goal? Does anyone REALLY want to work at a help desk? Still waiting for a word back from the funeral place. That one I mailed in through the post so it might take a bit and I'm STIIIIILLLLLLLLLL waiting for the professor to get back to me. He's really beginning to press my buttons. Anyway that's it for now.