Unintentional Housewife

Our scene: a typical Belgian brasserie–lovely stained glass, art deco interiors, chalkboard announcing the day’s specials, a hungry lunch crowd. Please note that the following scene takes place entirely en français. English translation has been provided.

Our actors: Mindi, her fabulous friend and a waitress.

Aaaaaaand, Action!

Waitress:  ”Tell me.”   (translation: Hi, may I take your order, please?)

Mindi: “What is the soup?”  (translation: The chalkboard just says ’soup’, so I’d like to know what the soup choice is so I can decide if I’d like to have it.)

Waitress: ” I don’t know.”  (translation: It doesn’t say what the soup is on the chalkboard, so how am I supposed to know?)

Mindi: pauses, contemplating what to say next in hopes of actually finding out what the soup is.

Waitress: sighing, “Do you really want me to go find out? Yesterday it was onion, I think, but I don’t know about today, do you really want me to ask?” (translation: if you make me walk in that kitchen and ask I’m so going to spit in your soup.)

Mindi: “Yes, please.” (translation: you’re going to spit in my soup, aren’t you.)

Waitress walks 5 steps to kitchen and returns.

Waitress: “It’s onion.” (translation: you better order the damn soup since you made me walk in there and ask.)

Mindi: “Thanks.” (translation: no way in hell I’m ordering the soup now.)

Mindi: “May I have a glass of water?” (translation: I know it’s terribly gauche to ask for tap water in Belgium since restaurants like to make you pay 3 euro for a tiny bottle of water, but I really don’t want to pay for it. It’s water.)

Waitress: looking annoyed, “From the tap?” (translation: you’ve got to be f-ing kidding me.)

Mindi: “Yes, if possible?” (translation: if we were in Paris, they’d give me tap water. Brussels Is Not Paris!)

Waitress: “We’re not supposed to but…fine.” (translation: where does this lady think she is–Paris?)

Mindi: “Thanks. I’d also like a Diet Coke, please.” (translation: not only do I want a drink with my meal–a totally foreign concept in Belgium–along with customer service–but I want 2 drinks! Holy Mary Mother of Pearl!)

Waitress: looking seriously confused, “But, I thought you wanted water?” (translation: not only does this crazy lady want a drink with her meal–who does that?–but she wants 2?!?!)

Mindi: “I would like both, please.” (translation: I just totally blew your mind, waitress, didn’t I.)

Waitress: looking shellshocked, “Ok.” (translation: my mind. it is blown.)

And, Scene.

4 Comments | In: Belgium | | #

Bonjour, tout le monde!

I seem to be accomplishing one post per month (and October is almost up), Dan said he would take my blog away from me if I didn’t use it, and I think I’m addicted to procrastinating (I may need an intervention), so time to write an update!

Cyclocross season has begun! We primarily spend our weekends at races–either Dan’s racing or he’s reporting on a race for Cyclocross Magazine–and despite spending hours tromping around in cow poo, we’re having a blast. We’re seeing a lot of the Belgian countryside and are becoming great friends with the Avis car rental office in our neighborhood, (sidenote–since we rent cars almost every weekend, Dan’s going to teach me to drive a manual. Stay tuned for future ‘we didn’t need that clutch, right?’ and ‘how do you say divorce in dutch?’ posts in the coming months). Also, Dan regularly gets to interview the current and former world champion’s of cyclocross (and I oogle them. What? They’re cute.)

We kind of inadvertently joined an english-speaking, grassroots temple here (the cost of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur tickets was the same as paying for a membership so, voilà! We’re members!) and have met some American comrades who seem like they’ll be great additions to our group of friends here. Hooray for social lives!

I started a new french class in September which is seriously kicking my ass. It’s a level too high for me, but I couldn’t take the level I actually belong in, so the teacher convinced me to challenge myself. What a crap idea. I now spend 7 hours a week being ashamed by how gleeful I feel when the lady from Poland (the only one in the class worse than me) gets the dreaded sigh/stomping feet/rolling of eyes combination  from our teacher instead of me. This is a teacher who once yelled at another student that if she didn’t stop talking out of turn she (the teacher) was going to jump out the window and commit suicide. Unfortunately, I misunderstood what the teacher said and thought she told the student she was going to throw her out the window and make it look like suicide, which really ramped up my fear of our teacher that day. Luckily another student set me straight, so I’m back to just being afraid of what the teacher will ask me as opposed to, you know, being murdered by her.

Dan has been super busy at work, the satellite he’s managing is being launched next week, so we’re hoping that a) it doesn’t blow up and b) work calms down for him in the next couple months. Fingers crossed.

Halloween is almost here, and it’s sort-of been imported to Brussels. There are decorations in shop windows and I think schools have Halloween parties, but there isn’t mass trick-or-treating like there is in the States, so sadly, we have no excuse to buy kilos of candy. That probably won’t stop us.

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall!

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Today is Dan’s 30th birthday, hooray! Happy Birthday! My mom lovingly asked me if I was a cougar since I am the older woman (by 1 year). No, but thanks for placing me in the company of such luminaries as Ivana Trump and Joan Collins, mom. Anyhoo, I made Dan’s favorite childhood cake, a molasses-spice-coffee cake concoction. I could not find molasses anywhere, so I substituted some brown sugar and honey, cross your fingers that it worked!

As I type, I’m listening to the sounds of a film crew outside the window. This week a téléfilm, “Tombé sur la tête” is filming in the restaurant at the end of our street. It’s supposed to take place in Paris so they have conveniently changed the street signs to Paris street signs (good luck Belgian drivers!) We are pretending we live in Paris for the day, oh la la.  I think it’s for some sort of mini-series or t.v. movie, but I’m not sure. I may have walked through a shot when I went to the market, so I’ll let you know if I’m on Belgian t.v. anytime soon (in ripped jeans and a wrinkled shirt, the shame!)

I think the summer is winding down, as evidenced by the cooler, rainier weather and kids in school uniforms. We did manage to take a few holiday’s over the past couple months, which were lovely. We went to Luxembourg, which was incredibly charming, and to Bastogne, Belgium in the Ardennes forest (site of the Battle of the Bulge). We both loved the t.v. series Band of Brothers, (which is based on the experiences of Easy Company, a Parachute Infantry Regiment from the 101st Airborne Division) and really enjoyed seeing the sites where the members of Easy Co. fought . You can still see the foxholes that soldiers dug in the forest–eerie and amazing.

We also took a trip to Dublin–Dan is working on a project with some colleagues at Trinity University, so I came along, we stayed an extra day and made a holiday out of it. This is the second time we’ve gone to Ireland together. We went 2 years ago as a sort of honeymoon. I say sort of, because Dan had a conference to attend, so basically I had a vacation, Dan had to work and Dan’s job paid for most of it. Kind of a win? As we walked around Dublin, ate bagels(!), and spoke english(!!), we realized that 2 years ago Dublin felt foreign compared to the U.S., and now Dublin feels like the U.S. compared to Brussels–the language, the look of the city, the bagels (did I mention how much we miss bagels?) Ah, perspective.

Well, it’s almost time to go out and celebrate the fact that Dan is getting old like me. Happy September, happy back to school, and here’s hoping for a dry, beautiful fall–my favorite season.

p.s. We had some technical difficulties here at Unintentional Housewife so this post is a day late, unfortunately. The good news is that he liked it! He really liked it! The cake was a success!

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My apologies for the seriously pitiful lack of updates. It’s been super busy ’round these parts the past couple months–my brother Sam and his fiancée Libby, my mother, and Dan’s sister Kara have all been here for visits; Dan went to Finland; and we’ve been to Germany, the Netherlands, France and to 8 states and 3 graduations in the U.S.–and it was all so hectic that I aged an entire year. 

We had an awesome time with our visitors; we love showing off our city–dog crap and all–and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. While Dan went to Finland and added another winter sport to his repertoire (sadly, not Northern Lights Luge), I went to Germany with my mom, Sam and Libby. We went back to Altweid, the town where my grandpa grew up, and had a lovely time. We were able to go in the house where he lived, which had been added on to but still retained many of the same features that existed when he lived there, and it was wonderful thinking of him living there before the war, with his parents, (hopefully) contentedly. 

After Sam, Libby and mom left, Kara came for her inaugural European vacation. We explored and ate and shopped and Kara got to practice her excellent german in Cologne. We also went to the Royal Botanical Gardens at the summer palace in Belgium–for 2 weeks in April the palace greenhouses are open to the public and it is beautiful, possibly worth the price of an overseas flight if you are of the green-thumbed persuasion. 

At the end of April we went to Paris to ring in my 31st birthday. What a way to celebrate! It probably won’t surprise you to hear that instead of planning out all the museums or historical places I wanted to go to in Paris, I instead researched all the places I wanted to eat. We had the best baguette, best crêpes, best falafel, best hot chocolate and best macarons–and that was just in one weekend. We can’t wait to go back (and maybe we’ll actually go up the Tour d’Eiffel this time). 

In May we embarked on our 2-week U.S. tour with limited engagements in Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. We stuffed ourselves silly with the best barbeque in the country and saw the Kansas City Royals continue on their quest to become a Triple-A ballclub. We met our new niece, 8-month old Cady and got to spend a lot of time playing with her and her very proud big brother David. We cheered for Dan’s brother Tim as he graduated with honors from the College of Wooster, for Dan’s sister Dr. Kara as she graduated from medical school at Penn State and Dan participated in his graduation (even though he finished last year) and was officially hooded for completing his PhD in Physics from the University of New Hampshire. Whew! We are a little matriculated-out.

Now, we are back in Brussels and actually looking forward to the fact that we have no major plans for the summer. Sure, we hope to do a little camping and hiking and hopefully see some bike racing (a little thing you may have heard of–the Tour de France), but basically we are going to stay put, spend time with new and old friends, and pretend we don’t speak english when American tourists ask us where they can find a Cheesecake Factory in Brussels. 

Happy summer, y’all!

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Do you want the good news or the bad news first? I’ll start with the good–spring is definitely coming to Belgium! How do I know this? The bad–I am apparently allergic to Belgium. Time to fill the prescription for the hard core allergy medication, the over-the-counter stuff ain’t cutting it anymore. But, flowers are coming up, the temperatures are rising, it’s staying lighter longer, more fruits and vegetables are appearing at the farmers markets–spring is on its way! 

This week I made 1 1/2 new recipe’s. I say 1/2 because one was a new twist on something we’ve done before. We made pesto, but with spinach instead of basil, and we served it with risotto instead of pasta. Simple, yes,  but new to us and the results were delicious. I also made a new dish from our cookbook, Starting with Ingredients, an enormous tome that is structured around individual ingredients rather than dishes (chapters on squash and salmon instead of appetizers and main courses). I made a white bean and tomato gratin and it came out good, but not great. I didn’t have the Japanese panko breadcrumbs it called for and instead used a breadcrumb-ish coating that they sell here that was a bit too fine, but worked nonetheless. It was another fairly successful outing in the kitchen. I think my Grandma Fannie (a fabulous cook who let me eat more cookie batter than probably advisable) would have been proud.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for both of us, work wise. I have had (and do have) a few deadlines, so I’ve been working more than usual, and Dan is preparing for a conference in Finland and the launch of a satellite, so he has been busy as well. We are also readying ourselves and our house for visitors. My brother, Sam and his girlfriend (and our friend) Libby are coming this Friday and my mom is coming the following week. We can’t wait to take them to our new favorite places and show off our lovely city. 

And speaking of our city, last weekend Brussels had its version of New York City’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, complete with giant inflatable cartoon balloons of many of Brussels infamous sites. We haven’t loaded up our pictures yet, but lets just say you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 30-foot naked boy floating down the street.

If that doesn’t get you check back for pictures, I don’t know what will.

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One of my goals for this moving to Europe business was to become a better cook. I knew I would have a lot more time on my hands (the upside of the whole not really being employed thing), and I wanted to take advantage of it. I never really cooked until I met Dan. I think my first foray into cooking was when I was about 10. I attempted to make macaroni and cheese (from a box–of course) for my mom. Unfortunately, I tried to make it in less than 2 minutes, so my poor mom got a bowl of uncooked noodles covered in clumpy, powdery cheese. I’ve come a long way since then, but it’s only been the last couple years that I’ve truly become interested in cooking, because it’s something Dan and I can do together (truthfully though, I’m usually the sous chef since he’s so much better at it than me).

But, I am determined to work on my culinary skills and have come up with a new project for myself.  I am going to try 1 new recipe a week while we’re here. We shipped most of our cookbooks here and man, were those boxes heavy, so I am going to make good use of them. I hope to stick with it and also welcome suggestions for interesting recipes (following our dietary caveats of no red meat and no pork).

Tonight I made my inaugural dish for this project, something from a great Syrian-Jewish cookbook I’ve been meaning to try for awhile. It’s called “rishta b’tahineh” and it’s an egg noodle dish with lentils, sesame butter and caramelized onions. It’s an unconventional group of ingredients and it wasn’t the most appetizing looking dish (brown lentils seldom look like anything other than poo, let’s be honest), but it actually came out fairly well. So, week 1 of my independent cooking school was a success!

This weekend we finally saw Slumdog Millionaire, which I’ve been wanting to see since its release last year, and we thought it was great. However, what we didn’t know was that a lot of the dialogue in the beginning of the movie is in Hindi. Movies in Belgium are shown in their original version, so if they are American or British movies they are shown in English, and French and Dutch subtitles are put in–the voices are not dubbed. This is great since dubbing is wretched and should be made fun of at all times, but when characters in English-speaking movies speak something other than English, the words are only translated into French and Dutch. So, during Slumdog Millionaire we had to put our French to the test and see if we understood what the characters were saying. And, I’m pleased to report that we actually understood the majority of the French subtitles! We are learning!

(Linguistic) Change is coming to the Seaton Wisman household!

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Dan and I have been living in Brussels for over 6 months now, so I think it’s time for a list of random things we’ve learned about living here. 

1. The official languages of Belgium are French, Dutch and German (which is only spoken in a small corner of Belgium). But the country is culturally and linguistically divided between the Flemish (Dutch speakers) and Walloons (French speakers). There are many reasons for the divide, but one interesting reason is that many more Dutch speakers speak French than French speakers speak Dutch–ça va? So, many of the Dutch speakers are a bit resentful that they are able to accomodate French speakers, while the majority of French speakers feel like, ‘why should I have to learn Dutch’? It can be messy. So, Brussels is a little French-speaking island in the middle of Dutch-speaking country, but if you try and speak Dutch with people in Brussels they usually respond (in French) that not only do they not speak Dutch, they are fairly insulted that you would think that they would. The French v. Dutch conflict here is confusing, interesting and annoying all at the same time. 

2. Belgium does not want me to have more shoes. I love shoes; it’s a silly female stereotype that happens to be accurate in my case. However, it turns out that I have bigger feet than any woman in Europe and shoes do not exist in my size. I wear a size 10 in the U.S. which is big, I know, but it’s not That big. I don’t have to go to a special store to buy shoes in the U.S. or anything. But, here I am apparently a big ol’ outlier so stores do not carry anything above a 9 and 1/2. So, as fabulous as the shoes are here in Brussels, they are not filling my closet. It is depressing and I may need retail therapy.

3.  Postal workers in Brussels do not wear uniforms (except coats when it’s cold) and they use public transportation to deliver the mail. I told you this list would be random.

4. Taxi drivers here drive Unbelievably fast. When we came home from the airport the last time (with our friend Kathy) our taxi driver was going over 160 kilometers/hour. That’s over 100 mph. Through a busy city. We’re pretty sure Kathy won’t be coming back via taxi anytime soon. 

5. The restroom or bathroom is called the le toilette. I still have trouble asking where the toilet is (it seems gauche in English, but is the right word en français). But, if you ask where the bathroom is people want to know why you want to bathe in their restaurant. Most of les toilettes (except the ones in most bars and restaurants) have an attendant who keeps everything clean so you have to pay to use them (usually around 30 cents). The person who sits outside les toilettes all day and cleans them is called ‘Madame Pipi’. Seriously.

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Bonjour from beautiful Brussels! Friday it was 50 degrees, sunny, and breezy. Not that I’m rubbing it in. I can’t help but think about the weather in our former home, Portsmouth, NH, where it was probably 20 degrees with 2 feet of snow on the ground. Sorry New Hampshire, Belgium wins! Ok, now I’m rubbing it in. (But Kansas, you really win, apparently it was 70 degrees there this weekend).

Friday I started a new french class. It’s just once a week, but I think it will be time well spent. If nothing else it will be another reminder of the cultural melting pot that is Brussels–my classmates are from Spain, Ireland, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Syria, Egypt, El Salvador, Romania, Brazil and Sweden. My goal (in addition to improving my french) is to learn to say ‘hello’ in everyone’s language, I’ll let you know how that goes. 

Last weekend we went to the World Championships of Cyclocross. Dan has a new gig writing for Cyclocross Magazine so he was reporting about the race for the magazine and its website. He has more information about it on his site, but here’s my deux cents–it was awesome. There were over 30,000 fans at the men’s and women’s championship races on Sunday–many of them in costumes supporting the racers from their home countries and almost all of them drunk–a fairly entertaining combination. 10 American racers came for the men’s and women’s championships and Dan was able to interview almost all of them. His articles about the races are on his site and they really capture the excitement of the day–it was fantastic.

Unfortunately this weekend has been a little less fun because Dan has been laid low by a bad back. He was fine one minute and the next he couldn’t move and was in pain. We went to a Belgian doctor who said “hell if I know what you did, but here, have some muscle relaxers and come back if you break out in red spots that start eating away at your flesh”. Mon dieu! He’s doing much better now and all of his flesh is intact so we think it was just a muscle problem and he should be back on his bike this week. 

Today is Sunday, day of rest in Brussels (i.e. everything is closed) and we feasted on brunch at our friend Davina’s house. We stuffed ourselves and had a lovely time meeting new people. Today is also the birthday of two of my friends whom I’ve known for over 15 years–happy birthday you old biddies. I hope everyone out there in the interwebs is having a lovely, lazy Sunday and has a good week planned. An FYI for anyone thinking of visiting us–many airlines (AerLingus, Lufthansa and others) are having great sales to Europe through June, so let us know if you’d like to come de notre maison à Bruxelles.

Bonne soirèe!

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Today is my little brother’s golden birthday–he’s turning 26 on the 26th–happy birthday Sam! If he ever decides to start a blog, I’m sure he could fill it with horror stories about me as a big sister (hey Sam–remember when I used to sit on you? That was fun! Or, remember the time I bowled you down the stairs? Let’s do that again!). But, every year on his birthday I think back to how he looked when I saw him for the first time, a look that inspired my first foray into writing, a kindergarten essay entitled– “My Brother the Wrinkled Raisin”. My parents were, understandably, very proud. 

Moving on! We came back from the Swiss Alps last Monday and I was immediately laid low by a wicked sinus infection, hence my delay in updating you about our trip. But, I am on antibiotics and back to it. Dan had a conference in Bern, Switzerland so I joined him Friday and we went to Interlaken for a long weekend in the mountains. Joining us were our friends Kathy (also a rocket scientist at the same meeting as Dan) and her husband-to-be Karl (taking advantage of all the places his partner gets to travel, like me). Interlaken is a beautiful town in between 2 lakes and at the base of some of the highest mountains in Switzerland. 

 
Dan and I spent Saturday going alpine sledging, a very intense form of sledding. It involves taking a super fast metal sled down steep, curvy ski trails. You sit on the sled solo, steer it with your legs and brake with your feet. Dan was awesome at it, me not so much. But, despite one slightly terrifying moment when I thought I might fall off the mountain, we had a great time barreling down the Swiss Alps at high speeds, catching air, dodging Japanese snowboarders, and riding the gondolas. 

Sunday we all went cross-country skiing and again, had a great time. I am total crap when it comes to skiing–I don’t even know how to snowplow–so the downhill-ish parts were a little difficult for me, but I still really enjoyed our adventure. We skied, rode a tram up to a mountain village for a delicious lunch, saw frozen waterfalls and glaciers, and dodged flying toilets. Dan has 2 more meetings scheduled in Switzerland and we can’t wait to go back for the mountains, the food (fondue! potatoes! Indian! seriously!) and the hospitality. 

To celebrate the inauguration of President Obama (love typing that!), we went a party throw by the Democrats Abroad chapter in Belgium. They had a big screen set up in a hotel ballroom showing CNN, hors d’oeuvres, a bluegrass band and more Americans than we knew lived here. It was so exciting being in a room full of hundreds of cheering supporters as President Obama (seriously, doesn’t get old) was sworn in and Former President Bush flew away. Belgian radio, print, and t.v. reporters were there covering the event and we made it into a video on the Le Soir (Belgian newspaper) site which I’ll try and find and post. It was an amazing evening. 

Dan is away again, in Dublin for a couple days for some meetings, and he and I are both looking forward to not having any travel plans for the month of February. Yet. We are also starting to fill up the Seaton Wisman B&B for the spring so please let us know if you’re thinking of visiting (and we hope you are)! I am catching up with work that didn’t get done while I was away and then sick. I am still having a little difficulty working here, if anyone has any tips on how to be most effective while working from home, please send them my way. Turns out I actually like going to an office to work. Who knew. 

Have a good week!

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