Unintentional Housewife

OK, New Years Resolution #1–be a better blogger. Sheesh. 

It’s been a packed few weeks for us. We traveled back to the States to see the Seaton clan and friends in Philly for the holidays and had a wonderful time (i.e. we ate more cookies than all the Keebler elves combined, and the women beat the men in the annual holiday Seaton bowling tournament. What else do you need, really?)

It was great seeing everyone in the U.S., but it was a little odd being back. I took a quick day trip to NYC to see my friend Laura and it was jarring to walk around a crowded city and hear everyone speaking english–I kept wanting to say hey, that guy over there in the Disney World sweatshirt and fanny pack is American–but then I realized, duh, everyone is American and speaking english (and, sadly, dressing poorly). Here in Brussels, we encounter Americans so infrequently that when we do, Dan and I nudge each other and whisper “American” whenever we come across someone comme nous. 

We have been back in Brussels for a little over a week now and are settling in and thawing out. There have been record-setting cold temperatures here over the past week as well as snow, and the Bruxelloise haven’t known what to do with themselves. We had 2-3 inches of snow–which in our former New Hampshire home would have meant summer was on the way–but here it caused major problems. Because it was so cold, the 2-3 inches of snow did not melt like usual, instead it stayed on the ground for over a week and made all Brussels streets and sidewalks into ice-skating rinks. Apparently people here do not own shovels, so removing the snow was a problem. I saw people using brooms, window squeegees and, my personal favorite, garden tools to remove the snow. (I actually saw a man down on his hands and knees with a garden trowel trying to chip ice off his sidewalk). 

It is warming up though and we are thankful because our heater has gone on the fritz again. Surprise! I’m not going to bore you with the details, but we lost heat for a couple days, it got down to 50 degrees in our house, and we wore all our new sweaters and sweatpants. At the same time. Moving on. 

This week we are going to another new country! Dan has a conference in Switzerland (and is there now, Hi Dan!) and I am going to join him at the end of the week for a cross-country skiing/sledding/winter hiking adventure in Interlaken, Switzerland. We are excited to explore mountains again and see more than 3 inches of snow. If anyone has any Interlaken recommendations, please let us know!

This past Sunday we had America day. We cooked homemade Mac-n-cheese (Thanks for the recipe, Seatons!), chocolate chunk cookies (chocolate chips have to be imported, are too expensive and, frankly, inferior to Belgian chocolate. Sorry, Tollhouse), and watched American football with friends. When you live outside the U.S. you can purchase NFL games through nfl.com and watch them online, which we did this year. Fortunately, one of our football teams actually knows how to play (hint–it’s not the Kansas City Chiefs) so we’ve been able to root for the Philadelphia Eagles all season and dang, if they didn’t make American day great!  

I think that’s all for now, Happy 2009 everyone! Go Eagles!

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Bonjour!

So, the police in Brussels are really nice. Why do I know this? Because they rang our bell at 8am this morning for a little chat. We were slightly freaked out about the police asking to speak with us and grabbed our identity cards and cellphones in case we were granted our one call from prison. Luckily we were not ‘cuffed and taken in for booking (but, come on–how good of a blog posting would That be?). Instead, they asked us about the people who used to live in our apartment who apparently skipped town on lots of unpaid bills. We assured them that we had never met the people and that was it. The police apologized for coming around so early and said thank you–not sure that would have happened in the U.S.

Last week I got my first haircut in Brussels. This may not seem newsworthy but as most of you know, I’m a little obsessive about my hair. I have difficult hair. It’s curly and frizzy and has a mind of it’s own. It’s kind of like a teenager: one day it’s lovely to have and be around, the next day you want to change it in for something else and never see it again. Over the past several years I have learned what products to use on it and what type of haircut works best–and I don’t stray from the formula. So, moving here has been a challenge because a) they don’t sell the hair products that I use and b) haircuts here are very avant guard. To remedy this I pretty much make all our visitors bring my hair products with them as payment for staying at the Seaton Wisman B&B, and I have avoided getting a haircut due to my overwhelming fear of bangs and mullets. But, last week I couldn’t take my long, unmanageable hair any longer and I got a haircut at a place where they spoke english and gave you free wine–I figured, if I hated the haircut I could just drink more wine and forget about it. Aaaaand, lets just say I drank a lot of wine. My hair is fine in the front, albeit much shorter than I wanted, but in the back there are really short pieces (like 3 inches long) mixed in with long pieces and yes, it’s kind of mullet-ish. Oh well, at least I fit in here now. 

Today I am…wait for it…here with a heating repairman. But! I think (i.e. hope) that this will be the last time. He is replacing our thermostat, which is, apparently, the source of all our problems. So, lets all pray that this is the last time I write about having a heating repairman here. Oy. 

Today I am also baking cookies for Dan’s office holiday party this evening. I am making Belgian-style chocolate chip cookies. What does that mean? Since chocolate chips do not really exist here, but fabulous chocolate does, I’ve chopped up dark, dark chocolate and roasted hazelnuts and am mixing those into cookie batter. Yum! Hopefully the solar physicists will appreciate them. 

We are preparing for our trip back to the States for the holidays. We leave this Sunday and will be in the Philly area until Jan. 1. We are so excited to a) see family and friends and b) not have to speak french. I hope that everyone out there has a wonderful RamaKwanzaNukkahMisTice, (as my friend Noah used to say) and we’ll see you in 2009!

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I am not waiting for a repairman today–hard to believe, I know. But before you get excited about the prospect of reading a post where I don’t complain about entertaining non-english speaking technicians in my apartment it’s only fair to tell you that I am currently waiting for a technician for my neighbor. Gotcha. 

 
Our wonderful neighbor who let us use her shower when ours didn’t work and let us use her oven for Thanksgiving (more on that later) is having a new bed delivered today. Unfortunately she got called out of town for work so I told her I was happy to wait for the bed–since I’m home working this afternoon. However, I am also a bit anxious about it because, as usual, the delivery people will not speak english. But, they will also not speak french–it’s a german company and I’m fairly certain that they will only speak german. So, I am nervously awaiting their arrival and am hopeful that everything goes smoothly since the only german I know is “berliner” (donut) and “tschuss” (bye).

Moving on. Our lovely friend Kelly was here for a visit this past week and we had a fabulous time. We ate and shopped and ate and walked and ate and oh, did I mention we ate? I think we managed to feed Kelly every possible Belgian food and drink–beer (including geuze), waffles, frites with mayo, speculoos, stoemp, brussel sprouts, and kilos of mussels. And that doesn’t include Thanksgiving. We took a day trip to Bruges, a beautifully picturesque city on Belgium’s northwestern coast, and we went to the Christmas Markets and Christmas light/music show in Brussels which were awesome. If anyone is looking for an off-season time to come visit us, early December is perfect–it’s cold, yes, but the markets are wonderful and the tourists are far and few between. 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving that included, of course, a bit of craziness. Early last week I found a butcher selling whole turkey’s so I ordered a 5 kilo one (approximately 11 pounds) since we were expecting 7 for dinner. Dan found a turkey cooking recipe he wanted to try that claimed you could cook a whole bird in 45 minutes (utilizing a super hot oven and removing the backbone) so we were ready for an adventure. Kelly, Dan and I picked up our bird on Thursday and it was a bit bigger than expected (6 kilos–13 pounds). The butcher, a lovely woman, seemed slightly concerned that we didn’t know what we were doing and told us more than once how to cook a turkey (put a lot of butter on it, cook it for a long time–that was the gist of what I understood). I wanted to tell her to not worry, that we were going to butterfly it and cook it faster than normal but that was a little beyond my french capabilities. 

So, we hauled our 13 pound turkey to the kitchen store in our neighborhood to buy a bigger roasting pan and carried everything home in our handy dandy rolling cart (used by old ladies in the U.S. but used by everyone in Brussels). Fortunately we decided to make sure the large roasting pan fit in our smallish oven as soon as we got home and, big surprise, it didn’t fit. After a mild heart attack, I called our neighbor (who was coming to dinner but was at work) and she graciously said we could use her oven and miracle, of miracles, the roasting pan fit. 

We cooked up stuffing, pie, squash, potatoes, brussels sprouts and our amazing turkey and everything came out beautifully. All of our guests made it and seemed to really enjoy themselves and no one got food poisoning. Success! 

Update: Good news! My neighbor just called and her bed is going to be delivered tomorrow so she will be here and can actually communicate with the delivery men since german is one of the 4 languages she speaks! Thank heavens!

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Today I am not writing whilst waiting for a repairman. No, today I’m writing while the repairman is actually here. Apparently our bathtub is leaking around the edges and going into the bathroom of our downstairs neighbor. The good news is that we don’t have any water problems in our bathroom, but the bad news is that our neighbor (whom we like very much) has a giant water stain and puddles in her bathroom. So, as I type a guy is re-caulking our bathtub and hopefully solving the problem. 

The saga of the heater continues as our heater is still not working correctly (although it is working–we have heat–no worries), so Monday another heating repairman is coming, hopefully the 5th time will be the charm. 

On to happier topics! My parents left last week! Wait, that didn’t come out right. My parents were here and we had an awesome time. Mom bought all the chocolate she could carry, dad ate his weight in bread, we went to a bike race, went shopping, saw the Grand Place, the Manneken Pis, the Palace, and had lunch in a cafe that also doubles as a violin repair shop. But, we also went to Germany and had an incredible experience.

My mom’s father (Grandpa Moses as we called him) grew up in a tiny village in Germany and lived there until WWII broke out at which point he fled to Brussels where he lived for a year or so, then moved to France for a bit until he was finally sent to concentration camps back in Germany. He survived the camps and moved to the U.S. after he was liberated, in the late 1940’s. 

My mom had never been to see where her dad lived so we decided to make a little pilgrimage to Altwied, Germany, population approximately 800, to see the town. Mom was in contact with someone in the town (Herr Schneider) so he served as our guide in Altwied. We had lunch with the Schneider family and they couldn’t have been nicer. They spoke some english and we all pretended we understood german. The matriarch in the Schneider family had lived in Altwied her whole life and remembered Grandpa Moses and his parents so it was wonderful meeting her and hearing her stories. At one point we were looking at old pictures and she teared up and said “that’s my brother!”. Apparently her brother (who had died in the war) was in a class picture with Grandpa Moses (a picture we had brought) and it was a picture she had not seen before.  

After lunch we went for a walk in the village, and met other community members who remembered Grandpa Moses. We also went for a tour of a 12th century castle that sits on a hill overlooking the village and it was impressive. We felt a bit Pied Piper-ish on our tour of the village because as we walked, members of the community joined us, just to welcome us and by the end of the tour we probably had 10 people walking around with us. It was fantastic. We also went to a Jewish cemetery and saw the graves of my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. Again, amazing. 

We finished our trip to Germany with a stay in Cologne, and the cathedral in the middle of the city is one of the most impressive structures I’ve ever seen–there is a reason it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. We had a wonderful visit with my parents and can’t wait for their next trip!

We are now getting ready for our next visitor, Kelly, who comes tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving with us! We are so excited for her to come and for Turkey day, our favorite holiday. It’s been a little challenging finding all the Thanksgiving ingredients (canned pumpkin still eludes us). Turkey is not terribly common here, you can buy turkey parts in the market, but finding a whole turkey has proved difficult.  But today I finally located a butcher who sells whole turkeys so I ordered a 5 kilo bird and we will see what we get on Thursday! We are having 4-7 people for dinner depending on some train/plane schedules and have more seats at the table so if anyone finds a last-minute e-saver and wants to join us, the more the merrier!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Well, that was an unintentional hiatus, sorry reader…(s?)

It’s been a bit busy ’round these parts what with the U.S. election (MERCI!), my job (merci), french exams (meh), and the saga of our heater (merde!) 

So, our heater. I got my “little hat” from the repairman, unfortunately it was the wrong size. Dan is trying to adjust the hat with the help of the Belgian Home Depot. The day after the “little hat” business the heater (which also controls the hot water) died. Repairman #2 came (2 days later) to “fix” the heater. He did not speak english. It was awesome. One of the more intelligible things I asked him was if he could “do good with the heater”. The day after the heater/hot water was fixed it broke again. (Did I mention that it was the coldest week of the year and the temperature inside the apartment was 14 degrees Celsius?) Repairman #3 came (the next day) to “fix” the heater. He did not speak english. I think he said that we needed to have a valve replaced but that he didn’t have said valve. However, he did get the heat/hot water working again. Unfortunately, he also managed to leave us with a leaky pipe.  We now have a heater that works (but will probably break again since it needs a new valve), and a bucket underneath the heater collecting the water from the leaky pipe. I am so excited for Repairman #4. 

On to better news: President-elect Obama! I stayed up until 6am to watch his acceptance speech and it was marvelous. In my french class the next day people we’re so excited, they wanted to know if I had voted and if I thought things were going to change. I said yes, and I hoped so. Bon Chance Barak!

I have been working on a lot of projects for my job and am settling in to a routine. Working from home might be the best invention ever–sweatpants, catnaps–what more could you want from a work environment?

This is the last week of my french class and we have had exams that have been quite tough, but I think I’ve done ok. I have really enjoyed this class and have certainly improved a great deal. I’m taking a little hiatus from class since we will be doing some traveling and I would miss a lot, but will do my best to practice at home and am going to take another class starting after the holidays. 

As I write this, my parents are taking a nap in the next room! They arrived for a week-long visit yesterday and we are having a wonderful time so far. We have eaten delicious food (even Dad!), seem some sights, and have done a bit of shopping. This weekend we are going to go see Dan race (go Dan!) and we are going to go to Germany. My mom’s father grew up in a small town in Germany so we are going to go visit the town, and hopefully see the house where he lived. We are also going to stay the night in Cologne, which we’ve heard is beautiful. So, a new country for us this weekend!

Who’s going to be our next visitors? We’re ready!

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Bonjour! Well, it’s been a really good week for us here in Brussels. Dan successfully completed his first race– even beating a few people despite being sick, having a tree branch caught in his gears, and being stung by a bee in the middle of the race. Twice. You can read more about it and see some pictures at Dan’s site, which by the way, he has gotten back to updating regularly, so go check out my husband! Wait, that sounds weird. 

The other exciting news of the week (even better than the middle-aged, plastic surgeried, belly dancer who entertained us at dinner or the Brussels police who rang our bell at 11pm one night because someone was trapped in the laundromat downstairs) is that I got a job! In the United States! Huh, you ask? How’s that going to work? Well, through the magic of the internet, Skype, and the University of New Hampshire.  I am going to be a part-time research assistant (actually, my new employer calls me a “consultant” which I love) for a non-profit in New England that supports agencies who serve children and families. The organization researches and reports on a number of issues affecting children/families and I am going to assist by doing some academic research (with the help of my UNH alumni status, which allows me to access thousands of academic journals), and some interviews (via skype, i.e. if I’m not paying for these free internet calls, who does?).  

I am really excited about this job because it is a) in my field and allows me to actually make use of the degree I just spent all that money on, b) is part-time so I can still take french classes and be a good host to all those visitors we’re waiting for and c) helps remind me that I am smarter than a pre-schooler. Since I spend the majority of my time here speaking french at the level of a 3-year-old, I find myself wanting to walk around wearing a sign that says something like, “I actually am smart, I just can’t speak french”. But, I think this job will really help with that problem–on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I’ll be a 3-year-old basic french speaker and on Tuesday and Thursday I’ll be a professional consultant with a Masters degree.

Speaking of french, I had another class where everyone laughed at me because of something I said. But, this time it was intentional! I actually made a bit of a joke in french on purpose, I think that’s a sign of improvement. I also have made a new friend in my french class, a lovely Austrian woman who is from the town of Linz, which just happens to be a place where I have family and have visited. My Grandma Moses always says we have family everywhere and are related to everyone (”You’re going to Boston? We have a cousin 6 times removed who lived in Massachusetts in 1975, maybe. You better call him”), but apparently it is a smaller world than I thought it was. 

Our time here so far has proven one thing over and over to us. We should never leave the house without a camera. The first time we realized this was an evening several weeks ago when, as we were walking to dinner, the streets were suddenly blocked by police cars and a parade of hundreds of people on roller blades came skating by. We’ve had many other moments like this, but perhaps none as interesting as our experience this past Saturday night. We went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner and in the middle of eating the lights were dimmed, incredibly loud music came on, and a woman in a belly dancing costume proceeded to dance for us for about 15 minutes.  It was strange and funny and man, I wish I had a picture.

And if the promise of random, half-naked, possibly roller-blading women at dinner doesn’t entice you to come visit us, well then, maybe we don’t want you.

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I’ve decided that learning a new language is akin to lacking a sense of humor. Here’s what I mean. I frequently have interactions with people in french where I understand a lot of what they say, but ultimately not enough. It’s kind of like if you were told a joke and you understood the set up to the joke but the punchline totally went over your head, and because you had no sense of humor no amount of explanation was going to help you understand the joke. That’s how I feel in most of my interactions in french–I’m almost getting it, but not quite and no matter how much context the other person provides I just don’t get it because I don’t know the words. But, I will persevere, luckily a language can be learned, while a sense of humor on the other hand…

We’ve been working on our apartment this week because Dan was getting over a cold and it was rainy so we were in nesting mode  (I guess that explains my baking frenzy too, huh). We put up pictures, which may not sound like an accomplishment, but it was. The walls in our apartment basically crumble to dust when we try to screw things into them so figuring out how to hang things has been a challenge. Luckily Dan and brother-in-law Steve were able to come up with some good ideas and we finally got things up on the walls, our apartment is feeling like a home now.

We’ve been following the U.S. economic news here and were really happy that Dan was being paid in euro’s until some of the Belgian banks had to be bailed out and the European stock market plunged. C’est la vie! However, the banks we use in the U.S. and in Belgium have not had problems yet, so we are grateful for that. 

We are also paying close attention to the U.S. election (as is the rest of the world). In an unscientific poll (conducted anecdotally by me, hey, I’m not the scientist in this house), I found that 99.9% of the people I encounter in Brussels want Obama to win, only about 5% of them know the name McCain, and they all think we’re nuts for re-electing Bush (additionally, most people think everyone in the U.S. is fat, watches television all day on one of the 4 t.v. sets they have, and owns a gun).

I had an interesting conversation with our Danish neighbor at lunch the other day about politics. We were discussing the differences between the political system in her country and the U.S. We came to the conclusion that the biggest distinction seems to be the separation of politics and religious/moral/personal issues that exists in most European countries versus the melding of those issues that occurs in the U.S. She was really surprised to learn how important the religious and moral beliefs of political leaders are to voters in the U.S. and I was kind of surprised that she was so surprised. 

Speaking of politics, the state of Pennsylvania messed up my voter registration/absentee ballot so I am doing my best to get an absentee ballot from New Hampshire. Dan smells conspiracy, but I think you have to be competent to conspire. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that I am able to exercise my 19th amendment right!

Barack the Vote!

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It has been a busy week here in Brussels (apparently, since I haven’t found time to post anything). This week I had 2 lunch dates, 2 french tests, and had my cellphone stolen, while Dan successfully drove in Brussels and raced in his first cyclocross race in Belgium. We also attended Rosh Hashanah services at an all French speaking temple (oy) and welcomed a new family member into the Seaton Wisman mishpucha. 

The best news first: Dan’s sister Erin had a beautiful, healthy baby girl, Cady, on Friday. Mazel Tov Erin, Steve, and new big brother David! We were able to see and talk to them all via Skype and if this isn’t the best web program out there (free, international phone and video services) than I don’t know what is. 

We also managed to get ourselves to Dan’s first cyclocross race in Belgium. He wrote about it on his website, but I’ll give you the abridged version. We rented a car (a challenge due to our not having Belgian drivers licenses), Dan drove (another challenge considering he hasn’t driven a manual in over 5 years), and we safely drove to Dan’s race (seriously taxing. Why? Reason #1–There Are No Stop Signs Here.) The race didn’t go as he had hoped and he wasn’t able to finish due to a busted spoke, but he is fine, the bike is fine, and we are ready for the next race this Sunday. 

Last night we went to a temple for Rosh Hashanah services. Temple was temple, but with a few major differences: it was a) all in French and Hebrew, b) quasi-Orthodox, and c) heavily guarded by the Belgian police. The service itself was interesting, although most of the Rabbi’s sermon went over my head–my french is just not good enough. But, the Hebrew was familiar as were some of the songs. The police presence, however, was definitely a new experience. There were several officers outside the temple and as we left services the police only let a few people out at a time, presumably to have more control over the size of the crowd? It was disconcerting yet somehow reassuring. 

It was a busy week, a good week, and a week of unbelievably amazing weather. Sunny, breezy, no rain, perfect fall temperatures the entire week. Now it has changed back to typical Belgian weather (cool, rainy, gray), but we are using the poor weather as inspiration for making soup and will be having split pea soup and challah for dinner. See, I saved the best news for last–there is a boulangerie around the corner that makes some of the best challah I have ever had and imports bagels from New York! If they start making apple cider donuts we may never leave.

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And now for today’s “Mindi embarrasses herself in french yet again” anecdote. In my french class we did an exercise where we asked each other questions using specific verbs. My verb was “to know” and my plan was to ask another woman in the class how long she had known her husband. Unfortunately what I actually asked her was if she knew her husband. Hilarity ensued. But, hey, at least I knew that what I was saying wasn’t correct, that counts for something, right? 

This past Sunday was “Dimanche Sans Voiture” or, No Cars Sunday, in Brussels. Apparently a few Sundays a year cars are not allowed in Brussels, public transportation is free, and people take over the streets on their bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, and even horses (seriously; we saw a group of people riding their horses through the streets). 

We decided to embrace our new city and also ride bikes down the middle of the street. This decision was complicated by the fact that a) I do not have a bike and b) I have not ridden a bike since I was 10 years old. I was never a kid who liked riding bikes, I never felt comfortable on them and was pretty much always convinced I was one sneeze away from wiping out on the pavement. However, our adventure here is about being brave and trying new things so I decided I might as well continue my trend of embarrassing myself and I got on a bike (i.e. one of the 3 bikes Dan brought to Belgium. I got to bring a lot of shoes). 

For the next 20 minutes Dan literally held on to the bike seat and ran along side me as I weaved up and down our street like a 4-year-old. No wait, there were lots of 4-year-olds riding in the street who were much better than me. I’m sure I was a sight to behold, (and yes, there were a few people we noticed laughing at me) but I did it anyway. Dan was a wonderful teacher and I managed to ride around for a few blocks with him acting as my bicycle chaperone (I couldn’t turn my head to look for oncoming bikes because I was fairly certain I’d fall over, so he would tell me to stop if anyone was coming). But, I didn’t fall and I didn’t cause anyone else to fall so I think it was a successful outing.  I don’t know that I’ll be entering any races anytime soon, but I just may try riding again someday and who knows, maybe I’ll even get a bicycle–4 bikes for 2 people is reasonable, right?

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