I can't think of a title. Let's call this Post #3.

Before I start on new stuff, I'd like to amend my last post. Somehow I forgot one of the very weirdest things that European people do.

Weird Thing European People Do #5

Mayonnaise in Weird Contexts

I knew that Europeans had a questionable fondness for dipping french fries in mayonnaise, but I wasn't going to write anything off without trying it first. So now I've tried it, a few times, and I've decided I just cannot get behind it.

It doesn't stop at french fries, though. The other day I ordered something at a restaurant that came with a small salad on the side -- think a couple of leaves of lettuce and two slices of cucumber -- and on top was just a giant glob of mayonnaise. I was kind of just avoiding it and then Kirsten's mom asked me, "Oh, you don't like salad?" So I had to tell her that I like salad just fine, but that I didn't really eat mayonnaise on it. So I pushed the mayo off and ate the dry veggies left behind.

It's funny because I actually do like mayonnaise quite a lot in the right contexts (they thought it was strange when I told them I usually spread it on my sandwiches), but they now have it in their minds that I'm just not a big fan. Compared to them, I guess I'm really not.

Speaking of food, they also have something called filet américain that's essentially just a strip of raw meat. It's also available in paste form for spreading. Apparently that's what we eat in America.


So! Onto the new stuff. I started class on Monday, which is pretty cool. There are about eighteen people in my class; two come from Spain and everyone else comes from somewhere different. We've got someone from Austria, someone from Iraq, Venezuela, Paraguay, Iran, Lebanon, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Australia, etc. The girl from Australia (incidentally also named Erin) is the only other native English speaker in the class, but everyone "speaks English," to some degree.

So far I've learned a couple of basic questions (Who are you? What country are you from? What languages do you speak? How long have you been in Belgium? Where do you live?), some regular verb conjugation, how to count, and the alphabet.

On Monday Kirsten drove me to class, but on Tuesday I had to take the bus. I've never been particularly good at public transportation, even when the signs and schedules were all in English, so this was a little daunting for me, but I figured it wouldn't be too difficult. Two euros later, I was sitting on the bus and we were on our way. The stop I had to get off at wasn't listed on the line so I figured it was one of the ones where they only stop if someone is waiting there or if someone presses the button. With this in mind, I devoted my full concentration to staring out the window, not wanting to miss my stop. I saw a sign with an arrow pointing to Sint Jansplein, so I got off at the next stop, which turned out not to be Sint Jansplein at all. I had gotten off one stop too early. I knew it couldn't be too far up ahead, though, so I set off, map in hand, toward the university.

Taking into account the extra walk and the bus being late in the first place, I was going to be about ten minutes late to class. When I got there, though, there was no one in the room. I went to the office and asked if they knew where my class had gone but they said they had no idea. So I waited outside the classroom, thinking they might come back. I waited for about an hour, emailed the teacher to explain my situation, went exploring a bit, then finally texted Kirsten to tell her what had happened. Right when I did that, the class was going on break and the teacher got my email and called Kirsten (the only number they had on record), who called me and told me where to go. So I made it to the last hour of class.

I've decided that I must look a lot more confident than I feel because the day that I was getting hopelessly lost in the city and in the bus system, four different people asked me for directions and/or information -- twice in Dutch and twice in English. I had to explain to them that I had already gotten lost more than once that day and so I probably wasn't a good person to ask.

After that my week was largely uneventful, except for my misadventures in laundry with an exclusively Dutch washing machine.

I think bullet point observations/experiences are going to be pretty much unavoidable for any given blog entry, so I guess I'll just throw those in at the end of each post. Here we go!

• I haven't counted in every room but there are at least twelve fur rugs in this house. No idea if they're real or not.
• Nobody here can catch a ball. We were practicing counting in class with a game -- say a number, throw the ball to someone, they say the next one, and on and on -- and I swear I was one of only two people in the room to catch the ball. Everyone else just stood there with their hands out in front of them, fingers splayed, and every one of them was surprised that the ball didn't just fall into their hands and stay there. If we were a team and this were a kickball game, Andrew would have been extremely unhappy. I caught it every time, though, so, for probably the only time in my life, I was not the least athletic person in the room. 
• The bus has its own lane! This is wonderful. It might actually be generally universal, though. I'm not sure.
• There is no taboo here about telling people that they will get fat from eating something. I don't really mind this because I know nobody is saying it with any kind of malice; they say it about themselves as often as they say it to other people. But what I have noticed is that a statement of "Careful, you'll get fat if you eat too many waffles! No one will recognize you when you go back home!" is usually paired with "Do you want some more? You're not eating enough." Silly Europeans.
• In asking about people's motivations for moving to Belgium, I'm realizing that it is incredible common for people to move to a different country to be with their significant others. One of the people who asked me for directions the other day ended up waiting for the bus with me and she told me her whole story. She's from Hungary and she met her boyfriend when he was on holiday there. He liked her but she was dating someone else. He pursued her for a year until she finally admitted to herself that she wanted to be with him and now she's living in Antwerp because she's in love. A guy in my class, Xavi from Spain (the only other person to catch the ball), moved here because his girlfriend is Belgian. Europeans, it seems, are very loyal to their boyfriends and girlfriends, and a little less loyal to their citizenships. But I guess that makes more sense when home is never more than an hour or two away by plane.

Here's something weird. The other day I opened my laptop and the icon next to my username had been changed from a gingerbread man to a bald eagle. 

My first thought was that the housekeeper had done it as some kind of American joke? But that doesn't actually make any sense, so I'm attributing it to an oddly timed technological hiccup.

That's all for now, I guess! I have some pictures that I want to post, but I'll probably just dump them all in another entry. This one is long enough.