An American in Belgium

I apologize for the recent silence here, but it has been busy in Belgium!

In the most exciting news yet, I have FRIENDS. I met Tom, a PhD student at Universiteit Gent, a few weeks ago, and he has since introduced me to a few people that speak excellent English and whom I actually really enjoy hanging out with. We went climbing, he's shown me around Antwerp, and I have been asked many, many questions about America. It's been fun. All that translates to less time holed up in my room, which is excellent for my social life and significantly less excellent for my blog and TV-watching duties. But I will try to keep up. :)

I don't actually have anything terribly exciting to report, so I'll just give a quick update on the things that go on here.

DUTCH CLASS

Or, more accurately, Flemish Class. Other than the frustrating discrepancies between the things I hear at home from my Dutch family and the things I hear in class from my Flemish teacher, de cursus is heel goed. I'm learning a lot of Dutch (that I am too scared to use in public), and actually having a pretty good time. One thing that particularly entertains me while simultaneously driving me a little nuts, though, is the interesting array of characters in my class. I've already mentioned Ali, the way-too-into-himself bodybuilder, but I can't remember if I've talked about Alketa, the Albanian woman who has issues with personal space.

Alketa sort of bothered me from the beginning; she's the one in class who yells out the answer to every question, even when the teacher is specifically asking someone else. The one time I sat next to her she was constantly correcting my pronunciation (come on, Alketa, we're both in a Level 1 class) to the point that she actually called the teacher over to tell me I was wrong. (Much to her disappointment, the teacher told her that I was fine and that I was just speaking more Netherlands Dutch than Flemish.) But the day that she was trying to correct me, she was also looking at my workbook to compare answers. I wouldn't really have minded, except for the fact that she apparently had to get REALLY up close to see. I had turned to talk to the girl on my other side at one point, and when I looked back down at my book all I saw was the back of Alketa's head. Sometimes she physically grabs me and turns me around to talk to her, and as luck would have it, she also takes the same bus to and from Antwerp, so she usually wants to talk then too. Which, again, I wouldn't mind except she doesn't speak English at all, and I don't speak Albanian, so she tries to communicate in the very limited Dutch that we both know. This is getting better now that we can say more than, "How are you? What country are you from?" but it still stresses me out a bit and she still thinks I'm wrong about everything. Oh well.

I keep forgetting to mention my favorite thing about the walk from the bus stop to my class. As I'm walking down Paardenmarkt (which I just realized translates to 'horse market'), there's this on my right:

It's some kind of cathedral, though it's not THE cathedral. And I really like seeing this, but I have to say that it's what's across the street that really makes me smile every time I see it.

This is Penworld! By itself, not that incredible, but for some reason I just love that it's right next to:

The globe store.

I don't think there's any way to truly and accurately convey why I think this is so funny, so I'm going to move on to something else now.

HOME LIFE

Things at home are pretty good, but we're dealing with a bit of a struggle right now with the kids. As near as I can tell, it seems like they're over my novelty and are wondering what I'm still doing here. Any attempts to help them get dressed in the morning or bathe them at night are met with screams of, "Nee! Mama doen!" Which, as you can probably guess, means (in childspeak), something along the lines of, "No! Mama has to do it!" This is only the case if Kirsten is there, though. On nights when I'm alone with them, they are perfectly content to play with me and let me help them with things and try to communicate with me. But if their mother is an option, they will always choose her because, obviously and understandably, they like her more. Plus it's much easier for them to ask her for help or have her translate than it is for them to try to talk to me. We're finding ways to deal with this, though, and it is getting better.

One advantage of the language barrier between the kids and me is that they can't argue. They're at an age where, instead of just refusing or ignoring, they will try to reason their way out of things, or bargain for more dessert, playtime, etc. With their parents, this can be a drawn out process. With me, they don't yet have the skills necessary to argue, so when I tell them that bedtime is in five minutes, they pretty much just accept it. So that's nice.

If you ask Karlyn if she knows any English, she will invariably tell you she does not, but she does spit out complete sentences sometimes that she isn't just copying, and when there are other kids over, she translates things I say for them. Her brain is seriously working on it, even if she doesn't realize it or want it to.

BEING A FOREIGNER

It is is still pretty obvious to everyone that I am a foreigner here; I spend a whole lot of time not knowing what's going on around me. But I've started to take a strange sort of comfort in that. When I can't understand what people are saying on the bus, I don't feel the need to listen (read: eavesdrop). I can tune it all out and just turn off my brain for a bit. 

I've reached a point where I'm comfortable in my surroundings while still being excited about the things that are happening.

• I no longer have to watch unblinkingly out the window of the bus in order to not miss my stop. I know it gets there at or around 9:17 every single time, and I'm not afraid of missing it anymore.
• I've always been the most at ease with people when I could make them laugh, and I have figured out the surest way to get a Belgian to laugh. I just tell them my last name is Hollander and I don't speak Dutch.* It has not failed me yet.
• I'm okay with knowing that I will probably always be the shortest adult in the room. Did you know that the Dutch are, on average, the tallest people in the world? (Well, second tallest, apparently, edged out by about a half inch by the good people of the Dinaric Alps.) I believe Joost is the shortest of his friends, standing at a dwarfish 6' or 6'1. This was very obvious at first, but the only time I'm really aware of my height now is when I sometimes need help to reach the water glasses.

Since starting this post yesterday, I have had an exciting adventure at the American Food Store, a tiny haven located just outside Antwerp and containing probably the worst of what America has to offer in terms of nutrition (and therefore the things Americans miss most). I resisted most of the candy and cookies (and frankly I think I should get some kind of award for not succumbing to the temptations of Chips Ahoy), but I did pick up a couple of things that I am very, very excited about. First of all, THEY HAD BUFFALO SAUCE. Anyone who has ever heard me talk about buffalo sauce knows how much I love it, and it was fairly devastating when I realized that it basically doesn't exist in Europe. But it does! It exists in the American Food Store! So I got some. I have nothing to put it on yet, but if I don't obtain some chicken soon I might just pour it into a bowl and eat it like soup. (Not really.) (But maybe.)

I also bought some graham crackers (also unheard of here) and plan on introducing this family to the wonderful word of s'mores very soon. 

I think that's all for now! I'll try to be better about updating from now on. 

*I have since learned that this is humorous, at least in part, because Hollander is a sort of derogatory word for people from the Netherlands. Not inherently offensive, but it's all in the tone, and there's a bit of tension between some people from the Netherlands and some people from Belgium, so I think they find it funny because OF COURSE it's a Hollander who can't speak Dutch. Silly Hollanders.