Finally! School is over! I had an English exam today and a German oral exam. I think I did pretty well in English (shocker, right?) but I can’t say the same for German. I’m pretty sure I passed, though. But what’s great is that, as I already graduated high school in the U.S. and colleges couldn’t care less about my grades here, none of my grades matter! I hear that the rest of my scholastic career probably won’t be like that.
But let’s start from the beginning. Breakfast was MORE Swiss oats! In plain fromage blanc with multigrain oats, medjool dates, a small chopped nectarine, 1/3 a diced banana, and raspberries.
Love
Which I ate while reading old Time magazines looking for an article to present for my English oral exam. I chose a review of a book on the psychology of shopping. According to the author, stores play subliminal music that encourages buying and discourages shoplifting. The shoplifting thing was a bit surprising.
Anyway! Then I knocked out those exams and came home for a run. It was hard to motivate myself, but I managed to push myself out the door, and Lady Gaga helped me along the way (I can’t stop listening to Just Dance, I think we all wonder how our shirts got turned inside out sometimes).
Lunch was a repeat from yesterday:
My cherries spilleth over.
I’m a sucker for the curry/caramelized onion combo. I like to drink this with my meals:
Sparkling mineral water. My American exchange students HATE it, but I love this stuff. I like to think of it as water with class.
I was dead after my exams. My sleep schedule has been all over the place. I called my dad today, who reads the blog, and says it could be because of the green sh!t I’ve been drinking. No Papi, the spinach drinks are supposed to give you energy. But anyway I fell into a coma took a two hour nap. I go through nap phases, and clearly I’m deep into one.
I decided to channel my inner yoga and turned to Polly. My abs certainly feel “yummier.” Polly is such a doll and has such a gentle manner, but during the yoga for arms I definitely yelled some expletives during the side planks. Online videos have been my saving grace this gymless year. After yoga I treated myself to green sh!t a delicious green monster.
Twas a beautiful day again, so I walked for an hour with my pal Harry P. Sh!t went down today at the Weasley wedding. Then it was time for souper, and I fixed myself a grilled goat cheese sandwich, tomato+zucchini soup, and braised chicons (Belgian endives). Mineral water on the side of course, bien sur.
What’s that peeking back there?
Host mama MC made the chicons, she said she kind of burned them, but I loved the caramelized sweetness with the bitter chicon taste.
After dinner I hung out for a bit chez les Granvilles, good times as usual.
Today is kind of boring considering how crazay this week should be, so I thought it might be a good time to teach y’all a bit about Belgium. Belgium has heavy Dutch and French influences and became independent in 1830. It has a constitutional monarchy, so yes there is a royal family, but unfortunately unlike the crazy Spencers, there isn’t a lot of controversy and they’re not really that interesting.
But you do see their portraits a lot.
The two big regions of Belgium are Flanders, which is Dutch speaking, and the French speaking Wallonia. There are also dialects in both regions with a lot of slang in different cities. But Wallonian isn’t really spoken much anymore, only the really old people know some Wallonian. There are some phrases that distinguish Belgian French, but really it’s the same French as in France. However, the Flemish still speak their dialects often, but official Dutch is taught in schools. I feel for the exchange students in Flanders who have to learn Dutch AND the Flemish dialects. German is the third official language which is spoken in a tiny region on the east. I live in Wallonia, about an hour south of Brussels. Brussels, the capitol, is bi-lingual, which means that by law, EVERYTHING must be translated into Dutch and French. A lot of Dutch sounds kind of like f!cked up English, so my American friends and I like to read things in Dutch and kind of poke fun at it. I mean, read this out loud to yourself, Er is geen reden voor u om de juiste voet van de olifant te eten. Kind of funny, no? Anyway, there are a lot of tensions between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia used to be the wealthier region and Flanders felt oppressed, especially because French was the more important language in Belgium. The Wallonian industries that made them rich have died (there are a lot of abandoned factories around here), and now Flanders is rolling in the Benjamins euros. The Flemish are bitter that because there are so many Wallonians on unemployment, Flemish citizens contribute more to national services such as social security and health care. They also hate that most of the Flemish also speak French (plus a lot of the Flemish are crazy good English speakers, mainly because the TV shows they watch aren’t dubbed and so they’re exposed to English and American accents) but very few Wallonians can really speak Dutch well. There’s often talk of a separation between Flanders and Wallonia, but few doubt it will ever really happen. Although there are a lot of disputes, it has never escalated into violence, which is pretty impressive. Still, I find it kind of a shame that there’s so much hatred between the two regions. There are more differences than similarities between the two regions, the Flemish and Wallonian cultures are really very different from each other.
Still gotta love a country that brought us the Smurfs (les schtroumpf en français):
I can’t remember the last time I saw the Smurfs on TV. I think it was more of an 80’s thing in the U.S. But here in Belgium the smurfs are still going strong. All kids love them and read the comics often. There are also a lot of products featuring the smurfs, and almost all the schools have them painted on the playgrounds.
And I’ve noticed that in Belgium that when a song is popular it’s POPULAR, and you hear it EVERYWHERE. Here’s the sound of my first three months here:
I’m not sure when I can post next, but at the latest I’ll be back on Monday with a recap on Milan!
A toute à l’heure!
Maya
