Winter (Paris, Spain, and Morocco)

I must send all of my winter clothes and schoolwork home, but I can’t get a reservation for a company to pick up my luggage so I decide to go to the Fed Ex by the airport. I get to the airport free of charge thanks to a glitch in the system of the Belgian rail network. I ask the information desk where the Fed Ex is, and it turns out that I have a 5km walk after a 10km bus ride. The snow is 3 inches thick at this point and getting really wet with the increasing heat. I take the bus, but the driver doesn’t know where anything is. I walk to a sign I see with the company name, but it is reception for logistics, and it turns out I have walked in completely the wrong direction. I walk to the correct building, and after trying a few doors; I finally get my luggage shipped. It costs me 250 Euro. Western wasn’t content just getting my grades, they actually wanted to see every assignment. I walk back to the bus stop and take the train home to finish packing. I thought that it would take me two hours. It has in fact taken five. I still think I have three hours until the train leaves though. It turns out I read the ticket incorrectly and I have one hour to go to a copy shop, print out my tickets, and get to the train station. I am dripping sweat in the metro by the time I get to the train station.

I make the train to Paris, at the expense of my USB, which is left in the copy shop, and my shave kit. My shave kit I realize on the train also has my malaria pills. Shit. I get to Paris and go to the address my hostel is supposed to be. When I step out of the metro I see a drug deal. I turn around and see another. I am in a pretty rough neighborhood. After an hour of looking (my backpack and computer bag slow me down considerably) I go into a hotel and ask someone. They turn me away. I go to the hotel next door. After they look off and on for an hour they find the place, across town. I get on a bus, which goes by the lame American statue of liberty given to the French. After some walking find the place. They do not have my reservation on file. I pay again. I barely get to speak to my roommates before I fall asleep around 1 am. My flight is at 10 the next morning, and I need to be on the bus by 7:30.

The next morning I wake up at 7 since I don’t have an alarm. I put my pants on and I’m back to the metro. I arrive to see the bus pull away, and have to wait for the next one. It drops me off after the plane is full. I didn’t buy insurance so the next plane to Madrid costs me another 100 euro. I have no money now. I wait for the boarding at 5. I go through security. The plane is supposed to leave at 7, but it doesn’t come. The departure time is moved back to 11. I call my friend who I’m supposed to meet, thanks to a sympathetic francophone but I get no response. He is probably out eating though, as I did tell him I’d be there around 1. I leave a message, but he has no way of calling me back. The flight is moved back to 11, meaning it will arrive around 1:30am. I am very afraid at this point of having to spend a week in the Paris airport. I absolutely have to get in touch with Alex, and I am not sure if I can reach him by phone. For the first time in a long while I am genuinely afraid, I do not know what I can do since I have nothing left in my bank account. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and due to finals I have had almost no sleep. It is a bad feeling.

The plane is moved back to 11:45 and finally canceled. Everyone goes crazy. Everyone is screaming in Spanish after they make the announcement the plane will not come in French. It takes about an hour for everyone to calm down and for someone to explain to me what’s going on. Then there is a sit in for an hour, which I am a part of because if the airline doesn’t keep their word I am not in great shape. The company says they will put us up in a hotel and pay for whatever expenses we occur. A free weekend in Paris, I think, it could be worse. We all get on busses that drop us off in the middle of Paris. No one else is going to the hotel where we are supposed to be staying. I run around frantically asking people where they are going and stumble upon a 50-euro note. Praise Jesus. I have no idea where the hotel is, so I hail a cab and we go. When we get to the hotel they have no idea what I am talking about. They say there is no way for them to bill the company provided on the piece of paper. After about half an hour of negotiations they say they will bill me for a room. The room is 85 euro and it is 4:30 in the morning. I ask if I can wait in the lobby until the metro starts up at 5, and they agree. They bring me a hot coca, and suggest that I go to sleep in the bar. I walk to the hotel bar and find a very dimly lit room with a loveseat in the middle. When I wake up I get some very strange looks from the staff, which has since changed shifts. I ask where the metro is and get out.

Over the next few days I do all the touristy things, and my Belgian visa gets me into all of them for free. Finally, it was good for something. The Louvre is enormous, and after looking at the Egyptian collection, which is good for me because I just finished the class on Egyptian esthetics, I leave. I see several Van Gogh and Manet paintings at another museum, as well as the Venus on the couch with a black lady or whatever it’s called. I like it a little too much in a funny way I think. Maybe I am not tortured by the idea of beauty enough? I am worn out by around 8 every day, but a few days I push on. I am sleeping roughly 10-16 hours every night. I am so tired all the time. I do make it to midnight mass at Notre Dame, and it is packed. I continually nod off, and the novelty wears off pretty quickly. Christmas day I go to a pastry shop, and walk around like a normal day. Paris is pretty cool. When I first arrived, I didn’t really understand the romanticism tied up with it, but with time it started to grow on me. It wouldn’t be a bad place to live, I could never afford a place to make it worth it, but nonetheless. However, I did have a major issue with one thing. There are 400 free public toilets in Paris. None of them on the seine actually work. This is discomforting considering walking at a very brisk pace will still take one an hour and a half to get across town after the metro has stopped. I was a few minutes from a very shameful vacation when I got to the hostel.

I wake up and leave the hostel with plenty of time to catch my plane this time. I wait in the airport for a pithy 5 hours instead of the marathon 15 for my first flight that was cancelled. However, I am not as disciplined this time, and I buy a sandwich so I can watch the simpsons while I wait.

26/12/09

I am in Madrid now, after a very short flight. I am picked up at the airport by an old neighbor and his chika. She is very nice, and they buy me drink after drink. Madrid as it turns out is a strange city. It is built on sand, so there are buildings that go over 11 stories underground easily. Parking is not an issue, because most garages go at least five floors under. There is no grid to speak of, and so the streets are confusing beyond all reason. Maps don’t even help. Mind, I have been in Brussels for four months. A city generally considered to be terrible. Three solid days of walking through downtown Madrid and I still didn’t have my bearings. However, the concept of the tapas is so beautiful I can forgive the city. That may be the thing Belgian bars are lacking most, just a little snack to go with your beer. Anyhow, since Alex (my neighbor) is dating a Spaniard, we go to a lot of family functions. Christmas leftovers are had for lunch one day. New years is celebrated with a lot of rum. Things are pretty good sleeping on a mattress on the kitchen floor, and the apartment is easy enough to find once I figure out where it is in the first place. I bring three bottles of what I think is the best beer on earth, and a bottle of very nice absinthe. Things go the opposite of how I expect them too. They brood over the absinthe, but seem to think the beer that I have brought was too strong. However, it makes for a great conversation starter and maintainer one night, so I won’t complain that they didn’t like it as much as I did. I see the art museum there as well, it is sort of a blur, since I have been to so many, and it is older art which isn’t really my bag so I don’t recognize any of the stuff the way I did at the Magritte museum. We go to a small town called Segovia at one point, and I really like it there. The people are friendly, the roads make sense, there are aqueducts from the Romans, and the food is fantastic. It is pretty cool. I take the train back that night, and Alex, his lover and his daughter stay in a chalet somewhere. I have a good time that night alone in the apartment even though it takes about three hours to get back on the last train, which is local and stops everywhere possible. (I really like being alone in the houses of other people and I’m not quite sure why. Please, if you need a house sitter call me.) The week with Alex flies by. Which is good, but it’s kind of terrible that when you don’t want to go you always have to, and when you want to leave, you have to keep on going. I think I was right on the edge of outstaying my welcome though, so it’s probably good that I left when I did. The last night I’m there we watch a horrible sci-fi movie and drink the remainder of the old absinthe Alex’s girlfriend had while she is at work. We also have a leg of ham we slice pieces off of when we feel peckish. An entire leg of ham, and it is beautiful. It is one of the best times I have had in awhile. In the morning I get up fairly early to make sure I don’t forget anything. I leave my buff behind (why do I even bother trying to make sure I have everything? I need to just start going.) He is nice enough to make me lunch and put it in a paper bag. Someone at the airport is nice enough to knock my computer over during the security check and while I swoop down to pick it up a guard is nice enough to throw my lunch away.

2/1/2010

When I get into Morocco I notice something immediately. That is the sun. The sun is out, and it is actually warm. I could cry. It is January 2^nd, and it is a balmy bright day. The train ride into town is pretty cool. Although, we go by a lot of dilapidated abandoned houses, and shantytowns made out of wavy sheets of metal. They all have a satellite dish though, and it makes me wonder where priorities are. Since I learned the beggars wouldn’t take bread it has crushed my faith in the less fortunate. Seriously though, not a single beggar would take a half of the bread I was eating. Am I really eating things that are below people who don’t have houses? Anyway.

We get to the end of the line of the train. None of the stations have any sort of markings, so I have to figure out where we are. I fall asleep and wake up at the terminus. I think I slept through my stop, but a very helpful flight attendant tells me that I have to transfer at the station. I go to the vaguely indicated cay and wait. The train changes from Porte Casa where I need to go, to Marrakesh. I ask the ticket taker, and he has no idea. There is lots of yelling in Arabic, and he tells me that the next one is what I need. He says that he doesn’t know when the next one will come. “Insh’allah” I reply. He thinks this is apparently very funny. I am asked a lot of questions by two older women, who apparently just like talking to travelers, and they tell me when to get off of the train. I step out, and realize that I will never be able to find my hotel, especially pulling all of my crap. I am bombarded by taxi offers, and I shrug them off initially to use an atm. I pull out 500 diram, roughly 70 dollars. Though, I think the exchange rate I have is really old, and the dirham has moved down since then. I go back out to the zone and the cab offers come again. I ask how much and they say 20 dr. This is roughly half the price of stepping into a cab in Brussels, and I am pretty happy. I probably should have haggled, but oh well. It takes me to the hotel, and the guy pushes a private tour for 200. No thanks I tell him, I’d rather walk around. I get into the hotel and I find some soap. I take a bath in water that could have probably cooked a few crabs. I wash myself until the tiny soap is all but gone, and the water is the color of concrete. It doesn’t occur to me until later that it was good that I didn’t swallow any.

I walk out and go to the first stand I see, since I haven’t eaten anything for a day. It is a kebab. I swore I’d had enough of these in Brussels, but I’m pretty hungry. The menu is in Arabic so I point. I get the kebab, and it is so good. I eat it and towards the bottom I notice there is brain. I look up and see them pull out a sheep skull and replace it with another sheep’s head. But it is so good I have another. Two of those and three teas set me back a whopping $2.00, which is great. I buy some bananas for a few more cents, and go back to the hotel after wandering around and watching some street raï for a while. I have a few names of people who said I could stay with them as I am carrying all my money around with me and the hotel was $20; I’ll call them tomorrow.

The next day I wake up and take another shower. I ask the clerk of the hotel if I can use the phone, and he says it’s fine. However, he has to call the number to be sure I’m really calling someone in Morocco. He screws up the number a few times and then tells me it’s not Moroccan. I ask him to do it again, and he angrily says no. I ask him if he’s sure he dialed the right number, and he says he knows how to use a phone. He gets angry and shows me the redial screen. I look, and I show him the two incorrect numbers he dialed that time. He grumbles and another call is made. This time it goes through. I talk to someone who sounds pretty relaxed, and in a very poor conversation on both of our ends, I tell him where I am. I finally grab a card and tell him the hotel’s address. He says he’ll be there in an hour. An hour later I am in the lobby watching a movie about sustainable agriculture in Québec, fighting off my own desire to sleep. The reception gets a call and there is a lot of yelling in Arabic. “Your friend calls” the clerk says “he went to Ave. 6 Novembre not rue 6 Novembre. He’ll be here in a few minutes.” I wait longer and another movie on people in Columbia who pop wheelies in Jeeps comes on. Finally he comes, and I leave the hotel. When I get to his house, there is a giant spread in front of me. Chocolates, tea, dates, nuts, everything, and I am completely overwhelmed. I meet several members of the substantial household, and they sit around streaining to keep smiling at me. We talk about how I have already been scammed out of some money (cab rides should cost no more than one dollar.) It was a little disconcerting being there. Finally after a lot of really good food they ask me if I’m tired. I gratefully accept the hint and go to sleep. I wake up to a knock at the door. My host has arranged a night on the town. I am embarrassed further, and we go in the car of a friend of his. It is like a flashback to high school. We pick up some girls and we go to a coffee shop. Then we get pizza. However, this made me happy because there was a bottle of really good spicy sauce, with an Arabic label, so unfortunately I have no idea what it was called. Everyone warns me that it’s not ketchup when I cover a slice with it. At one point one of the girls grabs my arm. I have no idea what to do, so I just keep walking with her. We drop everyone off by 11:30 and I am asleep by 12:30 after talking with my host a little more.

The next day he has class so I go out into the city. I see the Hassan II Mosque, which is beautiful, but unfortunately closed. I go into the old medina, and immediately get offers to be guided. I mutter in Russian and walk faster. It is sunny and warm and everyone is wearing a wool coat. I am dying. It finally starts raining and it feels so good. I get back home and have a nap. I wake up and am pulled upstairs by the family for coffee and dinner. Dinner is lamb with dates and it takes me awhile to figure out how to push the pit of the date out with a piece of bread. After dinner my host takes me to a cyber café. We stay for awhile. Apparently MSN is huge in Morocco. He tells me of some places I should visit and I go to sleep.

The next day I wake up and go back to the café, hoping to be able to plan my trip out of Casablanca. I reserve hostels, except for a four day stretch where my host has promised he can talk to some people and get me an already dirt cheap hotel cheaper. Hospitality is done a strange way here. Instead of asking you if you would like something, they just insist you take it. Refusing is pointless. My guidebook/etiquette book said to refuse three times is enough. This is complete crap. It is impossible to refuse. It is impossible to pay for anything if your host takes you out. He talks about the girls the night before. “They were lying about everything” he says. “They’ve never left Casablanca, I can tell. They never lived in any other cities, and they don’t live in a bad neighborhood because they’re living alone.” It is hard to tell what a bad neighborhood is here. It is also impossible for me to tell who is lying, and they seem to lie through their teeth here. They are very helpful though, to the extent where if you ask for directions they’ll give them to you, even if they don’t know the way either. I come back and have another nap. Naps are something that I am learning to love here. Staying for four days seems like too long now. I reserve a hostel for the next day, because it costs 5 dollars and if I skip out and lose the $5 I won’t really care. I am not sure if I will actually stay the next day, but I will have to be up very early for the taxi so I should decide. I should also really buy a gift for the family. I don’t think I’m going to leave tomorrow, but my plans have changed more rapidly before.

I wind up staying another day because I need to get a gift for the family, and they are making less of a fuss over me so I feel more comfortable. I keep asking the only non-veiled daughter if I am staying for too long and she keeps saying that I could stay the month if I wanted too. I think she is lying but I can’t tell. She is the only one who has hinted that she may be unhappy, or that bad things happen in Morocco. My host said that he would reserve me a hotel in Marrakech. When he gets back, he announces that he will be coming with me. When he tells me this he sits on my bed and smashes the boxes of chocolates that I got for the family. At that moment his father comes in and gives me two sweaters. I try to refuse, but kindness is something that is forced here. I force him to take the chocolates, after ten minutes of arguing. Finally I convince him by saying that I will have to throw them away if he doesn’t take them. We go to sleep, which I am grateful for. I have never been more tired than I am here.

When I wake up it is pouring rain outside. We head out to try and find a cab. It is nearly impossible due to the rain, since there are less cabs and everyone wants one compared to a sunny day. We finally jump in with someone else and go. I have to put my pack on top of the car, which makes me nervous, partly because I have packed too much and I don’t want anything to get wet, but mostly because the way taxi drivers go in Casablanca an anvil wouldn’t stay on top of their cars. I strap it onto the roof rack and we go. When we get there it is still on top. The driver did a good job of being careful. I go to an ATM and withdraw 1,500 dirham, roughly $150. Thank you mom for depositing into my account while I was in Spain. I turn round and my host has bought my ticket because we are late for the train. However, it is delayed 25 minutes, so there is not really an issue. The train ride is beautiful. Though we are delayed at several points. Everyone else seems very aggravated. I am okay with it. We get to Marrakech (pronounced mare-e-couche) and after a lot of bickering with the cabby we go to a hotel. A cobra is put on my arm. My host tries to buy a barber’s table. other things happen. It is a pretty tourist city, and other than the souk (bazaar) there is not much to do. I do manage to get a fez hat, and a pair of wayfarers for $4. Hells yes. Even though they are fake I don’t care.

We go to a little town called Agadir. The bus leaves at 2:30 and gets there at 7, so since we are both incredibly tired we go to a hotel. I want to sleep, but since our shower doesn’t work we move to a different room. It turns out we are the only guests and only one of the room’s showers work, but it is a single and they won’t allow us to sleep in a room with only one bed. I am not sure why, but they keep saying it is because he is arab and I am a westerner. Homophobic racism? Who knows. We sleep awhile. After, we go to the beach. I meet someone who emailed me, and my host meets a friend. The person who emailed me turns out to be an English major who wants to practice. She is very nice. Her fiancée turns out to have had a wife. She goes and so does the other girl. We eat and decide to go to Essouaria the next day. We go by bus without incident. My host is getting meaner and meaner about money. I do not really care, but he keeps accounts pretty tight. He also has a charming way of letting me know when it’s my turn to get something. It goes “Farris pay!” I am not okay with that. The town is very nice and much cleaner than a lot of other places. Morocco has huge trash heaps along the side of the road, so some picturesque land winds up looking pretty terrible. The next day I try to get to Meknes via Casablanca where he will stay. The bus arrives at 12 for a three hour trip. We argue with the baggage people who want more than the ticket cost to load our stuff (possibly because I am white, racism is pretty overt here. They don’t like white people paying what the locals do and they don’t like interracial marriages.) The driver comes out and there is a lot of yelling and finally the driver chokes one of the bag guys and throws him on the ground points at us and yells a lot more. I have seen this exact scene so many times at bus stations in Morocco. I am surprised there isn’t someone choking someone else on the flag. We depart and within fifteen minutes the bus breaks down. It manages to pull itself to the next town, where a five year old fixes it. It is smoking by this point. It takes us another 9 hours to go 150 km. This is an average speed of just over 10 mph. The door also doesn’t close so it is really dusty and I feel like the bus is slowly killing me. A friend told me he knew someone who died on a coach. I think that might be the worst way to die. It sucks. Most of us are asleep and suddenly, bang! It is terrifying, and the bus engine stops completely. Someone tells me it was on fire. That could have been bad. Finally they call another bus. We buy some bread and a bit of meat and the butcher cooks us a pretty decent pita over a fire. We get to Casa around 12. I go to my host’s house, where there is now a Quebecoise girl staying. She is pretty unpleasant to be around. I go to sleep.

I wake up and get the train to Menkes. While waiting a kid comes up to me. You can tell when someone is going to ask for money, they just have an air. He starts to talk to me. I tell him in Russian that I only speak Russian. (This is an incredibly useful phrase. Probably the most useful thing I learned in Brussels. Thanks Farwell Affair.) He makes like he is eating and says “I’m hungry” however, he’s wearing jeans, which are very expensive here. I offer him half a round of bread and he refuses. I yell at him in Russian throw a 10 euro cent piece and point to it yelling more. He doesn’t move so I push him out of the seat next to me but he sits down again. I get up and he follows me and while making a fake apology he tries to pick my pocket. He goes for the wrong one and it is embarrassingly clumsy. I shove him off and he falls over, and I briefly get the urge to start beating the shit out of him right there in the train station. I have mace I think, that would hurt like a bitch. Instead I just yell “Voleur!” (thief) and a cop stars to run over. The kid scrambles off. I cannot remember being this upset about anything. It takes me awhile to calm down on the train. When I get off, I am haggling with a cab driver and a guy with a water truck comes by and offers me a ride. He swears a lot talking about the cab drivers, and I get to ride on a few hundred bottles of water. I try to pay him, but like I said, generosity is compulsory here. Meknes itself is gorgeous. There is a park, and I have a pleasant lunch in it. It is a great city, and I meet two girls who agree to show me around. We go to the tomb of an old sultan, which is incredible, like the Moroccan Versailles. I have to be in back in the hostel by 10, so we agree to meet the next day.

That night my hard drive crashed, so I stopped writing. I am not going to write now and try to fill in, as that would be unfair. I hope you have enjoyed the preceding. Bon chance et bonne nuit

Europe, we have to talk.

Dear Europe,

I am an American, as you know. We have been living together for three months today. Isn't that such a long time! When I first arrived I didn't know what to think. My French was poor, my shame from my origins high, and I expected you to be less than accepting of such a person as myself. However, you seemed to appreciate my efforts, and the first few people I met were very kind. More so even, than their jobs merited. However, the longer I have stayed the more I realize the truth. Europe, you have produced some delicious fruit, but your tree is rotting. You hold up your achievements, but they do not define your culture. Your achievements have actually held a reverse effect, that now people can hold up things they had nothing to do with, and whose implementation they complained about to exonerate their own debauchery, bigotry, or combinations thereof. Europe, you have to stop talking about Americans, because you are exactly the same. There was no culture in the US save for the yogurt and the Meningitis. I am afraid that you are headed down the same path. There are remnants of your culture, to be certain. But you can't hold on to these for long, especially when you are working as hard as you can to tear them down, and replace them with large gaudy offices, that will only be torn down to make room for more large gaudy offices. Giraudoux must be rolling in his grave so quickly it's a wonder that the Passy Cemetary hasn't robbed the Earth of all its angular momentum. And yet, you hold him up saying "Look at our greatness! Look at our culture!" When you yourself have done nothing to accept or encourage the growth thereof. 

My point Europe, is that I wish you did complain about me. I wish I was ostracized and marginalized here. Disenfranchised with my lack of culture and my wont to be a little brash and completely stubborn more often than I'd care to admit. I wish you saw yourself as different from me. But you don't. You as we, have fallen into the abyss of consumerism. What's worse you do not even recognize it is glaring back. You have come to live lying in your most base desires and instincts. You do not care anymore Europe, and you are okay with that. When I first arrived I was so enamored. I guess I just talked to the right people. If I hear an iphone play hip hop on the metro at 7 am once more I am going to lose my mind. Headphones may be masturbatory, and the may slice through solidarity like a razor through the side of my cheek when I inevitably cut myself shaving, but they at least lack entitlement. We have screwed ourselves Europe, and we are starting to realize that our entitlement was unfounded. Please, you are looking up to what America is and behaving in the way that has made its last few years so very disastrous. I am only here for a little while longer Europe, and I'd rather say this as I left, but here we are. You have lost all the responsibility that you must have had after you screwed yourself the last time. You're on the verge of it again. But this time, you will rot from the inside, until your fruit gets uglier and uglier and soon disappears altogether. Norway stayed out of your organizations as did Switzerland. I don't blame them. I want the rest of our time together to be time well spent. But this will require change I know you're unable to make. It will require you finding something to eat other than McDonnald's and durum. It will require me finding cavernous art galleries packed and bars with bad music and overpriced drinks empty. It will require you to ask me about more than clubs when I tell you I went to a country you've never been to. I told you I didn't go clubbing already, why ask again? So Europe, I do value the time we've spent together, but I feel like what I have loved about you was an ersatz to what you want. The long dinners with friends were scoffed by your populace in favor of cheap and fast. The museums and cathedrals seen as only a place upon the exteriors to express your bland statement of ego, or pithy pseudo-anarchist slogans. How long are you going to ride the outliers of your society before you admit that something is wrong? more importantly though, how long will Poland last now that they look up to you?

I am going to be with Africa for awhile Europe. You treated Africa terribly, and well, I hope that in that regard they are different than you. But you've taught me not to expect much.

Kimball

Brussels

So here's the thing about Belgium, it is officially bilingual. This means that to get a job one must speak French and Dutch. However, until a while ago the Francophones had all of the industry and all of the power. So the Dutch were used to learning French. Now it is imperative that the Francophones also learn Dutch, but none of the Wallonian teachers know Dutch. As a result, the French have 20% unemployment and businesses have a severe need for employees. As such, there are problems, since unemployment is so high. Moroccan  men have an unemployment rate of 70%. That is catastrophic. But if one wants a job here they must speak French, Dutch, and preferably English. Unless you are like the awesome sandwich lady and only speak French, but make such a sandwich that no one cares. So all in all, the poverty is pretty bad, and the poorer someone is the more they will flaunt what little money they can appear to have. As such, there is a huge market for stupid flashy crap here. It is pretty annoying. People have been complementing me on my shoes, which is something that never has happened before in my life. It turns out the first pair of shoes I have bought in nearly 4 years, for a pithy $20 is an 85 euro commodity here. So obviously, they are just complimenting my ability to buy them. Which makes me feel really uneasy. 

The point of all this is I stepped on a snail the other day. They are everywhere, and usually I watch out for them, but I was reading. They make the saddest pop sound. I have eaten them, once, it was not so great. But I didn't feel bad about it then. However, stepping on one and lifting up my foot to all of the shell fragments was terrible. Stepping on a snail I think was worse then seeing that guy die on the steps of the Bourse. But guys on the Bourse will try and steal your beer. Snails do no harm to anyone. RIP random snail driven to the parking lot because of the rain. You were a better man than I am.

Scandamazia

So, two months since my last post, that seems like a good time to add one more. My original plan was to update this for every single day that I was abroad. Obviously that has fallen through. I suppose that the complacency that goes along with moving away from being a tourist has made me more uneasy about writing a lot. Days spent trying to get various identity cards do not make interesting work. It is not that I haven't done anything interesting. I have been to three countries since my last post. I have also seen more interesting things in my time in Belgium than any person really deserves. But still, I feel like I can't write about being a student. My setting may be more interesting, but I'm still doing the same things you're doing. I'm studying, I'm writing papers, and I really dislike a few professors. Just because I'm in Europe doesn't magically make any of that mundane stuff interesting. And when I take time to go to another country it is still just a break. Anyhow, here is what I've considered important for those two months I've yet to describe.

4/Nov/2009 

I have returned to Brussels from Norway. I originally bought a ticket, and then changed the date so I could man a coat check on Halloween. The coat check job fell through though, and so instead I decided to introduce several friends to Blue Velvet. In the morning I pack very quickly and head to the train station to catch the bus to the airport in southern Belgium where my plane departs. The bus makes me feel like I am going to throw up. I am dreading the plane. However, I get to the airport and everything goes pretty smoothly. They take my toothpaste and soap, but I wasn't surprised by that. They let me keep my deodorant though, which pleased me very much. 

I get to the airport and run into two people from my college that had told me earlier they were also going to Oslo. It turns out we are in the same hostel. They talk about how great America is. I am slightly worried. They talk about how effeminate European men are. I've heard that one before, I don't care much other than it sounds pretty stupid when people say it. They talk about how much they hate Asian people. They are either not funny or openly and unapologetically racist. The latter turns out to be the case. They are as it turns out, also looking forward to Christmas. I point out that it is November. They do not see the point of my bringing this up. At least there are no awkward silences. 

We plan out a little more of what we are going to try to do while there. We make some plans and then something that makes me feel terrible is said, and we go back to planing. We finally get on the plane and I try to read, but do not succeed. More terrible things are said, during which times I remain quiet. More talk about Christmas is had, during which times I remain confused. We land and go to the hostel. We check in, and got to our respective rooms. It is a nice place, and completely spotless. I have a very favorable impression of the place. It is late so my sputniks and I go to find a restaurant. We stumble upon an Indian place with very good food called I think, New Kandahar. However, Kandahar is in Afghanistan so that is probably not right. The food is great, and with a little stumbling over my Norwegian phrase book everyone is more than happy to converse in English, modestly stating "I only speak a bit" before they go on with a perfect accent and an at least 1500 SAT vocabulary. More horrible things are said over dinner, and I feel ashamed for the better part of the trip. We are exhausted and go to bed afterwards. 

The second day I wake up before the sun is up, which I imagine is probably not saying much in winter. get ready and knock on the door of the private room. My classmates are dressed and they are more or less ready to go. I use their toothpaste while I am there. One of them has brought four different shampoos. I think this is too much shampoo, and express that thought. They seem to think it is necessary. Oh well. We go to a museum, but it is closed. We go to another and their is a man at a desk but he informs us that as it is Monday all of the museums are closed. We walk to the old costal fortress, but that is closed too. We walk around the harbor for a little while until we get to city hall. Inside there is an open hall with some paintings, and while the paintings are good it is nothing terribly impressing. However, we go up to the main hall and there are several grandiose mosaics and huge murals depicting Norway during WWII. The whole room looks over the gray ocean, and the scene is as cold as it is beautiful. We go to the sculpture park and they squeal at the nudes. I bring up the fact that one of them has said she wants 9 kids, and as such she will have to deal with a penis at least nine times. She has no response for this. It is exactly like traveling with a relative's children. Children that you have to smile and act polite to, and try to talk esthetics with, while they completely reject it. They complain a lot, but they let me take awhile to appreciate what is a very impressive place. They also let me dictate what we are doing and when, which puts me in the position of ensuring they have a good time, but I never let that inherent responsibility lord over my doing what I want. I occasionally ask if they want to do something I have planned and then we do it. The only downside is that I have no sense of direction, so if there are four possible ways to go, we wind up going four ways before we find the right way. I agree to go back to the Hostel after the sculpture park. They decide to watch The Santa Clause, apparently they are serious about this Christmas in early November thing. I toy with the idea of pretending to be Jewish, after some anti-Semitic remarks are made. I don't but I have started taking to saying "You are terrible people" when something like that is said. Again, it could be a very unfunny act, but to do it for that long would also make one a terrible person. I use the movie time to take a nap. We go to dinner after that. We go for Norwegian food this time. We get fermented cod and lutefisk to start. They are both terrible. I know it's an acquired taste. I think people were just a lot hungrier back when the first person dropped their cod in the fire, put it out, and then dug it out of the ashes and ate it. The main course comes. I ordered the Reindeer. It is served with root vegetables and is very good. We pay (too much even though it is a mid priced restaurant) and leave. I spend the rest of the evening planning out my last day, trying to figure out how to see everything I'd like to.

Day 3 I wake up and dress quickly. I meet up with the one-third of our group and go meet the other for breakfast. Breakfast goes a little long and we get a late start. We take the tram way into the suburbs to go to the science museum. Only a few stops outside of the city center we start to see large houses, but it doesn't look like urban sprawl. Maybe if I had any experience in the subject I could describe it better, but I've been to L.A. a few times, and it was 100,000 times nicer than that. We go to the science museum, which is nice enough. On the way we meet the wife of the director of Visit Oslo. She seem perplexed by our presence in the city. She is very nice though, as are most of the people. There is a perpetual motion machine that relies on weights to constantly put it off balance and keep it going. It is a cool idea, and if not for friction it would produce more energy than it took to start it, but of course, it didn't work. We next headed to the Munch Museum. We saw the Death of Marat II, The Madonna, and of course the Scream. My favorite painting was the Wave. But the most interesting thing there was when they had a drawing next to a woodcut of the same scene. That was impressive. From there we went to the folk museum by bus, which is good because as I learned later the ferry was closed for the winter. The Museum was outside of the city and it had several old buildings, including the world's oldest wooden church. It was a continuous series of roofs on the outside, and meticulously decorated. From there we headed to the Viking Museum, and then to the Maritime Museum and the Kon Tiki Museum. We headed back to the city and ate at a decent Mexican place. I figured that one time eating Norwegian was enough for my wallet. We then headed to the Nobel Center where the terrorism board game was. I may have bought it, except for the space and having nothing to do with it after December. We then went to the Royal Palace, and ate at a really good unbelievably cheap Eritrean place before going back. 

I said good bye to the people I had been borrowing toothpaste from and went into my room to try to get some of the reading done for my class on Thursday. A lot of people were in the room, and we talked for a long time. Two of the guys left. Two Belgian girls slipped a note under their door once they had. We were all in bed but not asleep when a girl from New York slipped in. We told her to turn off the light, and kept talking. I was thinking about leaving, and it made me feel terrible. For whatever reason I loved Oslo. Three days and I would have lived there if I had any hope of learning the language (which I recognize that I don't.) I woke up the next morning from the only good sleep I got the entire trip and left with the two Belgian girls in our room. I went from sleeping on the train to the airport to sleeping on the plane, which arrived 1 hour before scheduled, due to leaving 45 minutes ahead of time. I also found out my living permit was only good for one week after I received it due to a misprint. In that sense I am glad that I got to come back to Brussels, as I only have one entry on my now expired Visa.

Although not being able to leave Norway wouldn't be bad at all.

Olso, je t'aime.

It's feast or famine here in Kimball's House of Blog.

18/08/2009

            I wake up at 5 in the morning. One of my roommates is dragging the other into the room. I offer to help. When it is refused I go back to sleep. I wake up again after my alarm goes off. I look at my roommate. He is covered in blood. We meet early for a bus tour of the city, and have to wake him up. Noise doesn’t work, nor does shaking him. I finally get him up on my shoulder and he jolts awake. “You can sleep on the bus” my other roommate reassures him. We get there right on time; several people have obviously been there for a long while. We get on the bus and juice boxes are quickly distributed. The Dutch word for apple juice turns out to be “Appelsaap.” Everyone has a good laugh about this and then we silently enjoy them. My roommate we had trouble waking as it turns out was in a fight, and has lost several teeth. He has started noticeably forcing his mouth shut when he smiles.

A British man guides the tour. We see some statues, and drive by the Atomium, a replica of an Iron molecule for the world’s fair. We get out, snap some pictures, eat some fries and then trudge back onto the bus. The rest of the tour consists of going to the UN. We are told the official meeting center is in Strasbourg, and so one country volunteers to sit out each meeting. The French refuse to move the EU to Brussels. We see a part of the Berlin wall, and the building where dentistry was given to children against their will not a stone’s throw away.

Then there is a long series of more information given to us on campus, accompanied by more of the neon green chicken sandwiches I’ve come to be so fond of. We are given our housing assignments. I am to live with a woman on the end of the 5 metro line. This is quite far from the edge of the city, but pretty close to the campus, so it is nice.

We leave campus and go to La Mirabelle for diner. We walk out back into a fantastic garden that is set up in the middle of the predominantly grey city. There is even a chicken walking around. We eat and drink and I am seated next to a native so we can speak in French. It is a little awkward at first and it makes me think of my various conversation partners. I feel bad for them. Eventually though we move past this with some help from my knowledge of soccer. As it turns out, the Belgians hate the French. As far as I can see, every nationality in Europe hates someone different. After dinner we take some busses back. I almost fall off when the doors are closing, but manage to grab one of the rails on the door, preventing them from closing. We have a quick aperitif and go back to the hostel.

 

19/08/2009

            The morning is full of registering at school. Our campus involves a renovated barn. The novelty is the best part about it. It is hot, the speeches are long, and if the chairs weren’t so damn uncomfortable I would have gladly slept it all away. It is basically a huge waste of time.

            It ends eventually though and we decide that we need a drink. It is roughly 1:30. We hear about a good café to go to, and search for it for a long time. Finally we ask a young girl at a grocery store and she directs us. It is across the street, it just has a huge terrace. Everyone orders, I use the term for vodka I was taught in class. They look at me as if I asked them to order a kidney from a hospital. I get up and go to the bar. The shifts are changing so it takes awhile to get my order in. I come out several minutes later with a gin and tonic and a double of vodka. They feel bad for me though and only charge me 5 euro. I get back and everyone else is finishing their drinks, so I drink mine faster than I might have. Everyone else goes to buy clothes except for one other guy and I. The school is putting on a barbecue. We decide that there will be free food and that therefore, will make it worth going.

            When we get there I met the guy who I will be living with. He asks my friend who is wearing a Twins shirt if he is from Minnesota. All I know about my roommate is that he’s Minnesotan. Low and behold. However, we don’t hit it off very well. Instead the people I wind up talking to are two girls who ask me if I like metal. I ask if they mean steel or Slayer. They seem excited about the slayer reference. As it turns out they are twins who are writing a fantasy book about WWII. They will be published in December. They are super excited about everything. Their mom calls and they ask me to walk with them to where she is picking them up. We talk some more, and they are picked up. As they leave I get the kiss on the cheek from each of them. They leave and I am smugly smiling. I feel like I have integrated into the culture, even if it is just a trifling bit.

An odd night for a Spanish woman in Europe.

17/08/2009

            We wake up and go to the lobby of the hostel. We talk about what we did the night before. We go upstairs and a few of us bring the small sandwiches that we ate the day before for breakfast, and some water sparkling and otherwise. We talk about traveling and other such things and are given 10 voyage passes that may be transferred unlimited times within the hour.

            We dig into the sandwiches. One really good one is the bloody roast beef, which is eaten by taking the cheese off of another sandwich, eating that roll, and then eating the new beef and Gouda sandwich.

            A large woman with a slight British accent enters during lunch and talks with the coordinator, a young woman named Emily. A significantly skinnier girl comes into the room looking rushed and takes most of the class away to teach those without any experience a little French. We are left with the large woman, who speaks to us in French for a little while and then we play some games obviously intended to test our ability. We first go around and say I’m traveling in Belgium and in my suitcase there is…We go in a circle and list things, including everything previously mentioned. The first 20 or so things are pretty conducive to Belgium or at least traveling, but it quickly deteriorates to Hippos and stoplights. It becomes harder to remember the order and items exponentially. Then we make up sketches for the other group. We make things that we think that they can have fun with. But they decide to be dignified, and any potential of our skits is dashed. The professor leaves and we are each given a French dictionary with a section for romantic phrases, which of course we all find independently and within 30 seconds of receiving the books. Mine is to be left in the room of our hostel.

            We talk more about traveling and safety, and we are given phones. They are used; mine has no credit on it. I fall asleep while they are talking about area codes and how to dial us from the US. The room is hot and I am jetlagged, so I don’t feel sorry. After we finish talking we take our metro cards and prepare to go to the last open-air brewery in Belgium. On the way we see a man in a Fifty Cent shirt with his pants around his knees, shaking to support the weight of the chain around his neck, leaning against his cane. He is my favorite person in Brussels.

            The brewery is a large building in the working district of Brussels. We pull open a garage door and enter. There is a huge space, with the sigh of the brewery “Cantillon” above an area for tasting. We are given a tour of large mixing machines, thousands of bottles stacked against walls after being corked, big oak barrels, fermenting pans as big as our hostel floor, and various mashing pumping and boiling instruments. We are told that they do not use brewer’s yeast, but let the air ferment the barley, which they can do because they only brew for a few months in the winter when the beer bacteria and not the vinegar bacteria are floating around. They also explain that the wood in the brewery contains the bacteria needed, and so only former open-air breweries can do this. If the place every burns, then they are sunk forever. They take us through the steps and show us the storage rooms. It smells exactly like a winery. We are told that it takes 3 years for the lambic to ferment, and when it does, it is sour, because none of the sugar is left and flat because the carbonation does not occur. During this time the owner goes into how when the Americans brought Coca-Cola all of the humanity left beer. He goes through the history of beer. Women as it turns out, invented beer. They made it sour and flat and it was that way of over ten thousand years. We clap and go to the tasting. We try some Gueuse, made from a 1,2, and 3-year-old batch, and a kreik made by throwing sour cherries into the beer after 2 years. I like the Gueuse, which is like drinking a thick lemon. I debate whether or not to pay an extra 2 euro to try the lambic. The choice is made for me, we are leaving, and the owner is dealing with some other tourists.

            I take a shower and a nap and we go out to find some falafel. It is cheap and delicious, and gives me the worst stomach cramp I’ve had in a long while. We go for drinks afterwards and  after a few beers I am ready to go to sleep. We walk around for awhile though, and when someone else suggests that they will go home, I take the opportunity to leave also. We pass by my roommate that I never see and I persuade him to give me his room key since I’ve lost mine. He sings with a friend and pees on a wall after I take it. I say good night and go to take a shower. I walk out in just a towel and I am greeted by the door opening. I look over and am greeted by a woman, naked from the waist down with her pants around her ankles. She yells, but doesn’t move. By the time she screamed I had already turned around, but I can’t help but laugh. Some other people with their clothes on run past me to get to her, apparently they are acquainted. They yell in Spanish and I walk back to my room. When I turn the corner one apologizes in Spanish. “De nada!” I am already halfway in my room. I put some pants on and go to sleep.  

Mussels in Brussles

16/08/2009

            I wake up in time to make my extremely early check out. In fact, I wake up early enough to shower again, get breakfast and return to my room before heading out. Thanks to my broken clock that was not working at all when I awoke and told me that it was 3:45. However, the sun was out, so I knew that was not correct. Opening my computer confirmed my suspicion and gave me the correct time. I look outside and three times see different men who are not poorly dressed pull bottles of juice out of the trash and consume the remnants. I pack up, check out and see the Czech boy waiting there. I am put off, but we go to the hostel where I will be staying and put my luggage in a room and my computer bag behind the counter. It takes some persuading since I don’t actually have a room yet. We head out to kill some time before the 12:00 meeting. We go to a church with urinals on the side. He goes into a rant about Belgium and how they have no respect and merely do these sorts of things for attention. I relish the opportunity to use such an implement. Eventually I have his email and I am in the lobby of the hostel for registration. He is headed back to Prague. I see some of my acquaintances from the night before and we start chatting. We are greeted and head to a room where we are given schedules and a lot of papers. We play some getting to know you games. One of these is a list of random things that one tries to fill in with their fellow student’s names. I can put myself down for almost all of them, so I make it an easy time for everyone else. We eat a large amount of small sandwiches. My favorite is a neon green chicken curry that looks as if it could give me superpowers. After a few hours of presentations on the Metro and other aspects of living in Brussels we are let loose to move into our hostel rooms. One of my roommates is a person I sat with the night before. He is very friendly and has a severe receding hairline. The other is a guy who hasn’t said a word the whole night. He drops his baggage, which is substantial, off and leaves before I pull my backpack and suitcase up the stairs. I will not actually see him until the morning of the 18^th. My roommate and I talk for a while. He has graduated already, but wanted to go abroad and since his parents were paying for it figured why not just study? He has a job as a bartender in Australia after this semester. I take a shower and head downstairs for a walking tour. It is about six o’clock and the sun is still blazing away. We are told that this won’t last and that we are fortunate. We walk around and see a few places that I visited the night before. We also visit the urinal church. We are told that there used to be a port in Belgium and that sailors wouldn’t stop urinating against the side of the harbor church, so they eventually just set up a drain and made stone urinals. “Has anyone already taken advantage of these?” Our director Michelangelo asks. I raise my hand and he laughs. “No one usually does their entire time here! Good job!” I get a few slaps on the back and we continue. We see a statue of Godfrey II the man who conquered and became King of Jerusalem during the first crusade. We also see a statue of the current king on a horse; we are told that it had originally been ordered to be on a motorcycle. A few people laugh. We are brought to a beautiful covered walkway with statues aligning both sides and let loose.

            A few friends and I are told the name of a really good seafood place and we go there. There are around 18 of us all together and so we split up into groups of four and five to be seated. Everyone else at our table orders the special: A pot of mussels, fries, and a small beer for 14 euro. I figure though that it’s my birthday and I should indulge myself, and so long as I am here branch out a little. I order the horse and a kir, along with everyone else’s food and feel like quite the francophone. The mussels are delicious. The Horse however, is far better. It was a fantastic cut of meat. No ring of fat, no bones, just delicious and tender. It has the consistency of a steak, but tastes like a sweet pork chop. The kir is good too, but as it turns out is much sweeter than I’d expected, so I drink it before eating too much of my meal. After diner we stumble, drunk on our full stomachs to the Delirium Tremens, an idea for a café I’d had since 16. We all order a beer, and I run to get an absinthe. I get a cube of sugar and a match, but I am forced to ask the bartender to do it for me, in less than wonderful French. The confidence I’d had earlier is shattered. He dunks the sugar cube in, pulls it out and puts it on the spoon. I bring it back to the group and it is consumed to many cheers. Someone calls it “Devil’s piss.” I can feel it in my sinuses when I drink it, and in my stomach once it is down. I order a beer and continue to drink, though much more conservatively now. Many other students join us and we go downstairs and shove a few tables together. I let it slip that it’s my birthday when someone asks me why I drank absinthe and happy birthday is sung. The whole bar joins in and after the song demands a speech. It goes roughly as follows with me trying to translate every line after I say it:

“Thank you. In my home country, to turn 20 means nothing. There is nothing that one can do to mark the event. But though I have been here a very short time, and though I have embarrassed myself on multiple occasions while here, I still feel as if I have something to celebrate in just being here. I feel as if this is actually a decent place. So thank you for letting me be here.”

            It gets applause and I am already completely red by the time I sit down again. Several drinks are purchased for me and the times are good. We go to see a Rolling Stones cover band but before they start playing two other students and I decide to go home. I send a rushed e-mail to my parents and go to s