You know you're in Belgium when....

A Danish friend of mine reported that one day he was taking the bus, the busdriver suddenly stopped, turned to look at his passengers and asked if they knew which road he had to take.... I kid you not! That has never happened to me (or not yet) I have given directions to the cabdriver on more than one occasion back home in Denmark but then again, my parents live in a maze of villas.
In Belgium everything gets served with fries, then again, why shouldn't it - they invented the grease soaked little buggers. And mayonnaise.... I don't mind, I actually like the combination but sometimes I miss a good baked potato or rosti's or just plain old boiled taters.
Everything is in at least two languages, French and Dutch and that includes the subtitles on the movies in the cinema, quite confusing to hear the language spoken in English and then rush your eyes to the subtitles and get confused twice followed by missing the next 30 seconds of the movie, having to read more subtitles so get what just happened but not understand it fully.... No need to say, I hardly go to the cinema, I'd rather stay home and read a book where I can turn the page back again if I didn't get it the first time.
Everyone is eager to help you with your language skills (or lack of) and will repeat a word multiple times to get the pronunciation right.... that's very sweet but sometimes my tongue just doesn't turn that way and that word becomes impossible.... much to their amusement. They do not laugh in your face, no they are rather polite people but they give you a knowing smile and a small suppressed chuckle - Dutch is NOT impossible to learn - just bloody hard!
When you around the 6th of December stumble across a thing called Sinter Klaes, when Santa comes by boat from Spain with minions (all painted black as the night) leaving candy and cookies in your shoe and instead of putting out milk and cookies or ricepudding as we do in Denmark, you leave a cube of sugar or a carrot for the white horse the Sint is riding on... oh yes, and all children who are bad, gets put in the sack and taken back to Spain. Of course the children also gets presents on Christmas but also on New Years....
When you have a discussion with your grandmother, trying to explain to her again where you live, that Holland and Belgium is not the same country, they are neighbouring countries and they have the same national language but both have their own government and different monarchs.
They use Azerty keyboards instead of Qwerty (which the rest of the world uses) It's only a few keys difference but dang it makes typing difficult.
I think I could continue for quite a while

Recycle

I recycle, my mother and father recycles and my nan isn't bothered. In Belgium it's mandatory to recycle and I love it. My mum have always been considerate when it came to the environment and after her and my new dad bought a house, everything got sorted. Paper, plastic, glass and potato-peals for the compost and once every now and then the special truck comes by and picks everything up and puts them in different compartments. I find it clever because recycling saves the environment and reusing glass and paper is rather easy and cost very little energy, a lot less then it costs to produce new items. Now I am not about to join Greenpeace due to the fact that I feel they are wasting the money they collect and get from sponsors and such but I do believe that we have to take care of the world we live in and if you can do something as a single person or household then I think it's a bit silly not to. It doesn't take that much longer to rinse off the marmalade jar and put it in a separate box or take the news papers and advertisements and put them aside in a pile. And then every so often just put them outside the door for someone to come pick it up. In some ways I find it silly that a country like Denmark, who is so concerned with the environment and has some of the highest 'green taxes' in the world to not make sorting and recycling mandatory like it is in Belgium.
(Green taxes: a car fuelled by gasoline costs more annually than a diesel driven car, the bigger the car and the more CO2 it produces, the more expensive it is - clever eh?)
I have informed Steve that once we get a house I want a compost. He thinks it's silly but I have agreed to take care of the garden so a compost would be my job therefore he has nothing to say :P

Things in perspective

We all want to have more money, be thinner, have a straight nose, more sleep and so on and it's a common way of thinking, wishing and wanting more than we have or better things, one could say that it makes us stride to move up and onwards, fight and work for the things we want and need but sometimes I wish people would stop up and think things through. The basic needs, according to Maslow, are the physical needs such as food, water, air and such and most people in our part of the world have those needs covered, true there are millions of people around they world who does not have but I'm not going to get into that now.
When I talk to my different friends and family members it's clear that we are all very different in our point of view on life and for the most I find myself to be with the simple wishes and requirements, I don't care for brands, for going to the hairdresser every 2. week, having my nails done, having a fancy car and so on, I'm hereby not saying that I have shallow and superficial friends, just that we have very different views on what's important in life. I am perfectly happy with the life I have, sure a bit more money would help with less worries over finances but we manage and are not lacking anything, we have internet, cable for the telly, heating and electricity and always food on the table (if I'm bothered too cook :P ) I have a healthy happy son and a fiancée that loves me, sometimes more than other times but never mind that. I have friends who like and love me for who I am and a family that's there for me if I need them. In short I am not rich in material things but I am rich in love and friendships and that for me is more important than anything because as the Beatles sang: "Can't buy me love!"

Like mother, like daughter

I called my mother yesterday for a few things I needed sorted along with some items I needed her to send me for the Christmas preparations, a part of the conversation sounded like this:

Me: I need the address for Marianne's boarding school (my sister)
Mum: I've send it to you on facebook already
Me: Good because I want to send her a Christmas card, I've written them today and just need her...
Mum: *giggles*
Me: YES! I've already written the Christmas cards, I want them sent before the first of December because or else I won't get it done, time flies-
Mum: yes, time does go quickly
Me: Right, and in two weeks it's Kate's birthday and after that there is the Christmas afternoon with the Danish group
Mum: When's Kate's birthday?
Me: err...... the 19th....
Mum: So the day before your sister?
Me: Dammit! Forgot, what does she want? Need?

and so on.... My mother is a perfectionist and have everything sorted and in order ages before it's needed. She's known for having finished her Christmas shopping in August and any Christmas card from her arrives the 30th of November, 1st of December she takes the finished batter out of the freezer and makes Christmas cookies (the batter which she made end October or start November) and I find myself planning like she does. She has for ages tried to implement her ideas on me and I have stubbornly fought against it but now I can see the point of it. I beat myself up each year I don't get the Christmas cards sent and I hate the years when I don't even get to hang the Christmas decorations. I have lately (the last couple of years) taken to my mother's kind of planning and timeplan. It works! Because as December closes in there are so many things you have to do and remember and there is always more family visits and small gatherings with work, friends etc. so having the basics sorted helps a lot, enough so that you do not feel overrun by the holidays and that you haven't gotten to do the things you originally wanted. There is nothing worse than starting a new year with regretting all the things you didn't get to do.

Beauty and beyond...

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" "Beauty is only skin deep" Yada yada yada... Today we live in a world where you are very much judged by what you wear, what you look like and if you do something about your appearance. We'd rather have beautiful friends than ugly ones, none of the girls wants to be the 'friend' to the gorgeous girl, we all want to be the gorgeous one but why? is the position as 'friend' less than the attention receiving gorgeous one? I personally do not like being the one getting attention, I feel it's a pressure to live up to and you cannot really be who you are. The "Shut up and look pretty" is too strong and you end up spending time with people who do not care about who you are but rather what you look like. To me that it's the ultimate downfall, one should never forget what happened to Narcissus, the Grecian who fell in love with his own reflection and fell in the river and drowned. I'd rather be average than dead :P And I'd rather be me than pretending to be perfect because, as we all know, perfection is an illusion. So yeah, make-up is not something I put on every day and since the baby was born, clothes are considered clean if there is no puke or poop on it. I do work out, not for my appearance but for my health not to mention, the little one loves lying on my legs while I do sit-ups - it's a win-win.
All in all I believe that you should look the way you want, not care about what people might think and generally be who you are because no one else can :P

Money - pro or con?

Then after the first-hand impression you're asked what you do for a living, where you live, have a house? and so on... it's something that often puzzles me, I simply do not get it. Some of the most genuine and kind people in the world have/had nothing, here should be mentioned that I am referring to Ghandi, Mother Theresa, The Dalai Lama and so on. The children who can play with hand-me-down toys from older siblings or cousins are considered well-mannered and well-raised and the ones who get anything they point their grubby little fingers are at the spoiled brats. It's funny how we teach our children that less is more though we ourselves live by the rule that the more you have the better you are. I often have the conversation with Steve that I don't care about money, yes, it's nice to have but it doesn't make you happy, we live on a very tight budget and often it's the cause of concern but I'd rather be happy and generally I am. Like the Beatles said: "Can't buy me love". My cousin hasn't got a penny to his name but is still overly focused on wearing designer brands because it makes him who he is. I couldn't care less to be honest, I think it's a waste spending 500 Euro on a pair of jeans when you can get some of an equal quality for 50 Euro, of course I do have a pair of Lewis jeans and some T-shirts who have cost more than I want to admit but they are not my favourite, they are not the ones I wear on a daily basis and actually 'make their worth' In my world, the clothes you wear the most, are the ones that is worth the most, no matter what you spend on them/it.
Borrowed feathers cannot make a raven into a peacock but the raven can fly and the peacock can't
So why are we so focused on it? True: money makes the world go around but if it's not the main thing that makes your life richer then why strut yourself?

Women...

We're are lovable, chatty, snide and manipulative, we never really say what we want and we get hurt and insulted if our men doesn't know what we want/is thinking about/is referring to and so on but we also have many good qualities. We can multi-task, apply make-up with one hand, cook dinner while arguing with our mothers on the phone, we often do not need a shopping list but can still buy the things that are needed for the household, we can keep house! We often give men a headache and blame them for everything (PMS) and cause them to throw their hands in the air and mutter something starting with "Women!..." (IMS) But we take on every roll that is offered to us: friend, sister, mother, daughter and so on. And, not to be too modest, we excel in everything! I knew only a few women who give up and say they cannot do it, we're generally not afraid to ask for help with the things that we know we cannot do, we know our limits and that, in my opinion, makes us strong - knowing your weakness and admitting defeat are true traits of strength. But are we the weaker sex then? Because men who are dominated are miserable creatures :P They need us to need them and of course we do, I need Steve for reaching things on the upper shelves when I'm too lazy to get the ladder and to open jars when my hands are wet (and the lid on the jar is too tight) We might be proud, strong and independent but we need our men as much as they need us.

Nesting

I called my mum in a slight state of panic the other day and asked, very seriously, if there was something wrong with me, I mean, apart from the usual.I have cleaned and cleared out clutter, I repolstered the dining room chairs, polished all the wooden furniture we have, sewn pillows for the couch, ordered covers for the couch and chairs and cleaned my kitchen several times a day, here it should be noted that I also dirtied the kitchen in between by baking, making baby-food and trying out new recipes. My mum's always clever answer was: "No honey, that is perfectly normal, when the seasons change you prepare yourself for a new period, in the autumn you prepare yourself to spend more time indoor and make the home cosy" It makes sense, in the spring you spring-clean and air out to get the last of the winter's dust out of nooks and crannies and to enjoy the freshness, in and out.