Wednesday, June 21, 2006

I started working on the 12th, which has drastically cut the amount of time I have available to run around and get all the stupid little things done that I need to do by about half: buying groceries, washing a mountain of dishes, going to the bank to sign aNOTHer document. As a consequence I'm generally more tired than before. It will take some getting used to. The upside of working is I don't dwell as much on what needs to be fixed/altered in the house to get it to my liking. That, and I have something constructive and purposeful to do for several hours a day which has the added bonus of bringing in income.

Mid-week, we went to a restaurant at the end of our block that had been mentioned in a NYT article that my mom sent me. Eat-cetera looked a little upscale for us, but we were encouraged by the interesting choices on the 30-euro fixed price menu. We sat in the garden (really more of a patio) that was overlooked by office buildings on all sides. They had thoughtfully provided a chalkboard by which they could convey the scores of the World Cup games without anyone having to run out and check them. I had a tuna trio (grilled, raw, and smoked) followed by swordfish with grilled peaches. Mmmm. In between the courses was a palate cleanser of tomato-basil sorbet. To end they provided long cookie sticks to be dipped in chocolate, banana foam and rice krispies. All in all, very tasty. Since the 4-course menu changes monthly, Jack wants to become regulars there. It'll be just like Cheers, except people will call him "ZZZhaaaque!" instead of Norm, and of course he won't be nearly as husky. And we'll drink wine.

Saturday is the day of commerce: it's essentially the only time that people who are employed full time can buy stuff since most places close at 6, so everything's humming with activity. We went to the secondhand store again to see what was new, and Jack found an awesome lampshade to put on our living room ceiling light. Then we went into the city center to check out the electronics superstore in order to get various items deemed necessary for the home office and general comfort (speakers, wireless router, headphones w/ mic, printer, and PC laptop). Before hitting the store we went waaaay out of our way to go to Passage to India, recommended by one of the guidebooks. I was excited because I like Indian food a lot, but there seems to be a dearth of it in our neighborhood. (As a side note, I honestly don't get people who don't like Indian food; the cuisine is so varied that you can't possibly write it off until you've tried a good sampling of the northern and southern dishes.) So we go there and it's totally empty except for one Indian family of four, and the owner/waiter guy was very kind and gracious, and I got the chicken tikka masala and a mango lassi, both of which were fantastic. Jack got the butter chicken, which was also excellent. It fortified us for our arduous task ahead. We detoured through an extensive fabric store which I predict I will make good use of at some point and through the Botanic Garden's gardens, where the photo of the vulture statue was taken.

At the electronics store, after some intense soul-searching Jack picked out some speakers he could live with. The office-related items were all a bust: the microphone has a standard jack whereas the Mac has no mic port (a USB converter is necessary), there were no printers that were Mac compatible, and all the laptops had crazy keyboards. I later learned from the lady at the bank (we should really become best friends, based on the amount of our contact) that the keyboards are the French version and the Dutch ones, which they didn't have on display, are the standard qwerty and all you have to do is ask for them. So now I have to go back. In an effort to find a bright side to everything, I must say that they had a pretty good bookstore in there, and I got a ton of books (well, actually just four). One is some kind of mystery that takes place in the London sewer system back in the day--I look forward to getting started on it. Also they had McSweeney's, which was surprising and looked awesome, but with the rest of the day's purchases I couldn't justify the additional 30 euros. Lastly we got a 5.99 copy of "Raising Arizona" to test out the Belgian DVD capabilities of Jack's computer.

That evening was the USA-Italy game of the World Cup. This was possibly the US's last chance to redeem itself due to its shockingly bad opener against the Czech Republic. The Irish bar we went to, The Bank, housed in an old bank (the security deposit boxes line the walls of the basement bathrooms), had about half US and half Italy supporters. It was an extremely intense game, with Italy scoring early on, a self-goal by one of Italy's players to even the game, the second US goal disallowed due to an obscure off-sides call, and the final number of players on the US and Italy sides being 9 and 10, respectively. We were on the edge of our seats the whole time. The tie meant that the US wasn't completely out of the running, depending on the outcome of their game against Ghana on Thursday. The bar itself put us at ease, in that the wait staff greeted you in English and there was no apprehension about a language barrier. I'm always ready to have encounters that I can't fully comprehend, so I was surprised when I reflexively replied "hi" instead of accidentally saying "bon soir."

After securing some real maple syrup (O'Canada brand; who comes up with these names?) a few days prior, we had pancakes and bacon for Sunday breakfast. We went to a market down by the Ixelles lakes and I started working on my balcony plant plan by buying some flowering vine seeds and a petunia. That evening we took the tram down to the end of the Bois de la Cambre (where I had been propositioned a few weeks ago), which is heavily forested on its border with the Foret de Soignes, a much larger greenspace to the south of the city. Jack had never ridden a tram or been to the Bois, so we took a picnic of leftover caponata, bread from the market we visited earlier in the day, and wine. The tram was much less crowded than the last time I had ridden it, thankfully. We got off and headed down a trail with a column of old trees running on either side of it. The trees behind it were younger, making us conclude that at one time it was probably a carriage road with fields behind the treeline. We headed up to the lake to enjoy our repast as well as the muted sounds of a drum circle floating over the hill. We saw a young boy, probably 8 or so, having a bike ride with his dad. The boy was wearing a helmet and safety vest, and yet he was riding on his dad's bike rack rather than in a child's seat. After sufficient relaxation we began the journey north to go home, and passed not one but two other drum circles in the park, and supposed that they were probably rival percussion gangs that had fights straight out of "West Side Story".

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where are you working? What are you doing there?

We're moving in a couple weeks. Twice as much house, plus a backyard patio and a two-car garage, all for just 1 1/2 times more rent, an amount that ends up being less than our one-bedroom apt. rented for in Chicago. It's one good thing about small-town Arkansas (We can only eat so much catfish -- and I bet they don't have THAT in Brussels!)

Anonymous said...

Do you guys eat every single day? Seems like it.

Work is hard, no?

And now, a robot:

http://www.splutphoto.com/robotattack/slides/tragedy.jpg

ms said...

I'm actually contracting for the organization in Alexandria that I worked for when you were here, Mike. I'm managing one of their federal grants. Pretty much everyone I talk to in the US freaks out when I tell them I'm calling from Belgium. So much for keeping it low-key!

Sounds like a nice house! Good luck with the move. And you're right; the catfish pickings are pretty slim around here.

Say hi to J. and S. for us.

-s

jenn said...

Your iBook has a built-in mic, no?

Two words for you: ear goggles.

ms said...

Jenn-
I think you might consider the headphones I just got as ear goggles--big puffy donuts of cushion next to your head, no? The mic on the Mac is no good for my purposes because people keep telling me I sound like I'm in a cave; literally everyone who mentions the sound quality uses the word "cave". I keep having to make jokes about how I'm hanging with Osama these days. I had no idea that much spelunking was going on that everyone would have the exact same idea of what it sounds like. I should ask them to give me the dimensions of said cave for comparison purposes. Should get my stalactite pipe organ going in the background. That'd really impress them.

Anonymous said...

I think they are just trying to say that you've gone batty.

jenn said...

Yep, sounds like you got yourself some ear goggles. Good on ya!

Funny about the cave thing. I've made a couple test recordings with my older iBook and thought they sounded pretty good. Maybe it has something to do with the acoustics where you're sitting? *shrug*