Back at Work, Back at Home

Hi readers. No doubt you’ve noticed that I’ve not posted here in ages. I’d like to, but being that I am back to work, I simply don’t have the time to keep up with two blogs so much. Of course, I am also no longer living abroad, which affects things. Cultural idiosyncrasies are still all around, but generally I combine all things onto my other blog these days. Just in case you’re wondering where I’ve been…

 

Getting set up

I had to get up at 3:30am on Friday to fly to re-training for work. I must have Candy Land expectations of American customer service after Belgium’s because I called several cab companies, looking for one to make “my” cab company. I was looking for that cheerful operator who’d chat me through how much time to plan for the drive to the airport, but hung up on several because of their sullen operators. (I absolutely HATE it when people repeatedly ask you questions and then don’t let you finish answering before cutting you off with a rude response. It’s so passive-aggressive.)  After my third try, I remembered that cab operators always (seem to) hate their lives so I called back the least offensive one.

A nice black man greeted me quietly but cheerfully in the dark of morning. Dressed in white slacks, white short-sleeved linen shirt and a Panama hat, he looked like he was fresh off the beach in Kenya. I liked him immediately. We drove to the airport – me very happy to discover that an early morning cab is only about $20 (instead of the seemingly universal $35 minimum airport charge) – with the windows rolled down and 80’s R & B in my ears. Al Green is surprisingly appropriate for my mood at that time of morning. My driver ended up proudly telling me about how he is a 3rd generation Washingtonian and that I would come to love the city as much as he. I liked this guy and he started off my morning as well as possible considering the offensive hour.

It was a good start all things considered, but the early morning doomed my brain. I stumbled through the next 17 hours of work duty feeling like there was an actual fog in my head. I answered even the simplest of questions wrongly (i.e. “Is this equipment functioning or not?” “Uhhh, not.” “Wrong. The green seal means ‘good’. Remember, a red seal would mean not functioning or ‘bad’.”) Luckily I was too tired to care how stupid I was that day, and very aware that the instructors are used to people getting nervous and giving stupid answers here and there. Del wanted me to defend myself and explain my exhausted state, and I was tempted to, but the fact is they don’t care if I’m actually stupid or not. They’re just doing their job and getting me through all the information review. SoI kept my mouth shut. Well, except for when I was saying something idotic. Anyhow, I got good sleep that night and breezed through all the tests on day two and now I’m ready to go. Well, after my my security clearance is renewed. That seems to be taking a while. I wonder if it was all that living abroad….

 

I Know Where American’s Get It (CNN on the Haka)

As an American abroad, it will come as no surprise that I often have to defend our honor against the stereotypes. Most popular? That we’re stupid about the outside world. As a generalization, this is (unfortunately) not something that I can say is untrue, but I’m always explaining why with valid reasons beyond the average person’s control. I never thought I’d have such proof of media complicity though.

Yesterday, CNN International covered Laura Bush going to Afghanistan, being welcomed by the New Zealander troops with the Haka. What’s the Haka you ask? Well, to me it is a symbol of NZ integrating and celebrating its indigenous heritage. NZ has a native population just like the US and Australia, but their culture has survived fairly well and is tangibly present in NZ’s modern culture. They are called the Maori, tribes closely related to the Hawaiians (for example). The Haka is the Maori warrior dance, and most people are familiar with it because for over 100 years their national rugby team has preformed a haka before international matches. It’s quite fun. You can find all sorts of hakas on YouTube; here’s one that I like.

In short, the story behind the battle haka is that Maori tribes would preform it when gathering for war. The purpose is twofold: one, it scares the everliving crap out of the opposition by making you look fierce and crazy as hell (note the wide eyes and protruding tongue); two, the slapping of the body draws blood to the muscles, warming up the body to fight if the other side doesn’t back down. Pretty clever I think. Personally, it’s one of my favorite cultural/national icons.

But did CNN tell the viewer that? Oh no, instead they only said things things like: “…the closest thing Laura Bush can get to a lap dance in public…”, “…think Chippendale’s in the desert…” and “what does it remind me of? Hmmm…oh yeah! [insert split screen video of a clumsy Ostrich here]“.

I find this stunningly ignorant and inappropriate. Yes, the Haka is fun, but was the only news angle to trivialize and disparage it? They didn’t include any explination as to what it actually is. So millions of people were just introduced to a 1000 year old tradition that has survived to the modern age as…’something that looks funny‘!?!? Is that all they see in it? Is that really the story? Seriously, what was the purpose and intended message of the report? Does the reporter even know what the haka is? I watched this report thinking, “I am witnessing precisely how and where we are taught to dismiss view the foreign world. This is the depth of our intellectual and cultural exposure.”

Given that this blog started as a place to point out how strange culture can look out-of-context, I get it. People may miss the irony of my observations, but I am not a “journalist” and my audience is not reported to be 1.5 billion people (last I checked my stats). Nobody thinks I am an objective information professional, nor takes my word as gospel. And still, my site has a disclaimer.

And people ask why Americans don’t know more about foreign countries. Mystery solved. 

 

New Things

After almost five years in Belgium, I did something for the first time: I went to the beach.

I’m not sure what might be more surprising to many, that Belgium has beaches or that it took me five years to spend a day in the sun there. I cannot find any statistics about how many annual days of sunshine Belgium averages. Rather, experts say Belgium “might get 2 hours of sunshine in January, up to 8 hours in June”. I think all this tells you something.

So finally I tried out the beach at De Panne, close to Calais; in fact, (apparently) so near to the French border that several people I spoke to in French asked me “what brings you to France?” and most of the cars had French license plates. This made me feel sort of lost, as it is in Dutch-speaking Flanders, squarely in Belgium. Why would people keep saying we’re in France, when clearly we’re not? I thought. It tempted me towards mobthink. Like everyone around us knew something obvious that we did not, even when my intellect was certain.

Interestingly, even the beaches here reflect the social frictions. All the “rich” that spent their days by the sea were once the French-speakers. Thus, even though the beach towns are all technically Flemish, everyone used to speak French there. Now “all the rich people” are Flemish, so the tide has turned to service primarily in Dutch. That’s how some of the beaches (I suspect) get their reputations for being “snobby” or not – depending on one’s linguistic perspective. For what it’s worth, I found De Panne to still lean French, though being so close to France might moot all the local Belgian social factors.

Anyhow, we had a wonderful day, although it took 2.5 hours to get there (as long as it can possibly take to get anywhere in Belgium), and the beach was a tram ride from the station (the longest tram line in the world, actually). After lying in the sun, outed as foreigners by the fact that we lay only on towels amongst a sea of beach windscreens, we chatted and laughed. I enjoyed the fascinating dynamics of our group (1 American, 1 German of part Korean descent, 1 Lebanese, 1 Zimbabwean of part Indian descent and 1 South African of Indian descent – wow!). For example, I learned how to properly cook and eat locusts and that pregnant women in parts of Africa crave to eat a certain kind of “dirt” that ants use to make their houses on tree trunks, which (reportedly) “tastes like rain”; I also learned that Lebanon is much more mixed and segregated than I presumed and that the reason I have mistaken every Lebanese I ever met for having an French accent is because they do. Most of all, we enjoyed the distinctly summer feeling that comes with the stick of salt water dried on your skin, the smell of the sea, the coating of sand, the social correctness of eating lunch in a bikini.

Unfortunately we decided to leave at the same time as all Northern Europe. The tram took 20 minutes to inch forward 5 feet in traffic, so we put our flip-flops to the test of a 4 mile trek. We beat the tram (!) but missed the train by 4 minutes, which now put us home at 23:30. But I didn’t mind. I’m not a particular beach-lover, but the ritual of a cool shower and long night’s rest after a long day in the sun is one of life’s quiet luxuries. Definitely worth 5 year’s wait.

 

Where’s Waldo Sarah?

Since I have still not heard from work (don’t even get me started), I had to return to Belgium for some medicine and an appointment. I hated to leave my DF but it had to be done. Anyhow, he’s got lots of stuff do and I’m tempted to hoard all his attention when I’m there. So we decided I’d leave on Wednesday, and i of course got bumped off of several flights until it became too late for me to catch the connecting flight to Belgium! So back to DC I went – and I was glad for an extra night with my honey – but the airline kept my bag. So instead of figuring that now I might as well stay through the weekend, I had to go try again the next day.

I ended up in coach (gasp! The horror but I can’t complain. We were two hours late which meant I had to go straight to my appointment at the hospital, suitcase and all. No one can claim I’m not dedicated to my commitments!

What happens now? I’m no more sure than I was a week ago. It appears highly unlikely that I’ll get back to work before my surgery, so…how irritating. I guess I’ll be here a few more weeks. However, I’m enthusiastic about the move now. While the festival season is in full swing here in Belgium (a kite festival at the beach today, a concert in front of the palace tomorrow, etc.) and it’s tempting to think that life doesn’t get any better than festivals in the sun, I took a quick liking to DC. The city is so civil! Ok, aside from the high murder rate and all (heh)… it was stunningly friendly. I couldn’t get over the smiles from strangers, the pleases and thank-yous. The architecture is beautiful, the green space plentiful, the museums prestigious and free, the apartment is nice, the fiance happy…all in all it portends a nice life.

 

Limbo

Time to put this blog to some of-the-moment use. I have friends checking it for the 411 on what’s going on (because it is all a bit confusing!) and so I’m going to put it here.

I still have not heard from work. They’re waiting for the return of 20 pages of details they asked my doctor to fill out; he was doing it as best he could “a few minutes at a time between appointments”. My last update on this was 2 weeks ago! I grew tired of twiddling my thumbs waiting, waiting, waiting in Brussels and I hadn’t seen my fiancee in 5 weeks. So…I decided to “pop on over” to the US. My hope was that work would give me the call that I am cleared to go back to work while I’m here. I’ll admit though, with every day that goes by this appears less likely to happen. My final surgery is June 5th and as the lead time up to that disappears it seems more pointless to go back to work in the meantime. I’m willing to! I really want to (not having had an income for 2 years is a helluva motivator!), but my hopes are dwindling for that to happen over the next few weeks. We’ll see.

How long will I stay here? I’m not sure; up to another week. I passed a great couple of days with my sister and now I’m in DC getting acquainted with the city. (So far I’m really pleased. It’s a little weird to arrive in a new city/apartment and know that it’s supposed to be your “home”, when it feels like such a stranger. But that will pass. The neighborhood is great and I’ve already connected with some friends that have been awaiting my arrival.) If work calls, I’ll be off to that new (old) mistress. If it doesn’t, then I’ll have to go back to Brussels in the next week or so as I have some medicine to get (which I’ve already delayed for a week because I was itching to get over here for a visit).

So there’s that. The extended plans have not changed – I still have the apartment in Belgium through the surgery. I’ll still be “living” there through to July. I will post it here if there’s any update/news. Otherwise, you can be assured that I’m simply here (the USA) for the week, enjoying the fiance’s new fondness for baseball games, absolutely hating the hysterical and local-to-a-fault style of news on TV, feeling nostalgic for the subtitles that usually run at the bottom of all my favorite shows, but loving the friendliness, sun and choice/convenience of…everything!

 

Keukenhof (Reprise)

Many of you will remember the disappointing trip to Keukenhof last year. The short version is that when one goes to the “largest, most beautiful flower park in the world…with approximately seven million planted bulbs”, one does not expect to lots of money to see…a park full of stems.

So last year I complained to the park that they did not so much as warn us that there were no flowers before paying our money and going in, and (to my great satisfaction in the face of my European friends’ shock that I would do such a thing!) the park sent me free tickets for this year. So last Saturday, back I went.

So am I happy this time? Yes. While the tulips were just coming in and the famous colorful fields of Lisse were only about 15% in bloom, the air was full of flower perfume and 15% of color was enough to understand how devastatingly gorgeous it must be in full season. How special it must be to live in that city, at least at this time of year.

The park itself was about 75% in bloom…

Of course, you might notice from the last photo that for approximately every flower bulb in the park, there is also a tourist. The parking lot must’ve had 100 tour buses in it, and there were so many elderly people there we hypothesized that they’d been wandering the maze of the park since they were our age. We thought that after 1 hour we’d be in serious need of some Valium, but luckily the crowds naturally thin out at about 3pm.

So after 5 years trying to see the famous Dutch Spring, my persistence has finally paid off. And certainly there’s no better way to celebrate the season! While I am thrilled with my weekend, I am more determined than ever to see the blub fields in full bloom, riding my bike in the scented breeze. Hey…everybody needs goals, right?

 

Current Obsessions (Part 2)

My other obsession? Recycling. Forget the fact that I’d like to be environmentally responsible all the time but am woefully ignorant on some fronts. I never have the foresight in the moment to chose the wine from France over the wine from Australia because the French wine leaves a lower carbon footprint on the shorter trip here. And trying to research further just depresses me with confusion. (Which is worse, a company using plastic bottles that will rarely get recycled or using glass bottles that require 20x the energy to deliver the same service? *makes a gun out of her finger, points at her head and pulls the “trigger”*)

My political view on the environment goes like this: warming seems undeniable. (Sure there are a few scientists who doubt, but unanimous agreement is rarer than flying pigs, especially with different interests paying for opinions.) Is it caused by humans? Well…it’s possibly natural. The Earth has certainly seen it’s share of natural climate changes before. Still, is there any reason why we humans should not take the road to learning to be more responsible and caring for our planet? None. Besides, we’ll never know for sure until it plays out. If we take the environmentalist route and are proven wrong, the result is a more responsible society. (Oh, and some people have failed to benefit financially from continued irresponsibility. Boo hoo.) If we chose to ignore the environment and are wrong, the planet is destroyed (and thus are we). Seems like a pretty obvious gamble to me.

Anyhow, I get mad when I notice my neighbors throwing out gigantic trash bags full of cans, newspapers and plastic bottles. Here there is no excuse as recycling is easy, organized and handy. I feel tangibly guilty when I visit my father in the relative countryside (where there are no recycling facilities). Milk jugs, soup cans and juice bottles fill the trashcans in a jiff. I find this painful to watch, but at least he has an excuse. Left to my own devices you will find me on the floor amidst a pile of business envelopes, ripping the plastic address windows from the paper so that both parts can be recycled. (I know, I have a problem!)

I really admire the system that was in Leuven. There, waste will only be collected from certain bags. General trash in brown, compost in green, plastic in blue. Glass you drop off yourself elsewhere, though there is a fine if glass is found in your trash bags. The twist? “General” trash bags cost about $30 per roll. The recycling bags cost about $5 per roll. I find this extremely fair – you pay tax on the trash services you actually use and there’s a real incentive to recycle. I wish everyplace would be this logical. *sigh* Until that days comes, you’ll find me eating jars of leftover capers just so I don’t have to throw perfectly good food away. Hmmm, anyone know how environmentally damaging vomit is?

 

Current Obsessions (Part 1)

I have come to accept that I can be somewhat obsessive. I would have never realized this except for the symptoms pointed by by a dear old friend (see point #1). Now I see it everywhere, particularly evidenced by the triviality of the things I enthusiastically grasp onto.

The most recent obsession I see creeping up? Video advertising. It started with looking at those darn wedding planner websites. Every time you click on a page an advertisement floats down and opens up right over the article you are trying to read. I close it. I click to the next page, the same ad floats down. I click back to the home page. Same ad…After two trails with this one particular site and 50 clicks to shoo away some product I didn’t want, I became so incensed I emailed an irritated letter to the website feedback and never used them again (as promised). The one wedding website I occasionally use does something different. There is a box in the right hand margin which plays videos of wedding dress fashion shows or ads for registry services. It always starts automatically. You can click on the “stop” button, but this only works for about 4 minutes, then it over-rides your explicit instruction and plays again. Same for the mute button. So now I just have to mute my computer and ignore the movement. I find this indescribably annoying (although preferable to the ad that flops down over what you’re reading like a lonely cat). Suddenly, a number of my favorite websites/blogs have these video ads running. These things have the added irritant of the fact that they surely eat my bandwidth.

I won’t even get into the obscene amount of commercials on American TV, more noticeable now that I’ve grown accostomed to shows that are only interrupted on specific and limited ad breaks. But these internet ads are really making me cranky. Apparently advertisers are giving up on wooing the customer and going for bashing their faces in with their desperation to have you give them your money. But it’s just plain stupidity when advertising gets so obnoxious and insistant that you want nothing more than to dance gleefully over an oil barrel full of the product on fire. Don’t they do market research on this stuff? I got your focus group right here!

 

Coming Soon

I’ve been quite the busy girl for the last couple of weeks. Packing boxes, seeing flowers, showing the apartment – oh yeah, and cursing because the sale of our furniture to the landlord fell through and now I have to sell it/get rid of it/whatever piece by piece. Aarrggg!

Anyhow, I’ll have a nunber of posts coming up any day now. Stay tuned!