Life with “The Others”

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.

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.

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!