Royal (Wedding) Twats

I was watching a BBC segment on the family tree of Kate Middleton, the girl that married one of the princes. Harry, Larry, Barry, who gives a fuck. Anyway, they traced her family tree and showed that her family worked in coal mines or, as one of her cousins does now, works at a fish and chips shop. Oh, how quaint! They focused a lot on her grandmother, I believe, who reportedly had great drive and aspirations and "always strived for more in life" or something like that, and noted that she died 5 years ago -- but not before seeing where her granddaughter was then. With a prince. Oh, let me wipe the tears from my eyes.

So, grandma, your goal was to be rich without merit? It was literally to win the national royalty lottery? Is this what people still want in the 21st century?

Where IS her granddaughter now? What is the point in the royal family and most importantly, who gives a shit aside from old British women with collectible Princess Diana plates? Really, it may be a "rags to riches" story, but don't try to inject it with a bit of working class spirit, American dream stuff -- she's literally just fucking a prince. He saw her one day and thought, "I'd like to get inside of that", and because he's a prince with a yacht he now has, and that's about it. She's done nothing except open her castle gates and let a rich novelty inside and well, good for her, I guess... Why this is on the BBC is my main question, along with How anybody finds this to be heartwarming or interesting aside from Britain's board of tourism.

At least Belgium's just got a shoddy king that nobody cares about and the Manneqin Pis to show off. The Belgians seem to prefer more important things in life like making delicious beers and fries. Leave it to the Brits to romanticise the class differences like life really is some fairy tale and it's worth being in the gutter because some day, you too, might live in a castle paid for by the underlings of the country.

Wankers.

Ah, Matongé

They're renovating the area that I live in now. Tearing up the streets to create a larger walking space for the tourists that like to come through the area, I guess. Normally, there would be a constant amount of traffic passing by, but since the street I live on is currently blocked, people have decided to use it as free parking space . The problem is when someone gets blocked in -- which is what happened two minutes ago.

This is the Congolese or "African" district mind you, and the solution to any problem is to honk your horn. A lot. Bite your tongue? Honk. Angry at the world? Honk. Happy? Honk too.

 In this case, somebody came out of one of the bars and found themselves shut in, so they honked. And honked. And honked some more. My frustration started to grow after about 5 minutes until a car, a street or so over, decided to start honking along in solidarity. Like two ships lost in the fog, they communicated in slow, defiant beeps. I have no idea what they said, other than "Get me the fuck out."

 The common struggle of Matonge. Or maybe people just like honking. I've been told that it is just the way to get things moving in Africa: you honk, they move. Nevermind the noise.

I haven't been to Africa yet, but I'd guess it would be an interesting visit after living here, a place modeled after a city in Congo. The only way that I can describe the Africans I've met since living here is... relaxed, to the point of not giving an absolute shit. A cop came to verify my existence when I applied for my ID card here, and when I answered the door he gave me a run down of my new neighborhood. He said,

"Most of the people around here will tell you if they have a problem. They will say it to your face, that's their culture. Except for the Moroccans, they'll stab you in the back".

A little racist-sounding, and he was a Flemish cop (managed to insult my wife, too), but the point I got out of it was that the cultures are very different, and the majority of people who live or frequent the area bring their culture along with them. It's true. It's not even a question, really.

A lot of the people living in this area are first generation immigrants. The streets that compose Matonge are lined with fruit and vegetable shops that sell things like plantains, and the "really fucking hot peppers", as I call them, that tend to grow in Africa... not to mention weaves and other hair products. All at the same time, in the same shop, sold by Pakistanis (Chris Rock should have come here for his documentary. I have literally seen TumbleWeaves).

That's why I love this place; the fusion of cultures is exactly what you would expect from "big city" life, as my grandparents would probably call it. Yet it works -- Matonge isn't Dante's Inferno, like everybody seems to think it is. (The last article I looked up online was some racist bullshit about gang violence)

Despite everything, Brussels is a melting pot full of all sorts of people who manage to get along under almost any circumstances. And there's not even a government! Maybe that's why it works?

Fricadelles and war machines

Occassionally, when I'm in a rush and on my way to class I'll run into Carrefour (fun fact: means crossroads), one of the larger grocery store chains, in search of something to stop the continous rumbling coming from my gut. I hate it when absolute silence in a room full of people is pierced by the sound of my stomach begging for sustenance. That's when I regret not having the bowl of cereal or whatever.

Alas, I am your typical carnivore-style male and I prefer the protein punch to give me the energy in the morning instead. I still sometimes wistfully dream of the Irish breakfasts I've had that kept me full of energy... and presumably cholesterol. (See this for an example...) Anyway, I can't stand eating sweet things in the morning, which is what the French race seems to run on. Lots of dairy and cookies or bread or whatever. My wife seems to love speculoos cookies, for instance. So of course I walked near the fresh baked bread and pastries and what did I spy wrapped in flakey bread? MEAT. Or as I would later find out, a fricadelle (frikandel for the dutch).

If that looks too appetizing, here it is without bread.

There are a lot of sausages from a lot of different places, so that didn't raise my eyebrows or anything, but I shoulda known better when my wife told me once "we don't know what meat is in there". By we, she seemed to mean everyone else in the country. But I love the things, they're quick and easy and taste good. Outside, it's the consistency of a regular sausage and inside it's sort of... grey. The appearance threw me off cause I thought it was breakfast food; silly me... I'm in Belgium, meat for breakfast? Course not. It's meat for lunch, that's why it was sitting next to the mini-pizzas!

You can even find them in kebab shops. Usually I eat them as they are while walking to class, but apparently in the Netherlands and Germany people will eat them sans-bread with mayo, ketchup, onions, etc. Sounds sorta familiar, right?

I think you see where I'm going with this: it turns out that the fricadelle is pretty much the euro equivalent of the hot dog, and I've been happily eating them for breakfast for like a month now. The frightening part being, they are rumored to have the same quality of meat in them as some of the shadier hot dogs in the States except the horse, as I have pointed out before, is still eaten over here. Yep, a growin' boy gotta eat his recycled mystery meat! The fact that I've been sandwiching them inside of the noble croissant is probably worthy of some sort of public punishment in France.

At least maybe I countered some of the pig balls and horse jaw meat by walking around the giant musée militaire here in Brussels. I went there yesterday with some classmates for the second time, and I still haven't really had the time to take in everything. It's free, so I'll be going back. I could spend all fucking day in there and I mean that literally, I'd have no problem with staying there all day and sleeping there as well. I can easily see myself donning Napeolionic-era armor with bullet dents in it and passing out on a Nazi tank with a fricadelle in one hand and a Kwak in the other.

The wife is kickinh my fat ass off the computer so I shall write more about meat later