FIFA Cup full o' Goat Meat

So, Ted came to visit on his way to Seoul for a week or so. Traveling with Ted is always interesting. Some times I want to kick him in the balls over the small things, but it's a mutual feeling and one that seems to be a normal part of our 17 or so year-old relationship. Fuck, we're getting old. Anyway, I can't say I would have traveled to Dinant alone and gotten (relatively) lost in the forest behind the citadel, nor would I have searched for the remnants of the Leffe abbey and ended up watching a group of monks clad in white robes do their daily chanting. That was fun and utterly bizarre, as was the night life here in BXL which would often find us sharing a smoke under the psychadelic lights near the center. I was happy to show Ted around to the few places I knew about. I think by the time he left he had eaten Belgian frites, chocolate, mussels. Pakistani night-shop chicken from Tandooriland down the street. African, Brazilian, and who knows what. I even brought him along to one of my English classes and the couple were nice enough to feed both of us, so I guess he got his Francophonian gourmet on too.

I think our best discovery, though, was just here in Matongè where I live. Normally, when I go to grab some African food, it's cheap takeaway - 5€ for all the good stuff and chicken or tilapia. But seeing as Teddy was visiting and we wanted to watch America in the FIFA matches, we splurged and ended up going to sit down and eat. Bit more expensive, but for 10€ you get the meat of the gods. Goat meat. I don't think we were really in a sober state of mind when we first ordered it, because, well, who is when you look at a menu and decide Goat to be the best option? But sweet jesus was it good when we started eating it. I don't know what they do to it - marinade it, or what - but I'd say it rivaled or surpassed some of the best ribs I've had in the states. Course, you end up having to pay for a drink and then whatever else they might swindle you into buying... rice or plantains... but it's worth it. Never thought I'd find myself celebrating (or lamenting?) the wonders of goat meat in my life time, but here I am.

And then as quickly as Ted appeared, he vanished, off to do whatever Ted does. Who knows, he seemed in an adventurous mood. Maybe he decided to progressively step things up the further East he traveled. I haven't really heard from him since. I envision him in an opium lounge somewhere in Turkey dining on human flesh, or sitting in a communist prison in China, taking lots of pictures. I guess we'll see.

Speaking of communism, half way through the North Korea-Portugal match I expected the Koreans to give up and start eating handfuls of grass on the field, tears streaming from their eyes. Eat what you can while you have it, boys. Because someone, somewhere is going to get tortured for that absolute ass-thrashing and it's probably your family back in the Motherland. You don't get sent to represent Kim Jong Il to all the world and then lose 7 - nil. Actually, I think it's just a good rule of thumb to not represent Kim Jong Il at all, but that's hindsight, and dictatorship.

And now the US has lost to an African team-- a hard night for me, living here. In honor of Ted I would return to our table at Chez Ya Peggy and order goat from "mama", cheering on the US of A. I was the only white guy in the little restaurant and when we scored a goal my arms sprung into the air and everyone turned to look at me. I just shrugged with a smile. But by the end of the night, it was the Zairians or Congolese and maybe even a stray Ghanan blowing on their vuvuzelas and cheering on our defeat. Take that, white man.

And then Ghana lost to Uruguay yesterday and their cheering and tooting has since ceased. Sorry guys, how's it taste now? Not nearly as good as goat, I know that. At least we can all take solace in the fact that Brazil lost, and we all did better than England. For those watching, I don't think the FIFA cup is even as much about the sport as it is about cheering on your country and praying for the doom of others out of spite. It's the type of stuff that brings people together. I was happy I got to experience it here in Europe and with an old friend, to boot.

Now who else is going to come visit?

I'll update with some pics later when I'm not being lazy

And now...

So, I think I fucked up my French exam. I have another coming up, but that's kind of like waiting for the second wave to hit while you're still holding your breath. I'm just hoping it tosses me onto the sand. I'll try my best anyway.

But that brings to mind what I will do during the "vacancies". After the big test, I'm just here and the wife is wherever she gets accepted to for training.

I thought about some strange Nordic land where I'd freeze all day, eat fermented fish, and drink strange liquor with the locals but in retrospect it sounds like Stalingrad 1943 and so, no. Scandinavia is probably a no-go especially since I have no fucking money. Western Europe may be half the size of the US but it's just as expensive when it comes to travel.

Maybe I'll join a farm somewhere for a few weeks and live off the fat of the land. Or perhaps I will join a commune, where I will live off of the fat of other humans that we have butchered because communes are fucking weird. No one can tell. Not even me. I hope it is none of those, actually.

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

A Joyeux Noel

So, the holidays and what-not were pretty cool here. I always thought it would be awesome to spend the winter in Europe, figuring it would look like something out of a movie. Which it was, pretty much. Brussels got its first real snow in the last couple weeks of December and I was happy like a school girl.

Ssnow is awesome when you don't have to drive and you can still walk around without slipping. But after a while, snow in the city gets packed down to the point where if you step on it, you're going to bust your ass. Which Marine did once, by the way! The more I get to know her the more I realize how clumsy she is when she gets tired or lazy... it's as if she has no awareness of her physical self, where she ends or begins, and the area around her. Knocking glasses over, dropping things... busting her ass in the snow. That's my wife.

For Christmas we ended up going to France. The train ride was great. As for the time there, it was ok, but unfortunately on the 23rd or so I was asked to accompany a group of Marine's dad's friends on a hunt in the woods. For wild pigs, giant god damn wild pigs. Anyway, our job was to walk around and scare the pigs out of the woods. You heard me, you walk around with no weapon and "scare" the pigs, yelling or smacking trees with sticks, anything to make a noise. If you see one charge at you, you run, because they can easily slice an artery in your leg with their tusks and that'll be the end of you, squirming and bleeding out while a bunch of Sarkozy loving Frenchmen run after their next vanity kill.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we didn't end up scaring any pigs out to be slaughtered. The woods there can get pretty thick -- it's the same area where I dug up WW2 trenches last year (I'll have to post about that later) -- and it was cold as balls, of course. So in between the random bomb craters we walked, looking for pigs which never showed up. It didn't take long to get scratched up, cold, tired, and kinda bored. We stopped for lunch at one point, which meant lots of food and lots of booze. Of course. A little strange to see a bunch of guys guzzle wine and then pick up shotguns to head out and kill some shit, but mostly they were safe.

In the end, they did something lame, although I guess it's a tradition. A bunch of pheasants were bought and released into a certain area of the woods and were then hunted. They definitely got a few of those. I wasn't aware pheasants stunk so much, you learn new things every day. Marine had a pretty :( story though, apparently she was near some old dude who managed to blow only the wings off of one of the birds. He shouted at her to chase it, so chase it she did... until it managed to get away in the thick brush. Later, the more ...adept... hunters told her they should have just let it be so they could track it or whatever. So the poor bird ran out into the middle of nowhere loaded full of buckshot. War is hell, pheasant.

All I was saw (alive) was a big hare which was scared absolutely shitless. It was running like a Cheetah through the woods. I yelled "LAPINE! LA LAPINE!" which just made Marine giggle. I was actually trying to be serious though. I need new gloves and that thing looked soft. I was tempted to hunt it myself using knowledge from First Blood starring Sylvester Stallone but decided to let it be for then.

For New Years, we ended up staying in Lille. At this point I was sick with something or other so it kind of sucked. It was in this (cool) old building where they have projectors showing video clips to music. Unfortunately, most of it was typical Eurotrash techno crap with bad art school CGI movies and neither me nor the woman liked it, so we left shortly after 12 and walked a couple of girls home. That was it. Got some midnight kisses on the cheek from pretty French girls and I turned one year older. Here's to my 26th year on the pale blue dot...

French shoes

This is what happens when you wear French shoes. Or this is what happens when I wear them anyway. The woman got tired of my ass-kicking steel toed Doc Martens and bought me these a couple months ago. I haven't worn them since this happened

Everyday goings ons

So, I dropped a €20 on medication today. What a bitch. That's like two weeks of groceries or... let me calculate this...5.7 kebabs. Highway robbery! I got a receipt so I can give it to my insurance company that I signed up for here, but that doesn't give me money now. I may try to take it by the insurance place later today and if the man accepts it I will then buy a kebab to set things right with the universe.

Insurance here costs something like €5 a month, but even after signing the papers I'm not sure what I get out of it. Oh well-- I had to have it for residency anyway. And I guess it'll be useful if I get hit by one of the many speeding cars around here. European drivers scare me, really. The roads are most often one-way through the cities, since they're such cramped areas, but instead of having the 15MPH speed limit like back home, it is easily double that or more. There aren't any speed limit signs, actually Most of the cars are stick shift to keep the cost down and they are all of course, very small, but that doesn't mean they can't haul ass. And the way you're supposed to walk around the city is this: if there is a crosswalk sign on the pavement, walk into the middle of the road without looking and the driver of the Peugot hurdling at you at 50KM will then hopefully put on his brakes ever so gently and let you cross without issue. Me? I just wait until there's a break in traffic and then I go. Euro drivers may be better than US drivers but I'd rather not get in the habit of crossing the street with a car speeding at me. I'm incapable of that sort of trust.

I've got an English class to give tomorrow, we'll see how that works out. The hard part is coming up with subjects to talk about. If you hate awkward silence and have no clue about how to fill it, then teaching English is probably not the job for you. Essentially you're just having a conversation with someone and you are to correct them when possible and help them in any specific areas that they need help with. But it's pretty much up to you to be able to carry the conversation and I'm no Oprah Winfrey. Money is money, though, and it is something to do. I'll try and print out some worksheets tonight or something ... I hated school and am not really the teacher type so this is all new territory. Combine that with the fact that I really don't give a shit and, well, god help my student. The cool thing is, they phone me, come to my apartment, pay me and leave, all because I was raised to speak English and it was naturally one of my better subjects in school. I think I'll milk that golden cow for as long as possible.

I miss football

And Olive Garden. And Outback Steakhouse. I know those aren't exactly sophisticated eating places but I feel like eating a plate 4 serving sizes too big and watching some pigskin. Oh well.. thems be the trade offs.

I've noticed that learning a new language seems to make you reflect a bit more on your own. The other day I was thinking about strange slang words in English. For instance, there's Bullshit or Chickenshit, which are often shortened and mutated into weirder things like "That's Bull!" or "That's Bullbird..." the latter being a strange concoction formed from the two. Try understanding that when you're just starting to learn English, it doesn't make much sense. When I'm asked questions about stuff like that I end up confusing myself as well. "Well I don't know why all of our phrases shouted in anger are religious in nature. Jesus Fuckin Christ, gimme a break." Not a lot of expressions really do make sense, and the same thing is happening to me with French. "Shit on the whore" just sounds odd to me. My favorite, however, is "BORDEL DE MERDE", or "BROTHEL OF SHIT". It just sounds so depraved. So I tried to think of the most offensive set of words I could think of in English and I came up with bloodfart and cumbomb. Both really kind of make me feel uneasy, especially when used in the same sentence. I don't know why but I wanted to share that.

Speaking of-- just in time for winter I managed to get all sickly. The fever I had going was a real ball buster, too. Hot, cold, sweaty... along with not being able to sleep because every swallow was a stab. We all know that old game. Try to fall asleep some time without swallowing, it's harder than it sounds. The degree of pain I was going through convinced me I had the dreaded swine flu but who knows.

You really don't cherish good health quite the way you should until you fall ill. That's just how life works, you need a little reminder now and then. As I started to hobble my way to the toilet one day I wondered to myself, is being old like having the flu all the time? I don't want to go anywhere, do anything. My body aches and I'm cold all the time. I'm grumpy and can't eat the stuff I like or it hurts. I need someone else to bring me things just so I don't lose my balance due to lack of strength and slam into the wall. Spending all of my time huddled beneath a blanket sipping on hot tea or complaining about how unreasonably cold it is. If that's old, I don't wanna get old. Fortunately, I don't think I have to worry about that too much as the ol' sweet breads in me ain't what they used to be. It's a rock and roll lifestyle I lead, man.

Feeling like a bag of smashed assholes did not stop me from traveling, though! It was the mother in law's birthday, so back to France we went for the weekend for a party. It wasn't so bad in the end, except the train ride made me dizzy and the wind she was a-frigid. And when we got there I couldn't enjoy the food or booze as much as usual. I say as much as usual because there was no way I was going pass up free food and booze -- luxuries that they are. So I had a glass of a punch that made my throat feel like it was being torn to shreds by some sort of fiery magic sword, and I followed it up with a sugar coated, fruit filled doughnut like object. My gluttony was satisfied but my poor throat was not. Nothing like coating your wounds in sugar and alcohol.

On the way back we used a car-pool website because it was cheaper than a train. We found a girl on a website, contacted her, and ended up getting a ride from her. Turns out she goes to the same school as the wife and studies theater and works in a shop that sells tarts and things down the street from where we live here in Brussels. Who woulda thought. "I stare at her pastries through the window all the time!" I exclaimed, proudly. My wife gave me a puzzled look over that one, but otherwise nobody felt creepy and it was a nice ride. No hitch hiker murder stuff and everybody got what they wanted. Better than the train, really.

She had a funny story about her acting classes: Apparently they put the students through the ropes and thin them down to only a handful. One guy made it through the process thanks to his intensity, but he seemed a little odd to all of the other students. Later, they would find out that the reason he was such a one dimensional character was because he was a little... well, mentally retarded. That part alone had me cracking up, because if you've ever known a pretentious art student or theater actor, the idea that a mentally handicapped individual was mistaken for one of their own is fucking hilarious. I would cherish the moment I could use that fact against someone. " You don't understand how difficult it is to act and bare your soul! Someone like you wouldn't understand!" Ah yes, but a 39 year old retard might.

They had to kick this particular fellow out because he kept harassing some of the younger guys in the class with text messages, telling them he wanted to "fill up their little butts". Now he's trying to sue the school because he insists he was kicked out for being gay. I really wish I could be in the court room to hear those proceedings.