I Went to Belgium and Didn't Get a Waffle

I guess it was two weeks ago now (wow) when I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself while Le Petit napped. This would be the week when it was school vacation and V was recovering from foot surgery so I spent Monday through Friday from 9 to 7:30 smearing antibiotic ointment on my inflated eye, playing cars, and watching Disney Junior in French. Now I love Disney Junior, and truth be told I really love Le Petit too, but by about Wednesday I was ready to fling myself from the Eiffel Tower if I didn't get to talk to someone capable of full sentences pronto. Luckily I was free as a bird the next week, and I live in Europe now, which means that visiting another country is as easy as taking the bus from Chicago to Detroit. 

"Hey wanna have an adventure with me next week?" I texted Bea.

"Ooh I like the sound of this!" she responded. 

And that's the story of how we decided to go to Brussels during our vacation. 

Our trip was shortened down to just a day due to snow (get it together France) but we managed to be on the bus to Brussels (capital of Europe, did you know that?) by 7:30 on Thursday morning. I know, I'm surprised I made it in time too. 

After a minor setback trying to figure out public transportation at the end of which we decided just to get a cab, we found our way to the hostel, dropped off our bags, and were handed a map. This is the best map in the history of maps. Not only did it include the lovely caption pictured above, but a list of shopping, restaurants, bars, sightseeing, clubs, and parks. It basically planned our trip for us. We wandered around the Grand Place for a bit, had an omelette served by a waiter desperately in love with Bea (actual quote "Be careful with that omelette. My heart's in there"), stopped back at the hostel for a nap, shook out our trusty guide, and tried to make a decision about food and entertainment for the night. I wanted to get moules frites, because that is another thing Belgium is supposedly known for, but we opted instead for a restaurant the map tagged as a "Local tip!" with traditional food. I am so glad we did. I got sausages with some sort of mashed vegetable thing and beer of course. Oh god, so good.

Next we headed to Delirium Village (home of the legendarily delicious, not to mention dangerous, Delirium Tremens), which boasts the largest selection of beers of any bar in the world. This seems like such an awesome thing, except that it makes actually ordering something impossible. After staring at the interminable menu for about 5 minutes I finally shrugged at the bartender and said, "Something good?" He nodded, and handed me something that was, indeed, good. I really love those super strong sour Belgian beers. You'd think they'd have more of them in France, seeing as Belgium is literally freaking RIGHT THERE. But alas, it's mostly Heineken and the like as far as beer selection goes in Paris. The live band was fun, especially the part where the lead singer read the lyrics to Beatles songs off of his music sheet in front of him. Seriously, who doesn't know the words to "Come Together"?

After that we went to a club called Madame Moustache, with free entry, but you had to pay to use the bathroom. Scam. Total scam. I sprung for all night bathroom privileges which cost a euro. One time use was 50 centimes. Scam, I tell you. Despite that bullshit, this was probably the most fun I've ever had in an establishment where dancing is expected. That's probably because instead of the same monotonous House music or some Jason Derulo/Rihanna/Drake pop nightmare, this DJ played 30's, 40's, and 50's music remixed with a hip hop beat. You guys I danced to Jailhouse Rock at a club in Brussels. Game over. Best night out ever. 

We left the next day in the afternoon. No, I didn't get a waffle, but I did get frites (they're fries) which were delicious. I also brought home a single Trappist Rochefort beer, which is sitting in my fridge. I'm saving it for the solo Brussels-throwback Elvis party I plan on throwing sometime in the future.

A Parisian Pity Party

The other night, before I went to bed, my eye felt bruised. That's weird. Like I got punched in the eyeball. Did I run into something and forget about it? Wouldn't be unheard of. So, being me, I went to bed and forgot about it. The next morning I woke up and my whole eyelid had swollen. Great.

I assumed that I had just gotten Le Petit's eye infection. I seem to have a special propensity for disgusting ailments. Remind me to tell you about the time I got a fungal infection in my ear on a family vacation one year. That's right, fungus in my ear.

So I dropped by the pharmacy for some eye drops or cream or something to de-deform me, and got to practice my French. I think it helped that I had something big and puffy to point to for emphasis. 

But though I used the eye drops exactly as directed, when I woke up the next morning the eyelid in question had doubled in size and raised me red, painful, and leaky. Dear V called her doctor to get me a script for something (on her way to the hospital for her surgery by the way), which turned out to be antibiotic eye drops. Well these eye drops didn't turn out to be any more effective than the original eye drops, and my eyelid was still inflated with God only knows what, and so heavy it started to drag the entire right side of my face down. Blinking hurt.

That night V called to ask how Tom was doing, and then asked if my eye was any better. It should be much better, she said. Having decided I was probably going to spend the rest of my life looking like I'd been socked in the face, I was choking back frustrated tears when I told her it wasn't any better. 

"Come over," she said. "I'm calling the doctor."

I went over to her apartment where her sister and niece were helping her recover from her foot surgery, grabbed a seat, and waited for the doctor to come over. Apparently here in the City that Goes to Bed Promptly at Ten, you can get a doctor to make a house call at 10:30. He forced the eyelid up and pointed his evil little flashlight at me. V's sister gasped slightly at whatever it was they saw up there. 

"It's a stye," V translated. I got a new script for an antibiotic ointment, which I smear on my eyelid three times a day. 

And when I woke up this morning, while still swollen, my eye doesn't hurt anymore. And unless it's just wishful thinking, I think it looks a little smaller. Maybe I'll go out tonight after all. Although I don't expect anyone to ask for my number. 

Because I'm always looking for silver linings and learning opportunities, here is a disgusting eye infection French lesson for the day:

1. swollen: gonflé

2. eyelid: paupière

3. stye: orgelet

I Hate Goodbyes

I realized fairly recently that I am the only one out of my current group of Paris friends who is going to be here all summer. Eloise leaves in July, Astral and Bea in late spring, and Ellie and Jane have already left.

A couple weeks ago, Ellie told us she was thinking about leaving her au pair family due to, ahem, creative differences. Sometimes I don't think I appreciate enough how lucky I got with my situation. Even if V was completely nuts, I still have my own apartment to hide out in. No little kids wandering in, no getting woken up at 7:30 in the morning, no judgment if I don't get home until 4 am. But Ellie was not so lucky and soon after she told us she was thinking about leaving, suddenly she was gone.

At this moment right now, I imagine that Jane is starting her first day at her new job. I vaguely knew that Jane was leaving around this time but I didn't really expect it to happen so soon. We sent her off with a farewell lunch of onion soup and waffles and ice cream on her last day. And just like that, another one bites the dust.

Is this like camp? You form these intense and close friendships for a couple months and then when the summer's over you never hear from them again? Like Cindy at Interlochen. I loved Cindy. She made chocolate chip banana cookies and wore men's pants and her mom knew one of the guys from Fallout Boy. And we promised we'd email and write letters and call and visit, and I haven't spoken to Cindy since I left Interlochen eight years ago.

Well that is just not happening here. I'm more grown up than that, surely. I don't just let friendships drop just because we no longer see each other every day!

So I'm planning a Grand Tour of the UK this summer. I will get to visit all the friends I met in Paris who moved back home, plus I get to see England which is the nationality of my soul. Or at least my sense of humor.

The tentative schedule looks like this. Early/mid July I go to London and stay with Bea. From there I take a train (or bus or something) up to Leeds to see Jane. Then on to Scotland to see Astral and Eloise. I'll finish near Bristol where Ellie lives. And then I'll try to convince her to go to Dublin with me because I've never been and I'm really trying to suck the marrow out of this living in Europe thing.

So this goodbye thing is really only a goodbye-for-now, since I'm going to see them when I definitely for sure no question about it go to England this summer. And who knows, maybe I'll like it so much I'll move there next...

City of Love, huh?

Well, here's what I'm thinking about the "city of love." (Please keep in mind that the flash is outdated on my computer and so I have no idea whether this video is the right one or not.)

and We Goin' Gorillas

I know, I know. I suck. 

Anyway. 

So most nights, after eating whatever mess I made for dinner with V and Le Petit, I go home, download a movie I've already seen a hundred times (The Departed!) and settle in with a sleeve of Oreos. I'm usually up until about 2:00, at which time I turn off the light and attempt to sleep. 

It has been suggested that passing my evenings this way is perhaps not entirely conducive to experiencing as much of Paris as I can. Yeah well, I'm lame, what can I say. I think that part of the problem is that I just don't know where to start. I keep telling everyone about how in Chicago I was different. I knew about everything in Chicago. I could give you bar and restaurant recommendations for any situation. I know secret places. I know which not-so-secret places to avoid. I went to shows and clubs (okay fine I never went to clubs but only because I don't own anything sparkly or short enough and I never feel like paying a cover charge). The point is, I know Chicago. I was in a long term relationship with Chicago. We share a toothbrush and know about all of each other's gross habits. That alluring mystery is gone, but it's more comfortable now, and I have to admit I'm still in love. 

I guess that means Paris and I are having an affair. (Has this metaphor gone on long enough?) You see I don't know much about Paris's night life. There's so much, and I'm so poor, I wouldn't even know how to start having one of those nights out where I stay out so late I catch the first Metro home at 5:30.      So basically, I never have any ideas for where to go or what to do on the weekends, and instead tend to wait until somebody else makes a suggestion. Again, I know. I suck. 

So when Eloise suggested we all go to this Metro Party, I immediately agreed, despite not being entirely sure what a Metro party entailed. It's pretty simple as it turns out. Everyone meets up at a metro stop with their booze of choice, and then we all get on the metro and ride it for about 2 hours, ending at a bar. That's it.

Well, I'm up for anything, so I bought a six pack and met Eloise and two others at the Nation stop, where about 100 other people were already hanging around. Other than one guy who offered us a biscuit and another who asked us for pot, we didn't interact much with our fellow metro partiers. To be honest, they all looked a bit weird, and Eloise and I began to wonder what exactly we were doing there. Was it obvious we were totally uncomfortable? 

Eventually it looked like the crowd was moving so we followed everyone down into the metro and then we all just got on the train. The poor people just trying to get home from work or meet their friends for a quick drink suddenly found themselves swarmed by a loud, raucous and slightly intoxicated group of young internationals. I was packed between my friends, a group of English girls, and a few dudes with shaved heads who I'd seen doing acrobatics on the sidewalk before we boarded. The organizer had brought a sound system which he propped on a seat that blasted hip hop through the whole train. Clutching my warm Heineken and bobbing as gracefully as I could (not easy on the best of days, nevermind on a lurching train in close physical contact without about 11 strangers) I sang along to Outkast and tried not to completely crush Bea. Poor Bea is approximately half my size and was unfortunately positioned directly behind me, so whenever the train lunged to a stop Bea fell into the seat behind her and I fell onto her lap. Every now and then a stage-diver passed overhead. Or metro-seat-diver I guess. It was usually the same guy, dressed in a fuzzy blue Halloween costume. I think it was Sully from Monsters Inc, but I can't be sure since the best view I got of him was while I gingerly supported his warm, furry ankle as he floated above my head. 

The whole event was hot, uncomfortable, smelled strongly of body odor, and weirdly fun. So take that Kanye and Jay-Z. N****s in Paris indeed.

I Do Not Negotiate With Terrorists

I swear this is not posed. This is my life.

Yesterday was Wednesday. French kids don't have school on Wednesdays, which means that I spend all day on Wednesday trying to keep a small child from running into traffic or sticking his fingers in the stove. It's not as easy as it sounds.

I show up at V's at around 9 am on Wednesdays, and try to think of things for us to do. I asked V for some suggestions, because I was getting a bit tired of playing cars for ten hours straight, and she bought us tickets for some children's program at the Musée Quai Branly. Great! I thought. A museum sounds like fun. And so began the longest day of my life. Le Petit was certainly in fine form. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and anyone who has ever spent any time with a three-year-old knows what that means. Everything from putting on his shoes, to getting in the elevator, to returning library books was an epic battle. 

"Tom, I'm putting your shoes on, we're going to the museum today."

Immediate tears.

"Regarder téléeeee!"

"No, Tom, come on. Here are your shoes."

"Ne veux paaaas!"

"Just give me your arm so I can put on your coat."

"Téléee!"

"Tom, it's time to go."

Wailing. Just wailing. It eventually stopped as I carried him into the elevator and got him into the stroller. I won't even go into the argument about putting up the stroller's roof thing so he wouldn't get rained on.

And then we got to the museum. And Le Petit was that kid. Why is my kid always that kid? I don't even have kids and my kid is always that kid. Just once I want to be one of those smug mothers or nannies with the perfectly behaved little munchkins who sit quietly and raise their hands to speak and don't put pipe cleaners in their mouths or steal the other kids' confetti. That would be so great.

But no. LP didn't stay in his seat. LP spoke out of turn. LP climbed things he wasn't supposed to climb. He shouted, he threw things, he tried to run away. To be fair, I think three is a bit young for a lecture on indigenous African art. But still, did he have to yell at the teacher? Finally exasperated, as LP is taking handfuls of the little shells everyone is supposed to get one of, I take him by the hands and ask him if he wants to leave. His little eyes light up.

"Oui!"

Okay great. Thank you madame, we'll be going now. And as we're retrieving our coats and the stroller from the cloak room, Le Petit takes off. Like starts running off into some dark corner never to be seen again. And when I capture him, he cries. And the coat check girls are just so sweet to him. 

"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a, cherie? Oh, why are you crying? It's okay. Poor little guy."

No! He's the bad guy here! Poor me! I am not mean! I am now one of those ladies you see at the grocery store, who's very nonchalantly dragging her bawling child down the cereal aisle. And you look at her and think, God what a horrible mother. I bet she beats that kid at home. But I just don't have time to reason with him right now! I have to get home because home means nap time!

Oh thank God for nap time. I fucking love nap time. I have time to clean up, take a little break, maybe eat something myself. I did the whole disgusting potty ritual, read him 2 stories, tucked him into bed, and went to make myself a cup of tea. But rather than the usual 3-4 hour naps he usually takes, little Damien only slept for about an hour and a half before he was crying to be let out again. And then we had to buy groceries and return the library books. And the whole screaming, crying, fit-having started again. My favorite part about the temper tantrums is when he hurls his pacifier in fury and then cries because he wants me to go pick it up. I think he seriously believes that if he just cries hard enough I'll let him watch TV all day. Well guess what, mister. I don't work that way. I am not intimidated by you. You can't just shriek a little and expect me to fold. No siree. I am an American, and we do not negotiate with terrorists. We are going to the goddamn library. 

We got to the library. And then to the grocery store. And he was adorable. I hate it when he's adorable when he's making me crazy. It's like when my dad and I would be fighting and then he'd make fun of me, but in a way that was legitimately so hilarious that I would start laughing. Meaning that I was laughing at myself when I was trying to be self-righteous. It's infuriating. So Le Petit was with me buying vegetables, and he wanted to help carry the basket. So he followed me around while dragging the basket behind me and helped me pick out potatoes for dinner. Ugh. It was really cute.

House Call

I had just settled Le Petit onto the couch, post-nap snack in hand, and was headed to the kitchen to get the Dustbuster ready, when the doorbell rang. At the door was a large, grinning French man who greeted me with a hearty "Bonjour!" I smiled, awkwardly, which is what I usually do when I'm expecting someone to begin speaking rapidly to me in French, which I will probably not understand.

"Habitez-vous ici?" he asked. Oh good, a short sentence.

"Well, um, I'm the au pair...."

"Yes, Madame asked me come here. I'm a doctor. I am ostéopathe. You know ostéopathe?"

"Oh, well..."

Meanwhile, Le Petit had come bounding over from the couch and was asking the doctor questions. Or rather, he asked the same question several times over. ("Monsieur? Monsieur? Monsieur? Pourquoi tu es ici? Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Monsieur?")

Monsieur was on the phone with V. "You want to talk to her?"

Yes please! It was indeed V on the other end.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I forgot to tell you. This is the doctor for your back. He is the best in France. You don't have to let him see you if you don't want. He will do Le Petit and me also. But he is the best and I think it is a good idea."

Sigh. Oh, what the hell. Sure, doc, why not? So I gave Le Petit another compote and turned on Disney Junior and went in for my first visit to a chiropractor. One I didn't exactly sign up for, by the way. You know how difficult it is to try to make small talk when you're at the dentist? Try keeping up a conversation when you're twisted into a pretzel in your bra on your boss's bed while a French chiropractor you've never met before and who doesn't speak a whole lot of English attempts to crack your back.

"Don't go to party tonight," he was telling me. "You can drink alcool? You know alcool?"

"Well, yeah."

"Don't drink too much tonight. If you are bourré it will be very bad. You know bourré?"

"Um..."

"Bourré is like--" He let his head hang to the side and stuck his tongue out to mime puking. "No, you would be more pompette."

"What's pompette?"

"Pompette is more, nice. Or cute. You are English?"

"Américaine."

"Bourré is like the English girls. I was in London and they all were wearing such short skirts, and all so bourré all the time. And in very high heels. It was very bad..."

The man has obviously never been to the intersection of Clark and Addison on a weekend, or he might think more kindly of English girls. By the way, I'm now thinking about changing the title of my blog to "La Jeune Fille Pompette." Thoughts?