Ani MollerOne o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock

They celebrate weird holidays
On December 6 each year, they celebrate Sinterklaas, which as far as I can make out is similar to Christmas, but for kids. Sinterklaas is the very opposite of policitally correct with representational characters “Sint” and “Zwarte Piet”. I wondered why there were so many white people in town with black face paint on, and now I know why.

Anyway, on Sinterklaas the kids get chocolates and mandarins. Yes, mandarins as a present. We also ate loads of sweet breads and fancy little chocolate and fruits things you’d get from a French bakery. The kids all got a board game and some books, and we spent the next few hours playing games, which is really the only thing you can do when all you can say is “one, two, three, yes, no, please, thanks.”

I like the idea of Sinterklaas aside from the racist black helper thing, and have decided that when I am back in New Zealand I will celebrate “Sinterklaas” on the Saturday after June 6th, in winter. Not that I need a reason to have a fun day of board games and reading books with my neice.

They do not dub television or films
Unlike the French, German, Italian, and Spanish, the Dutch do not dub television shows or movies. Instead, they use the cultured method of subtitles. Apparently the French, German, Italian, and Spanish are too lazy to read subtitles. In Belgium, there are quite a few channels that have a lot of English-language shows and this makes me mildly happy. Although that said, I have now seen almost every National Geographic documentary for this month. That’s what happens when you watch National Geographic more than once a month.

Every house has a septic tank
Over the past year-and-a-half when we visit Antwerp, I’ve always complained to Peter about how the kitchen or bath drains stink, and sometimes drains on the street too. I always thought it was bad drains, but I found out last week that it is because every house has a septic tank. I found this out by walking down the most beautiful street in Antwerp with the most awesome houses, with a big truck outside on of these mansions sucking shit and piss out of a hole. It fucking stunk.

Back in the civilised world, I am used to toilets that flush into a sewerage system that links up to a sewerage treatment facility. Antwerp needs welcoming to the 20th century.

They’re all dirty hippies
People in central Europe are just different. They’re different to the British, and different to Western countries outside of Europe. After doing a lot of travelling over the past few years, I’ve grown to see what things seem to generalise that particular country. For example, the Spanish love mullets – but not redneck mullets, rather some sort of mullet that they make beautiful and fashionable. The French are surprisingly more friendly and eager to speak English than I’d been told. The majority of England is full of scallies. The Dutch are very happy and have funny accents. People from Monaco and rich and snooty. I bet you didn’t see that one coming. People in Belgium, however, are all dirty hippies.

It’s no secret that central Europeans love the hair. Be it on your leg, your armpit, or even your surprisingly bushy pubic area. But when I was travelling these countries, it really wasn’t as obvious as it is in Antwerp. In statistics I’m making up on the spot, only 10% of Antwerpians shave. And only 10% wash their hair regularly (with regularly being at least once a week), with another 20% being unknown due to the amazing amount of hijabs on show. People in Antwerp also prefer clothes in shades of brown and olive, and smoke pot a lot on the street. In New Zealand, they (the hippies) would make up only 6% of the population, but in Antwerp it is at least 98%. These statistics are all true.

They don’t drink fresh milk
That’s right, they don’t drink the goodness that is fresh lactating cow udder juice. Everyone seems to drink UHT milk – Ultra High Temperature, otherwise know as Utterly Horribly Tasting milk. Every house I have been to has UHT milk. They don’t even have a diary section in the fridges at corner stores. Apparently you can only buy fresh milk at the supermarkets and there is only one brand you can buy if they stock it.

The thing about UHT is that is tastes like shit. It leaves a weird fake-milk tasting film in your mouth, and makes tea and coffee taste nasty. The only way I can characterise Belgian coffee is by the flavour of UHT milk – i.e., really bad.

There is a lack of manners
One of the main things I’ve noticed about people in Belgium, specifically Antwerp, is that people do not say “excuse me”. Going shopping is a nightmare, because people will just push past you and not say a word. People also do not respect the personal boundries that I’ve grown accustomed to expect – like my 2-foot personal bubble radius. Sadly, not here.

I was shopping for a book for my neice at a nice store last week, standing right up against the bookshelf with a book in front of my face, and some lady stuck her hand in front of my face to grab at some books without saying excuse me. I turned to her to give her the “omfg get out of my bubble” look and she smiled at me. Wipe that smile of your dial, lady! You’re in my bubble!

The funny thing is that my boyfriend and I were always having big arguments about how he doesn’t say excuse me when he needs me to move, or say sorry if he accidentally hurts me. I’m talking big fights. He would tell me it must be a cultural difference and I used to accuse him of lying “because there is no way not saying excuse me is a cultural difference”. I now see I was very wrong. I’m sorry, Peter!

Old people smoke a lot and drink a lot of coffee
There are cafes everywhere in Antwerp. They aren’t the sort of cafes that serve espresso though – they serve “Belgian coffee” which is the same as using a Senseo machine with Douwe Egberts coffee bags. Err, yum? Anyway, they are usually extremely smokey, kind of gloomy, with lots of wood and things hanging on the wall. I probably need a photo for reference, but that will have to wait until I crack out my camera for the first time since I’ve been here. Anyway, these places are almost completely full of old people and middle-aged men with moustaches. Most of them look like Burt Reynolds, if he were Belgian. I can’t really describe exactly what that looks like. Just guess.

You can get apple pie almost anywhere
IK HOUD AAPELTART MET SLAGROOM. I am going to be reeeeeally fat soon.

Well, I’ve been in Belgium for a week now. I can’t believe I left Manchester two Fridays ago already. It’s scary how time flies.

After a stressful day of finishing packing and cleaning the apartment, we caught our last train to London. Strangely enough, it wasn’t late, delayed, or cancelled. We stayed with my old flatmate from Wellington, Natalie, and her boyfriend Mark in Belham, in south London. I’m not entirely sure how we squeezed into their tiny apartment. I mean, it was really tiny. I’ve never been in a 1-bedroom flat in London before and wasn’t quite expecting the scale of the smallness. You really couldn’t swing a cat. Seriously. Maybe a mouse, but barely.

We had an awesome time in London hanging out with Natalie and Mark, seeing our wonderful humhum friends, and having extremely quick catch-ups with Sara, Adrian, and Penny‘s boyfriend Martin. It was rather odd that her Argentinian boyfriend from New Zealand just happened to be in London that weekend. We also bumped into a guy we knew at a restaurant in Soho. This is weird because we know quite a few people in London, but London is massive. The chances of someone who doesn’t live there bumping into someone are seemingly quite high. This is also not the first time I have randomly bumped into someone while in London for the weekend. This is also odd because I never bumped into people I knew in Manchester. Perhaps because I have no mates.

So, we booked a taxi to get us to Waterloo Station on the Sunday evening so we could catch the Eurostar on time. Of course it never came. Never use 9000 Taxis in Belham. They suck. I had words with both the operator and the lousy taxi driver. Luckily we managed to hail a minicab who got us there just in time and for a cheaper price.

When we arrived at the station, we had about 45 minutes before our train left. I knew we were pushing it but I figured we could make it. I was bloody stressed though, also because we had 500 suitcases.

We queued up with about 2,000 other people and wait in line for about 25 minutes. We get to the turnstall to put our tickets into the machine and of course, they won’t go through. We get told to move to another queue to see a ticket guy because there was something wrong with our tickets. We line up some more. The guy goes to sort out our tickets (which had the seats reassigned for absolutely no reason) and the computer crashes. He reboots. It takes ages. We queue for the security machine and suddenly everyone starts pushing. All these stupid people start pushing us and not letting us through. Now, most things piss me off anyway, but people who jump queues really piss me off. After being pretty much pushed through the security barrier, I turn around and ask in a raised voice for everyone to stop pushing. The French-speaking Belgians look at me with vague apathy and continue to push.

We haul our 500 bags on to the x-ray machine. We quickly load everything back up and race to the other end of the terminal. The guard tells us we don’t have enough time to take the elevator and that we would have to take our bags up the escalator. There is no way that would be faster for us and our many bags. We call the lift and wait for it to slowly get to the platform. I am almost crying. We run down the platform to our carriage and pretty much throw our bags on the train, sit down, and the train leaves. Success.

We stayed with Peter’s parents in Zandhoven for a few days when we arrived. Zandhoven is a small village 16km outside of Antwerp city. There are farms and loads of these quaint countryside Belgian restaurants/cafes. We had a few beers (or coffee or tea for me) there. They are good.

Now, we are staying in an awesome studio apartment above a bed and breakfast in a good part of southwest Antwerp city. It’s about a 10-minute tram ride into the city, which only costs €1. There is a square nearby, lots of cafes and restaurants, a street with the most amazing houses, and a “looky store” which is not a porn shop but actually a video shop. Thank God the Dutch don’t dub movies. Not like those damn French! My favourite show (CSI) was on TV the other night and was dubbed in French. Fuckers!

I have more to tell but it’s late. I’ve been writing Christmas cards for the past two hours. It takes me so long because I actually bother to write something different in each card. And also because I am very easily distracted with shiny things on the internet.

I haven’t been taking any proper photos yet, but I am updating my Flickr photostream daily. Many times a day, even! Pop my Flickr feed into your RSS reader!

I will attempt to start taking photos with my D70 very soon. But first, I really need to finish my Christmas shopping.

We cleared out the apartment and left Manchester on Friday and spent an awesome weekend in London. We are now finally on the Eurostar to Belgium, after being pushed around by 5 million people at the check-in. Cunts!