Museum Night Fever

This is a bit like Noc Museów in Kraków, except that the wristband costs nine euros, instead of the token one złoty for a stamp.

Last year we played dressing up at the City of Brussels Museum on the Grand Place, then traipsed around a crowded costume museum before queueing 20 minutes to get into the Musical Instrument Museum for a swing dancing workshop.

This year, we stayed in Ixelles: the Ixelles Museum, which is currently hosting the works of Olivier Debré

... alongside its permanent collection. I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to show pictures of individual works or not but these tiny Rodin cherubs touched a chord. This is called 'Idylle d'Ixelles'. From this angle you can see how softly the little girl cherub is kissing the boy. Why is her arm in the air? Is she about to fly away on those tiny wings? Is he trying to catch her and pull her back down to earth?

 And then there's tons of classic art nouveau posters (I am crap and can never remember which is art deco and which is art nouveau).

After a burger stop at Le Comptoir on Place St Boniface, we went to the dinosaur museum. Oh all right, the Natural History Museum, but it's basically all about the dinosaurs, right?

And then we trekked into town to finish the evening off with a beer on the top floor of MIM and to steal a few minutes on the dancefloor before chucking-out time...

Best thing since

Sliced bread in Belgium comes without the crust slice on the end. This is a huge disappointment, because everyone knows that the crust is the best bit.

I'm sad again because my stats tell me this blog attracts people who have typed 'I hate Belgium' into their search engines. I have to admit that I complain a fair bit about the rather surreal little country that forms my adoptive home, but it's usually just frustration at something unflexible and service-related. Brussels is actually quite nice, sometimes. Here are some pictures:

Place St Boniface, the Ultime Atome on the right and one of two father-and-son-owned camera shops on the left

More Place St Boniface

Place de Londres

Eglise St Boniface. I'm not sure what the statues are

Christmas lights and sunshine. These pictures are from late November: the lights have been taken down now.

Winter chills

I still have a good twenty-eight or so posts to get through by the end of the year. This is going to be tough. I feel a lot of photos coming on.

It's starting to get really cold in Brussels now. Not just ordinary cold, but damp, foggy cold that chills you through and through. The radiator in my bedroom doesn't work. I've heard that you need to bleed radiators. This sounds like one of those rather disgusting but secretly fun things - like picking scabs or pulling out hangnails - that you do as a child sitting cross-legged on a rather dusty floor waiting for assembly to start. I realise that's probably a rather over-detailed simile but I have a very, very clear image in my mind here of the boredom and the floating dust mites and those disgusting curtains decorated in a fetching pattern resembling psychodelic spools of Marmite. Once, I unzipped my summer dress all the way down the front and couldn't zip it up again. I was marched out of assembly and had to change into an abandoned dress from the spare clothes cupboard. My Mum never dressed me in zips again. What do you expect, giving a seven-year old easy access to zippable fashions?

I did tell the landlord about the faulty radiator and he sent round a plumber. When I say 'plumber', obviously I mean the landlord's sister's cousin's brother-in-law who's a bit handy with a spanner and used to watch Home Improvement quite a lot. The plumber stuck a little Allen key or something in the corner of the radiator, there was a loud, satisfying hiss and some water dripped out. I'm sure it's something I could do myself...

I also need to put blinds in upstairs. My flat has attic rooms with beautiful, big skylights, perfect for lying back on a snow-white cotton duvet and dreaming that you're floating on a cloud. Unfortunately, at three in the morning when there's a full moon they're not so good. Yesterday I snapped awake and lay in the chilly moonlight, trying to sink back into a lovely dream where I was catching up with an old friend who's recently moved back from Australia. The only thing is, it's not my flat. And I resent investing in something that I'm going to have to take down and paint over in three years time. The flat is definitely my home, but I still feel that I'm camping to some extent. The kitchen especially doesn't feel like mine (although it's miles better than the old place, which looked like this:

)

The new one is a definite improvement in that it has actual work surfaces. And more than two hobs (which I never use because I am lazy and useless and don't have a dining table yet and haven't found my local veggie market). And no cockroaches whatsoever. 

Note the tasteful tiling in my old kitchen. I have to admit I probably failed to appreciate its full splendour, largely because I was utterly bedazzled by the subtle charms of the bathroom:

Now, I've commented on the weather, written something vaguely amusing about my childhood, given you an update on the flat and some photos of real estate failures past. That's my blogging duty over for the day, bonne nuit!

Oh wait. Polski update. Uh. I have one lesson a week with a very patient Polish lady and we are going through a fascinating textbook on economics. I am also trying - and failing - to remember the difference between siedzieć komuś na głowie and zawracać komuś głowę, and many other such expressions, also from a textbook. 

On a fairly regular basis, I bump into a Polish person at a party and have a long and apparently fluent conversation with them which in reality probably consists of:

- oh wow, you speak such great Polish!

- thanks, I make lots mistakes. I live in Kraków two year.

- How did you learn?

- I go language school and then UJ, Cen-tre foooorrrr Po-lish langu-age and cul-ture iiiiin theeee world (I have to say that very carefully otherwise I get the endings wrong)

...etc, etc, for another half-hour or so. But it all sounds a lot better after vodka.

Rainy days and Mondays

I must have written a post with this title before. I'm sure I have. It's actually not rainy at all but brilliantly sunny, and has been for the past few days.

Here are some random observations about Monday, in no particular order.

- today I sat in a meeting almost entirely in English, German and - a surprise late entry - Polish, which I am fortunately not yet qualified to do. I switched the microphone on a grand total of once and thus escaped a quality control report due to scarcity of evidence.

- the fates were clearly on my side with the quality control thing because I had finally rolled into bed the night before at about 2am. Please don't think that this is because I had anything particularly exciting to do: I've simply discovered that having to climb up stairs to go to bed when you are even only slightly tired is hardly worth it when you could just doze on the sofa in front of BBC3. My evenings involve messing about on the interweb, tinkling away at the piano, flipping channels, occasionally doing something vaguely productive like reading a book or writing a blog post (rarely).

- I ran around the park three times instead of two (in the dark you can be tricked into thinking you haven't run as far) and had a bath for the first time in over a year. Please note that I have washed myself by other methods in the meantime. I reckon that since I'm here on my own and I've already cleaned the bath at least twice since I moved in* it's probably relatively hygienic. Also, I finally have a bathroom which has a window. I've always found it singularly dreary to sit in four inches of tepid, scummy water in a windowless box room, but the fact of being able to lie back and look up at the sunset reflecting off the clouds through the skylight is somehow much more appealing.

- I bought shoes. I can't decide whether I like them or not. I am fed up with the ubiquitous ballet pump slipping off my feet all the time so I bought some rather flimsy tan leather plimsoll-type things - as unlike a trainer as I could possibly find without risking toe cramps. I have not yet paid my accountant. Accountants, since I actually have two, one in Belgium and one in the UK. I owe money to both, but not as much as I would owe to the respective revenue and customs services if I did not pay an accountant to do it all for me.

- I am unable to organise a piss-up. It's meant to be at my home, not in a brewery, but since I live in Belgium I'm sure there must be a suitable brewery relatively near by. This is partly social ineptness, more than partly shyness and a large helping of anxiety, plus I don't really understand how these things work. Do people really want to come and drink wine at my flat? Do I have enough chairs? I certainly don't have enough wine glasses. If people don't have fun, is it my fault?

- I am in the throes of a crise sentimentale, which pretty unclear to both of us. I think at the moment it is back on, largely due to the soothing influence of gorgeous autumn sunshine for the whole weekend and a long, slightly hungover romantic walk in the woods. Maybe Belgium and its meteorology are on my side after all.

- I keep forgetting to water the plant. He gave it to me. I only have to water it once a week. The designated watering day is Wednesday and I keep missing it (Wednesday is an easy day to overlook, with all those other things going on to distract you, like Tuesday and Thursday). He says that this is ironically symbolic, or symbolically ironic, or something like that.

Right. Time to tackle those stairs.




*nearly two months ago, so not so good after all.

Aux petits riens

An ambivalent weekend full of showers and flashes of sunshine. In Schaerbeek last night there was a huge explosion that demolished three houses and killed three people. My first thought was 'but for the grace of God', and my fear of leaving the gas on is back with a vengeance, even though I've lived with electric cookers for over a year now. The iron is also a serious cause for concern.

I'm more or less settled in the new flat now. It finally has a sofa (after a very long Saturday afternoon in Ikea with the new boy, culminating in a desperate stress-binge on Swedish cinnamon rolls), as well as television, wifi and a tumble dryer. My happiness is complete. I can look forward to long afternoons spent sprawled across my sofa in front of Grey's Anatomy on Vijf tv, with the blogosphere at my fingertips and the sweet scent of freshly-tumbled towels in the air.

However, I should probably get some grown-up furniture. By grown-up, I mean sensible things that you can store stuff in. Store as in 'put away in a tidy manner' as opposed to 'leave in the box it came in and pretend it doesn't exist let alone need to be filed'. Specfically a sideboard, a chest of drawers and a dining table with chairs. With this in mind, I set out towards Porte de Namur as soon as the rain held off for a few moments and was very quickly distracted by shoe shops and Fnac.

Eventually I managed to steer myself down Avenue Louise, past Place du Châtelain and onto Rue Américaine.  This is home to Les Petits Riens - essentially a five-storey jumble sale.
Now, I always thought that St Andrews was the undisputed capital of charity shops: all those rich kids casting off last season's Armani or last term's ball dress translates into some serious bargains. But Petits Riens is on another scale entirely. Once I'd wandered around two floors of furniture and got bored I found myself climbing up to the top floor: crockery, old toys and electrical equipment among other things. It's like my parents' loft on speed.
You can browse through shelves and shelves of highly useful objects, such as...

... Irish coffee glasses ...

 ... elderly (and therefore extremely romantic but highly unsuitable for blogging) typewriters...

 ... record players like my Mum and Dad used to have in the eighties...

... and things like this that I can't even identify.

It even has a book store section. All it needs now is for Costa coffee to move in and the rainy Saturday afternoon experience will be complete...

Home again

I am back in Brussels now - swimming against the tide as usual, since everyone else has just finally downed headsets and skipped off to warmer climes.
Ah Poland: once again the meat counter defeated me and I ended up ordering three hundred grammes of szynka wiejska when actually I wanted 3 decas. Or indeed 13. 130 grams, dammit. About half as much as I eventually got anyway.

Pino: proszę 3 deka szynki wiejskiej
Pani sprzedawczyni: Co?!
Pino: proszę 3 deka szynki
Pani: ...?
Pino: ok proszę trzysta gramów szynki...
(Pino's friend: who on earth buys 13 dekas of ham?! That's just weird)

In any case, now I'm back in Brussels. Trouble started on the Eurostar when my seat was occupied by a teenage French brat:
- but weee wanteed to seet togezzer...
I tried to calmly blag an upgrade from the train manager, but she was having none of it. I suspect that had I been a forty-something businessman in a grey suit she would have granted my request.
Every time I get the Eurostar I can feel the tension rising as I anticipate having to fight to keep the seat I've already paid to reserve. Possession is nine tenths of the law, and once someone else's bum is firmly planted on your seat, you're in a lose-lose situation: give in and you have to find yourself another space, which you then risk losing at the next French Deluge getting on at Lille. Insist on having your original seat, and you expose yourself to awkward, resentful silence from your neighbour after having ousted her indignant friend. I never have this problem on any other route so the only logical conclusion is to blame it on the French. Disclaimer: the author of this blog has nothing against francophonic persons and insists that Some of her Best Friends Are French. Honestly.
Fellow Eurostar travellers! If you really must sit together then jolly well book your tickets together and sit in the seat you've been assigned to. And that way you will help prevent frustration and high blood pressure disorders in otherwise mild-mannered conflict-averse persons like me.

Miraculously, no-one broke into the flat while I was away, the internet still works, my taxi got from Midi to My Place in a record ten euros and I found a whole can of beer in the fridge. There were a few other items in the fridge as well. One of them may have been a tomato, but resembled a very tiny, mouldy round of goat's cheese. My unwashed coffee cup in the sink sported an interesting fungal structure that steamed when I ran the tap into it.

Tomorrow will be a day for opening bills and paying bills and checking bank accounts and getting keys to new flats.

Better get a good night's sleep then.

On the move again

I am planning to move house. Not far, this time. Although the thought that I may well stay in one place - and not just any place, but Brussels - for more than a year at a time scares me more than the Polish Pani in the ground floor newspaper shop.

When I arrived in Brussels in September last year, everything was uncertain. I had no money, knew literally three people, and had no idea what work would be like and whether I would be able to support myself in spite of the Belgian tax monolith. My house-hunt took in studios, garrets and even one or two cramped 'kots d'etudiant' (one was more or less a corridor with a single bed down one side, above a Thai restaurant on rue Dansaert).
I eventually plumped for a small studio next to the park, about five minutes walk from work. It is largely dominated by a huge 'lit mezzanine' - basically a double bunk bed. Without a lower bunk. So exactly like a bunk bed then. It's very sturdy actually and withstands - um - all kinds of testing. On the outside wall is a huge sliding patio door overlooking a garden (where no-one goes except the guy with the lawnmower and - once - a strange gentlemen with a large black poodle) and leading out onto a long balcony. It faces south, so when the sun shines it feels bright and airy (even though in reality it's small and poky).

However, now I have what I can hazily pass off as a Real Job, I want a bit more. I'd like a separate room so that my guests and I don't trip over each other in the morning when I have visitors to stay. I'd also like space to put a sofa, a dining table, maybe a larger desk... space to dance in.

I'm tired of living with a stranger's smelly old furniture: I have decided to take the plunge and go unfurnished. It's amazing how much clutter can silt up your house in just a few months: my tiny studio is overflowing with old electricity bills, piles of used notebooks filled with the incomprehensible scrawl that passes for note-taking in my world, scuffed shoes and endless cardigans worn once and big binders full of printed-out glossaries that I don't have anywhere else to keep.

I have seen three empty flats in the past two days. Each time, I climb to the top of the stairs, step through the door and marvel at the light and space and freedom of a flat without furniture. I want to spin with my arms out and fly across the floor in a string of extremely wobbly foutté turns and not-so-grande jetés.

But usually I have no desire to frighten the nice agency lady.

It's so exciting and overwhelming. Each empty space I can imagine as my new home: in my mind I fill it with sofas and a piano and friends and loaded wineglasses, and I trace my steps around the quartier, look to see which would be my local shop, which my favourite café. I can barely believe I might be able to afford a Whole Flat to myself. It is terrifying, after years of living for the next invoice to come through. I am afraid that someone will come along with a big clipboard and say: 'Stop! Who do you think you are? Who said you could live in a Real Apartment all of your own? Don't you know there's Super Tax to pay?! Go directly to Jail, do no pass Go.'

Can I really do it?

In the park

Hallelujah! Finally the sun has come to Brussels. I wandered out to the park with book and iPod and settled down with my back against a tree to read a little and daydream a lot.
After about half an hour, I heard 'Excusez-moi' from over my left shoulder.
- Excuse me, said the guy, 'can I sit down with you? Maybe we could talk for a bit?'

I got up hurriedly, gabbled that I had to meet someone and rushed away.

But... as I was walking away, I wondered why I was so reluctant to talk to the guy. He was perfectly polite, he seemed clean and didn't look particularly odd in any way. He had tanned skin, dark hair and a strong accent: perhaps it was a case of a deep-seated racism I was hardly aware of? I slowed my pace and started to think it through. If the guy had had blonde hair, would I have talked to him? Had I ever dated a guy who was not a white European? If I had been approached in the same way by a woman, would I have found her as threatening?

I thought about how many intriguing conversations with fascinating people I was missing out on by refusing to speak to strangers in the park (on the train, in a cafe, etc). After all, isn't that how most romantic comedies start? Boy bumps into girl at random and conversation starts?

A few years ago, I went on an Erasmus exchange to Trento in Italy. I remember, six months earlier, having returned from a worthwhile but often disappointing assistantship at a small town in Brittany and I was determined to do it better this time around. As I strode out of baggage reclaim, chin held high, I decided that this time, I would be completely open to new experiences: I would talk to everyone.
I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me on the airport bus (clearly a backpacker). It didn't hurt one bit. I was encouraged.

I only spent five months in Trento, but in those five months I learnt to ice-skate, snowboard and read mediaeval musical notation. I ate Melinda apples in the Val di Non; drank Fragolino in Verona; bought fresh pastries from the bakery window before dawn on the way home from a night out; accepted lifts to concerts on impulse; spent long, lazy afternoons sunbathing with my flatmate in the park behind the flat and long, lazy evenings cooking huge, slow pots of pasta with friends and drinking litres of red vino da tavola. I gained a few kilos and near-fluency in Italian (both of which I subsequently set about losing).

What do you think? Do you talk to strangers? Where do you draw the line between a harmless conversation on the train and something more threatening? When would you stay and talk, and when would you up sticks and leave?

I'm curious: just how far should I trust my instincts?

Blocked

I stumbled home from work at about 5.15 pm, climbed into bed, read half the Financial Times and about two pages of my Italian detective novel and fell asleep for two hours. Finally I have found a job that mops up all the excess brain activity and leaves me with no energy to write. On the one hand, I love the job, I'm thrilled to finally be doing what I've wanted to do for - ok - the last maybe only two or three years. But on the other hand, I'm aware that I'm spending all day voicing someone else's opinion, trying to concentrate on a meeting that I knew nothing about yesterday and that will mean nothing to me tomorrow.

My - admittedly rather rather boring, 'let's please everyone' nice girl - personality wants to assert itself. I want to do something for ME. I sing an awful lot*, but the one activity where I really feel creative and feel proud of myself is writing - even when it's just a silly little blog post.

It's funny: I arrived in Krakow over three years ago, in April 2007, and there was almost too much to write: I couldn't cram it all in. I was grappling with an impossible language (and still am for that matter), a Slavic, Catholic culture that was largely unfamiliar and my first full-time job in a very different country. Every day I was presented with situations that could be either terrifying and discouraging or utterly hilarious. I chose the latter option. And I got there by writing about it. Had I not taken all my terrifying experiences with banks and Urzędy Skarbowe and the genitive case and Bad Obwarzanki Ladies and made them sound all cute and quirky and funny, I would have thrown myself into the Wisła after the first couple of months.

Here in Brussels, things are a little more familiar. Yes, the bureaucracy is a pain in the arse. Yes, customer service is if anything worse than in Poland. Yes, there are weird traditions (peeing statues, the Zinneke parade, a Kriek & Frites festival that resembled nothing so much as a family wedding in the country), but I tend not to get so involved in them. I find myself less inclined to take sneaky photos. I hang out with other ex-pats and have little contact with the locals. Language is not a problem: I speak fairly craptastic but at least serviceable French and have no intention - for the moment - of learning Dutch because languages are work now and do you have any idea how many Polish words I still have to learn?! One thing at a time, people!

So, for the moment my posts are cursory, summary, lacking in creative flair.

Here's a quick round up of the headlines, just in case you were wondering:

- Election: I'm so pleased that there's a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Apart from anything else, I couldn't decide who to vote for. And DC and Clegg look so cute together...

- Ash cloud: I have a couple of flights planned over the next two months so I'm really hoping it stays away from Brussels. Besides which, I blame it for the freezing weather that Belgium is currently 'enjoying'. I swear I could see my breath condensing in front of me as I walked past the park this morning.

- Polish update: I've been branching out into detective novels and just finished Tęczowy Cocktail by Helena Sekuła (thanks Peixote). I'm at the stage where there are still a lot of words I don't know, but this doesn't prevent my following the story. This means that I carry on reading and probably miss essential details of the plot. I put this down to sheer laziness - but on the other hand, if you spend too long looking up words, you lose concentration and your understanding of the whole sentence is affected. In any case, I have a Polish dictionary on my phone and use it whenever... well, whenever I'm not too lazy.

Talking of too lazy, I think it's bedtime.

Oh - and a resolution: I will try and find just one little thing to comment on each day - even if it's only a few lines. One tiny, quirky or interesting thing about Brussels, Belgium, languages, Polish culture, and all the other the things we like to mull over here. (By we I mean me and people who comment - I'm not giving myself the royal 'we' yet, far from it...)


*http://www.brusselschamberchoir.be/agenda.php  among other things

May Day! May Day!

Summer has come to Brussels. I have discovered that my work capsule wardrobe of about three jersey dresses plus opaque tights is woefully not up to the job. It's been a sticky few days. My one skirt suit and three cotton shirts are looking sadly inadequate now. Shopping in Brussels is not that great either: there's a choice between rue Neuve, to the north of the city centre. Classy it is not: think Bromley high street on a Saturday and you're pretty close. The pedestrianised street itself is always heavily packed, even on a Monday. You'd think unemployed people would have better things to do with their time than go shopping. However on closer inspection it's just the street that is crowded: if you slip into one of the shops (not counting H&M or Hema - a sort of Belgian Woolworths) it tends to be fairly empty. Sisley (an Italian high-street brand related to Benetton) do cute blouses and suits that are slightly nicer than Next's rather boxy offerings, so I may have to venture back there and stock up. French chain Promod are ok for pretty skirts and cardigans. But I still haven't found a decent place to buy shoes. I arrived in September with one pair of black flats, one black heels, running shoes, trainers, hiking boots, birkenstocks and slippers. I have since been home and collected knee-high brown boots, black evening sandals and a pair of pink ballet-style heels that I love.
Clearly though this is still not enough.

The second shopping area in Brussels is Avenue Louise. Avenue Louise is broad, posh and lined with boutiques. I am somewhat afraid to go there, plus it's on the wrong metro line (here you are either on 2 and 6 or 1 and 5). I wonder though whether it may hold the key to my shoe worries...

Gosh what a boring post! Let's publish it, get it out of the way and move on. 

By lamplight

My love affair with all things Polish began in 2005, on a university choir tour to Kraków. Actually it was around the beginning of April 2005. The weekend after Easter. I wouldn't normally remember the date of a student trip, only this one was a little different, and not just because we brought winter vomiting flu to Luton airport (that, I feel, is a story for another time).
While we were in Kraków, at the end of March 2005, an elderly Polish gentleman (whose parents are buried in the Rakowicki cemetary in Kraków) lay dying in hospital. This elderly Polish gentleman was also known as Pope John Paul II, and, while we were enjoying the bright spring sunshine in the Planty, all of Poland (or at least all of Kraków) was out in the streets keeping watch for him and lighting candles. There are a lot of things about Polish Catholicism that make me uncomfortable, but one thing that I find striking in a positive way is its emotional side. That week in spring 2005, I and several other of the choir's excitable Catholics (and non-Catholics) went to kneel in Kościół Mariacki at one o'clock in the morning, stood outside what I now know to be the famous window on ul. Franciszkańska, lit candles and held hands with Polish strangers in the middle of the night and listened to them singing with tears streaming down their faces.

I was enchanted by a people that would go out on the streets to pay their respects to a man they may never have met, but who none the less was a son of their city. Leaving aside a budding fascination (or at least the sense of a challenge) with the language, my lasting impression was of a beautiful city flooded with cool, sharp sunshine and, by night, of people keeping watch and praying in the street.

Strangely - and possibly hypocritically - I feel cynical about patriotism and public displays of emotion in the UK, while in Poland I find it moving.

On the eve of All Saint's Day in 2007, I visited the Rakowicki cemetery and saw the lamps crowding the memorials and lighting up the darkness of the graveyard. I learnt that even empty plots are sometimes given lamps because no grave should be left out and it's a collective responsibility to make sure that no-one is forgotten.
When I was home for Easter last weekend, my Mum told me that she went to look for her father's grave and was upset that she couldn't find it: more plots had been added and the landscape had changed. Maybe we just have other ways to remember people and to pay our respects. Maybe not. I would like there to be lamps though.

By Saturday afternoon there were already flowers and candles outside the Polish Embassy. When I came back later in the evening, lamps were burning and there was a crowd of people standing outside keeping vigil. More flowers were there today.
Politically I was not a big fan of Kaczyński but no-one deserves to go like this; a lot of people died in the plane crash and it's especially awful that among them were representatives of the Katyń families, who have already suffered more than enough.
Incidentally, there are books of condolence at the Embassy if you live in Brussels and want to pay your respects. The doors are open from 9am until 5pm, until Saturday.

Not a great photo because I felt a little disrespectful taking pictures, but Polish mourners were (very discreetly) snapping away as well so I thought it was probably ok.

Music, underground, continued.

I've just realised I entirely missed the point of my last post.

What I meant to write was a systematic analysis of the economic interest behind accordion-playing on the metro, given that the accordion player in question is generally greeted only by dismayed faces and desperate, vain door-banging on the part of anguished commuters trying to escape the cacophony.

Surely the persistence of accordionists on the underground rails of Brussels points to an underlying demand for accordion music? If so, who are these lovers of squeezy, wheezy folk music? Just who is paying the piper? I have never in my whole entire six months (ahem, I mean two-and-a-half weeks Mr Belgian VAT Man) in Brussels seen anyone give them money. Not even to stop. Perhaps there is some fabulously wealthy Euro-millionaire who regularly buys peace and quiet on the way home with a fat euro-cheque, but I very much doubt it (surely these people would have drivers?).

And if nobody is paying them, then why continue? Is it a highly-sophisticated distraction technique, intended to leave the poor commuter hunched in pain while the accordionist's child accomplice pinches their wallet? Or is there some other profit of which I am unaware?

I would be very interested to know who or what creates a demand for such a product in such a location.

Is it you?

Music, underground.

I found Brussels metro surprisingly tranquil for the first few months after my arrival. However, it seems that the little accordion guys have found a way to sneak the bastards on board: you can tell an accordionist by the suspicious bundle, carried at chest height and sheathed in black plastic bags or a large black cloth. No sooner have the doors swooshed shut then, with a triumphant grin, they whip off the cover and start to force a wheezy caterwaul out of the poor battered instrument.

As soon as you see the smile spread across his little face, your heart sinks and you try to get as far away from the awful noise as possible. It is bad enough that your ears are already assaulted by canned music at each metro stop without also having to sacrifice the relative peace of the train carriage.

Now, I am not against accordion music per se: I rather admire the Ukrainian accordionists who play on the Kraków Rynek (although they have a repertoire of three - Mozart's Turkish Rondo, Bach's Toccata in Hammer Horror minor and I forget the other one. Maybe there isn't a third one). But what I appreciate most is the choice: stop and listen, or walk on by. I do not like being stuck in a tin box hurtling down a tunnel, crammed into a corner with a bloody accordionist for heavens' sake, and no 'mute' button.

The selection of platform muzak at Brussels' metro stations is eclectic to say the least. I have heard - regularly, uncensored, at Arts-Loi - a sweet little ditty from Lily Allen's latest album, entitled 'Bless you'. Well, something like that anyway. Put it this way, BBC Radio 1 can't play it: there would be no lyrics left in.

Are you kidding, Brussels? Does nobody at STIB/MIVB actually speak English?! And even if they don't, surely the One English Word that everybody knows (apart from 'ok' and 'coca cola') is precisely that one?!

In any case, at around six in the evening (at least at the weekend), the piped pop is replaced by soothing classical music: presumably to ward off the Belgian equivalent of hoodies. The classical selection is actually not too bad. Sometimes it's better than Klara Continuo (maybe it is Klara Continuo).

One of the best things about living in a pedantic country like Belgium is the sense of triumph you get when you finally find a way of undermining the system. Stand up for your rights! Refuse to submit to metro muzak! Fight fire with fire...

 ... by singing along. We wouldn't judge you.


(altogether now...

Va pensieeeero! sull'ali dora-a-a-te!

Just when you thought it was safe...

I was going to publish a half-written post about a very eerie trip to the British Consulate, but in the meantime, I woke up yesterday morning to scenes rather like this:

Yeah, I know. Again.

Normally I'm a big fan of snow, and the incontestable fact is that Brussels under snow is a far prettier and less doleful place than Brussels under drizzle, but this is starting to get ridiculous.

Yesterday morning I went to see a man about a pension policy (I know!!).
- oh you managed to get here all right then?
I must have looked surprised because he added:
- all the buses are cancelled.

Welcome to Belgium.

Last night I went out for a quiet, mid-week beer with a couple of friends. That is, I tried to go out for a quiet mid-week beer. The place looked easy enough to find: follow the big road from the station and then turn right.

Only... somewhere along the line I took the wrong road.

The pub was less than ten minutes from Central Station and I managed to arrive there via an impressive detour which took in the Bozar, the Palais de Justice, the lift at the Palais de Justice, Brussels Chapelle station and the Eglise des Minimes.

On the way back I missed the last metro and fell over twice on the packed snow slipping and sliding my way home down Rue de la Loi.

Enough snow now. Thank you. Mamy dość zimy!

French word of the day: neige

This can be a noun, as in 'aeroport de Bruxelles fermé a cause de fortes chutes de neige'. Or the third person singular of the verb 'neiger' as in 'bordel je reste bloquée a Bruxelles et je ne sais pas rentrer chez moi pour les fetes de Noel parce que ce f***u neige ne cesse pas de tomber!' Actually I didn't use the verb there, did I? Well spotted. Ummm how about 'Il neige', tout court. There we go, nothing like stating the obvious.

Yesterday, there was Bach. There was Bach for two hours and an amazing bass soloist and gorgeous cor anglais and French horn and a sold-out Palais des Beaux Arts and it was fabulous.

My parents were supposed to come and watch and listen to said Bach, and I was to return with them to England via the Eurotunnel. Last time they came to visit I insisted that they use the ferry (because I like slot machines and Nescafé and I like my wipe-clean lounge chairs to come with a lovely sheen of chip grease. oh and those vacuum-flush loos.), so this time it was their turn to choose (my Dad gets seasick).
I'm sure you've all heard about the Eurostars that broke down in the tunnel because the sudden change of temperature between snowed-under France and the warm dark tunnel made the electronics crash or something like that. And the evacuations and the lack of water and electric light and the overflowing loos and so on.
Anyway the upshot is that my parents couldn't get on a shuttle and they had to go home, and I am now joining the mad rush to get out of Brussels before Christmas.

Ooh it isn't half dramatic. We do love a bit of drama here at Pinolona.

And this all seems somehow awfully familiar.

I'm left with a choice (here comes the interactive part!).
I could book a flight back for a couple of days time, trusting in the Belgian Météo; and hoping that Brussels international airport will reopen tomorrow and that amazing and lovely British Airways will get me home in time for Christmas Eve (I also need to book a flight back come to think of it).

I could get on a ferry somewhere as a foot passenger - this is a slightly risky strategy. It's certainly possible to get to Calais but it's a lengthy process. Trains are still running though so we could be on to a winner here. I could try and sail from Oostende, which has the advantage of being much more reachable by train (and doesn't involve going to France, for extra bonus points). However, TransEuropa Ferries calmly informed me that they don't take foot passengers, for insurance reasons. So I would have to count on being able to make friends with a British (or Polish) truck driver and hitching a lift onto the boat. A risky strategy.

I could try Eurolines, but their website doesn't specify whether they go via ferry or tunnel. Again a risky strategy.

I could hitch hike...

Or... I could stay in Brussels over Christmas, watch the Pasterka on TVP Polonia and brew up some of the barszcz recipe that The Polish Chick sent me. I have hot chocolate, I have a duvet, I have over 200 cable tv channels in at least four different languages and I have an emergency bottle of Absolut in the freezer compartment. Joyeuses Fetes indeed.

What do you reckon?

ps, here's my balcony snowman. It doesn't even compare to Laura's but I was a bit pressed for time. Will try again this afternoon. Wait. It is afternoon. Later this afternoon.

Seems familiar

Rattling old trams, snow in the park at night, people speaking Polish in the metro... this all seems strangely... familiar...

Bach

Bach's Mass in B Minor is a dark, brooding work of enormous depth and myriad layers. It is a work you sing maybe once in a lifetime, if you are a lucky amateur. It lasts a whopping two hours (topping even the highest of the high Anglicans for stamina in church) and builds from a quite literally spine-tingling opening Kyrie, trips joyfully over the Gloria, through a complex, emotional Credo and sweepingly majestic Sanctus to finish with a quiet, simple heavenward plea - Dona nobis pace.
Bach well understood the human condition: the despair of the Crucifixus is all too human and the closing Dona Nobis is a humble expression of hope.
The Mass soars and swoops from ecstatic to destitute to elated, as do we all.

I recommend finding somewhere to listen to it, maybe this weekend.

Autumn leaves

I've always loved autumn: it's always been my favourite season. La rentrée, back to school, whatever you call it. Autumn is where the air tastes fresher and the leaves are crispy underfoot. Couples walk hand in hand and giggle like teenagers and cheeks are rosy and steps springy. Autumn is full of hope and new starts: schools, universities, new jobs, new friendship, new love...
Trees crowd together in excitement, merging, laughing, in a cloud of russet and gold.

Then suddenly November comes, and night falls and with it silence and the trees stand stark and bare of leaves and twisted in grief, their branches not even touching.

Are you being served?

One - pretty important - thing I haven't mentioned yet is Belgian Customer Service.

Now please, bear in mind I've just spent the past two years (more or less) living in a former Eastern Bloc country. While cities such as Kraków are very modern and Central European and sophisticated, they still have their fair share of grumpy old Panie Nie Ma, glaring protectively over their hoards of small change in those little post-Communist Sklepy Spożywcze with the green bars on the windows.

I really thought that Belgium, with its Mutualités and its cycle lanes and 'journées sans voitures' and general touchy-feelyness might be a little different.

What a fool I was. Let's not mention the pharmacies that insist on selling you a packet of ten capsules when all you need is one (without social security- still waiting - that's pretty steep). Or the Belgacom shopkeeper whose sales pitch I had to draw out of him, step by painful step (- no, I mean, couldn't you tell me the advantages of Belgacom over Clearwire? Is it more... uh... reliable, for example? Yes?).

No, I'm afraid this last episode has finally convinced me that Belgian customer service is officially The Worst In Europe.

I needed an ironing board.
Perhaps it is not entirely to my credit that it has taken me over a month to come to this conclusion.

Not having an awful lot of time at my disposal, I preferred not to waste it tramping the desolate backstreets of Etterbeek during daytime tv hours, so I looked up the number of the big(ger) Carrefour online.

- Bonjour, c'est bien Carrefour St Michel?
- Ouais.
- Est-ce que vous auriez par hazard des planches à repasser?
- Attendez j'en sais rien, faut que je vous passe...
Music. For several minutes. And then a flat dialling tone.

I would clearly have to leave the flat after all.

I braved the drizzle and stepped out into the greyness...

***

This was a much bigger Carrefour than the little local round the corner, full of exciting things (toasters made in China, shiny plastic kettles from Romania). After some effort, I found the domestic appliances section.

No ironing boards. The price tag was still on the shelf though.

I made my way to the customer services desk, where a stout woman in an overall was slumped on a high chair at one of those supervisor stations.

- Excuse me... there aren't any ironing boards on the shelf - do you have any in stock?
The woman raised her eyes - not without some effort - from her magazine.
- If it's not on the shelf, then we don't have it.
I tried again.
- Couldn't you ask? Please?
Sighing, she picked up the phone.
- He's coming.
She said, and - sitting back dismissively - opened her magazine, leaving me standing there speechless in front of her.

If I had dared to pull that trick as a sixth-former on a summer job in Sainsbury's, they'd have flayed me alive.

I faked a text message and took a picture:

My phone let out a resounding 'click', but if Pani Sprzedawczyni noticed, she gave no sign of caring.

So here it is ladies and gentlemen: pictorial evidence that Belgian Customer Service is officially The Worst In Europe.

For the record, a guy in overalls then appeared from the warehouse, led me back to the rayon planches a repasser and - very kindly - went back into the warehouse to check whether the new delivery had arrived yet. It had, and as a result I had a lot of fun trying to manoeuvre my new purchase to the self-scan checkout without upsetting any pyramids of baked beans (here? as if!) or braining any under-fives.

A very Brussels Monday

A rainy song that YouTube won't let me embed here.

KT Tunstall - Under The Weather
envoyé par patafix3.