Anyway, I have neglected my blog for a WEEK! I'm terribly sorry to my thousands of fans! haha. Alright. So what has happened since last Thursday?
Well on Thursday we went to the military museum it was really big, and I'll have to go back. I only spent a little bit of time there because that night I went bowling with the meetup group. Before that, during the day, I spent Thursday traveling around on the Brussels Métro, which has 59 stops in total (North American people would call it a Subway). I went to 20. I got off the train and took pictures of all 20. The reason is that each station has art in it! On the internet, if you type "Art in the Métro, Bruxelles" you'll probably find a photo album of them anyway, but I wanted to take my own! Here are examples!
Those aren't all 20 that I went to, but they are the best ones. I plan to go to the other 39, but I don't know when!
Right, so after that I went back to the winter festival to chat quickly with Pricile (Québec) and then I went to the military museum. Again, the museum was a very dark one inside, so only a few pictures turned out well enough to put up here, but anyway here they are!
Here, he's seen becoming a bit more rotund. He also has reindeer and a sleigh now. Then came the 30s in America and through Coca-Cola advertisements in the 30s, Santa started to look like this:
Right, well by the time Belgium heard about this Santa, they decided to keep both and now they consider him 2 different people!
Anyway, St. Nicolas (the guy in the picture I took) has his day on the 6th of December! The scary guy next to him painted in black is all black because of soot in the chimneys. He's a chimney sweep. Apparently if children are bad he puts them in a bag, or whips them with that staff he's holding (it all sounds quite scary to me.)
Right. So then on the weekend. What happened. Not much I think. Let's move on to Monday.
Monday I met up with Pricile and David. We went skating! I didn't bring my camera :( It was fun though. It was a little difficult to get going because it had been a while since I skated, but I didn't fall so that's good!
Oh, speaking of bowling (which I wasn't) here's a picture from that night:
Right then. We didn't get a chance to go see the light show in the Grand Place, so I'll go some time next week and watch it with her.
Monday was also the day during which I only spoke French. It was hard and very frustrating. Language is obviously a very important means of expressing your opinions and getting on with people, and with my limited vocabulary, I found it sometimes quite hard to say what I wanted. Actually, sometimes I got half way through a sentence that I would normally just have said quickly to add a joke or a little bit of info, and just stopped because by the time I would have said the whole sentence it would have been irrelevant!
Anyway, it was a challenging day, but by the end I was becoming quicker in speaking French. I wouldn't say quick, just quickER.
Tuesday, Fabian made a breakfast cake and I ate some.
Wednesday, (yesterday) I went back into the school! I went because I thought there was a dress rehearsal for the concert which is being held today. Turns out that I had written down in my book about this LONG ago (2 months!) and I just e-mailed to confirm and wouldn't you know, they still needed me to come in and help! I thought I'd be playing french horn (my instrument) but one of the students had had surgery in his mouth and they needed me to play 2nd trumpet! haha, I hadn't played trumpet for a while, but oh well. I got to the school, found a trumpet and went to the theatre (it's quite common to play a few rehearsals in the same space as your performance to get used to sound / logistics of setting up etc.). Anyway, upon arriving, I was told that the school was having an assembly and there was to be a concert right then! Well that was fun!
Today I will go back in the evening and play for the concert. They are playing easy things, but it is somehow challenging because as I said before yesterday, I hadn't played trumpet for probably 4 or 5 years! I also hadn't played any brass instrument for > 2 months, so I became quite tired (embouchure tired, not sleepy tired) quite quickly.
Well that brings me to today. I think it will be fun to play in another concert today. The energy that goes around before, during and after a concert is tangible... it soaks into your skin and you feel positive. It lasts too!
What else. Oh, yesterday I compiled a list of French verbs that I know and their English translations. I put them into Microsoft Excel, alphabetized them, and re-wrote them down in my French binder. It turns out I know 124! (Admittedly I had to double check about 4-5 so I suppose that would mean that I know about 120).
One more thing before I end this obnoxiously long post. I have been introduced to a great character named Gaston. For Belgian people, comics are very serious. They are raised with them, and there probably isn't one native Belgian who doesn't know Gaston's name. He's a hilarious comic character that was created first in 1957 and his last comics were printed in 2007. The author and creator is a guy named André Franquin. He is helping me learn French because lots of the humour is physical, and for the words I don't understand, I either have the accompanying picture, or my trusty dictionary.
Here's a picture of Gaston to help you picture this funny, awkward guy.
Gaston doesn't look like he from 1957 wearing his pants like that! You had a busy week.
ReplyDeleteI just checked the blog and my comment was going to be: "You really must be out of money. You haven't updated your blog in a week!"
Now you've got the biggest entry yet. Metro stations are quite nice. I think you would be amazed at the London Underground. (Tube)
When I was learning Dutch we learned about Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.
ReplyDeleteI think they do their stuff on Dec 5th.
Hi Ian, that was a great post. Very interesting. I went to bowling this year, feels good to go there and throw the ball around. Your 'subway' pictures are fantastic. Good work. Looking forward to your next trip away from home(there)
ReplyDeleteWow beaucoup de comments! YES I'm out of money! I need to come home and recharge the funds! Yes, apparently The Netherlands does their thing on the night of the 5th, but Belgium does it on the morning of the 6th! Thanks for the comments!!
ReplyDeleteOK. You be good. You don't want a visit from Zwarte Piet. He has time on his hands now that Dec 5th/6th has come and gone!
ReplyDelete