Things I Learned in Antwerp and Luxembourg

[steepholm]

#1: when you give blood at Antwerp University, you get free entertainment from a giant drop of blood, who dances around in front of your already-dazed eyes:



I can't decide whether or not this is a good thing.

#2: when the Belgians decide to erect a monument to the characters in a book hardly anyone there has heard of, they make a very good job of it:



#3: When this monument precipitates Korean and Japanese tourists, the Fish and Chip shop round the corner takes on a new dimension, offering panko and tenpura options, and a kimchi side.

#4: When they want to advertise the university, they dress the academics as superheroes (centre-stage is my friend Vanessa, who invited me to talk to her conference on Wednesday):



#5: In Luxembourg, if you're too tired to boil and decorate your own Easter eggs, you can buy them ready-boiled and painted. Probably someone will eat them for you too, for a price:



(Also, there is almost certainly a charming story behind this statue in Luxembourg City, but I've no idea what...)



#6: Finally, it turns out that my brain will only hold a maximum of two languages at a time. Since arriving in Abroad I've done my best at least to make an effort, language-wise, although Flanders and Luxembourg both being notorious nests of polyglotism it was never going to be more than a token one, and it's not as if I knew any Dutch to begin with. However, whenever I try to pull my school French out from the lumber room of my mind I find it's buried under a huge pile of conversational Japanese. I can get at it eventually, but it takes time - rather too much time in a country where everyone's already on a hair trigger to switch to English at the first sign of linguistic ineptitude. I've already thanked someone in a supermarket with 'Arigatou' and, truth be told, a few 'Hai's and 'Daijoubu's may also have escaped the fence of my teeth.

Still, the main business - being patron for a travail de candidature (don't ask) - went off smoothly, though in circumstances that were also rather tragic, for reasons I can't go into here, because it's not my story to tell.

Comments

[sovay]

#4: When they want to advertise the university, they dress the academics as superheroes (centre-stage is my friend Vanessa, who invited me to talk to her conference on Wednesday)

I really approve of this.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It is kind of cool, isn't it?

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

... I've already thanked someone in a supermarket with 'Arigatou'...

heh! My brain does the same. Will supply me with a word in a European language, but not necessarily the European language that I particularly want...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It makes me all the more impressed at the code-switching prowess of my multi-lingual hosts.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

"He would answer to 'Hai!' or to any loud cry..."*


*Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

:) I'm in the fortunate position of having plenty of snark right here at home....

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I sold plasma once or twice years ago. Turns out plasma selling is extremely déclassé. They were showing a slasher movie in the donation room, which I thought was a very odd choice. Why would I want to see people covered with blood while I was bleeding into a machine? (And, indeed, many people would never want to see such a movie under any circumstances.)