News from the Garret

Just call me Cara of Green Garret.  Or maybe Princess of the Attic.  Because, you see, I really do live in the attic room of a nineteenth-century row house, which is every bit as romantic and a great deal nicer than it sounds.  I feel a bit like Sara Crewe would if Miss Minchin had ushered her up to the attic and it had been decorated by the Indian man from the very beginning.  And (to borrow the inspiration of a friend), if Jo March wrote in a garret, then so can I.

I live in a rather spacious garret, which is, indeed, painted apple green, which I find terribly satisfying because Marie Antoinette had her rooms at Petite Trianon done with apple green satin wall hangings.  That and it happens to be a lovely color.  I have four perfectly useless and adorable miniature chairs, one of which has a African doll in it and another of which has a tiny, blue-flowered pillow.  I have a short, sky blue bookcase with a great variety of books and bears on it - figurines of a bear holding a harp, a bear with a working thermometer, a bear with a Santa hat, a very large, fierce-looking wooden bear that doubles as a book end (maybe he's irritated because the books are too heavy?), and a slightly smaller wooden bear who appears, inexplicably, to be sitting in a chair with a comparatively enormous copper pot in his lap.  I'd think it was a candle-holder, except his wooden paws curve too protectively over the pot, and I'm sure a candle would catch him on fire.  If my garret is as enchanted as most good ones seem to be, then one night he should accordingly wake up and tell me what on earth he's doing gloating protectively over that copper basin.  If he doesn't, it will bug me but amuse me until the end of my days.

I have a full-length mirror in my closet, with a brown, crackly, speckle-y finish that makes every outfit look more vintage and chic and French - or at least, French-speaking Belgian.  I have three deliciously mismatched lamps that appear to span the twentieth century, several charming paintings, and a very short blue cabinet to match the bookcase with the bears.  My bed has an apple green and sunshine yellow and sky blue plaid cover, with several pillows to match, and is actually two twin beds pushed together, so I use one side as a bed and the other side as a couch, with all the pillows behind me for reading.  During the day, my reading is illuminated by my two sky light windows, one in either side of the white ceiling that starts very low on the sides and slopes up to a point.  Three wooden stairs inside my room lead down to my door, which is white and has a large, four-pane window, like the door of a quaint little farmhouse.

If this house has...perhaps not flaws, exactly, but certainly difficult quirks, they are these: 1.) It has altogether too many stairs.  If one begins in the basement, say, by washing one's clothes, to get to my garret one must climb the flight of stairs from the basement to the main floor, then climb the stairs from the main floor to the landing with the guest bathroom, then stairs to the TV room floor, more stairs to the landing with the large back window, followed by the stairs to my host sister's room and our bathroom, and finally proceed up the garret stairs to my room, where, I might mention, one immediately encounters the three previously noted wooden stairs inside my door.  This is all quite a nuisance when you realize you have left your umbrella upstairs or your phone downstairs.  Never shall I complain (much) about living in a mere two-story again.  But the really fun part is the stairway from my host-sister's floor up to my floor.  Unlike the other stairs in the house, which are all straight, these begin as a spiral staircase, for five steps, just enough to make a quarter-turn to the left, so that you go from facing a wall on the first stair to parallel with the wall by the fifth.  Then, you encounter seven straight stairs, which make up for being two or three inches taller than normal by being the same amount shorter than normal, meaning that I have to balance my toes on a space about five inches deep.  This is practically impossible to do, especially when in a hurry, and means that I usually slip off one somewhere in the middle and scramble up the rest on all fours, not unlike my bears might do.  This works well enough until the final step into my room, which is just enough taller than the rest that it is visually imperceptible and absolutely guaranteed to trip me, no matter what I do or how many limbs I try climbing the stairs with.  Going down is nominally easier, except I have a bad habit of missing the last spiral stair and catapulting onto the landing from two feet above it at one fell, ungraceful swoop.  This is especially easy in the dark, which is when I discovered great challenge two of this house -

2.) I can't find the light switches!  Most of them are after-market, though some look as if, if not original, they are certainly close to it.  First of all, there must be half a dozen different kinds - ordinary switches, ones with a little rocker, large button switches mounted horizontally, a smaller button switch mounted vertically, and I'm sure that's not all.  Second, apparently no one though it necessary to put all of the switches in corresponding places.  Some are just inside a room, some are just outside a room, and the hallway lights can be turned on or off from several random switches, which are invariably placed near enough to other switches that you never remember which is which, and always flip the wrong one first.  But my favorite is the one for our bathroom.  The bathroom door has a handle on the left, and opens to the right, outwards.  The light switch is placed just past the right edge of the door frame, abutting the middle door hinge.  This means that, in the middle of the night, it is entirely possible to head for the light switch, right arm outstretched behind the door, left arm outstretched inside the door, nose banged smack into the edge of the door...and it isn't pleasant.  But, I personally have got three light switches, one outside my room, one inside, and one more by the head of my bed, so that I can journal or read Paul and then turn the light off without having to get out of bed.

I take one tram for ten minutes to get to school, and, incidentally, in case you have ever wondered if it is possible, when you are running late in Belgium, to stick your hands into the closing tram door, trip it's safety sensors, and wrench it back open before you're late to school, the answer is yes.  Highly possible.  Especially good when raining.  And heavens, does it rain here!  Thankfully, though, the rain held off this morning, long enough for me to walk not quite ten minutes down the street to St. Andrew's Church of Scotland, sermons given in English, if you don't mind a slight brogue.  (Who does?)  I have met the group pf people my age, and I must say, Brussels is a fascinating mecca.  I feel like only here would you have a Sunday school group composed, today, of five Americans, each from different states, three of them preparing to head off to three different countries, an Indonesian, a girl from Madagascar, a guy who I believe was from somewhere in Africa, a Northern Irish girl, a Russian, I think it was, and a pastor from Scotland!  That's not just international; it's intercontinental!  Why, we're practically global.  Give us a South American and we're set, though we'd welcome anyone, I'm sure.

Classes start tomorrow, which I am excited about, because I strangely miss homework, and I only brought so many English books to read with me - although my host-mom kindly left me a few Tintin books, some in English and others in French.  That and I can't wait to learn the history of this place, which is quite as convergent as my Sunday school class.