While cleaning my room today, I came across my travel notebook/diary, and of course, sat down to reread it, because it's no good cleaning a room if you can't sit down in the middle of the unresolved mess and read your findings.
I don't usually mix my personal diary, my travel notebook, and my blog, but sometimes I am possessed of the urge to write, and whatever notebook (or keyboard) that is closest receives the story. On this occasion, I found a charming little journal entry in my travel book, though, and thought that perhaps it was just the thing to share.
If you have been reading my posts since the beginning, you will know that Luxembourg was the first country I saw besides Belgium this semester. But that time it was only the American War Cemetery, and then we drove almost immediately back into southern Belgium for Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. In March, on one of the few lovely, sunny days that we have had all spring here, I went again, with the same study-abroad group but this time to see the European Investment Bank (which was dull) and to ramble around in Luxembourg City. I hereby provide you with a briefly edited transcription of my immediate account of that wonderful day:
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
I am currently riding, reclining sideways, across two seats of a bus through Luxembourg! I have spent the most wonderful afternoon with my friends here - beautiful photographer K., lone adventurer M, and charming sophisticate A. - skipping the guided tour (for once) to spend an afternoon wandering around this beautiful, beautiful place. K's date lives here, so she knows some of the history and all the good views and a fabulous, delightful little chocolate shop right next to the Grand Ducal Palace, so really we did our own tour, with spontaneous excursions and copious romantic photoshoots.
We ate fancy hamburgers outside on a wide, sunny-and-shady Luxembourg street, then we wandered at will through the golden city (so many of the buildings are soft, warm yellow), taking photos in archways, all rushing out of the way of cars, the nicest cars I've seen in Europe, plastering ourselves against the medieval walls, laughing. The drivers always smiled, too; a rare and lovely thing in Europe. Warm and weak after walking so much, somehow quite literally uphill both ways, we stopped in the top floor of the chocolate shop, cool but warmly lit by the rustic windows, for a chill glass of pinot noir rose, which was delicious. Then, I bought two little "framboise noir" chocolates, and ate them walking back to the bus in the late afternoon sun. And we're still not yet done. We're going to see a Belgian castle and another glorious old church, and then be fed a traditional Ardennes meal.
It is days - little escapes into paradise - like these that turn the grey, dull Brussels experience into something not only bearable but wonderful. I feel so happy wandering the canal-streets of Amsterdam, photographing the other-worldly light effects of Delft, rambling over the hills of Luxembourg with three fresh, artistic friends! For just a day, all the stress of school and grades and unhappiness with myself is gone - it's simply no use thinking about it, because it's left briefly at home and I can't do anything about it, here - only see and learn and laugh and relax and enjoy myself, and lie in the sunlight on a softly speeding bus, still tasting raspberry chocolates. I don't remember being this happy - this content - this free - since Scotland.
I wish more days of my life could be like this. I feel a little oddly like Jenny in the film An Education, when she says that she's been fabulous places and seen beautiful and exciting things. Brussels was such a letdown, and I always have scoffed at Jenny for thinking academics were not equally interesting and alive, but...now I finally am going to breathtaking places and seeing things that I can see nowhere else, and may only see once in my life, and there is something so different about feeling the breeze on your skin and the sun on your back and the heart-deep feeling of satisfaction and glory that comes with such pleasant new experiences. No essay ever gave me that, no matter how good it was by the end.
It does make one think, a bit.
~
Cara
Never fear, oh my friends - my academic will is a strong as ever, and my term papers are progressing. But nevertheless, that, my friends, is why I shall never regret that I came on this otherwise somewhat turbulent abroad semester.
From: http://arttattler.com/archiverussiancourtprotocol.html
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
The Night I Thought I Ate Cat...
...and kept eating.
I don't usually blog things in close-to-real time. Well, one might make the argument that, recently, I don't often blog things at all, but this one's really too good to miss.
As usual, I came when called and sat down for dinner tonight with my host-family. My host mom was off, at some one of her multiple fun lessons, likely - she takes Italian lessons, painting lessons, goes to theatre rehearsals, and goodness knows what all else - so it was just me, my host-sister "A.", and my host-dad. Served were potatoes, carrots, and some slab of meat in creamy yellowish sauce, with water, a par-for-the-course meal around here. Usually I recognize the meat as something normal, like chicken or beef, if, indeed, I bother to think about it at all.
I have been told that some people really focus on their food and take delight in what they eat. Some skilled souls even seem able to mentally connect with their food on a daily basis. I am not one of the souls thus blessed. Depending on how distracted I am by actual or imaginative life, I may not progress as far as actually knowing what's on the plate in front of me. Distracted by various litanies, conversations, or procrastinations inside my own head, and I'll eat idly and blindly, not bothering much about what I'm eating or how much of it I have - or haven't - eaten. Good for consuming my own burnt cookies by the dozen, then flailing my hand around on the plate a bit before realizing, "Oh. Drat. I ate them all already." Distracted by reading or writing any form of literature, poetry, or novel, and I might well either A.) Eat old shoe leather without noticing I had even chewed anything, B.) Starve to death in the same room as a gourmet meal because I haven't figured out who falls in love with Miss Brown or who killed Lady Helena yet.
When worrying about homework, experiencing a painful shoulder, and surrounded by conversation in French tonight, I fell closest to situation 1, above - litanies in own head taking cognitive precedence over physical reality. Only a sudden question from my host sister recalled me back to the present table.
"Do you know what kind of meat it is?"
Huh? What, who - me? Meat...oh, yes, that's meat I'm eating. Hm! Come to think of it - chews meat meditatively - it's actually rather good. Quite moist.
Then her question sunk in. Do I -
"Should I? Do I...want to?" I asked her.
"What do you think it is?" she said, looking perhaps vaguely amused.
I stared at my plate and gave serious thought to the meat. It wasn't chicken. Nor beef. Pork, maybe? Except it looked a little too reddish for pork. Hmm. This was getting worrisome.
"Pork?" I hazarded a guess.
It occurred to me then that I had seen it defrosting on the counter that morning. A situation that, even in my half-asleep state, had caused me to cross my fingers and pray a little bit, because I'm not much of a cook, but I'm pretty sure one of those major safe-food tips is that you don't want to leave meat flopped on a counter all day defrosting at room temperature. Granted, it was wrapped in plastic, but all day long? And on a countertop that, during the past week, has become host to not-so-infrequent visits by the large family of ants that are having a rollicking good time in the kitchen trashcan, to the apparent blithe unconcern of everyone but me? No; this didn't seem like the best possible idea. But, it's neither my house nor my meat, so what was I to do? I shook my head, ate - something - for breakfast, and wandered off to catch the tram.
Ah, but now the question was, quid the state of the meat that morning, besides room-temp? Long, chicken-breast-like shape, reddish then too. Sort a beefy color, but a chicken shape. This was not looking good.
"No; it's not a pig." Was she slightly too amused about that?
"I have no idea," I gave up. "Just tell me it's not something really weird, please."
"Oh, no; it's not weird for us," she said, not at all assuaging my fears.
I am not a typically adventurous eater, but I'll try many things on the basis of one question - that you tell me what it is before you make me eat it. Now here I was in the middle of a rather good meal, suddenly fearing the worst. I've heard they eat horse in this country...and of all the things I could never forgive myself if I knowingly ate, it would be a horse. I haven't spent half my life around those animals, tending to their every need, and getting flung off into mud puddles and bitten on the butt in the process, only to eat one in Belgium. No siree - no horse-eating for me!
I blanched, inspecting the morsel on my fork suspiciously. I twirled it over and over, a safe distance from my face. Did I dare to ask if it was horse, or should I try calculatus eliminatus and see if it was something else first?
"But it...is weird for me?" spoken tentatively, eyeing A. and the forkful of...something...as if I wasn't sure which one of the two might bite me first.
"Well, if you've never eaten cat before, then - "
CAT? She had to be kidding. No one eats cats. Well, maybe in rural Asia or something, but...No. No-no-no-no-no. It wasn't possible. Was it?
"Cat? You have got to be kidding me." I said, giving her my best sibling-to-sibling "oh, come on, lamebrain. Knock it off" look.
Now, if I had the sense God gave seafood, I would have processed right away that A., though generally a very nice girl, is also a maniacal and well-practiced prankster, aka, a younger sibling. The youngest of her siblings, actually, though she's a few years older than I. And, though she usually spares me, I have witnessed a few incidences of sisterly love in this house that should have given me fair warning. But one does not think entirely clearly when one has just been stopped in the middle of a veritable viande de mystère.
"No, really!" she said, with a perfectly straight face. "We don't believe in wasting anything useful here." Broke into short explanation in French about waste and the environment and conscientiousness. Seeing as A.) she is actually eco-conscious enough to turn off the water while washing her face and brushing her teeth, and B.) I never do know what social and political policies to expect Europeans to actually take seriously, seeing as they abide, as a whole, by so many that I consider nuts, I was backed into a tight spot.
"You're pulling my leg. You have to be." I maintained my best we-are-not-amused face. I also went from 95% to only about 75% certain that it wasn't cat.
The American phrase did not phase her. "No, really - just ask my dad!" She turned to him, and asked him if it was or was not chat that he was eating.
Now, my host-dad is a quiet, ostensibly mild-mannered sort of person, but he is not without his own peculiar sense of humor. He favors a salt-shaker that looks like a little red bird with a white, plumy tail, that sits on little wind-up wheels. He got a big kick out of my reaction to it during the first few weeks here by asking me if I wanted salt on my potatoes until I said yes, and then winding it up and letting it careen towards me across the tablecloth. I couldn't decide whether a speechless "What on Earth?" or giggling indulgence-of-my-inner-six-year-old was the more suitable reaction.
Today, however, he looked up from his dinner, and, without batting an eyelash, said something about chat that seemed to confirm A.'s demand. Not-cat certainty plummeted to a close 60%. I inspected the morsel on my fork as if it had suddenly grown decidedly grotesque.
"What, you never eat cat in America?" A. asked. At this point, my brain was very conflicted. I, you see, am a somewhat literal and trusting (read: gullible) person. Because of this, I can also be a very suspicious person who is afraid of seeming too gullible (read: dumb). Not-cat had fallen to around 50-50. But, hadn't she said earlier that she knew it was unusual for me?
I had stopped eating completely. But, I was also ravenously hungry, because Europeans apparently find between 8 and 9 pm a suitable time to have dinner, and my American stomach is fully convinced that this is something like 2 hours too late. And, now that I'd had to stop eating it, I'd realized that that meat really was good. Wait a sec...did that mean I was eating cat and liking it?
"They even tell you what race" - the usual translation she uses for breed - "of cat it is when you buy it at the boucherie." You bought it at the butcher?!
Holy goodness, I was eating a cat.
Well, at least, I though so for a solid second or so, before reason rebooted. Something felt...off. Not-cat certainty had bottomed out at maybe 40%.
"Aren't you going to eat it?" she prodded. Hmm. I have a sibling, and that seemed too eager. Not-cat percentage began to rise again. She was good, though - very good. Would have made a darn good actress. Then, she made the slip.
"My mom had an accident with the car the other day, and we didn't want to waste it, and so - "
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!! And we have our answer, folks! It is 100% not a cat! Even I am not gullible enough to believe I am eating a roadkill cat for dinner! Besides, it came in a package.
I said as much, and she admitted that okay, it wasn't road kill, but didn't I like cat, anyway?
I glowered at her. I waggled the morsel of what-ever-it-was on my fork around. I asked her if it was horse, very plaintively. She assured me, in a much more credible fashion, that it wasn't. Then I ate it. All of it. And it was really quite good, even though I was still only about 75% certain that it wasn't a house cat. And 100% uncertain of what it might really be.
Finished, and starting on the carrots, I practically lept out of my chair when A. started laughing fit to kill.
"It was canard!" she said, gleefully. "Duck! Not cat."
"I knew you were kidding!" I shouted, which might have been a slight overstatement of the fact. I had not, precisely, known. These things get difficult cross-culturally, you understand. But I had strongly suspected she was kidding.
Then she gave me that look that meant mischief again. "But would you still have eaten it if it was cat?"
I don't usually blog things in close-to-real time. Well, one might make the argument that, recently, I don't often blog things at all, but this one's really too good to miss.
As usual, I came when called and sat down for dinner tonight with my host-family. My host mom was off, at some one of her multiple fun lessons, likely - she takes Italian lessons, painting lessons, goes to theatre rehearsals, and goodness knows what all else - so it was just me, my host-sister "A.", and my host-dad. Served were potatoes, carrots, and some slab of meat in creamy yellowish sauce, with water, a par-for-the-course meal around here. Usually I recognize the meat as something normal, like chicken or beef, if, indeed, I bother to think about it at all.
I have been told that some people really focus on their food and take delight in what they eat. Some skilled souls even seem able to mentally connect with their food on a daily basis. I am not one of the souls thus blessed. Depending on how distracted I am by actual or imaginative life, I may not progress as far as actually knowing what's on the plate in front of me. Distracted by various litanies, conversations, or procrastinations inside my own head, and I'll eat idly and blindly, not bothering much about what I'm eating or how much of it I have - or haven't - eaten. Good for consuming my own burnt cookies by the dozen, then flailing my hand around on the plate a bit before realizing, "Oh. Drat. I ate them all already." Distracted by reading or writing any form of literature, poetry, or novel, and I might well either A.) Eat old shoe leather without noticing I had even chewed anything, B.) Starve to death in the same room as a gourmet meal because I haven't figured out who falls in love with Miss Brown or who killed Lady Helena yet.
When worrying about homework, experiencing a painful shoulder, and surrounded by conversation in French tonight, I fell closest to situation 1, above - litanies in own head taking cognitive precedence over physical reality. Only a sudden question from my host sister recalled me back to the present table.
"Do you know what kind of meat it is?"
Huh? What, who - me? Meat...oh, yes, that's meat I'm eating. Hm! Come to think of it - chews meat meditatively - it's actually rather good. Quite moist.
Then her question sunk in. Do I -
"Should I? Do I...want to?" I asked her.
"What do you think it is?" she said, looking perhaps vaguely amused.
I stared at my plate and gave serious thought to the meat. It wasn't chicken. Nor beef. Pork, maybe? Except it looked a little too reddish for pork. Hmm. This was getting worrisome.
"Pork?" I hazarded a guess.
It occurred to me then that I had seen it defrosting on the counter that morning. A situation that, even in my half-asleep state, had caused me to cross my fingers and pray a little bit, because I'm not much of a cook, but I'm pretty sure one of those major safe-food tips is that you don't want to leave meat flopped on a counter all day defrosting at room temperature. Granted, it was wrapped in plastic, but all day long? And on a countertop that, during the past week, has become host to not-so-infrequent visits by the large family of ants that are having a rollicking good time in the kitchen trashcan, to the apparent blithe unconcern of everyone but me? No; this didn't seem like the best possible idea. But, it's neither my house nor my meat, so what was I to do? I shook my head, ate - something - for breakfast, and wandered off to catch the tram.
Ah, but now the question was, quid the state of the meat that morning, besides room-temp? Long, chicken-breast-like shape, reddish then too. Sort a beefy color, but a chicken shape. This was not looking good.
"No; it's not a pig." Was she slightly too amused about that?
"I have no idea," I gave up. "Just tell me it's not something really weird, please."
"Oh, no; it's not weird for us," she said, not at all assuaging my fears.
I am not a typically adventurous eater, but I'll try many things on the basis of one question - that you tell me what it is before you make me eat it. Now here I was in the middle of a rather good meal, suddenly fearing the worst. I've heard they eat horse in this country...and of all the things I could never forgive myself if I knowingly ate, it would be a horse. I haven't spent half my life around those animals, tending to their every need, and getting flung off into mud puddles and bitten on the butt in the process, only to eat one in Belgium. No siree - no horse-eating for me!
I blanched, inspecting the morsel on my fork suspiciously. I twirled it over and over, a safe distance from my face. Did I dare to ask if it was horse, or should I try calculatus eliminatus and see if it was something else first?
"But it...is weird for me?" spoken tentatively, eyeing A. and the forkful of...something...as if I wasn't sure which one of the two might bite me first.
"Well, if you've never eaten cat before, then - "
CAT? She had to be kidding. No one eats cats. Well, maybe in rural Asia or something, but...No. No-no-no-no-no. It wasn't possible. Was it?
"Cat? You have got to be kidding me." I said, giving her my best sibling-to-sibling "oh, come on, lamebrain. Knock it off" look.
Now, if I had the sense God gave seafood, I would have processed right away that A., though generally a very nice girl, is also a maniacal and well-practiced prankster, aka, a younger sibling. The youngest of her siblings, actually, though she's a few years older than I. And, though she usually spares me, I have witnessed a few incidences of sisterly love in this house that should have given me fair warning. But one does not think entirely clearly when one has just been stopped in the middle of a veritable viande de mystère.
"No, really!" she said, with a perfectly straight face. "We don't believe in wasting anything useful here." Broke into short explanation in French about waste and the environment and conscientiousness. Seeing as A.) she is actually eco-conscious enough to turn off the water while washing her face and brushing her teeth, and B.) I never do know what social and political policies to expect Europeans to actually take seriously, seeing as they abide, as a whole, by so many that I consider nuts, I was backed into a tight spot.
"You're pulling my leg. You have to be." I maintained my best we-are-not-amused face. I also went from 95% to only about 75% certain that it wasn't cat.
The American phrase did not phase her. "No, really - just ask my dad!" She turned to him, and asked him if it was or was not chat that he was eating.
Now, my host-dad is a quiet, ostensibly mild-mannered sort of person, but he is not without his own peculiar sense of humor. He favors a salt-shaker that looks like a little red bird with a white, plumy tail, that sits on little wind-up wheels. He got a big kick out of my reaction to it during the first few weeks here by asking me if I wanted salt on my potatoes until I said yes, and then winding it up and letting it careen towards me across the tablecloth. I couldn't decide whether a speechless "What on Earth?" or giggling indulgence-of-my-inner-six-year-old was the more suitable reaction.
Today, however, he looked up from his dinner, and, without batting an eyelash, said something about chat that seemed to confirm A.'s demand. Not-cat certainty plummeted to a close 60%. I inspected the morsel on my fork as if it had suddenly grown decidedly grotesque.
"What, you never eat cat in America?" A. asked. At this point, my brain was very conflicted. I, you see, am a somewhat literal and trusting (read: gullible) person. Because of this, I can also be a very suspicious person who is afraid of seeming too gullible (read: dumb). Not-cat had fallen to around 50-50. But, hadn't she said earlier that she knew it was unusual for me?
I had stopped eating completely. But, I was also ravenously hungry, because Europeans apparently find between 8 and 9 pm a suitable time to have dinner, and my American stomach is fully convinced that this is something like 2 hours too late. And, now that I'd had to stop eating it, I'd realized that that meat really was good. Wait a sec...did that mean I was eating cat and liking it?
"They even tell you what race" - the usual translation she uses for breed - "of cat it is when you buy it at the boucherie." You bought it at the butcher?!
Holy goodness, I was eating a cat.
Well, at least, I though so for a solid second or so, before reason rebooted. Something felt...off. Not-cat certainty had bottomed out at maybe 40%.
"Aren't you going to eat it?" she prodded. Hmm. I have a sibling, and that seemed too eager. Not-cat percentage began to rise again. She was good, though - very good. Would have made a darn good actress. Then, she made the slip.
"My mom had an accident with the car the other day, and we didn't want to waste it, and so - "
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!! And we have our answer, folks! It is 100% not a cat! Even I am not gullible enough to believe I am eating a roadkill cat for dinner! Besides, it came in a package.
I said as much, and she admitted that okay, it wasn't road kill, but didn't I like cat, anyway?
I glowered at her. I waggled the morsel of what-ever-it-was on my fork around. I asked her if it was horse, very plaintively. She assured me, in a much more credible fashion, that it wasn't. Then I ate it. All of it. And it was really quite good, even though I was still only about 75% certain that it wasn't a house cat. And 100% uncertain of what it might really be.
Finished, and starting on the carrots, I practically lept out of my chair when A. started laughing fit to kill.
"It was canard!" she said, gleefully. "Duck! Not cat."
"I knew you were kidding!" I shouted, which might have been a slight overstatement of the fact. I had not, precisely, known. These things get difficult cross-culturally, you understand. But I had strongly suspected she was kidding.
Then she gave me that look that meant mischief again. "But would you still have eaten it if it was cat?"
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