Cups to kilos

It's all their fault for not teaching me metrics, but although it's taken me nearly 5 years, I've now learned all I need to know.

So I'm sharing it with you.

Temperature:

- Hopefully you already know this, but zero Celsius is freezing (32F)

- Anything below 10C is COLD. That's 50F

- Anything over 25C is PERFECT.  That's 77F

- A millimeter of rain means it's going to drizzle all day

Voila.

Weight:

- If you're too short like me, between 50 and 60 kg is good. That's 110 lbs to 132 lbs

- If you're at 200 lbs, that's 90 kg and that is not good

Driving:

- Interstate speed is 120 kmph. That's 75 mph. Unless it's Germany and it's whatever you want it to be

- 1 gallon of gas is about 4 liters and will cost you $8 to $9 per gallon. AKA highway robbery.

- 100 meters is more or less a football field.  So when the GPS says to turn in 300 meters and I say "Here?!!" . . . Ross says "Remember, Mom, that's 3 football fields." and I say "Oh yeah, I remember." again.

Cooking:

- A pound of ground beef is 500 grams

- A quart of milk is a liter

- Everything else - eyeball it

Paper:

- A standard piece of paper is not 8 1/2" by 11" because they don't use inches.  It's called an A4 and it's 210 x 297 mm.  That's 8.3 x 11.7 inches

- All you need to know is that it's too long, but not wide enough, so anything you copy from the States will be cut off on the side with room to spare at the bottom

Bob's your uncle.

And having nothing at all to do with metrics, but everything to do with Europe . . .

Money:

- One Euro is worth ~$1.35 so when you buy something for 25 Euro, you just paid $35 for it

- If you earn up to 8,000 Euro a year, you will pay 25% (2,000 Euro) in income tax.  Everybody pays at least 25%.

- If you earn that much in the States, you pay zero, nada, nil in income tax

- If you earn 36,000 Euro or more, you pay 50% in income tax. Yes. Half. Half!

- If you earn that much in the States, you pay 25% in income tax and no matter how much you earn, you will never pay 50% in income tax

And lastly . . .

Comparisons:

- 750 ml is a bottle of wine and should yield 5 glasses - or less depending on your definition of "glass"

- 33 cl is a beer at the pub unless you're really thirsty and order the 50 cl and that's about a pint

- A meter is a yardstick so if you're 6 feet tall, you're nearly 2 meters

- And a kilo of cocaine is . . . still illegal

There you have it . . . all you need to know.

Trash update of sorts

Our trash is picked up in front of our house once every two weeks.  Yes.  One time every two weeks. 

But, technically, we don't pay anything for it.  There was no assessment for "trash pickup".  However, the official grey trash bags weren't cheap so, in essence, we did "pay" for trash pickup in the form of expensive trash bags.  

We, and by we I mean Jim, realized this was ingenious since trash pickup costs each person however much they wanted to pay for trash bags (about $2 each) and they hold about 10 gallons. We can usually fill up 3 trash bags so trash pick up costs us $6 every two weeks.

Now there's a change coming. In February, we've been instructed to go to a central location and pick up our allotment of official bordeaux trash bags for the year.  That's the color name they've been given - bordeaux. We are entitled to 20 bordeaux bags.  That's right.  Twenty bags for the year.  I'm not very good at math, but I think that's about 3/4 of a bag each time the trash truck comes by our house.

Recycling is a really big deal here and we try to do our part, but some things I just can't do.  For example, under every sink in Belgium - I swear I think it's standard issue - is a small plastic can.  This is where we are supposed to put all the leftover food, coffee grounds and paper napkins - basically anything biodegradable.  

Coming from the South, that is defined as roach bait so I can't bring myself to do it.  There aren't any roaches here, but still.  Plus it's also only picked up once every two weeks!  That's just gross.  So all our leftovers and coffee grounds go in the grey, now named bordeaux, bag.

We will also be assessed about $75 a year for trash pickup now that we get those 20 free bordeaux bags.  Fortunately the grocery store also sells the bordeaux bag for about $2 each so for us, it'll be business as usual.  It'll just cost a bit more.

Changing the subject slightly . . .

Perhaps you remember a post on my blog recently about this guy . . .

who, over a 2 year period, collected these treasures, also known as trash to his neighbors.

He was urged to clean it up, but he said he didn't see anything wrong with it and furthermore, it was his hobby to tinker with this stuff.

Turns out he had to go before the criminal court last week and was fined 9000 euro and has 6 months to clean it up.  If he once again thinks his trash is a treasure, after the 6 month clean-up window, he will get to pay 150 euro a day in fines.

I figure he'll decide it's not worth that much. I also figure it's gonna to take a helluva lot of bordeaux bags.

Converts

When I read recently that the local Center for Islam is showing a marked increase in new Muslim converts, especially women, I was curious.  The article went on to say the increase was not only from the big cities in Belgium, but also from rural areas.  

The Center even started a new association for these new converts which now has more than 700 members with numbers, according to the Center director, steadily increasing.   

Interesting since Belgium has most certainly historically been a Christian country with over 75% of its population being Catholic.  About 5% of these actually attend church.  

Of course, 700 converts is fairly insignificant since the population of Belgium is over 10 million, but the director for the Center said the growth in women converts to Islam is a clear trend.  She further stated it is result of several things including social media and more people coming into contact with Muslims.  

More people coming into contact with Muslims.  

How many Muslims do you know?  If you're like me, until I moved here, I knew zero. In one of my Flemish classes, I met and sort of got to know two - both young women - both smart - and both nice. 

Interesting because if they hadn't worn a hijab (that veil covering the head), I'm sure I wouldn't have even known they were Muslim.

Just an observation.

Why your credit card won't work here

When we opened our bank account in Belgium, you may remember me mentioning in a blog post that I asked our banker if we would be issued a checkbook . . . her confused look prompted me to pull out my American checkbook.  After looking at it curiously for a moment or two, she said "we haven't had those in 15 years".

Make that 20  years now.

When we were home for our Christmas visit we did a little shopping.  It was really the first time we'd done much shopping in the States since about 2 years ago.  It surprised me that I would have to sign my name on credit card receipts.  I had completely forgotten about this.

In Belgium and 80 other countries in the world, except the U.S. and maybe one country in Africa (seriously), uses a microchip, like the one pictured above, on credit and debit cards.  No signature required.

From what I understand, with a microchip, the information is encrypted differently for EACH transaction and very difficult to hack.  

The U.S. and maybe one country in Africa (seriously :), uses the magnetic strip like the ones that are probably on your cards.  The information is NOT encrypted, it is the same on EVERY transaction, and very easy to hack. Case in point - Target.  

Only 1% of credit cards in the U.S. currently have this technology.

According to security specialists, the magnetic strip is about the worst security you can have in a payment system.  Plus the fact that it's pretty outdated.

More than a decade ago, Europe went all microchip.  Every grocery store, gas station, pharmacy, restaurant, boutique and bakery in every country we've visited has one of these handy gadgets (large grey thing in front of cashier) to scan your credit or debit card - both requiring a PIN code.

Although they've been common throughout Europe since the mid-90's, the first mass use of these cards was in pay telephones in France in 1983 - thirty years ago!

If you've never seen one of these, hopefully you will soon.  When I want to access my bank account or pay the light bill or buy something online, I use a "card reader" like the one above.  It's issued by my bank and it takes me through several steps to insure the security of my payment or purchase.

Interestingly enough, I read that Target tried to collaborate with Visa more than 10 years ago for the microchip cards, but executives shelved it due to fear checkout time would take longer.  Really?

Now, I do it all - I insert my card in the machine, I put in my PIN, one receipt is printed and I'm done.  

Before, I handed my card to the cashier, they swiped it, they printed a receipt, I signed it, they kept it and another receipt was printed for me . . . then I was done. 

Surely there was more to the Visa and Target discussion than that.  My guess is it had a lot more to do with issuing a bazillion new cards and every boutique and bakery getting one of those handy grey gadgets.  

The good news is the U.S. is finally getting on board (not sure about that one African country). Americans should see a change beginning this year with microchip encrypted cards being issued.  It'll take some time before every grocery store and gas station has one of those handy grey gadgets, but . . .

better a decade or more late than not at all.

Even Winslow has had a microchip for the last 5 years.  

He is definitely invaluable, but as far as I know, he is not tied to our bank account :-)  

Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd

Founded in 1943 by a 17-year-old named Ingvar Kamprad who grew up on Elmtaryd farm in a town called Agunnaryd, this company now has 349 locations in 43 countries and Ingvar is a multi-billionaire.

One of his next locations will be in Hasselt - opening by summer 2015.  From the location map in our local newspaper, it seems we may be able to see the yellow and blue sign from our house!

The good news is there will be 350 new jobs to the area and 1.6 million visitors every year and Swedish meatballs will be a mere stone's throw away :-)

The bad news is that the expected traffic to and from will peak at 800 cars per hour which is about 13 every minute and Swedish meatballs will a mere stone's throw away :~\ 

I'd say that 17-year-old, whose company name is an acronym (see below), has come a long way.

Ingvar
Kamprad
Elmtaryd farm
Agunnaryd town