Worth the wait

The crocus are blooming about a month or more too soon this year.  

The weather here is always a subject of conversation - mostly in the way of complaining.  Admittedly, I wasn't sure just how much I could take of it either.  I was certain that grey was the national color of Belgium . . . until this year.

This year has, by far, been the best weather year since our arrival.  I haven't seen this much sun in nearly five years! The summer was outstanding and the winter (so far) has been more like spring. Now, don't get me wrong . . . it's not tropical by far, but February temperatures of lows at 4C and highs of 7C (that's 40F and 45F for us Americans :) is unusual.  Plus the added bonus of sun nearly every day.  

  

Apparently it really is unusual.  I read in our local paper that this winter is headed toward setting a record for the warmest winter ever!  I'm just glad we are here to witness it.

What will these Belgians (and me) bitch about now?

Snelmail not

Ironically, snel is Dutch for "fast, quick, rapid, speedy . . ."

Mailing letters and packages back and forth from U.S. to Belgium and vice versa has been, at the very least, intriguing.

Not long after moving here, we learned that Randi's friend Corey liked to collect postcards so we started sending one to him each time we traveled to a new place.  We also always purchased a postcard for ourselves.  One day it dawned on me that we could mail ourselves a postcard too.

That's when I started writing and mailing a postcard to us describing where we were and how much fun we were having.  I wish I'd thought of it sooner!

This week we received this postcard from Randi, mailed while we were on our trip to Orange Beach at Christmas.  It took 6 weeks to arrive in our mailbox.  It's a postcard - not a shipping crate.

Once I sent a package to the States that took exactly 30 days to arrive.  I paid the premium fee to keep it off the slow boat, but if it ends up on there anyway, as Randi said . . . guess it takes long time to row a dinghy full of mail across the ocean in winter :-)

When something is shipped from the U.S., it remains in Customs for . . . as long as it takes.  If it's something "new",  taxes are 25% of its value.  Belgium's mail tax is basically extortion.

If you mail something to me and write on the shipping form that it's worth $100, I get to pay a tax of $25 for the post office to give it to me.  If it's something not "new", then Customs decides if it is in fact, new or not, if it has taxable value, and then you may or may not pay taxes on it.

Not a bad system, huh?

Even a regular first class stamp here will cost you over a dollar compared to the U.S. at 49 cents and if you want to mail that letter to another "state" (aka country), it'll cost you about $1.50.  

Don't even ask what it will cost you to send that same letter to the States!  Okay, it'll cost you almost $2.  Is that why the Belgian P.O. was a billion plus in the black while the U.S.P.S. was a few billion in the red?  Perhaps.

Ok, so the post office will cost you an arm and a leg, but what about FedEx?  No surprise, send me a letter FedEx from the U.S. and pay $59.00 and I'll get it in 2 days.  I send you a letter FedEx, and it'll cost me $116.00 and the "delivery date is unavailable".  

It is still the same distance both ways, right?  When it absolutely, positively has to be there one of these days?

What got me thinking about all this is when we received one of our own postcards last week.  From Switzerland.  Mailed October 8.  

That may be a record . . . 4 months to go 400 miles.  The pony express resurrected.

In addition to postcards, I've enjoyed collecting sand (or rocks in some cases) from every beach we've visited.  I really love the display and all the fun memories it brings to mind.  Randi was nice enough to make these snazzy tags for each one . . . Nice, France - Barcelona, Spain - Cancun, Mexico, - Livorno, Italy . . . and so many more wonderful places!

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.