A day in the life of Emily...

I decided that if I am trying to share my life with you in this blog, then I should share what happens in a regular day with you…

Wednesday
January 12, 2004

9:15am—Kyle wakes me up after he has taken a shower. I leisurely get up and have breakfast with him before he leaves for work at 10am. Normally I would read for about an hour, but today is a special day…we finally have our DVD installed and ready to run! I have not seen a DVD in 3 months, so I am really excited to watch Notting Hill. I watch the movie until noon and then make myself some pasta. I look on the back of the package and within the French words, I see the number 4, so I assume that means to cook it for 4 minutes. Regardless if that is the correct translation or not, the pasta tastes pretty good.

Noon—It is time to get ready for the day. Surprisingly, it is sunny outside, although I know enough to not get too excited over this. I stick my hand out the window to get a feel for the temperature. The weather usually gets gloomy pretty quickly and although I love the sun, that means that it will be much colder than if there was some cloud cover. I seriously debate what to wear today, not because of fashion, but because of warmth and rain. I decided on jeans with rain-proof sneakers and a long john top under a sweater. I then debate about the coat (I have 4 different strengths to choose from) and decide on my long “puffy” one. It has a hood and goes down to my shins. Although you can barely tell if I am a girl or a guy in it, it keeps me warm and by having the hood and pockets, it reduces all the extra junk of hat, scarf and gloves that I would normally need to carry. I am finally ready for the day and decided to venture out to Carrefour. This is as close of an equivalent as you can get to Wal-Mart, although not quite as big. Due to how much I expect to buy there, I then debate about what bags to bring that I can schlep everything home in. I decide on a canvas bag that fits over my shoulder and my ‘old woman cart’ that reminds me of my grandmother Barbie. As Kyle has said, “You would look like a dork in the States if you used that cart, but since everyone over here uses one, you look pretty normal.”

1pm—I am finally dressed and ready so I walk downstairs and wait for the bus. After 5 minutes the 81 comes around the corner and I take it for a 20 minute ride to the metro stop. From there I take the metro 15 minutes to the final station. From there I take a bus two stops to the Carrefour. Throughout this whole time I can not understand one word anyone is saying around me (because they are all speaking in either French, Flemish, German, or something else). I basically am in my own world and just have to zone out into my own thoughts.

2pm—Arrive at Carrefour. In Brussels, you have to ‘rent’ your shopping carts. I am already a little tired from the long trip out here, and then I have to fish through my wallet looking for a .50 piece so that I can unlock a cart. You get the money back when you return it, but it is just a pain if you don’t have any change. I finally find the right change and enter the store. Since I don’t have anywhere to rush to after this, I am leisurely in my strolling through the store. I walk through the grocery department and look for anything I need or recognize. I thought this trip would be a nice little retreat, but instead I find myself getting quite down while I am there. I finally realize that the reason I am down is because I can’t understand the words on any product around or anything anyone is saying to me. I guess this is what a blind/deaf person must feel like sometimes.

3pm—I finally check out and head home. An hour later I arrive at our apartment and drag the cart and bag up 4 flights of stairs. I have broken a sweat and have to sit on the couch just to catch my breath.

4:15pm—I am still so excited about the DVD player working that I head down to the local video store (about the size of the inside of a gas station) and look into checking out a movie. Unfortunately, the clerk does not speak any English so I can’t talk to him about getting a card or checking out a movie. I leave disappointed. (PS—We have American DVDs, but our DVD player is French and will only play European movies. There is a code you can get on the Internet to make your player multi-zone, but we have not found it yet. )

4:45pm—I head to my local internet place. The keyboard has the keys in different places, so it takes me much longer to type things. I finally get so frustrated that I leave after 30 min.

5:30pm—I am still so excited over the DVD player that I watch all of the ‘extras’ that are included on the Notting Hill DVD. A new friend from America that lives in Brugge calls and we talk for awhile. It is so nice to talk to someone from the States that knows about tailgating and sour cream (I still can’t find that stuff here). I hang up the phone really happy to have spoken with her.

6:30pm—I come in here to type about my day; however, I am now so adjusted to typing on French keyboards that I am really having trouble adjusting back the English computers. I am hoping Kyle gets off work ‘early’ today (before 8pm) but I doubt that is likely.

9pm--Kyle gets home. We eat a late dinner and I catch him up on my day. Since I have basically only spoken to one person today, I am very excited to have someone to talk to and I think he gets a little overwhelmed.

11:30pm--Head to bed and think about what exciting thing I will do tomorrow!