Ghost Town

Tuesday is a national holiday (All Saints Day) here in Belgium. This means that EVERYTHING is closed. Now that would be fine, if EVERYTHING wasn't also closed on Sunday, and then since no one wants to just take Sunday and Tuesday off, most EVERYTHING is also closed on Monday too. To put this in American terms, imagine every Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Chick-fil-A, post office and bank being closed. And then imagine it being three days in a row. And then imagine that you don't have any kids, and you don't work, and you don't have a car, so all you are left to do is feel like some 1950s housewife who fills her time planning out meals, knitting, cross-stitching, cleaning, reading and doing laundry. And then you have an idea of why I am a little down today.

These kinds of feelings don't ususally get to me because I stay so busy here. But because of this holiday, the schools have also put their fall break on this week, so most of my friends are out of town with their children. Since all the schools are closed, the American Women's Club is also closed, which is where I usually spend a lot of my time. I have thought about hopping on the train and taking a day trip to somewhere in Belgium, but since it is a national holiday, I think every other small town will be shut down the way Brussels is.

What really got me even more in the dumps today was planning out a nice dinner for Kyle and me. Since I had already cleaned, knitted, made the bed, read, worked on our Christmas card, cross stitched, watched the directors cut of a movie and it was only 1pm, I figured I should think of a few more ways to kill time. So I found a good looking recipe, hauled everything back from the grocery store and attempted to "whip up something special." Kyle got home just as the fish was finishing under the broiler. Even though I wasn't in an exactly chipper mood, I thought dinner would be nice. That is, until I turned my back and Kyle said, "There are flames in the oven!!!" Turns out that my fish had slightly caught on fire. We were able to save the fish, but Kyle then had to scrape the creamed spinach from the pot because in dealing with the fish, I had forgotten about the spinach and it too had burned. So we sat down to dinner of crispy fish and a little less spinach than I had anticipated. Kyle was being a wonderful husband and decided to take a big bite of fish to show how good it was. According to his facial expression, it was good for about two seconds, until he realized that it had bones in it. He then proceeded to spit half of it out in trying to find the bones and not choke on them. Turns out that either the Belgian grocery stores don't label if the fish has bones in it, or I just don't know what it says in French. I guess that means we will have a few more trial and errors until I figure it out!

So Kyle and I finished off a bottle of wine to make the fish go down easier and to prevent me from crying. After dinner we figured out that his US paycheck that gets transfered to Belgium has been put on hold due to the banks being on this public holiday. We have no idea when it might clear. Normally that would be fine because we have a few different accounts with money in them. But in this crazy country, the banks don't seem to understand supply and demand. So if an ATM runs out of money every Tuesday, then they still put the same amount in it the next week, even if it still runs out of money by Tuesday. A very, very frequent occurence here is to see long lines at the ATMs on Friday, because everyone knows that by Saturday or Sunday there will be no money in them. And you are lucky if the ATM is refilled by Tuesday on a normal week, let alone a long weekend. So basically, since the town was almost shut down on Friday (because of strikes) and no one would dare work on Saturday or Sunday and most places are closed on Monday and Tuesday for the holiday, I really have no idea when Kyle and I might be able to withdraw money. And as of right now, we only have 5 euros between the two of us.

So all of this to say--for those of you out there who think that expats lives are heaven on earth, just be warned that they aren't always like that. Yes, I love my life over here and feel incredibly lucky to have this experience. But the thing about being an expat is that just as soon as you feel like you have it all together, BOOM, life hits you and gets you down again. Basically, tomorrow Kyle and I will have only five euros between us and most likely won't get any more cash until at least Thursday. However, that doesn't really matter because nowhere is open. So in essence, tomorrow I will be stuck in the house all day long to widdle my time away with not a penny in my hand. Too bad for Kyle I have a new chicken recipe I am thinking of trying! :)