Jason's Daily Notes

Charly started classes later today, and he also got a call saying that his morning English class was cancelled, so he didn't have to start until 11 instead of 10.

It's my reverse birthday (if you read today's date written in the American way, or vice versa).

Fernanda had her stay in London extended a day by volunteering to give up her seat on the flight. She spent the day applying for jobs in her hotel room.

Charly and Alexi went to uni around 9am. I helped myself to a couple slices of toast.

I skyped with Mike for nearly an hour. It was good to chat again. He's going to try to go to London right before I visit him. I feel happy for him, but also jealous that I can't go too! (Well I guess I could but it just doesn't make much sense at all.)

Instead of searching for jobs, I cleaned up my Facebook profile a bit, and then I went out to explore. I walked to the post office, hoping to mail my stuff back to California, but it was closed :( I bought a kebab for lunch and ate it in the shop. I returned home, then, fuck it - walked out again. Looking for something fun. I tried enabling 3G and roaming on my phone, but it didn't work. Argh!

I walked a long way back, headed toward Rue Solferino. I got frites for a pre-dinner, since I was hungry again. There was free wifi in the restaurant.

I'm so grateful I still have the password to activate "free wifi" in many places in France. It has been very useful - but not when I was on the street!

Got some supplies for dinner from Lidl (chicken, sauce, and pasta. I got home around 6pm, and Charly arrived shortly thereafter. I had begun preparing dinner and soon we had a full plate of pasta, some veggies, and chicken in bolognese sauce.

The food was a lot. I soon slipped into a food coma. I was literally drowsing off while we were browsing on our laptops. Charly downloaded Zero Dark Thirty, which we then watched. Over the course of the movie, my food coma woke up so that I ended up being much more captivated in the film than I was at the beginning! It was already past midnight when they caught Bin Laden, so after the movie ended we went straight to bed. (or couch)

Having fallen asleep so early the previous night, I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to wake up. Nike had left early (she was starting the first day of her work placement at the school). I finished reading On the Road. It's a very satisfying feeling to finish a book.

I packed my stuff and rushed off to meet Tim in the city center. I had almost forgot that he was around in Antwerp, but I'm glad that we got to meet up. We walked back toward the station and caught up - he's going to move to Paris with his boyfriend soon. We had coffee at the Starbucks in the station. We discussed technology and he seemed genuinely interested in exploring more. Like me, and everyone else in my generation, he's slightly lost about what to do in life. He walked me to the bus stop. I checked in; my bus wasn't there yet. Soon it was, and I got on and said bye to Tim - maybe I'd visit him soon in Paris.

The bus was empty. There were only 3 other people in the whole bus. 2 of them got off in Gent. I just sprawled out and created a personal hotspot on my phone (which, oddly works, but 3G internet doesn't) and looked up some maps of Lille so that I would know where I was going. I put my stuff away and began to doze off. But before I knew it, the bus arrived in Lille. That was fast - less than 2 hours total (including the stop in Gent).

I got off at Gare Lille-Europe and walked toward Gare Lille Flandres, where I was to meet Charly later. Easy. I then walked around the old town center. I was really hungry, but not sure whether I should go to a cafe, restaurant, or just get take-away food. I passed McDonald's and saw that they had free wifi - I couldn't resist. I was tired and wanted to play around online anyway. So I ordered a Royal and sat down, spending an hour at least on my phone, chatting, facebooking, and looking things up.

I continued to walk around, and I really enjoyed the city. It's charming, clean, upscale, but still filled with seemingly lots to do. There was an upside-down house. Cool. Everything was in French, which is always somewhat intimidating to me. But I can manage.

At 18:30 I went to meet Charly. I was really hungry again, so I got an order of frites from a take-away. Charly was there right when I sat down. Haha. We bought some dinner supplies from the store (Carrefour) and walked to his place, which is less than 10 minutes away on foot.

Charlys friend Thibault came over. We had cocktails (I tried out Charly's banana liquor) and cooked dinner - burgers. With no ketchup, we had to improvise a sauce of mushrooms, onions, and cream. It was pretty good. After the first round of burgers, Charly's flatmate Alexi arrived. I was already full, so I offered him my burger. Thibault is studying law and wants to take a civil service exam to work for the police department (I think). Alexi is in his second year of business school (masters). We watched some of the political show Le Grande Journal / Le Petit Journal, which seems most similar to the Daily Show.

I called home. It didn't really go through. But my uncle called back on my UK number and I talked with him for about 20 minutes.

We watched Argo. Good film. Quite American. I slept on the couch, which was too small so I had to stay bent the whole night.

Lazy day. Got up, sometime around 11. I stayed in the house all day. Nike took care of a few things in the library before it closed at 2pm. I cooked an English breakfast for Nike and Katrien. It was already 3pm. I had a big food coma; fell asleep.

Swag set the date for his wedding - December 6th! I hope I can go. Began packing my stuff for my trip to Lille tomorrow. Made sure photos were uploaded, clothes were washed and dried (the radiator was on full blast - it was actually too hot in the flat!).

I helped Nike take the garbage downstairs. They just leave the bags on the street. Simple. Nike then had a meeting to go to.

I vowed to finish reading On The Road, so I pushed through it (also the internet connection wasn't really working so there wasn't much else for me to do). It made me sleepy, so I fell back asleep.

It was also Super Bowl Sunday. Of course I couldn't see any of it. Apparently there was a power outage during the game?! ("Apparently there's some football game at Beyonce's concert"!)

Even though it was nearly 5am when I fell asleep, I was awake around 10:30 as Nike was leaving to get some work done.

It's groundhog day!

I emailed Mobile Vikings to ask about my 3G connectivity problems. I chatted with Charly about my visit to Lille on Monday. I helped myself to some coffe and toasted some bread rolls, eating them with Brugge cheese, cream cheese, speculoos, or mayo.

The sun was out! I opened the windows and let a cool, refreshing breeze fill the living room. I needed to go out and explore the city. I walked out (bringing a couple bottles with me to recycle), and it started raining. No, not raining - EVIL SNOW PELLETS had begun to fall out of the sky. No, not again! I would not be detered - I kept walking north. The weather eventually died down and the skies cleared again, thankfully.

I walked to the MAS (Museum Aan der Strom) to see the highly-recommended view from the top. With my student ID, admission to the museum was only €1. I then found out that I didn't need to pay if I just wanted to see the panorama from the roof (d'oh!); oh well. I ascended 9 escalators and walked up the final set of stairs to the roof. The view was really nice. The sun was out, and the wind was blowing, so the air was clear.

I then explored the museum, from the top down. The museum is arranged thematically, and displays mostly historical objects in its collection. Lots of Native American artifacts and ones from around the world. There was an ipod that allowed me to translate all the descriptions from Dutch into English. Cool.

I made my way downstairs and started walking back into the city centre. I walked past some kebab shops, and suddenly I noticed that there were windows with mostly naked women all around me. And lots of single men just walking around. Yep, that's right: I had inadvertently walked into Antwerp's red light district. The irony that I was also a single man walking around was not lost on me, and I was holding back laughter as I walked around.

It was around 16:30, and I was right by the university, so why not stop by and use some internet. But the library closed at 17:00 so I soon left and walked back home. I was hungry, so I bought a falafel on the way home, with spicy sauce. The sauce didn't taste very spicy but it left a burning aftertaste on the roof of my mouth. I really wanted something sweet to soothe my mouth, so when I walked past the Australian Home-Made ice cream stand, I couldn't resist: I got a scoop of speculaas, which was very creamy/buttery.

Back to the apartment; I buzzed and no answer. Again, no answer. I texted Nike and Katrien - no answer. Was something going on? I waited like 5 minutes and called Nike - she was there. I tried the buzzer 2 more times before it worked and I got in, whew! (Apparently the buzzer doesn't always work effectively.)

I wrote an email to a potential job contact, and I felt really optimistic for once! We had to go to Lieselotte's place for dinner, so Nike and I took the bus while Katrien biked. We were a bit late because the bus was not direct there, but no worries because Lieselotte is also slow to get ready.

Dinner was nice - red cabbage salad and a homemade veggie tart. Of course, a few bottles of wine too. Then, we went out to a birthday party for Nike's friend Marianne (sp?). Nike didn't want to  walk, so we hitchhiked into the city! That's right; she just held out her thumb and within 2 minutes we were picked up by two young guys - Jarn (?) and Jason. Yes, a Belgian guy (with an American father) was named Jason. What are the chances?!

We made it to the bar, which was small but cool. The DJ was really old but played everyone's requests. More drinks. Guido arrived. I met Evelyn, and we chatted. She's getting a certificate in law to practice social work sort of. A Belgian guy said to me, it's a shame that all those girls are in a circle and we couldn't break them up. I said, fuck that and used the super effective line - "I'm from California." Totally worked, haha. I ended up chatting with Joke (who works in market research and offered to help with my job search) and Lieve (aspiring social worker). Mike was texting me pickup advice; haha, what a bro. Apparently now I have the reputation of being a player, lol.

Split a taxi home with Nike and Guido. I owe him for the ride. It was only like 4am. I called home. Really.

Was up and out of the house pretty quickly. It was raining, so I brought my umbrella. I took 3 empty bottles of wine with me to throw out in the recycling down the street. It was across the street from Del Haise, so I bought some pastries there (€0,79 each) and ate them (and my remaining 2 bananas) as I walked to the university.

I searched for jobs, sent in an application to one I didn't really care much for. Mike called me - he asked for help with his report, and I gladly offered. So I spent an hour or two proofreading his placement report (which was a very thorough report!). The afternoon flew by, so I then returned home. Hungry, I bought a bicky burger along the way (the portion sizes for our dinners have been smaller than I'm used to, so I needed to have some pre-dinner). I offered to make dinner, but Katrien was making pizza. To contribute, I stopped by Del Haise and bought a bottle of wine, some candles, cheese, coke, fake chicken, bell peppers and tortillas (I want to make fajitas).

Katrien made the pizza dough by hand. Impressive. Soon, Shauna arrived, and another friend - Maartin. We chatted and shared some vodka as the pizza was cooking. The pizza was good, thin (but wholegrain) and cheesy. We discussed heavy metal music, because that is what brought them together.

Nike had work to do, so she stayed in. Katrien, Maartin, and Shauna rode their bikes (fietsen) to the bar where we were going; I walked, having a 7up along the way. The bar (Rhythm and Blues) was chill (as is everywhere in Antwerp), but pretty quiet. A live band came on at 11pm.

More of Maartin's friends arrived. I talked to a girl (Anastacia):

"What do you think of Antwerp?"
I needed something original to say. "There are a lot of Jewish people."
"AHAHAHAHA." Turns out, her boyfriend (Jonathan) was half Jewish.

We hung out, just chatting. These friends weren't as social as my London friends. It was pretty difficult to find things to talk about (but maybe that's the language barrier). They kept going outside every 20 minutes to have another cigarette. Man, everyone here smoke cigarettes. I'm lucky that it doesn't bother me at all. (Though I'm suspecting I'm getting a lot of second-hand smoke, which is making more relaxed.) I ended up chatting with Ramses, Bjorn's boyfriend, who didn't smoke so didn't disappear every few minutes.

After midnight we went across the street to Bonaparte, a small club (laughably small by London standards; there were only like 30-40 people there). There was supposed to be karaoke there. The place was filled with Dutch people (even I could tell, they had a different style, were trying more hard to dress up as compared to the Belgians). Karaoke did happen, and I eventually signed up to do my song ("Livin' on a Prayer"). We waited for HOURS before it was my turn. I finally went up to sing (with Katrien and Martin) after 3am.

I was tired and walked home. Ramses was headed the same way, so we walked together. I talked about food and made us hungry, so we bought some durum for the walk back! Got home past 4am and slept tight.

Another day in Antwerp. The weather was cloudy/rainy/chilly again (but not as cold as it could be in January in this part of the world).

Nike had a meeting to be at (at her work placement school) at 11am. So after a quick breakfast, she headed off. I soon also left. There were dishes to be washed, but I didn't know where the washing liquid was, so I just put them in the dishwasher. There are also lots of bottles on the ground. The cats keep knocking them over, and it's noisy!

I went to the uni and spent my afternoon in the computer lab (again). I wasted most of my day, actually, playing a sporcle quiz to name as many cities as are in the top 5000 population-wise in the world. Seriously, it took up like 2 hours of my day! :/

I'm still having trouble adjusting to traffic on the right side of the road.

Nike promised to make dinner (cauliflower) in the evening, so I returned in time to see her cooking. I feel bad that I haven't cooked anything yet. I feel like I'm just leeching off them.

I moved my stuff into Jan's room.

We went to watch The Hobbit. We took the tram there. I was impressed that you could buy tram tickets using a text from your phone! Awesome. We were almost late; Katrin's friend Bjorn and his boyfriend Ramses were there. The movie was long, over 2.5 hours. I fell asleep for several portions of it. It was also pretty predictable and childish, especially compared to the LOTR films.

After the movie, Nike, Katrin, and I went to get the best beer in the world, Westflanderen, at a bar (Gollum). But the bar was closed! Nike then just wanted to get home so that she could get some work done. Luckily, Guido was there with a car and he drove us back (though there wasn't really a convenient parking space near the apartment).

I bought some breakfast (bread, cream cheese, soy milk) from the Del Haise supermarket nearby. Nike had a classmate coming over (Katleen?) to get some group work done.

I then walked around Antwerp. I walked through the Stadpark, then over through the city center. I went as far as the waterfront. I bought some frites at Frituur No. 1, and ate it there (birds kept flying in to the seating area).

I returned to the library in the afternoon and sent in a job application to Google - it was a really good job and the one I wanted the most. Oh well, let's see.

In the evening, we had dinner at the house. Katrin cooked. Jan was leaving the next day for a ski trip, so I would be able to sleep in his room :)

I got my SIM card! Mobile Vikings! Whoo! So I set it up. But it took a while.

We went out for drinks, walking to the north east through some Morroccan neighborhoods. We met Katrin and her friend there. There was also Nike's friend Liselotte there (she had hitchhiked to London with Jan last new years). We threw back like 5 beers (but the beers here are smaller, only 30cl) before Nike and I walked home. I convinced her to buy kebabs on the way home :)