Don’t worry everyone. I had some pumpkin pie. That’s right, real pumpkin pie. AND I now have a mini-fridge in my room. Once I get the extension for my shower, my life is complete. *Sigh* What am I talking about you may ask? Well you’re in luck, because I will tell you. The chair of the English department here is an American from Colorado. Her name is Jean. Last night, she had the international students over for “French Culture” and she invited me along. She had a leftover pumpkin from the Halloween, so she made pumpkin pie for dessert since the international students had never had pumpkin pie. That’s where that came in. That should hold me over until Christmas, because I know Mom is going to make some for Xmas Eve (right Ma?).

The mini-fridge also came from Jean, sort of. The Fulbright student who was here 3 years ago left it in Jean’s possession. I decided I couldn’t stand sharing a dorm-sized fridge with 20 people anymore, so Jean dug the fridge out of her attic and passed it on to me.

Now the shower extension. I don’t know if I mentioned previously the amount of effort it takes to take a shower. Besides being handheld, which in and of itself is annoying, my shower cord is too short. If I want to get my head wet I have to either sit or squat. I have recently discovered that it is possible to get extensions. Once I figure out where, everything will be happier.

In other news, “winter” has descended upon Belgium. Not winter as we Midwesterners like to describe it, but the Belgian style, which miserable in a different way. It is cold and wet. Not cold like Wisconsin-January, but cold enough to wear gloves. It’s rainy and grey. Everything is grey here in the city. Outside, you have some greenery, but in the city, the streets are grey, the buildings are grey and the sky is grey. Rather cheerful. The one saving grace is that they are setting up the Christmas Market. They use an extensive amount of energy for this. They are planning on setting up an ice skating rink. They have lots of Christmas lights. I will put a picture on here when they are done.

Continuing in Belgian News. Yesterday was St. Nicholas. All I have to say is they are seriously crazy. In Italian class, the A.G.E. (kind of like Student Senate) came dressed up. One person as St. Nicholas and one person as the elf that punishes the bad children. He is the black coal. AND this slave/elf is an individual in black face. That’s right. You read correctly. We’re back to Jim Crow. Black Face. I don’t understand how here that isn’t completely inappropriate but instead is a well loved tradition. So anyways, they come into our class. They make us take off our shoes (I knew before that St. Nick left candy in good children’s shoes, but we’re all in our 20s, come on). We had to stand on our chairs and sing a song practically begging St. Nick for candy. After we received our candy, the black-faced character took Mme. Piccinelli into the hall. Then we, as a class, had to come up with three personal questions to ask her. When she came back in, one student asked the questions and then that was it. I guess it gets crazier as the day goes on, but like I said, we were at Jean’s house being protected from the insane tradition. I guess here, St Nick’s is the day that people get presents. They don’t really exchange gifts on Xmas. Xmas is treated more like our Thanksgiving where you have a meal together with the family. This is really only a Belgian and Dutch phenomenon, because all the other internationals agreed that it was weird. Although, I guess the Dutch are getting rid of the Black faced elf. Maybe in another 20 years that will rub off on the Belgians.