Step at a Time

So we've had our first official full day here in Belgium.  Belgium has already had its ups and downs for me but it'll take a while to get used to it all.

Today,  I tried to tackle the different appliances in our apartment.  I spent many hours online searching for manuals for the washing machine and the oven.  Nothing helped. haha The washing machine is crazy.  Here's a picture of the control panel:

I figured out that the numbers on the left side are for the temperature of the water.  The right side is a little bit more difficult.  So far I guess I've had a little bit of luck with setting it to "D" on the bottom right-hand side.  I'm not sure if that's the actual setting I'm supposed to use, but that's the only one I've kind of figured out! If anyone has a little bit more insight on this craziness be sure to let me know.  I tried looking on the user manuals...not a whole lot of help there!  Today I had it set on something on the upper left-hand side and it started the spin cycle...about an hour and a half later it was STILL doing the same thing.  That was frustrating.  But right now, "D" is going through all the cycles, even though it will stop and not go onto the drain part at the end unless I turn it.

I also don't really know what's going on with the buttons on the left-hand side, but I've just been pressing all of them before I start the wash.  Hopefully, I don't blow something up.  Another thing is that once I start a load it won't let me pause it to open it up and add something else! Wish I could get that one figured out.  It also takes a wicked long time for it to wash.  The spin cycles are really funny.  Usually in America it spins in one direction for a really long time; seems to work to me.  Here, this washer will spin for a little bit in one direction, stop, wait, spin in the other direction, and repeat.  It's also one of the noisiest things for something so small (other than babies...they're pretty tiny and noisy, too).

The other appliance to tackle was the stove and oven.  For one, I think only 3 of the 4 burners work; two, it takes FOREVER for everything to heat up! I'm starting to realize that EVERYTHING is slower over here. Here's a look at the oven dials:

Obviously, the right-hand side is the temperature in celsius.  I've figured out 350 degrees fahrenheit (what I usually cook almost everything at) is about 175 degrees celsius.  The only problem was the left-hand dial.  I've just been turning it to the symbol with a box and lines on both the top and bottom.  That seems to seem logical, right? What is kind of messing me up is that there are pictures (as seen) on the stove panel, and then more symbols on the actual dial.  And the symbols don't even match up together! This place is crazy.  My kitchen utensils are also slim-pickings.  It's going to be tough to make stuff with only 2 small pots and one small, cruddy pan.  There are no measuring spoons or cups, so no baking, yet.  At least I have SOME stuff, though.

Today, one of Tyrel's teammates, Dan, took us to the GB.  This is one of the supermarkets everyone goes to.  It's just a couple blocks away and through the shopping center so I can walk there.  GB is kind of like Aldi in respect that you have to bring your own bags and insert a coin (that you get back) to use the carts.  For the most part, I liked grocery shopping in the U.S.; Dillions was like my toy store.  Here, not so much.  For one, it's all in French (duh).  Looking at the package you can usually tell what things are.  But it gets tough when looking at things like cuts of meat and chicken.  I know what poulet, poisson, and boeuf are...but it got tricky when trying to find what I wanted.  And it doesn't help that meat over here is ridiculously more expensive than in the U.S.  I'm hoping I can ween Tyrel off of the amount of chicken I used to make for him.  Actually, pretty much all the food here is a lot more expensive than food at Dillons or Wal-Mart; but really, who's going to beat Wal-Mart?  So that's going to take some getting used to.  Also, I feel like my cooking will be really limited here.  I can't really go to the GB and get a whole line of ingredients to make an Asian dish.  Looks like I'll have to do some research on French and German food! Another thing, I'm kind of freaked out by the milk and eggs.  It's not refrigerated in the stores!  I know a lot of different countries keep their milk on the shelves, but it's still kind of weird when you actually see it.  The milk is kind of weird tasting, too.  I don't how to describe it, but it's almost goat-y tasking, even though it's cow's milk!  It also threw me for a loop when I was looking for the eggs and found them on a side shelf.  Good thing Tyrel doesn't really eat a whole lot of eggs and I'm not really eating as many, now.  May take me a while to get used to that.  It's hard trying to check-out and pay for things when you can't really even converse with the clerk.  I felt so bad because he was trying to be friendly and talk to me but I couldn't say a whole lot back.  The bad thing is that I'll have to go to the store frequently because we have a dorm-sized fridge.  Maybe being at the store a lot will help me familiarize with different foods/packaging and the language.

Another thing about the stores is that everything closes early here.  I'm used to stores being open 24 hours and they may be open until like 6 or 8 here.  Tyrel and I went to go buy some towels today and they were already closed!  I kind of feel bad for him because the only time he'll really have to go explore different stores is during the afternoon between practices for just a couple of hours; he'll probably want to spend his time resting then, though.

Today, I tried to organize all the clothes we brought.  The tough thing was that we have a small dresser (one of the drawers is broken) and about 20 hangers in our closet with only top shelving.  The closet area is actually good sized, we just don't have anything to really utilize it right now!  So unfortunately, the place is still a mess...I'm trying to fix it up!

I actually got to peak into Tyrel's teammate's (Dan) room today.  I'm a little jealous that his walls are a normal color (a beige-ish grey) while our's are mango orange.  I guess it keeps it from getting too depressing, though!  Our apartment is actually pretty big and that's really nice;  but I don't see us spending a whole lot of time in the living room.  The tv is really small and we don't even have cable.  We could get it but all but about 3 or 4 channels would be in French and I don't think they'd be the ones we want.  It's really nice that just about every tv program is online now so I'm not too worried about the tv situation.  Hopefully, we'll be able to find a website that live-streams KU's basketball games (if anyone knows about one, let us know!) The games will probably be at a pretty inconvenient time for us though because of the time change.

I'm not going to lie, the driving here is INSANE.  People zoom around and take corners so fast and the roads are tiny.  They're so narrow I don't know how two cars can get through at the same time.  The roads are also mad confusing.  Nothing is straight and N/S E/W like they are in Kansas.  I'm hoping walking around will get me used to it and help me with directions; maybe when Tyrel gets his car we can see more of the town.  I don't even know what street our apartment is on let alone our address!  The roads aren't really marked like they are in the States, so I'm still trying to figure some stuff out.

Hopefully, my rambling hasn't bored you too much today.  Let me know if what I talk about is too mundane or stuff you don't want to hear about! Still haven't had a lot of chance to really explore as much as I'd like.  It might be hard to do that with how much Tyrel has to practice.  I'll try to get some pictures of the town soon! I don't really like going out and being distracted when I'm by myself; when I go out with Ty I'll be sure to take a lot more pictures.

Lots of love!