The Sleep Olympics

(This blog brought to you by Sohaib with Computer Geeks and Solutions in Woodbridge, Virginia. He came to our rescue when my laptop refused to connect to the network. After we paid $350 to have the entire system reconfigured, my darling offspring confessed to illicit computer use while we were in Belgium, including turning off the computer without shutting down. Oy. Thanks Sohaib for getting out here within an hour or two of our call and getting me up and running.)

I was so tired coming into this trip that I fell asleep in the taxi on the way to the airport, fell asleep at the gate waiting for boarding, fell asleep on the plane waiting for take off, dozed off and on for the entire eight-hour flight, fell asleep on the ride in the car from Dulles to Woodbridge, and then went to bed at the equivalent of 2 a.m. Belgian time and slept until noon Belgian time, 6:30 a.m. local time..

Y’all, I am a champion sleeper. I could be a gold medalist in the Sleep Olympics.

Rock Grrrl’s condo looks like she decorated it with me in mind. We both have a love of deep red, olive green, and khaki colors and a rustic, natural decorating style. We felt at home immediately, and Virginia’s grey skies and rain were a taste of Belgium. : )  The kids were excited by wall-to-wall carpet and delighted in its padding and squish factor.

Then they discovered the garbage disposal in the kitchen.

E-Grrrl says: What is that?

V-Grrrl: It’s a garbage disposal in the drain…

A: Yeah, it turns rotten food into a wet pulp, and that’s what hotdogs are made of.

According to E-Grrrl and A, the weirdest thing about Northern Virginia is all the pavement and all the wires. Electrical cables are all underground in Belgium and to see them criss-crossing the street and highways was strange to them. As I expected I would, I missed Belgium’s brick buildings and architecture. There isn’t room for sprawl in Europe so you almost never see commercial strip shopping centers and huge parking lots, and let’s face it, strip shopping centers and giant parking lots are big ugly. My kids, who are incredible chow hounds, were in awe of all the fast food restaurants lining the streets and popping up on every corner. They just couldn’t believe there were so many places to get junk food here. I laughed when E-Grrrl said, "Look, they have those things with the microphones!" Yes, those would be called "Drive-thrus."

Me, I was happy to be back in the land of the broad-bottomed woman. I feel so at home—and I know I’ll be able to find pants in my size. : )

June 30, 2007

Comments

[RD]

Welcome home! Sounds like you're off to a great start! Nothing like those fast food restaurants to remind you how much you missed the land of "plenty". Have fun!

[Nancy]

Welcome back to NoVA! I hope we can meet up in person while you are here.

[Flubberwinkle]

Your kids are going to amaze us throughout this cultural walkthrough of differences between the Sates and Europe.

I find it extremely awesome and refreshing that they did not know what a drive-thru was.

[Di]

You made it ... you slept, you sound good and you're blogging :)

Alles goed over here in the land of grey skies, although the predicted rain hasn't come yet ... that would be the predicted rain we cancelled the party in the park for but England was awash and it seemed to be coming this way.

We catch up with your grrrl next weekend. Off the Decathlon this morning ... sales started yesterday, there is a little work to be done.

[Ortizzle]

During my early years in Spain, I had the same experience of new-fangled stuff that the States had and Spain still did not. But post-Franco Spain soon recovered from backwardness to surpass the U.S. in some respects. As the years went by, I would find myself saying, "You mean you don't use a debit card to shop?" And let's not even get into the little old ladies in the supermarket who still WRITE CHECKS for God's sake, LOL. (And even if no one has a garbage disposal, it is also true that everyone in Europe has 3 or 4 different garbage bins in their home to separate out everything for recycling. Over here, if you live in an apartment or condo like me, there are no garbage pick-up containers that cater to recycing.)

But I digress. Do continue to regale us with your kid's observations on "weird stuff" over here. I am interested to see if they binge on TV in English. I got a few satellite channels in English when I was over there, but nothing like what's available here, of course. The funniest thing for me was watching TV programs that I had seen dubbed in Spanish: it was so weird to hear the "real voices" of the actors. :-)

[Peter]

You know Veronica, when I met you in Antwerp (Belgium) only 2 weeks ago, there was absolutely no visible indication of a "broad-bottomed woman" - you looked positively slim and sophisticated.

And indeed, strip shopping centers and giant parking lots are uncommon in Belgium, along with drive-troughs and countless junk food outlets that supersize anything you eat.

Guess that explains the 100 million US citizens with an obesity issue :-)

[Nance]

But, V...I'm terribly confused. How long had the kids been in Belgium? They're certainly not that long removed from the States that they hadn't seen telephone poles and drive-thru restaurants, are they?

[V-Grrrl]

Nance,

This is a topic I've written about in the past--how little my kids remember of America. It freaks me out a little bit. We've only been gone 2.5 years! I'm not optimistic they'll remember details about Belgium.

[V-Grrrl]

Thanks Peter... : )

[TB]

So cool to see our country through E and A's eyes. I forget that it's been so long since they were here.