I am currently living in Belgium with no job and no grasp on the native language. Essentially what I'm saying is that I am a completely worthless member of society and I am not making any sort of worthwhile contribution to the world, unless of course you count the fostering of one very happy individual as an important contribution. My living situation is unique to say the least. I am living with a professional basketball player whose accommodations are provided by the team in exchange for excessive physical labor, his sweat, his blood, and his soul. Totally a fair trade if you ask me. Which lottery did I win that allowed me to jump on this bandwagon? Great question. I cast a voodoo spell on said athlete, and tricked him into putting up with me and allowing me to live under his roof. Poor sucker. Now, I might sound like a total evil genius, but in reality I worked hard to save enough money to afford to be over here and support myself in the necessary ways. However, I'll probably have to start looking for work within the next few months, mainly on account of the fact that I have student loans that own my life, and payments to make to Mephistopheles in exchange for granting me this awesome opportunity.
To sum up that last paragraph, I have some serious free time on my hands. What the hell am I supposed to do with that much time?! Find some damn hobbies I suppose. So I have done just that. I've figured out some hobbies and some small goals for myself so that I don't become some crazy, brain dead version of a Stepford wife who stays home cleaning all day and sneaking drinks from the liquor cabinet so that I can stay pleasantly drunk at all times. So here are some of my new hobbies:
1. Blogging. Obviously.
2. Cooking. I have started teaching myself how to cook, which is actually going quite swimmingly. I had a strong background in baking thanks to my super cute, talented, and hilarious mother and so this was a fairly natural transition. I have attempted different things and I have yet to completely butcher a meal, so that is great news! I am clearly quite pleased with myself, especially because European stores don't have a lot of the products that we are used to being able to buy in the U.S. and so I've had to be quite creative with some of my cooking. Sidenote: the cool thing about hobby 1, is that it allows me to go onto the Internet and brag about my newly acquired skills in hobby 2. Woohoo! But calm down everyone, I have yet to conquer seafood, steak, lamb, snails, any sort of liver, etc. So basically I haven't even taken my training wheels off and I'll probably go make the most horrendous dinner ever as karma for being too amped on my success at making chicken a few times. So I'll keep practicing, and I'll keep you posted on my adventures in the kitchen.
3. Learning Dutch. As a wise man once said, "I don't speak freaky deaky Dutch!" Apparently, Dr. Evil and I have a lot in common. I don't even know a single curse word; that is how bad this language barrier is. Most people here understand English, but there is honestly nothing I hate more than being a monolingual American who walks around looking like a culturally insensitive asshole because I can't even say "please" and "thank you". My goal is to procure some kindergarten level DVDs to help me learn the basics, and to find somewhere to take lessons asap. Learning some Dutch should definitely be a challenge, but it is something that I'm actually looking forward to. Learning is so much more fun when you aren't forced to do it in school anymore!
4. Reading. I discovered a list composed by the BBC of the 100 books that they think people should read. Some of the choices on the list seem really questionable, especially some of the contemporary books that they added, but many of the classics sparked my interest. In high school and college I never had the time or the patience to actually pay attention to my school readings, and so now seemed like the perfect time to revisit some of these books! Skimming spark notes was fun and all, but I think I will actually be able to appreciate these books now that I have a zillion hours a day to kill in between watching cartoons in Dutch, and making strange concoctions in my tiny oven.
5. People watching. This is a legitimate hobby, and it can be very time consuming here. There is an incredibly high number of people sporting "Canadian Tuxedos" (denim on denim) here on a regular basis. Unfortunately it has already gotten too cold for men to be wearing their "shants" (short-pants), or white man capris but hopefully those will make a strong comeback in the spring. Then of course there are the women who manage to look effortlessly stylish in their tall boots and leather jackets which fully perplexes me because as far as I'm concerned, I look like a total asshole in leather. I can't figure out how they do it. This hobby has proven to be very entertaining, and I've discovered a vital difference between doing this here and doing it in the United States. In the U.S. I generally assume that I won't like people. I go out in public and chances are, I don't like you, and on top of that I probably hate your kid with their stupid roller skate tennis shoes on that is skating through restaurants with their portable video games in hand. But here I have a different mindset it seems. I generally assume I'll like everyone. Perhaps they are more polite here, or maybe it just seems that way because they can't understand me and I sure as hell can't understand a single damn thing they're saying. Either way, it's awesome.
6. Learning to drive stick shift. I don't know if I'd call this a "hobby" per say, but I threw it on here anyway because it should make for some pretty f-ing entertaining stories at some point in time. Yeah, I know, it's embarrassing that I'm 23 years old and never learned how to drive a manual car. SORRY. I shall try and make up for it by taking my egg shaped car into giant parking lots on Sundays (because it is the Lord's day and thus everything is closed), and crashing it into various barriers and shopping carts so that I can tell you all about it afterwards. You can thank me later.
Any other spare time shall be filled with riding my 3-speed bike around town, day drinking, and working out (not necessarily in that order... but possibly). I apologize for the length of this post. I have a lot of time on my hands! Cut me some slack! But if you did actually read through the whole thing then it is greatly appreciated and I can probably forgive you for buying your kids those fucking shoes with wheels.
Peace and love!
Dag
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