But smakelijk has grown on me. i catch myself saying it randomly under my breath while on a bus coming home from the centrum if i see someone eating fries/frietjes outside in the cold.
I think the crowning moment for me though was yesterday.
A day of self-loathing, of sickness in the head cold and sickness of the heart. grumpy, tired, and over the armour of 2 pairs of stockings, jeans, 2 thermals, jumper, cardigan, gloves, 2 scarves, hat, boots and a bag of tissues, i decided to head to antwerp to get out of brussels for the day. Of course, everything takes me a while at the moment (i blame the weather and the snow, but i think it is just the lethargy from not working for a month), and i didn't actually GET to antwerp til about 4pm which left only an hour of daylight and only 2 hours of shopping.
I pounded the pavement in the sub-zero temp, looking for the purchase of a life-time in the middle of the Soldes, i visited Yohji with determination. Nothing in my size or that i liked that enough that wasn't still too expensive to consider thanks to the good old aussie dollar. A visit to Labels - last year this yielded a couple of items of second-hand Dries so at 4.50pm i thought i might try my luck. Nothing. Off to Walter to visit a friend but she was stuck in a meeting and unable to come and say hi. A couple other shops but nothing that warranted taking off the armour in order to try on. The sky was getting dark and the air icier and I felt the creeping sensation of being bad at being a girl. Unable to spend money in the sales, a failure. I decided instead to look at some Kunst - well, kind of - the Maison Martin Margiela 20 years retrospective exhibition at the Fashion Museum.
By now, I was a wreck, my face flakey from the constant nose blowing, my hair lank and oily, my clothes purely functional - I looked like i'd put myself together from the St Vinnies bins off Cleveland St. I was in Antwerp the fashion capital of Belgium and i felt like the country bumpkin dragged in from the rain. When i rocked up to the exhibition i could sense the attendants snigger and clear a path for me to roll on in.
Exhibition was functional and interesting, but not much more than that. It was six o'clock and realising i hadn't eaten since breakfast i thought i'd look for a little resto in which to rest for a mo. I looked for something around the Cathedral but feeling sorry for myself and full of self-loathing decided now would be the perfect time to try the Belgian fast food chain Quick Burgers.
Bolstered by my shamelessness and fooling myself into believing i was undertaking some kind of cultural gastronomic research, I ordered a supreme cheese burger and then waited 10 minutes for them to make it. While i watched about 20 other customers receive their meals, i again felt the self-loathing rise and bubble in my throat. What am i doing? From the counter i could see an upstairs gym across the road and lots of bouncy silhouettes of buff young things doing some kind of kickboxing/aerobics workout complete with arm twirls and delicate punches. I waited for my supreme cheese and felt my love handles jiggle with anticipation under all the armour.
Where is the burger? I bet she forgot me. My dumbass non-dutch speaking self asked again. "Oh, yes Supreme Cheese. here you are." She hands me a tray with a burger and fries and an empty cup to fill with Coke, "Mayonnaise or ketchup?". "Ketchup". "6 euro and 80 cents". "Dank U"
and here it comes....
"smakelijk".
I don't know why but it made me smile.
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