Christmas among cultures

The holiday season is beginning to draw to a close, and I hope you've all passed a good Christmas with family/friends/whoever you spent the period with! I've been with family and I'll be heading off to France (or at least a different part of it since I'm already in France) sometime around the middle of January. In the last couple of days I've found a small studio to rent, which is a big relief, since it was getting a little last minute and I thought I'd struggle to find something. Luckily something opened up and so I found something fairly decent at a good price (for a student!). Now I 'just' need to arrange a bank account, phone, internet access...

During the holiday I've been reading through the TCK book by David Pollock and Ruth van Reken and I got to thinking about the few months I spent in Belgium and the cultures I'd met up with there. Most of the time I was with Spaniards, Italians, Germans or English people, not with Belgians, but it meant I experienced a good mix of Western European culture - since they were all nationals of those countries and not TCK's like me, so they had their own home culture. As I mentioned in my previous post, at the end of my stay in Belgium we all got together for a Christmas meal. But when we discussed what to cook, the different cultural traditions came out. The English people wanted to cook a Turkey, the Germans wanted to cook a goose, and a Spaniard said "ah, we can cook a fish!" I didn't really notice it at first to be honest - since I'm used to cultural differences and they are 'normal' to me. I only picked up on it when the others started talking about it.

It was interesting, as a spectator, because I, an ATCK, got to see other adults becoming a form of ATCK. As they were all beyond their developmental years they technically weren't becoming TCKs, but they were experiencing cultural differences first-hand just the way I did first as a child - so actually watching it happen was something new to me.

Temporary constancy

I am now back 'home' for the Christmas and New Year holidays. I'll be spending some time in the south of France and then hopefully some time skiing in the Alps in early January, before going to look for accommodation (amongst other things) in Annecy, France, my next abode.

On my last night in Liege, I had a Christmas dinner with friends. We cooked a couple of turkeys, a load of vegetables and consumed plenty of beer, wine and gluhwein! At the end they all surprised me (I had absolutely no idea this was coming) by giving me a box full of 'memories'. They had bought a flag of Wallonia and signed it, there were also pictures of us during the time I'd been there, a Santa Claus apron (they considered me the 'official chef') and of course, being in Belgium, ubiquitous chocolate. Having always lived in places before where people are used to friends, schoolmates and colleagues leaving, I'm not used to being given something when I leave. It's just a matter of life - you accept the parting of a friend and you go on with your life. You know it had to happen eventually and, in a way, you've spent all the time you've been together preparing for that moment. The people I met in Liege weren't Belgian, but they weren't TCKs like me either - they'd always lived in the same place, so they weren't accustomed to the same level of mobility and change in social circles as me. So I was quite touched to be given the 'memory box', it was a nice personal touch and left me with several things of sentimental value.

But now I'm at 'home' (as close to one as I'll find at the moment anyway). It's a house which we've had for the last decade roughly and I come back usually at least once each year. Even though it's not really home (it's in a country I've never technically lived in before and of which I'm not a citizen) and I don't speak the language fluently (although not far off), it's a place I can come back to and which is familiar to me. So, at least for a short time, I feel a sense of familiarity - not necessarily like I'm at home - but at least something that I recognise and that is constant.

Antwerpen

Today I spent the day visiting Antwerp, a city in Flanders. I've heard good things about it before, so I had relatively high expectations before going. And while there were definitely things I liked about the place, there were a couple of points (things that were out of control of anyone's control though) that brought it down in my eyes.

First of all, it takes just over two hours to get there (and back) from Liege, which meant that I spent more than 4 hours of the day just sitting on a train. So I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to visit the city.

Secondly, even though Monday is usually the day when museums are closed here, it turns out that in Antwerp a couple are closed on Wednesdays as well or instead of Monday. On top of that, I managed to pick a day when the majority of the museums that were normally still open were undergoing industrial action and so they were either closed or manned by skeleton staff and so were partially closed.

Thirdly, the places where you can see how diamonds are treated, cut, etc. close for the season in October - so I couldn't see any of it, which was quite disappointing.

Despite that, it's not like I had a bad day - the Grote Markt and the Cathedral were definitely worth a visit, as was Ruben's house (which was partially open).

Last day of work

Yesterday was my last day at work here in Belgium, and saying goodbye to all my colleagues finally brought on the usual 'leaving symptoms'. It's the first time really that my leaving plans have actually begun to have an impact on my life. I also really don't like goodbyes - this is one case where the saying "practice makes perfect" doesn't apply, at least not for me.

As 'celebration' for having finished my job I bought myself a waffle on the way home yesterday (hey, student budget...). The Liegois certainly know how to make the best waffles in the world! They're definitely something I'll miss when I leave. I need to see if I can procure myself a lifetime's supply somehow...

I leave in 11 days, during which time I need to pack, arrange things like closing my bank account, cancelling my phone SIM card, etc. and of course say goodbye to all of the friends I've made here. Tonight I'm going to the Christmas market in town to have dinner with a group of people at one of the stalls, which should be good. The Christmas market here is really nice, in one place they've grouped huts around an ice skating rink and they serve drinks and food. The atmosphere is fantastic, unlike any other Christmas market I've been to before. I'll always remember my first Christmas market though - in 1994, in the German embassy in Beijing!

In the last week I've also been sampling the local nightlife (well, maybe a bit more than sampling). It was St. Nicolas yesterday, and in Liege the students celebrate it by going out a couple of days before the actual day. So Monday and Tuesday night were spent in the carre, sandwiched between thousands of other students (as you can see in the picture on the left). It was essentially one huge party, unlike anything you get in England. Over the weekend I also went to Bruges, to see an ice sculpting festival. It wasn't bad, although a little disappointing after the scale of the ice festival in Harbin, which I visited in the mid-90's.

Despite at the moment having some regrets about having to leave, I have to admit that it was very nice this morning to not have to get up at 6:30 to go to work!

Moving on

For the last four months I've been working for an aerospace engineering company in Liège, Belgium, as a placement/internship for my degree. But very soon it will be time to move on to sunnier (and hopefully snowier) pastures in France. Sadly four months isn't enough time to really learn and get involved in the culture, but I've certainly tried to make the most out of it! I managed to visit all of the sites and cities I'd aimed to visit before I arrived (with the exception of Antwerp, but I still have another 2 weeks to get there).

I'd have to say the highlights were Ghent, Bruges (and the ice sculpture festival), les gaufres de Liège, le carré in Liège, Maastricht, the friendliness (with the usual exceptions of course) of the Liègeois, and just the general international atmosphere as a result of the Erasmus exchange students I spent so much time with here. That last point is something I've missed during my university studies in England. But Belgium is a fantastic place for visiting old cities, within the country as well as in neighbouring countries, with its great transport links and easily accessible sites. In the future I'm not sure it will be as easy to get up one morning and hop on a train on a whim just to see where it goes. I think the two most interesting things that I have experienced in Liège or that the city has given me are 1) the chance to live in a country without a government and 2) a new-found appreciation for the cleanliness of the streets in Paris, particularly with regard to a certain type of animal excrement... I mean I've lived in dirty places before, but in terms of that, the scale of the problem in Liège is remarkable.

There are people and places I will miss naturally, but they will be replaced by other people and places in France - that's just a part of moving on. The problem with such a short expatriation is that you go into it knowing that you'll be leaving so soon - which leads to you questioning the point of putting effort into meeting people, making friends and getting attached to the place. I've met people here who I've had great times with, staying up with a beer (or several) until the early (or late) hours of the morning just talking, or visiting other Belgian cities, but the entire time I've known that this day would come. From previous moves I know that, despite the advent of MSN, Skype, e-mail, etc. we will lose touch. There's nothing that quite replaces a person's actual voice or presence. But all good things have to come to an end. In this case, if it wasn't now it would be next June when everyone else I know leaves. And I know that although I've enjoyed my time here, Liège certainly isn't the place that's going to convince me to put my suitcase down.

So I'm off to France until next August, again for a placement. Having more or less lived there before (or at least spent enough time there to know) I pretty much know what to expect and it's not going to be wildly different to Belgium. But until then, I'll be soaking up the atmosphere here for the last few times (insert terrible pun here about the weather). The christmas market has just opened and looks like it should be very interesting, plus it will give me the opportunity to stock up on things like beer, chocolate and peket to take with me!