Here are the 10 Hardest things to get used to in Belgium. Starting from 10 (least hard) going to 1 (hardest).
*One thing to not make the list is deep fryers. Everyone has a deep fryer in Belgium.
#10) Cup of coffee. Yeah, so apparently a cup of coffee over here is about the size of my thumb. When I asked for a "mocha" they brought out (with a regular black coffee) a little packet of cream, that on the outside said "Mocha". Yeah, it didn't quench my coffee fix. So I went to the Starbucks at Brussels airport :)
Number 9) No tax or tipping. When you order your food, and the price says 4.50, you pay exactly 4.50. No tax, no tipping. It gets me every time. I order, then I start adding up 8.25% tax, 15% gratuity; that 4.50 turns into 8.00 dollars in the states. Not here! 4.50=4.50
8) This one is simple, but yet annoying. So for all my life my birthday has been on 2/14/86. Not in Europe. In Europe my birthday is 14/2/1986. Yeah, when you do a lot of paperwork, you mess that up a lot!
7even) The music here has been an experience in itself. In America, most commonly played during the night life is pop/rap. Here, the most common thing is Techno. Hands down. I already have seen more turn tables on a stage than I ever had in the states. I always thought techno was one of Gabe's (my brother) sick dream at world domination.
6pack) Phone plans here are outta control. From what I understand, you buy a pre-paid card, and use money off of it when you call people. Simple. The price? .23 a minute, .13 per sms message. Yeah, screw that.
Phive) Water. It is fine here. You can drink it. It doesn't smell, like Hanford. But everyone drinks bottled water. So we are in a restaurant, we ask for nice cold tap water. We get bottled water and a bill of 1.50. It was more expensive than the beer! Ridiculous.
Four4) The time. So all the clocks are military time. So first of all, I had to remember what 15:26 pm was. But the hardest thing to get used to was at midnight the clocks read 00:00. Yeah, it freaks me out every (every) time. I keep thinking the world is ending! No joke.... That is going to be my nightmare when I am an insomniac at a mental institution during my 80s.
3#) The currency here is flat out killing me. The euro looks like monopoloy money, and feels like it too. It feels like plain paper. So I look at a fifty and think 'worthless'. Yeah doesn't bode well for me. Then to top it off, the Euro coins go up to 2. So in America the highest coin you commonly saw was a quarter (.25$). So if you had a pocketful of coins in the states it would pretty much mean you had nothing. In Europe, a pocketful of coins could mean a lot of money. Yeah, swallow that one down.
11) Can anyone in the states tell me the size of their refrigerator? Yeah, standard answer is standard. Yeah, standard for here is the size of Americas small office refrigerators. No joke, we are talking 1 m X .75m (3ft X 2ft). In America, refrigerators are easily twice the size of that.
ONE) Small portions, for same price. It very common to get smaller and costs just as much. But, the hard part is this doesn't apply for everything. So it is hard to differentiate between what is going to be HUGE and what is going to be super small by just observing the prices. For example the coffee. Little baby cup for 4 euro. Then yesterday we went and got a huge sandwich for 5 euro. (No tax or gratuity of course). So it makes for very interesting and sometimes frustrating outings.
So that completes the 10 things that are hardest getting used to in Belgium. Hope I got some laughs, hope you got some insight.
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I don't know what kind of refrigerator Benny has, but ours is easily twice the size you described :) And I think that goes for most Belgian families
ReplyDeletewell honey i have to say.....if those are the hardest things....id have to say we have it pretty good in belgium!! :O) especially if what manu says is true!!
ReplyDeletelove you xoxo
You guys don’t need a deep fryer in the States. You have Mc Donalds, Burger King, KFC, … on each corner…
ReplyDeleteHere are some explanations/comments on your “hard things to get used to in Belgium”:
10) Not all coffee in Belgium is as small as that mokka we had at the beach. :-)
Most Belgians drink quite a lot of coffee (not only beer ;-) )
9) Don’t see the problem with the “no tax, no tip”. Believe me the other way around is more frustrating. It was something that frustrated me in the States. You never know easily what you have to pay in advance. The tip I can understand as you decide it (more or less) yourself. But why not add the tax from the start as you have to pay it anyway…?
8) Same for us the other way around… And the European way is used a lot longer than the US way… ;-)
7) It’s not all techno, house, trance,… here. Depends where you go. But I guess we have more of this music than you guys in the USA.
6) You have a lot of possibilities when It comes to phone plans. But in the end they’re all too
expensive here no matter what.
5) The water you get in the States (for free) isn’t always tasty… It’s nice to have a free glass of water when you’re soooo thirsty. But I almost never finished my (free) glass of water in the US.
4) “Military” time is just more clear than am/pm system. But you can use that system too in Belgium.
3) Our money bills just aren’t as old as the your dollars ;-) We just have a lot more security protections build in it and it doesn't look so old fashioned… :-)
2) I think on average fridges are bigger in the States. But we don’t (need to) stock a gallon of milk, a gallon of orange juice, a bucket of KFC, … :-D
1) It’s Europe. We don’t use supersize portions here :-)
You’ll learn the portions here (but can depend on how fancy the restaurant is too).
Greetz,
Kim aka Slemmy