The countdown begins, and a Uni party in Liege

The hallway. I am really over living like this!

I got back from Germany at about 3.30pm on Monday, started working as soon as I walked in the door, and didn't stop until I left for Liege on Friday morning! Koi and Jan had decided that the current phase of work on the house had to be finished this week, so after them sitting around for months while builders came in once a week they tried to finish it all off by working non-stop for a week themselves. So I had the kids non-stop for a week myself, and I think I will right up until the go to Thailand.

Alice has a newfound love of toilets

The original deal was for me to work a 35 hour week here with two days off. Even with my two days off I've been doing 45-50 hour weeks and I'll get paid for the extra time, but I am starting to feel a bit abused, they are putting a lot of pressure on me to look after both kids and do all of the cooking and cleaning. I realise this is what I'd be doing if they were my own kids anyway, and it's not really a big problem, I prefer  being left alone with the kids to organise things my own way, but I think its hard here because they have such high and specific expectations of me. Like, if it were my kids and house, then I could decide just to order pizza and let the dirty washing pile up for an extra day if I had a headache or if the baby was sick, but here I'm paid to just get stuff done. Also, they somehow expect me to be doing all of this and actively engaging with Arin one-on-one at the same time, like reading with him and playing outside etc. Which I love doing, but I only have one pair of hands and can only be in one place at once. Yesterday, a Belgian girl my age came to play with Arin, and Jan got all 'look at how happy he is playing outside with her, we expected you to do that'. I was too shocked to give him a witty reply about how I was inside cooking them dinner and dealing with the baby the whole time. I'm sure if she tried to cook dinner and juggle both kids, then Arin would have just been hanging out in the kitchen like he does with me most evenings. I think their unrealistic expectations have a lot to do with why they chew through nannies so fast, they really need to decide whether they want a one-on-one tutor for Arin, or someone to cook and clean and look after the baby, because achieving both at the same time are not possible, apart from the brief time that she naps.

Liege train station

I think that because we all know we've only got a week left to go, no one is being polite anymore. This last week, everything that has gone wrong here has been my fault. Which does kind of make sense, seeing as I am the one that does pretty much everything, but its really unfair. Like, blaming me for using the washing machine when there was a problem with the pipes. Seeing as I am the only one who using the washing machine, would it not make sense to tell me about that? I used it at 5am when I got up for the crying baby and she puked on me, her bed and the couch, I really don't appreciate being told of for doing washing when I was never told not to. Nor did I appreciate being yelled at today when the two of them left the house too late to pick up Arin and still make it to the doctor on time, when I had given them three hours warning that I wasn't happy taking the sick baby out into bad weather to pick him up myself. And on the subject of the sick baby, I am getting so stressed out by them not taking her to the doctor. She's been coughing and scratching her ears for a week now, and I keep telling them but they keep insisting that she's fine. She might be fine for the whole 20 minutes of each day that they see her, but she certainly isn't fine the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of each day.

So, I am definitely counting down now. I almost feel like I should do something about the situation here, but I'm a bit lost as to what I can do. They leave for Thailand next Tuesday, so I guess I only work Wednesday and Thursday this week and Sunday, Monday, then I'm done and off again traveling for the rest of the month.

Lena and I

I spent last weekend in Liege with Lena. I waited over half an hour for a bus to get to Antwerp, which then turned up so loaded that I couldn't get in the front door and took so long that I missed the train I had planned to take, and then I got all confused when I had to change stations because Liege is actually Luik in Flemish (this is annoying right? If it's a french-speaking city then it should have the more common french name on the sign, even in the flemish region!) but must have managed a connection that the website deemed impossibly fast because I still arrived in Liege at the time I had intended.

Part of the HEC party

We went to 'HEC Escape Garden Party'. HEC has something to do with their university, pretty much it was a huge party held by their student union or something, to celebrate the end of the school year. It was meant to be a summery garden affair, but it was raining and instead of gardens it was half on a uni driveway and half in the forest that surrounds Liege. It was a bit different from any organised university party that I went to in NZ - there was no toilets (everyone just peed in the trees) no rubbish bins so the ground got disgusting, and as we arrived they had Jim Beam there checking the ID's but only of people who volunteered them. So if you showed them your ID you got a free drink, if you didn't, then you just had to walk in and buy one. Totally illegal in NZ!

Celine, Valeriane and Lena

Anyway, we spend the the afternoon drinking and running around in the rain meeting different people. A vodka-filled watermelon and Lena's sister made notable appearances, and Lena did a good job of scheming free drinks out of the bartenders. We had to wait aggeeees everytime we wanted food or drinks - we once waited like 15 minutes for an expensive sausage that Lena took one bite out of and then dropped on the ground. Quite a good party though, they had a DJ with a good crowd going and Lena's friends are really cool, although I found it really weird to look around and see only all-girl or all-guy groups standing around talking, here it's definitely less common to have friends of different sexes.

The Square

Then it was back into the city, with a brief stop at her place before we headed into town. Liege is famous for its bars, they are all centered in this area of old cobbled alleys called The Square, I went there a lot last time I was there, its fun but really gross. Unfortunately, the almost twelve hours straight of drinking caught up with us and we headed back to bed around 1am.

Garlic (The french dude is smoking an awesome pipe)

We headed out around lunch time the next day, and visited a weird international market that was taking place in the centre. The stalls were mostly dedicated to food, whole tables piled with huge cheeses or saucisson or garlic, and I ate some good polish barbeque for lunch. We had coffee and then went to a movie, Get Low, which was actually quite an event for me because I hadn't been to see a movie in over a year and a half (and that time was with Lena too funnily enough!). Then her mum cooked some awesome duck for dinner and I was off back to the train station. Liege is only a couple of hours away by train, but I got stuck outside the Antwerp train station. Normally, no matter what time I arrive back here by train, I miss the bus by a few minutes. This time I was at the bus stop three minutes early - and then the bus was 23 minutes late! I think they've been on strike or something, normally the buses are pretty good but I had two bad runs in two days. It was a great weekend, I came back to Antwerp feeling a lot better, I think I just needed the reminder that I have friends in this country, it was good to hang out and not feel so isolated, and as things get crazier here, its good to actually get out of the house during my time off.

my packing. so far unsuccessfully!

But, the weekend left me feeling quite tired and now I'm sick, everyone is sick but of course I am still the one who gets up for Alice all the time. Last week, I had managed to run every day even when kids woke me up in the middle of the night or early in the morning, I was quite impressed with myself, but being sick has thrown a spanner in the works the last couple of days and I really hope that I wake up healthy tomorrow. It's also been really really hot the last couple of days, highs of 35 even when it's pouring. I'm  trying to pack, not easy when I'm working thirteen hour days and then collapse into bed sick at the end of them. So far, I haven't gotten much further than walking around my room aimlessly wondering how my stuff all managed to multiply while in my closet the last three months. I'm going to take a suitcase or two to Luxembourg next week, but I am really not looking forward to returning to the nomadic thing with such a huge backpack again. Plans for the next month are starting to take shape, I'm staying in Belgium a little bit longer to visit Gent and Liege again, and go to a festival with Lena, and then I'm off to Gottingen again, Dusseldorf, Hannover, hopefully Nuremberg to see a (non-AFS!) kiwi friend, Italy for a week, and Mainz where I hope to prove once and for all that I can eat the spiciest currywurst! Then Luxembourg at the end of July.


One week to go....


Photos of the weekend in Liege are here.