Today was another interesting day at school.
The title means: Jacki has only been in Belgium for 9 days...or something like that.
Our trainer, for some reason, doesn't call on me often. Now, she calls on May a lot (the Thai girl), the Italian girl, the Americans ofcourse (I even think she has a thing for this other American guy--not the one that looks like Jack Black (refer to previous blog) and three new delegates of our United Nations group: a girl from Nicaragua and a couple from (wait lemme look at my notes first)--Chechenia. I honestly don't know where that country is (I do know Czech Republic and Russia and Croatia) and I think that's the country that CNN used to report about all the time with oorlog (war) and bombings. I think they pronounced it as "Shesh-nee-yah" in CNN but that guy pronounced it differently for sure. I'll google that later. Ofcourse, I didn't want to offend them by asking where their country was. hehe
Anyways, so here was our trainer chatting away in gibberish again when after a couple of questions and answers from my classmates, our trainer asked me the same question:
"Jacki, hoe lang woon jiy in Belgie?"
Literally translated as: How long live you in Belgium?
(and this is the punchline) I answered in the perfect Belgian accent: Ik woon 9 dagen in Belgie.
Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Points for Jacki *dance around in circles*
Our trainer was shocked and ofcourse I couldn't understand her dutch afterwards but I did get the "Prima!" (Perfect) and "Heel goed!" (Very good) and a your Dutch is already very "mooi" (Beautiful) even if I'm "woont nog maar 9 dagen in Belgie".
Ehem. Enough said. What she didn't know is that I've been trying to learn it for months now through pimsleur and ofcourse, K: my personal trainer. hehe Shhh!
The Spanish girl was still lost but it's quite funny how when we were at the "Are you married? divorced? single?" part they had a hard time explaining to her what "getrouwd" (married) meant and she suddenly said: "Kasal?". I instantly had an impulse to say, "Mao!" or "Tsakto na!". hehehe I didn't know "kasal" was Spanish. The things you learn...
Last funny part: "Woon je samen? Ja, met mijn vriendin / vriend."
Translation: Are you living with someone? Yes, with my friend.
Our trainer was explaining the difference between vriendin and vriend. Apparently she wasn't quite clear about her explanation because she said that both are used for friends or partners but nothing specific for boyfriend or girlfriend (based on our understanding of her dutch).
So I uttered: So, vriendin can be used by gays?
And our trainer was a bit shocked and said: Nee, niet gays...just friends. hahaha
I just found that funny.
On my way home (I was actually dreading the 30min walk home in the rain. I try to stay away from buses for the meantime considering my traumatic, near death experience (haha exag!) last week), I passed by Nadia, the Russian hot mama, who was smoking on the sidewalk. We got into a short conversation (she had a very interesting Russian accent) and she told me that I could come along with her "zeenz her huzzbund eez peeking her op" and anyway zey alzoh leev at zee ozzer zide of our sztreet (that is not a foreign language but just my interpretation of what she sounded like). I was delighted by the invitation. :)
When her husband arrived we got into the car and it was like a cross between Mr. and Mrs. Richie Rich (Part 1) and Count Dracula. She and her husband, who is Belgian, call each other "My Dear" and she looked a little like Mrs. Rich what with her blond hair, make up, and white coat. They both looked so sweet together and spoke with the Count Dracula accent.
I think the next couple of weeks will be quite interesting.
No headaches today and no class tomorrow. Here in Belgium there are no classes on Wednesday. Woopie!
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