happy new year 1319!!

SO a few weeks back I went to the Bulgarian embassy here in Brussels to get a visa for my friend Said who is coming as one of our leaders on service project. He attempted to come last year but at the last minute(literally 2 days before) we realized that he needed a visa and we did not have enough time to get it. So this year we were on our A game! and got to the task months in advance. It was quite a little adventure. First of all picking up Said on the side of the road:) after trying to find him by the statue only to figure out that there were 2 statues and we were each at different ones! Then finding the front of the embassy and trying to buzz ourselves in. I ended up talking into one of those intercom things and NO ONE was on the other end-yes I looked a little crazy. Then we drove to the back entrance and were greeted by a Bulgarian guy who spoke no French, Flemish, english or persian(all languages that between the 2 of us we could have functioned in) so we proceeded to wait in line only to be told when we got to the front of the line that we needed to fill out a bunch of papers. Problem was that the 1st guy did not speak and of our languages so he could not give us the appropriate paperwork. SO we got out of line and I got right back in line while Said filled out the papers. When we got back to the front of the line the guy was checking Said's answers. He pointed out a mistake- Said had put the wrong year down for his birth year. I looked at him and was like "what! how could you not know your birth year?" and he proceeded to call me out on my ignorance and tell me that in Iran(where he is from) they are on a totally different calendar and thus when he moved here the people who issued his documents had to count backwards to figure out the year that we would use.

So fast forward to this past saturday night when I get a call from Said asking me if I wanted to come with him to a Iranian New Year's celebration. Well regardless of whatever else I had planned the answer was YES!! I would love to ring in the year 1319!!! and eat amazing Iranian food and try my hand at reading and speaking persian! SO Sunday afternoon I joined him and his family at their church for a New Years celebration. I sadly did not take any pictures but it was quite an event! But I wish you a very happy 1319!!

concerts

It has been the month of concerts. To be honest in the past I have rarely if ever gone to concerts. Most of that came out of the fact that I was not that into music. That's not to say I don't love music-cuz i do! but I didn't really follow the "music scene" and pretty much only knew big names artists that one would hear on the radio all the time. Things have changed in the past year or so. I think I have found my genre of music and therefore have done a bit of research into similar artists. This has also been helped out by the fact that some of my good friend in BXL are VERY into music. So in the past 5-6 weeks I have been to several concerts- some of them more my style and some as a result of friends and students. The first concert was with students-THE SCRIPT-an irish band came through town. I was smart enough to get tickets ahead of time(it sold out early) and went with a few high school students. It was a decent concert- the lead singer was a bit full of himself but I am guessing that a lead singer of a rock band should be a little cocky? The next concert 2 weeks later and more my style- IRON & WINE. I was quite excited about this concert and was actually the one who organized my friends to go. Sad to say it was very disappointing. The music was all changed up and slightly self-indulgent and I walked away feeling like the best part of the evening was going out afterwards. Then the week after that we had our YoungLife fundraiser concert where we had THROW TELEVISION open up for RUE ROYALE. Both amazing bands and quite possibly my favorite concert so far! Monday night was yet another concert- KT TUNSTALL was in town. Fiona got tickets way back when and though I did not know much of her music-let's just say black horse and a cherry tree was probably the only song I DID know- the concert was quite good. She was fun and unassuming and gave a great show. We started out pretty close to the front and since I am somehow taller than most Belgians I had a pretty good view of the entire stage(even the awesome orange drum set!) We ended up in the back after a near fainting scare from Fiona but all in all a good concert

No more concerts for a while but it sure was a fun month!