All summer I was moving about, country to country, meeting different people, spending time with different friends, having all sorts of fun. Now I find myself with a flat, a rent, a bank account and a stable job. This is so unlike me. Geographically, I am in a provincial town in the middle of nowhere. In Belgium.I had put a note downstairs saying, in French, “I am new to Liege, if you are doing anything interesting, please knock on my door first. P.S. Interesting things include: watching films, drawing, staring at the ceiling, making tea." The next day, I get back from the school where I am an assistant, teaching future English teachers (and get paid a jolly sum in the process). As my boots stomp stomp up the wooden stairs of my building, someone calls out my name. I saunter in through an open door and sit down on a stool. This experience should go down in history.There are two boys a couch. One is bald and topless, playing Super Mario on a Playstation. The other has hair and a t-shirt and is watching his friend play on a Playstation. The Bald One immediately says, without stopping the click click clicking of remote, “Hello. I don’t know what you are going to do in Belgium. There is nothing to do here.” Wow, I thought, my social life bodes well. I asked why he said this and mentionned the amazing library I’d found that rented tons of cds and dvds and the cinemas and live music. Super Mario sunk and Baldie retorted, “But life sucks because I haven’t found the woman who’ll be my wife.” This may sound like the beginning to an excellent porn film, but you are happilly decieved. I ask their ages, and incidentally what they do. They are 24, studying marketing and advertising at the art school in town. They insist on mentionning how they are both sons of farmers and how in Liege is so revoltingly fashionable (!). Baldie goes to make himself dinner and so I try to make the other one chat to me. I ask him what he likes, and he says “Sylvester Stallone.” This has to be one of the most amazing discoveries I have made since I’ve started Oxford. It got even more surreal. I walk over to the dvd collection under the television and pick out a film at random, then another and another, and every film I pick out does indeed have Sylvester Stallone starring in it, he watches the television, as he says proudly, “I’ve nearly got them all, I’m only missing a few.” I make the unfortunate mistake of saying I’d seen all five Rocky’s and he blurted out, irritated “Six! There are six Rockys.” I don’t think there was a tinge of joke in his voice.
But on the plus side they are friendly and welcoming, which is good news.
Neighbours
