Cheeseburger In Paradise

My fellow Americans, imagine choosing a song to represent our great country. If you were to choose a song to play for non-Americans as you and other Americans walked across a stage in a parade of nations, what song would you choose? Born in the USA? God Bless the USA? Coming to America? Those are just a few that come to my mind. One song that did NOT come to my mind is Jimmy Buffett's Cheeseburger In Paradise. However, on Friday afternoon and evening my fellow expats and I marched our children across the stage at the school's International Festival, dressed in red, white and blue and waving American flags (with the words Made In China printed on them, of course) to Cheeseburger In Paradise. Now, I am NOT complaining because I did not volunteer to plan for the festival and I know how annoying it is when people don't volunteer and then sit back and complain. I am just a bit perplexed by the song choice. Anyone? These festivals are annual and some families have been here 10 years or more. Most of the American families have been here 1-4 years and I haven't had a chance to ask about the song choice, but one rationale I came up with is that the songs that came to my mind have been done and we wanted something fresh and new. Ours wasn't the only "different" song choice. The Swedes marched across the stage to ABBA's Waterloo. I learned that ABBA was in fact, Swedish and Waterloo, well, that one is more obvious. The Germans, 99 Luftballoons and Wikipedia cleared up any questions about that. Learn something new every day.

Last week was definitely no picnic for us. Week 2 without Daddy was tough. Nathan seemed to deal with disappointment after disappointment. In the grand scheme of things, his disappointments were minor, but at the time frustrating. He was in tears more than he has been since he was 3 years old. One time it was tears of disappointment that a friend was too tired to come over after school. Later that same evening, tears of frustration when the friend who did come over stayed too long and they ended up in a fight about something trivial. Friday morning we took Nathan to the doctor to check on some swelling to his face and neck. After an ultrasound by a Radiologist lacking skills in the way of bedside manner and finally managing to get an appointment with someone for blood work, we discovered that the swelling is most likely a lymph node or gland and caused by something viral. Long story short, the swelling might have been around for about 2 weeks and he did have some tenderness to the area, but was only tender to the touch by Friday and today he complains of no tenderness and the swelling has gone down.

Thursday night was a bit stressful for Mommy. Daddy's plane was delayed by several hours before I finally just went to bed and the daunting task of taking Nathan to the doctor and finding a place for the girls should I have to visit any other doctors was overwhelming to say the least. By morning everything looked better. After all of the driving to and from school and doctors offices to drop off kids, we learned that Daddy should still arrive some time that day. He was about 6 hours later than we expected, but he did make it home safely. He got home just as the International Festival ended a very long day for all of us. We were sad he had to miss the festival. It was such a great experience. There were two parades of the countries represented in the school and the first one went in reverse alpha order so we were able to see most of the countries parade through. It was exciting for the kids to see their friends in traditional costume for their own countries. Nathan has learned so much about the world in this kindergarten class. He has classmates from Israel, Nigeria, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and the UK to name a few. Of course several of his classmates are from the US and he recognized our neighbors who are from New Zealand. Many of his classmates speak second and third languages and he knows enough to know which languages they speak and what country they come from. It was very moving to see the children and parents showing their patriotism and it was especially exciting when a country was only represented by 1 or 2 people. There were lots of cheers and applause for those brave students. Some members of the US were able to walk with other countries such as Mexico because as one of the signs we carried stated it is "The Great Melting Pot". Our children could have represented China as there were no representatives from there. Maybe next year we can get a little help from Yehyeh. There are also several students who have one parent who is Belgian and one parent from another country. A lot of those children chose to walk twice to represent both countries. The parade ended with Belgium each time. There were booths set up during the day with information about each country and that evening there was food and drink from each country. We Americans had hot dogs, brownies, Budweiser (not something most would drink when living in Belgium known for good beer) and popcorn. Because I was solo and it was incredibly late and crowded we didn't get to try any of the other food, but it looked wonderful. Next year Daddy is not allowed to be traveling during the festival. Better yet, maybe some of our family members should start planning to visit during this time to experience it along with us.

The weekend was beautiful. Naturally it rained almost the entire time Daddy was gone, but he arrived to sunshine and warmer weather. Saturday's soccer game went much better than the week before with Coach Daddy back. The kids played a lot of tennis out front in the roundabout with Daddy. We had American cuisine at a restaurant in one of the Flemish communes on Saturday night with friends and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. We have been trying to eat there since we arrived and were told it was the one place to get a "good American cheeseburger". Cheeseburgers just don't quite taste the same here and we have found McDonald's has the most familiar tasting ones--meaning they taste the same as those at McDonald's in the US, not that they taste that good. I have to disagree that this restaurant's burgers were exactly the same as those in the US, but they are definitely more like what we are used to having. Perhaps that is why Cheeseburger In Paradise is a fitting song for us expat Americans. Though the food here is wonderful and most Americans we have met are enjoying it along with the beer and chocolate, we do miss our familiar cuisine. So, sing on Jimmy Buffett. If you had written Chicken Enchiladaville instead of Margaritaville, I would probably have made that my own personal theme song even while living in Michigan. Mmmmm...I miss enchiladas...