Strange Valentines Gifts

Gogos a go-go

Our little Carrefour gets into the Valentines spirit by giving us slightly obscure, heart shaped gifts each year.  This year, we received a heart shaped magnetic clip.  Unfortunately, it’s green, which just doesn’t go with my kitchen, but hey, they weren’t to know.  Maybe the boyf will clip love letters to it?  Maybe we’ll just use it for shopping lists?

OH MY GOD!  I can use it to keep my coupons together!

Shit… That’s the most Belgian thing I’ve ever said.  Ah well, who’ll be laughing when I get my free bottle of Cava (only €20 more the go!)?  Or my 80 extra bonus points when I spend €30 or more?  Oh, you’ll still be laughing?  Bugger…

Last year we received a heart shaped ice cube tray (presumably the perfect accompaniment for the eight-pack of Maes we were buying at the time).  More confusingly, considering that it was halfway through February and on our thrice weekly visits we have never had children with us, they also gave us a Gogo’s 2010 calendar.  I’m still not sure what a Gogo is.

The picture is taken from the welcome page of the Carrefour Gogos website.  I like the representation of the Walloons with an onion headed gogo.

Also, unrelated, did you know they have Carrefour in China (and various other mad places I was NOT expecting)?  This is nearly as amazing as the time I discovered they have Tesco in Poland!  Yes, I am easily impressed.

Milk Trauma

 

From Coffee and TV by Blur

Ah, milk.  Living in the UK, I never stopped to consider where my next pint of the delicious fresh white stuff would come from.  Belgium was something of a culture shock – at least one Belgian I know believes that fresh milk is illegal (something about bacteria).  It is available, just not considered an essential, and the stock isn’t checked as carefully as, say, the beer.

I’m still a little traumatised when recollecting this story from my first few months here.

They didn’t have my usual milk in Carrefour this morning so I thought I’d just get the stuff next to it – looked like milk to me and it said lait on it.  Admittedly, it didn’t say melk but I figured it was probably just some sort of dodgy Walloon propaganda milk and bought it.

BIG MISTAKE!

I decided to Google it when, on closer inspection, I noticed that there were some more words in the title which I didn’t understand.  It was described as like normal milk but sweeter which sounded ok to me, they did mention that the Dutch love the stuff though, which concerned me (so much for the Walloon propaganda).

It smelt quite nice when I opened the bottle up – a little like Actimel – so I decided to take a little sip.  OH MY GOD – WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAVE I BOUGHT???  I was nearly sick in the sink.  My cup of tea, complete with whatever the hell this stuff is, is now sitting abandoned by the kettle as I literally cannot bear to even try it.

I can still taste the stuff in my mouth.

Mind you, the look on my boyfriends face when I forced him to try it was almost worth the distress.