Virgin burners from the land of chocolate, beer, french fries and waffles

[Zarqun]

Hey all,

We're Lucy and Stijn (pronounced like a "stain on your shirt") from the land of chocolate, beer, french fries and waffles.
For some of you this will ring a bell, for the others: we're from Belgium.

About us:
Both of us are 31 years old.
We are born and raised in Belgium.
Lucy works in a school and I'm an engineer working in automotive.
She's the emotional and empathetical, living her life mostly through her gut feeling.
I'm the rational, facts based and analytical.
Through this we've learned eachother an awful lot.
I barely knew anything about art, life sciences and putting effort into getting to know people.
She learned more about any creature and nature as a whole and about (geo)politics.
Both of us have a fascination for travelling, people, food and so on.

For some years we've had the feeling, gradually growing into an urge, to participate at Burning Man.
There's a lot of reasons why we want to join the Burner community.
We both try to
- make our own community a better place
- by being friendly to anyone.
- by organizing get-togethers to get to know our neighbours (quite challenging in cities nowadays).
- by cleaning up 'MOOP' at our own neighbourhood and showing others how rewarding this can be.
- by helping out people without expecting anything in return (except for gratitude, a smile, a hug,....)
- by inviting friends, acquaintances or random strangers you met a little earlier on for dinner.
- by ...
- take care of our world
- so it's still a wonderful place for next generations to come.
- just because everybody is happier when surrounded by green, water,...
- because there's still an awful lot to learn about it.
- share the little knowledge we gained troughout the years with others
- learn from other people their experiences and knowledge
- be open towards other people as they might always become amazing friends

About our country:
There's still a chance that even Belgium doesn't ring a bell, so we'll give you some extra information.
Belgium is a small, almost non-existent country squeezed in between France, The Netherlands and Germany.
Despite our size and lack of a patriotistic feeling, we still might be an interesting destination.
Our capital is Brussels, which is quite often more known than our country as it's also the capital of Europe.
Most of us are polyglots as we have 3 official languages (on a patch of roughly 33,000 km²/11,787 sq mi)): Dutch, French and German.
The northern part of Belgium speaks Dutch (Flemish) and the southern part speaks French (Wallonian).
Our government is always a mixture of Flemish and Wallonian politicians.
In general we're all quite alike, but there are definitely some (big) differences.
This has always forced us to compromise, to nuance your convictions, ...
This probably helped us to relativate our country and ourselves.

Throughout history almost any Western European country has conquered us: the romans, the dutch, the germans, the french and the austrians...
It created a whole range of regional differences language and dialect wise, food wise and so on.
Along the way we've grown a deep love for food and especially beer.
Most Belgians love chocolate (pure, milky, as 'pralines', mousse,...), french fries (any selfrespecting town/village has at least one 'frituur') and to a lesser extent waffles (Belgian waffles don't exist here, it's rather Brussels' waffles, Liege's waffles,...).
But most of all we are crazy about beer. In our small country we have at least 296 breweries all of them brewing a variety of different beers. We have fruit beers, dark beers, pils (blonde lager), brown beers, gruit beers, tripels and trappists (6 out of 11 trappists are Belgian).

After making the decision to participate at BM, we've managed to get two tickets in the main sale. (finally!)
So right now we're dealing with all the practicalities of going to Burning Man: flights, rentals, leave of absence,...
It will be our first burn!

We hope we've given you some clue of who we are.
See you on the (e)Playa!

Lucy & Stijn

[AntiM]

Welcome Aboard!

[Dr. Pyro]

Lucy and Stijn, welcome! Belgium is one of my favorite countries in Europe, and Brussels is fabulous. It's sort of like Paris without the people. And by "people" I mean the French. My favorite beer also comes from there: Nostradamus. Almost impossible to find in the states. Come by Barbie Death Camp with a few bottles and I'll forever be in your debt!

[Krokodyle]

Greetings and welcome!

Come by Barbie Death Camp with a few bottles and I'll forever be in your debt!

You should come by BDC anyways, it's one of the best places on the Playa!

[AntiM]

And do drop by Anti M's Home for Wayward Art to adopt some art to take home. Best little theme camp on the playa!

[Elderberry]

Hey there, welcome to ePlaya!

[Elliot]

... ... ...
Belgium is a small, almost non-existent country... .... ... ...

Non non mon ami, pas si petit, en importance.

[Elliot]

Excellent introduction, Zarqun!

And... this must be the Year of the Belgians -- because we have a new Belgian couple in our camp, and have just befriended a second Belgian couple (who are collaborating with the first).

So... thank you for that truly informative introduction, and Welcome to ePlaya!

(And... no, alas, I do not speak French.)

[Zarqun]

Lucy and Stijn, welcome! Belgium is one of my favorite countries in Europe, and Brussels is fabulous. It's sort of like Paris without the people. And by "people" I mean the French. My favorite beer also comes from there: Nostradamus. Almost impossible to find in the states. Come by Barbie Death Camp with a few bottles and I'll forever be in your debt!

It's been a few years last time I drank a Nostradamus. It's a lovely beer, but not many bars serve it, at least not in my hometown. I'll see what I can do to bring a few bottles on a long haul flight.
If I manage, then I'll also try to bring one of my favourite beers, Gulden Draak.
It's a fabulous gruit beer of 10,5 %, quite sweet which makes it dangerous: you drink it swiftly and get suprised by the hammer!

[Zarqun]

Maybe Belgians have a thing with radical rituals?

We're currently trying to get our vacation fixed with our employers.
When this is fixed, we'll go full throttle to see how we can contribute!
We'll probably join some friends from SF and create our own small camp.
It will give us the liberty to join different initiatives and contribute in a lot of different ways.
My head is spinning on information, ideas and so on!

There's so much to see and experience at BRC, so many interesting things.

@Anti M: We'll definitely try to pay your Home for Wayward Art a visit!

@Elliot: Wonderful French!
Unlike you we're lucky to have learned it at a young age, so we are both capable of speaking it.
In my case it's a little rusty though.
I'll probably drop by your Bicycle service, as I happen to (try to) fix/upgrade bikes in my spare time.

[Elliot]

... ... ...
I'll probably drop by your Bicycle service, as I happen to (try to) fix/upgrade bikes in my spare time.

You're hired!

By the way.... No French, but I'm fluent in Norwegian. Did Vikings ever invade Belgium?

[Manudemey]

Waauw that's the best description of Belgium I have ever read!
I guess I'm an atypical belgian, because I'm not that fond of beer
Alhoewel nen Hoegaarden gaat er altijd wel in...

groetjes!

[Traveller in Time]

Don't forget a tiny slice of lemon

[Zarqun]

... ... ...
I'll probably drop by your Bicycle service, as I happen to (try to) fix/upgrade bikes in my spare time.

You're hired!

By the way.... No French, but I'm fluent in Norwegian. Did Vikings ever invade Belgium?

Haha, that must have been one of the swiftest applications I've ever experienced!!

There's not much known about the Viking history in Belgium.
Most Vikings were excellent tradesmen, but history made them look as raiding barbarians (because they were in the end in the 'losing camp'). They did raid my hometown at least twice (851 and 879). Quite logical if you know we had 2 abbeys at that time: plenty of food and probably other wealthy stuff too...
Since the second raid they had a longer lasting army camp to infiltrate Western Europe further. During that time they've at least raided Tournai, Arras and Reims. As far as we know now there weren't any permanent settlements.

Most Vikings in our region weren't Norwegians, they were rather Northern Germans (Seaborne Saxons) or Danish.

So there's no hard feelings

My Norwegian is non-existent.
Until now I managed to learn Dutch/Flemish, French, English, some (rubbish) German, some Spanish and I'm learning Mandarin too.

I guess I'm an atypical belgian, because I'm not that fond of beer
Alhoewel nen Hoegaarden gaat er altijd wel in...

groetjes!

Blasphemy!
To be honest I'm not that fond of Hoegaarden.
Only on a hot summer day, maybe with some lemon, it might please me.
But if we are so lucky to have a nice hot summer day, then I prefer a Rodenbach (classic or Grand Cru).
It has more taste and more complex flavouring. On top of that it's rather a sour beer, which kills thirst very efficiently!