Headed Stateside for a spell, and update on the CA fires

Tomorrow I fly from Brussels to Dulles airport, just west of Washington DC, for the purpose of (finally!) getting my Belgian visa. I decided to fly there instead of the Los Angeles consulate because my family is mostly on the Eastern seaboard, and since I have the option of getting the visa by mail anywhere in the States, I figured why not at least get the benefit of a visit out of it? So I arrive tomorrow afternoon Eastern US time, then Thursday morning I'll overnight my passport along with some paperwork off to our favorite Belgian diplomatic staff member (yes, I am being sarcastic). She'll do her thing on the Los Angeles end and then will overnight my passport with the visa inside back to me. All of this SHOULD be completed by the 30th or 31st, but we've learned from painful experience to leave plenty of time for "delays", so I'm not scheduled to fly back to Belgium until Sunday the 4th of November. I should have internet access most of the time I'm there, so I will post a celebratory message when I finally get that ridiculous piece of paper in my grubby little hands! Maybe I'll even upload a photo!! :-)

Second topic, and unfortunately not such a positive one: many of you probably know that my hubby Carl is from the San Diego area, and the majority of his family still lives there. It's been a rough few days for the millions who call Southern California home, but everyone in the family is doing okay so far. Carl's sister had to evacuate her home in Poway yesterday, but I just read online that her neighborhood is being re-opened for people to return, and I haven't seen reports of any homes burned in her immediate area...GREAT NEWS!! His mom's and brother's homes are still okay, and I believe his cousin is in the clear for the moment as well. Until the Santa Ana winds subside it's still a dangerous situation though, so if you guys are reading, please take care and stay safe!! We love you!

We've officially lost our minds!!

There must be something in the water here that affects the brain a bit, because we've both just signed ourselves up to run the Paris Marathon next Spring! I guess maybe some of you won't find it too out of character since we've both done some running in the past and have talked about attempting a marathon, but neither of us has actually undertaken one before! It was kind of a random thing, and Carl signed up first. I of course, sat there for a while and pondered the insanity of it before agreeing to it myself, babbling about just how crazy it is the whole time that Carl was signing me up...yep, couldn't even do it myself, I was so nervous and giddy!
Anyway, it's April 6th, so we have almost six months to train (I'm gonna need it!). Any of you out there who have done one before, if you have any words of wisdom or training secrets, we're all ears! We're going to be looking up training plans of course, but the personal wisdom of someone who's been there is always welcome.
I guess there's just something about Paris in the Springtime!!

Living WAAAY far away overseas ain't what it used to be!

After a couple of months here I can unequivocally say that living overseas is a lot less of a "hardship" than it used to be in terms of keeping in touch with home. With e-mail, the internet, and Skype phone service, the time difference is really the only constant reminder that I'm not nearly as close as I used to be to family and friends! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have all these luxuries, but it really gives me a new admiration for people who spent long periods of time "away" in the days before the communications boom and internet age. How isolating that must have felt, and how much harder the adjustment must have been compared to what it is now!

Fun facts 'n random thoughts

There are lots of things we've noticed or learned about living in Belgium since we arrived, but not all of them are significant enough to warrant a post of their very own. I mean how much time can I really spend telling you about grocery store bags before you get bored and stop reading? So I've decided to put together a post with a bunch of random little things you might find interesting...here goes!

• The Belgians are known for their "frites" or fries (despite "French" being part of the name, they were invented here), and they are indeed popular with the locals. There are food stands all over town that focus on fries almost exclusively, and you'll also see fries used in unusual ways - anyone for some frites in their gyro? <--by the way, it's really good!
• Speaking of frites, at our grocery store there is an entire row of the frozen section (about 20 feet long) dedicated to nothing BUT frites - and I'm not kidding or exaggerating!
• Coffee is enjoyed by many and the quality is excellent, but the concept of the American-style coffee shop (like Starbucks) simply doesn't exist. If you want to stop for coffee, you visit a café and you sit down and drink coffee from a real cup, with saucer and spoon...all of which is brought to you. There's no such thing as carry-out coffee, and I'm guessing that they'd find the concept of drive-thru coffee utterly ridiculous. It's quite a change from the java-crazed Pacific Northwest!
• I'm not sure whether this was mandatory or voluntary, but for environmental reasons grocery stores will not provide you with paper or plastic bags for free. They charge 3 cents per plastic bag, and I haven't seen the paper ones at all. What most people (ourselves included) have done is purchase sturdy, reusable bags for €1 each from the store. It was frustrating at first because we always seemed to forget them, but now that it's a habit we kind of like it!
• Restaurant service is much more "hands off" here than in the U.S. For instance, we have yet to have anyone come to our table after we receive our food and ask us if everything is to our liking. It's usually not hard to find someone to ask if you need something, but it's expected that you'll let them know if something is unsatisfactory, so I guess they see no need to ask!
• The use of credit cards (and establishments accepting them) is not typical - in the tourist areas it's common, but in neighborhoods like ours a lot of places accept only cash or Bankcontact, which is the equivalent of a debit card that comes straight out of your checking account. There's also something called Proton - it allows you to "load" a cash balance onto your debit card that you can use without having to enter your PIN code, making the transaction quicker. It's popular for small purchases in stores or snack shops.
• Grocery stores do not sell medication of any kind - only pharmacies can sell those items, and they are identifiable by a big green cross (just like the Red Cross' logo, but green) over the door.
• I don't think I've mentioned this before, but you may have noticed from photos that virtually every Belgian beer has its own special glass, and that beer (and only that beer) is always supposed to be served in it. This applies to bottled beers too, not just the ones on tap! Adds a whole new complexity to bartending, doesn't it?

More apartment pics

Be sure to read the full post below...

#1 - The view down the street from our front window
#2 - The view from our back patio/balcony
#3 - Our living room - the TV looks really small in such a big room, doesn't it?
#4 - The dining area and computer desk - sorry for the bit of clutter!
#5 - The bathroom - the toilet is in a separate WC (water closet)

#6 - Looking out our bedroom windows - they get lots of sun in the afternoon!
#7 - Looking back into our bedroom - didn't realize Monty got in that shot while licking himself - oops!
#8 - Kitchen - plenty of cabinets!
#9 - Refrigerator/freezer
#10 - Our miniature kitchen sink and antique water heater!

Apartment pictures, finally!

I've been promising them for weeks so here they are, some pictures of our apartment here in Brussels. I kept putting off this post, hoping to get the place more fixed up, furnished, decorated, etc...but enough people have asked now that I felt I needed to go ahead and post some photos, ready or not! As you can see it's obviously still a work in progress, and given our tight budget and the limited items we were able to ship over here, the decorating department still needs a lot of work! :-) We do have a pretty nice view from our many windows though, which is great!

There's a few items I want to point out about the kitchen, since it seems people are pretty curious about it. First, you may notice that there's no oven below the stovetop like there normally is in the States. Here it isn't a given that an apartment, even the size of ours, will have an oven. So in addition to a microwave, we ended up buying a countertop convection oven, which we LOVE!! It bakes, grills, and does rotisserie, and in general just does a terrific job of cooking things! Second, we've got a pretty large refrigerator/freezer, at least by Belgian standards. I took a close-up of it with the doors open so you can see. It does get full when we return from a big trip to the store, though what's considered a "big" trip for us is probably a lot smaller than you're thinking, since we have to carry everything home by hand! Third and final point on the kitchen: we do not have a dishwasher, and our kitchen sink is pretty small. The lack of a dishwasher isn't bothering us too much, as we knew ahead of time that it was a luxury that we probably couldn't afford. The little sink is a challenge however, as is our only semi-functioning hot water heater (which is probably almost as old as I am and is about to be replaced). At the moment that means that we have to get hot water from the bathtub and wash our dishes in "waves", since the sink fills up so fast. We're managing though, and it's interesting how quickly we've adjusted to not having some of the modern conveniences, even after having them for most or all of our lives.

So this is our home for the next year - questions or comments anyone? Is it bigger/smaller, nicer/uglier than you had imagined it would be? I'm really curious to hear what you think!

More Brugge pictures

Blogspot only lets me upload five pictures per post, so I had to split them up into two in order to upload all the pictures I wanted to. Here are the descriptions:

#1 - View of the beach and North Sea at De Haan

#2 - Looking southwest down the "boardwalk" at De Haan

#3 - A hotel with of the "Belle Époque" architecture, typical in De Haan

#4 - Canal view on the way back to Brugge

#5 - Me enjoying a St. Bernardus beer in the Brugge old town

#6 (next post) - one of the Brugge city gates at night

#7 - The Belfort in Brugge

#8 - The "Markt" square, Brugge

#9 - Carl chowing down on some tasty mussels!

#10 - View of canal and city gate, Brugge

Be sure to read the post below for a full trip report!

Brugge/Bruges trip report and pictures

We had a terrific weekend in Brugge, and I can definitely see why it's such a popular place to visit. The entire old city, encircled by a canal/moat, has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and four of the nine original city gates are still standing (I've included two pictures of one of them). It is pretty touristy, and I'd imagine it gets quite crowded in summer, but the appeal of the place is undeniable.

We arrived around lunchtime on Saturday and spent the afternoon wandering a few of the major shopping streets and enjoying the beautiful weather (and of course a few good beers, as you can see by the picture!). We really lucked out too, because not only was it a warm, sunny day, but it also happened to be one of two weekends each year when they close down the old city to car traffic and stores/restaurants set up outdoor stands all along the streets. It's called the Braderie, and it's not mentioned in any of the tourist guides I looked at so I think it's done more for the locals.

This also happened to be a big weekend for World Cup Rugby, with quarterfinal matches involving England vs. Australia and France vs. New Zealand being played on Saturday afternoon/evening. Carl has taken a liking to the sport, so in late afternoon we found a pub that was showing the matches and sat down to watch England and the Aussies...it was quite a battle! I was rooting for the Aussies, but England ultimately won the match. Afterwards we headed back to our B&B to relax for a little while and get ready for dinner.

We decided to enjoy the luxury of dinner at a real restaurant that night - not something we do often anymore on our tight budget. We hadn't yet tried the signature Belgian dish of mussels & fries, so we both decided to order that. We were not disappointed! As you can see by the picture, we got a huge steaming pot full of mussels in the provençale style, and they were tasty and quite filling. After that we returned to the pub to watch France play New Zealand - France won that match, so again I found myself cheering for the losing team! Both the afternoon and evening matches brought a very fun-loving crowd though, and as a result we now have invitations to visit new friends in both Paris and Leicester (in central England)!

Sunday we thought it would be nice to see a little of the surrounding area, so we rented bikes for the afternoon. We picked up a map and decided that since it was shaping up to be another nice day, we'd head for the coast. There is a huge network of bike paths throughout Flanders, making it really easy to cycle to just about anywhere! We were pedaling against the breeze on the way out so it took us a few hours to get there, but it was a nice ride through the flat Flemish countryside with a lot of farms along the way. We headed to De Haan, a small city along the coast that reminded me a little bit of a coastal New England village, but with different architecture (a little research has taught me that the style is called "Belle Époque" for any architecture buffs out there). We enjoyed a mid-afternoon meal on an outdoor terrace and visited the beach for a few minutes, but unfortunately we couldn't linger very long because we had to return the bikes by 5:00PM. The ride back was also nice, though we pushed ourselves to go a little faster this time so we wouldn't be late. I did stop briefly to snap a photo of one of the canals we crossed on the return ride - it was beautiful!

When we got back we were a little tired - okay, I won't lie, we were exhausted! The ride was about 45km roundtrip (about 28 miles), but our bikes weren't all that sophisticated or fast, so it was quite a workout! We had a great time though, and I would recommend the trip to anyone who wants to get a little exercise while enjoying the quiet countryside and taking in some great scenery.

Sunday was a low-key evening of a casual dinner followed by one more rugby match (Argentina vs. Scotland, and finally the team I rooted for, the Argentines, won!), and Monday morning we took the train back to Brussels. It was a memorable weekend, and we definitely hope to return at some point because we really didn't do any of the stuff that first-time visitors would do...things like a canal cruise and climbing the Belfort for a view of the city. That's okay though, I have a feeling we'll end up bringing some visitors here at some point, and we'll get to do it for the first time then. Any takers?? :-)

Sound off!! What would you like to hear about?

Okay, here's everyone's chance to tell me what topics they'd like to see addressed on the blog. I know I need to add some pictures of our apartment and neighborhood, but what else would you like to see or hear about? Just add a comment at the bottom of this post - funny, serious, reflective, philosophical...I don't care what category it falls under, I just want to know what you want to hear!

Is it really October already?

I was amazed to look at the calendar today and realize that tomorrow it will have been six weeks since we arrived in Brussels. In some ways it seems like we've been here much longer, but in others - acquiring language skills for instance - it's hard to believe it's been that long. I'm not sure what kind of miracle I was expecting, but I guess I'd hoped we would be a little further along than we are when it comes to French in particular. We've just finished the first week of our French course though, so I'm sure soon we'll feel more capable with the language.

As for culture shock, after discussing it briefly together we really can't say that we've felt all that much of a shock. There is enough that is familiar or at least similar to the States to lessen the impact, and I think we're both pretty good at adjusting to new surroundings quickly. Perhaps once the "honeymoon" phase wears off completely we'll feel differently? My friend Lyndsay (hi if you're reading!) said it took several months for it to wear off when she moved to Germany, so I guess we'll have to wait and see!

The final update: we have a trip planned this weekend, to Bruges/Brugge in northwest Belgium. Bruges is probably the most visited place in the country, and we can't wait to find out why! We're taking the train there early Saturday morning and plan to return late Monday morning. I promise to post a trip report and some photos, probably on Tuesday!