It's been a YEAR!

Today is the one year anniversary of our arrival in Brussels - WOW!! It's amazing to think of how the time has flown - it really doesn't seem like it was an entire year ago that we were arriving here and getting settled. It's also hard to believe that we've known all of our friends here for only about 11 months or so. Many of those in Carl's program talk about how unusual it is that so many close friendships have been formed during this short period. It's true too; Carl and I have both moved around a lot in the last 10 years or so of our lives, and the friendships we've made here are definitely among the closest we've ever formed in such a short period of time. I guess the shared experience of being far away from home and in an unfamiliar place is a unique one, so we all tend to stick together and support one another more than usual. We still love and miss our friends and family in Portland and elsewhere (of course!), but we've definitely formed some great, hopefully lifelong friendships in our time here so far.

In other news, we've definitely been busy lately. Carl turned in his dissertation on the 11th so that's a big weight off of his shoulders (and mine to a point as well, as I was his Editor-in-Chief!). My dad and stepmother arrived the very next day and were here until just this morning. We had a great time showing them around Belgium, including some new places in southern Belgium that we'd never visited...so look for a trip report on Bouillon and Bastogne in the next few days!

On the employment front, Carl will be signing his contract with Proximus/Belgacom on Monday. I also have a few prospects, one resulting from my meeting with the Proximus recruiter that I mentioned before. There aren't any specific opportunities with them yet, but I am in their database and several hiring managers have seen my CV (résumé) and have said I would be a strong candidate should a position open up. The other prospect involves a US company that will at the moment remain unnamed; I applied for a position there this week, and got a phone message about it the very next day! Thus far I've only traded voicemails with them, but the fact that they called so quickly HAS to be good! So there is definitely some activity happening on the job front, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something will happen before we fly to the US.