Home Again

Well it's been a very busy three weeks or so, but we're now settled back into our apartment in Brussels, and Carl starts his new job tomorrow!! We had a blast seeing everyone, shopping and indulging in our favorite foods, but we're also glad to be back. We're also looking forward to getting back into more of a routine, after a very fun but hectic summer of visitors, travel, job hunting, English teaching and dissertation writing!

My job search continues as well...one job I interviewed for didn't come through (which was okay because I wasn't sure I wanted it anyway), but I have a meeting with a recruiter this Friday so hopefully something will materialize soon. In the meantime I'm doing great, Carl is excited to start his new job and we're both very happy that we've been so fortunate to be able to stay here!!

Quick summary of our visit to the USA:
US states visited: 4 (CA, OR, MD, VA) + Washington DC
Stores shopped: at least a dozen!
Furniture moved: all of it (from one storage unit to another, and some of it sold - whew!)
Sushi meals eaten: 3
Burritos consumed: 4 each
Microbrews consumed: I lost count
Runs completed: only one - yikes!
Pounds/kilos gained: I ain't tellin'!!


Pic: me and the Ervin's (Tosh, Bree, yours truly, Carl, Bill - didn't I marry into a nice looking bunch??)

Dreaming of burritos and sushi

An odd combination I know, but those are the two things I'm most looking forward to eating when we land in the US later this week. Burritos are pretty hard to find here, and when you can find them they're either not very good, or decent but EXPENSIVE!! See last fall's post titled "Pablo the Belgian Mexican" for more on the $27 chicken burritos of Brussels. After a year of living on our own homemade versions of it, I'm thrilled at the idea of savoring one of my favorites, the big honkin' $6 burritos from Chipotle!!

Sushi, while not hard to find here and of generally good quality, is also quite expensive, so I've only had it three times in the past year...once just the other day actually, courtesy of Yoko and Nanako, the greatest English students ever! :-) I can hardly wait to visit Mio, my favorite sushi haunt in Portland, and also the fabulous lunch buffet at a place in Herndon, VA - the name of which escapes me at the moment, but we know where to find it!!

Apart from burritos and sushi, I'm also looking forward to enjoying my mother-in-law's fabulous cooking (I'm told she's already bought huge quantities of sukiyaki meat - YUM!!), and lots of other places that serve some of our favorite things. Geez, with all this eating we'd better schedule a few runs into our visit, or I'll come back here with some unwanted extra baggage!! :-)

So in case it isn't obvious, I'm very excited for this trip, and can't wait to see family and friends, do some shopping and enjoy a bit of Americana!!

The elusive Belgian friend

Before we came to Belgium I remember reading that the Belgians were rather reserved (maybe not the perfect term, but the best I can come up with), and hard to befriend if you are an outsider/foreigner. Well after over a year here in Brussels I think I can say with some sense of authority that that statement is VERY TRUE!! Just last night an English friend and I were discussing just how hard it is to get to know a real 'local' here. We agreed that we aren't sure what it is exactly, but it seems that there's something that gives the Belgians this 'elusive' quality when it comes to forming friendships.

I'm not terribly bothered by it because we have plenty of friends here from lots of different countries, and I know in part it's because we've mostly been associating with expats connected with the University of Kent...but when I stop to think about it, it does seem a bit odd that I can't count a single Belgian citizen among my circle of friends, even after living here for over a year. So I guess when we finally do form our first bonafide Belgian friendship, we'll really feel like we belong!! :-)