Recently in All Things Belgian Category

After three years of dealing with Belgian bureaucracy, the uninitiated might think that things would get a little easier. They would be wrong.

I made an important discovery during today’s commune visit – workers are only permitted to give you one vital piece of information per visit. You must then continue to visit the commune, collecting your pieces of information, until you have everything that is required to obtain the document you seek. Andrew likened it to a scavenger hunt, where you collect clues to find a prize.

I remember one of the gas stations back home (I think it was Irving but I could be wrong) had a game every summer where you would get a map and with every gas purchase a city token to place on the map. When you collected all of the cities, you won a prize. This is exactly what a Belgian commune visit is like.

We’ve been to the St. Josse commune 3 times now (well 4 if you count yesterday when we went and they told us to come back today because there were already 50 people waiting). I must say that the clerk (as we managed to get the same one each time) was very friendly and helpful. He seemed to agree that it was ridiculous that our old commune couldn’t just send them our file, instead requiring all new copies of our documents. However, our ID cards have finally been dealt with. Our parking permit is another matter altogether.

On our first visit, we were told that we couldn’t get the permit until we were registered with the commune – clue number 1. One our second visit we were told that we had to have the vehicle registration papers with us – clue number 2. Today, we were told that because our car is a leased vehicle, we need an attestation from the company that Andrew is the primary driver. IF (and that’s a big if) we have all of the puzzle pieces next time and get the permit, we will have to return in July when we get our new car and do it all over again. Oh Belgium…

I can hardly believe we’ve been in our new flat for almost a month. Where has the time gone? (And where the heck is my staircase railing?!) Although we’re still busy trying to clean up the old house to hand over (soon, but not soon enough) we’ve had a bit more time for exploring. Last weekend we had a fabulous find – Jack O’Shea’s Butcher shop.

As you can probably tell from the name, Jack O’Shea’s is an Irish Butcher. I first heard about them when Flanders Today did a St. Patrick’s week special edition on the Irish in Belgium. I added it to the “places I must visit when we move to the city” list and miraculously remembered it last weekend.

Jack’s is about a 20 min walk from our flat. It’s a nice walk too – through Maria Louisa and Ambiorix parks, passing some lovely Art Nouveau buildings on the way.

The shop is small and welcoming and of course has a long counter full of organic meats. The staff was friendly and very helpful. We had some veg from our market adventure that we needed to use up and they suggested the perfect cut of beef for shish-kabobs and even cubed it for us. We bought some chicken that was pre-marinated in a spicy concoction that Andrew proclaimed tasted just like Swiss-Chalet. We also got some sausages and ground beef for the BBQ.

The shop also stocks a wide variety of organic spices and spice blends, sauces, preserves and a large selection of wines from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa among others. The prices were really reasonable and considering the quality and flavour of the meat, I may never buy at the grocery store again!

A pavilion of beer crates is being built in the Heizel area of Brussels, near the Atomium. Belgian beer brewery Jupiler is sponsoring this unusual construction and event. The beer crate pavilion, showing the historic film 'Expo 58', can be visited from 17 April. From Flanders News

When I enrolled in French immersion in Junior High school, I never could have predicted that I’d be using skills learned then to translate rental contracts in Brussels at age 31. (For that matter when I took journalism in university I never expected to be writing articles about living in Belgium either.)

The past month or so though, I’ve learned a lot of new French words that didn’t appear in my text books in grade 7 – Bailleur, Preneur, Election de domicile, Avis d'échéance… well you get the idea. In fact, because I’ve been so immersed in rental land, I’ve stumbled across some very useful websites regarding renting in Belgium, which I will post in the About Belgium section.

Up till now, I haven’t mentioned our rental adventures much on the blog because, frankly, I didn’t want to jinx it. I still don’t, but since this is a record of our life in Belgium, I guess I should record it.

So to back-track a bit, on my birthday, Andrew and I decided to put an offer on an apartment in Brussels. Our initial offer wasn’t accepted and we had to decide if we wanted to pay the full asking price or not. These decisions are always so stressful to me –do you stick with the current apartment that is very good in just about all respects but is a little more than you want to pay, or do you hold out for something cheaper that may never come along and kick yourself for losing the first place… In the end we decided to go for it.

So you’d think that would be pretty much it – sign some papers and we’re all good. Well, there still has been no signing which is why I’ve been holding off on writing. It took quite a while for us to even see a contract (Belgians and paperwork, you know). When we finally received it, it was just a standard document that had some major items missing.

As of Monday, we have the revised contract (hence my French contract reading skills) and are making sure that everything else is ok. I don’t know when we will actually physically be signing it, but I hope it’s soon. I hate being in limbo.

When (or perhaps I should say if) it is signed, I’ll give some more details and post some pictures. Until then, cross your fingers and send us happy signing vibes.

After 85 blog posts and almost three years of life as an Expat in Belgium, I am resigning my post as Expatica’s Belgian Blogger. As I reflect back on my early blog entries, I can’t help but marvel at how much has changed in my life over the past three years.

When I first arrived in Belgium, I struggled with so many cultural differences. I became flustered every time someone proffered a cheek for me to kiss. Now I pucker up without a second thought (although I sometimes still forget how many kisses each person is expecting. Can’t the EU come up with a kiss quantity standardisation policy?)

Sights that made me giggle, when I first arrived in Belgium, seem normal to me now, until a visitor or newcomer remarks on them. I am no longer fazed by bread or beer vending machines, public urinals or over-coiffed elderly Belgian ladies pushing tiny little dogs in baby strollers.

My culinary horizons have also broadened as I’ve been exposed to tastes from around the world as well as traditional Belgian flavours. I’ve become a Belgian chocolate snob and although I’ve never been a beer fancier, there is a special place in my heart for Lindeman’s raspberry, apple and peach brews.  I’ve become addicted to the excellent coffee and baked goods and I can even make a mean stoofvlees.

Although my time in Belgium has been mostly positive, there have been struggles as well. My first year was spent wading through red-tape only to emerge straight into the expat blues. Andrew and I have tangled with our landlords but by far our most frustrating battles have been with IKEA.

Somehow, since our arrival in this country, with nothing more than a few suitcases, our house has become filled with furniture.  We’ve come a long way from since our first purchase of nothing more than a mattress and a patio set.  Now I wonder how long it will take me to pack it all for our next move.

In the past, I always considered myself a rural girl. I grew up in a country setting and always thought I’d need a couple of acres of space so I could breathe easy. Now I find myself searching for a home in the city so I can be close to the action. I was once someone who spent hours a day in my car and now I long to be able to walk everywhere I need to go.

One of the main reasons for this desire surely has to do with the one thing that hasn’t changed since my arrival in Belgium – my dislike (distrust and fear) of Belgian drivers.

Although I haven’t yet achieved my goal of being fluent in Dutch (my sister-in-law was amazed but my menu translation skills), I feel much more comfortable conversing in my lapsed French than I did 3 years ago.

However I think the biggest change in my life, over the past three years, is how I view my career. When we first arrived in Belgium, I wondered how I would ever fill my days as a stay-at-home trailing-spouse. I had grand illusions of whiling away the hours at my craft table, spending time doing all of those hobbies that I never had time for in Canada.

Along the way though, my passion for photography overtook everything else and by the end of my first year, I found myself working full-time hours building my photography business. These days I find myself with so much to do that it can be overwhelming. Although I’ll never be rich in this career, I am doing something that I love (and frankly would be doing anyway without any pay at all.)

I will continue to write about my life and experiences in Belgium on CheeseWeb but I feel it’s time for me to pass the torch to a new blogger in Belgium - Someone who is still going through the early phases of discovering this remarkable little country.