Belgium, We're Gonna Miss You!

Well, we'll have been here for almost exactly a year since we arrived on September 5th, 2003. It's been a great year and a great expatriation experience, despite the red tape involved. We learned that anything is possible when you set your mind to it. Moving to a foreign non-English-speaking country was a scary thing to do, but we did it and it worked out swimmingly. I did not get a job in a brewery as I had intended to do and Kristen withdrew from the International Relations program. Thusly, vaporizing the reasons why we moved here (or at least the excuses for doing so), but ended up finding another job and Kristen had lots of things to keep her busy, not least of which was the housewifery. And by doing so, we were able to stay in Belgium. Then some other ideas popped in our heads which lead to this next step: me getting accepted to a school in the UK and us deciding to move over there. My, how the tables have turned! Now, Kristen will be supporting me through school instead!

Sadly, though, what comes with that is the reality that we have to leave Belgium. A country that we have come to love, despite all of its idiosyncracies. A place we have come to regard as our home. We have questioned ourselves many times, asking "Why is it we're leaving again?" But the answer has always been one of stark reality, we don't have any prospects for making a living, doing something we love here. Continuing for years at a call-center is NOT an option. Where would that lead? I can't see myself in an office for the rest of my life. The bottom line is that we need to think of the future. That's why I'm heading back to school to get a Masters and a PhD. So that I can be qualified for something! And who knows, maybe with a doctorate degree, we can move back here. We have no inkling of what the future will look like in four years, so we're going to take it in stride.

But we're still going to miss this place a whole hell of a lot. Especially the following things:

-The real Belgian Waffles... We've described them before, but no description does them justice. Only the people who have tried them can possibly know what we're talking about. They're just heaven between two pieces of wax paper!

-Our Neighborhood... This really struck us last week, when we rolled at 11:00 at night from our long return trip from Denmark. There we were in our quiet little section of Brussels with the hodge-podge melange of building styles and the intersecting curvey streets. It really felt like home!

-Parc Cinquantenaire...Full of towering chestnut trees, assorted oaks and tons of flowering shrubs, it is a green oasis in the middle of our bustling city. Our neighborhood smells fresh and clean because of it. The Parc has been my favorite place to be almost every day, either walking, running or sitting on a bench and people-watching. The top of the monumental arches is where Rich proposed, so it has become even more special. It has been a treat to spend an entire year watching the seasons change.

-Brussels Architecture... This city is so overlooked in the world tourism circuit. No one really seems to know what this city is about. There aren't really any "world famous" monuments aside from the Grand Place and Mannekin Pis. Some even refer to it as a "Euro-ghetto," but this couldn't be further from the truth. As a whole, the architecture is an eclectic mix of old french, seventies brick and modern glass-fronted buildings. Like Paris on a smaller, friendlier and cleaner scale.

-Belgian Beer... Anyone who knows me isn't surprised that this is something that I'll miss. Sure, you can get Belgian beer in other countries, but what I'm going to miss is walking into a supermarket and having a enviable amount of world-class beers to choose from at bargain-basement prices. Plus, the fact that Belgium is the only place where you can get ALL of the beers brewed in Belgium. In other countries, you are stuck with what the importers have deemed sellable. This cuts out an extraordinary amount of great beers. Then there's the Belgian beer "scene": countless quaint cafes and bars serving these luscious brews, an unending stream of beer festivals and open-brewery days, easy access to lambic and geuze, and that feeling that you are so privileged to be on the inside of this scene (at the envy of all beer-tourists passing through for only a couple of days).

-Our Apartment... It's a cozy little pad, though with the high ceilings, it doesn't feel small. The wood floors give off a warm glow and they creak a bit when you walk on them. We have a total of five radiators in the place and they provided instantaneous heat in the winter, making it a toasty little nest to come home to. Then we have our little sealed off courtyard in the back, which we didn't spend much time in, but it was nice to have a little outdoor space to get a feeling for the seasons. I always enjoyed going out there on a late afternoon to listen to the sounds of our neighborhood: some cars passing in the distance, somebody's TV on somewhere, someone practing the flute, birds chirping, noises from some event in the park, different languages drifting down in muted fragments.

-Multi-culturalism ("speaking" French/Dutch)... Even though we have had a lot of trouble with the fact that we aren't fluent in French and Dutch, when it comes down to it, we really enjoy being immersed in this environment. Just hearing other languages spoken all around you is a wonderful thing in the end.

-Our bakery & the Sunday Ritual. My favorite time of the week. After my Sunday morning run in the Parc, Rich and I go to the bakery down the street for an assortment of pastries and then to the newsstand for the Sunday London Times. Back home we assemble breakfast on the coffee table and spend hours reading the paper, discussing the news and listening to music.

-Being in Belgium (the feeling... our home)... Not many people just get up one day and move to Belgium. The major influx of people really comes from the EU parliament. And not many people know much about Belgium or would even think of putting it on a dream-list of places to move to. So there is some amount of cache in saying, "We live in Brussels". But apart from that, as mentioned earlier, it has come to feel like our home and half of both of us really feels a yearning to settle down here somehow.

-Beersel & Drie Fonteinen... This has become one of our favorite day-trips. Taking a drive into Payottenland and ascending the hill that Beersel is perched upon. Beersel is a tiny Flemmish town that is the home of a medieval castle and one of the better lambic breweries in the country, Drie Fonteinen. They also run a cozy restaurant that specializes in many regional dishes and all of the standard Belgian fare. Of particular note is the potte kaas, the vlaamse carbonnade and the draft lambics.

-Brussels Int'l Fantasty Film Festival... Though Kristen was very tired after working there, the amount of great films that we were able to see made it all worthwhile. Plus, the festival is one of the more interesting ones around what with all the surrounding antics that occur before and after the films.

-Quality of the food... We really got the sense that everything was of really high quality, particularly the meat and dairy products. The cheese here is perfection and much more flavorful than what you normally get in the US because they don't pasteurize all of the taste out of the products here (this is generally the case in all of Europe). The meat is also of great quality. I don't think I would eat "filet americain" (raw meat) anywhere else in the world because I don't trust the meat anywhere else. Then there's the food in restaurants. It is much easier to find high quality, super-delicious food in the restaurants. And the prices are reasonable at the same time.

-Friends... We made a few friends while living here, some from my job and some from other "sources". It's always hard to leave people behind, especially ones that you get along with and like to be around. Our hope is that they will all come visit us and that we can visit them too!

-Grande Place and the other touristy spots (like rue de Bouchers)... Though you get caught in a throng of tourists during the peak season, it's still fun to just amble around the narrow, curvy streets, tripping over the cobblestones, etc. Great people-watching opportunities abound. You sort of think to yourself, "Hah! We live here and you guys are just visiting! Now who's the cool guy?"

-Mornings... After Rich left for work each day I would get up and decide what sort of workout I wanted to do - running, walking or yoga. Then it was a shower and sitting down in front of the computer for a leisurely iced coffee and yogurt. I looked forward to these mornings for their simplicity and the pure luxuriousness of doing exactly what I wanted to, without feeling I had other stuff I should be doing. Although by late afternoon I was always ready for Rich to come home!

-Snack Friterie Merode... A "pita place" that was recommended to us by a friend. Quickly became one of our favorite places to go for a quick bite to eat. Their pitas and durums have fries inside them instead of on the side! This, I'm told, is not exclusive to this place however. The best sauce to get is Samourai & Tartar. Yum! We will go there tomorrow for our last dinner in Brussels.

-RP- & ~K