House Hunt

In early November of last year Simone and I visited both Brussels and Amsterdam when we were deciding a) if we wanted to move to Europe for this new position and b) which city it would be if we decided to go.  We chose Brussels (obviously), and we even narrowed down our possible neighborhoods during our "orientation tour" with our relocation agent, Birgit.

Brussels is made of 19 communes (think of Manhattan neighborhoods, like Soho, each with its own governing body). We focused on the commune of Ixelles, and in particular the Place du Châtelain, which is located about 1/2 mile south of the historic center, but is still right downtown. In addition to being beautiful, it has all of the conveniences of city living (shopping, dining, markets, and most everything within walking or tram/metro distance).

Fast forward to me being in Brussels without Simone in March and I've begun my new position with Avnet.  I've given our requirements to Birgit, walked endlessly around neighborhoods, scoured the internet, and interrogated my work collegues.  I am now ready for, as Birgit calls it, The House Hunt.

And so it begins.  March 12, 2008, a guided tour of 13 apartments that Birgit has picked out for us to tour based on my and Simone's input.  

All of the apartments are near either near Avenue Louise, the Étangs d'Ixelles/Flagey, or Place du Châtelain.  I'm partial to Châtelain going into The House Hunt.  

We see some nice apartments . . . 

Some not so nice . . . 

One with an innovative dishwasher/oven combination . . . 

Some (most?) with tiny kitchens . . . 

One with a washing machine in the storage space outside off the 4th story terrace . . . 

And one with incredible crown moldings and historic fixtures (that's Birgit in the picture below) . . . 

After a late night uploading pictures and movies of the apartments I saw to the internet and discussing the day's events with Simone, we decide that none of the apartments are exactly what we want and that I should keep the one apartment appointment that I have the following day.  All I know of the final apartment on The House Hunt is that it is on a street called Rue de Livourne . . . 

Mexican Delight!

The food culture in Brussels is incredible. Even random cafés have rich, colorful, beautifully-presented food. The array of cuisine-types visible from through my tram window alone is staggering: Tunisian, Lebanese, Indian, Thai, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Italian (just to name a few). There are outdoor markets in our new neighborhood (Ixelles) on the weekends and Wednesdays (and those are just the ones we know about so far!), convenience stores sell decent Bordeaux, and the sauce bearnaise is enough to make you cry. Then there is beer, cheese, moules, frites, and waffles...well that is a whole other post.

Even so, there is something about trying to obtain that which is seemingly just out of reach. In our case, that is Mexican food. We had been here about a week before I managed to scour out the ingredients for fajitas. Pleased with myself and the endeavor, I took pictures to commemorate the event.

Mexican delight!

Simone enjoying fajitas

Troy's thoughts on the fajita scarcity in Brussels

All fajitas aside, if we keep eating this well, they will have to roll us out of Belgium...

Death in Leuven

“Ahghghgh! Aghgh . . . my gosh!”

Most people swear here, but Simone says “gosh”. I think something a little bit stronger would have been justified. What I’m not certain about is whether her use of "gosh" here is due to 1) her character, 2) public setting, or 3) being abroad.

So she goes for the “gosh”, and it is a good gosh. Lots of emphasis. Kind of a deep, throaty “gosh”. Tons of diaphragm. I think we need to rule out reason number 2 above because she said the gosh with so much emphasis and emotion that everyone within a reasonable distance from her must have heard it, which indicates she wasn’t afraid of making a scene. Come to think of it, we are in a non-native English speaking land so she could have easily gone for something stronger and while many would have understood what she said, they wouldn’t have run for their children to quickly slap on the ear muffs while the crazy loud-mouthed American curses. So it must be 1.

It was a good day in Leuven. A bit cold and rainy, but nothing uncommon for Belgium this time of year. We drove the 18 km or so from our temporary home in Zaventem and parked our car, I believe illegally, a kilometer or so from the historic center. Lunch was nice and light at a bar/café on the Oude Markt (that’s Simone under the umbrella in the Oude Markt). Leuven is a college town and the university there is one of the oldest (1425) and most respected in all of Europe. College kids at old and well respected universities in Europe like to seek out a good time just as much as those at newer and more mundane schools across the globe, and the bars and cafes in the Oude Markt are where Leuven students do a lot of their seeking.

Simone thought she ordered goat cheese on toasted baguette, but got fried eggs with a salad. I mention this because Simone rarely interprets things incorrectly. But then, Leuven is in Flanders and neither of us knew any Flemish at that time, and little more now.

My difficulty with Flemish pronunciation is demonstrated most readily by my difficulty with the word, “Leuven”. Simone and Birgit (our relocation agent--you'll meet her later) say I need to stick my lips out more when starting with the first syllable, “Leu”. They say I need to form an “O” with my mouth, and then stick out my lips, like you do when you are a kid imitating a fish. Anyway, I’m about done with it. I’m thinking of just calling it as the francophones do, Louvain. I can pronounce that, but then, Leuven is in Flanders and I should really learn to pronounce it the Flemish way so I don’t come across as some self-righteous Wallonian.

We check out the 600 year old Stadhuis (seen at the top of this post) in the Grote Markt and freeze for a few minutes in the equally old St Pieterskerk church. Like I said, it is a cold day in Leuven, but it is a good five degrees colder (yes, Celsius, you ethnocentric Americans!) in St Pieterskerk church, so we we aren't much for hanging out in there. Then, “The Incident” occurs.

Simone and I decide that she doesn’t have a good bag for day trips and otherwise tooling about town. A purse she purchased in the States for just such occasions simply will not do. She needs something to wear across her chest, like a messenger bag, both for comfort and to deter would-be thieves. We’re on our way into our first store in Leuven in search of a good day pack for Simone and behind me I hear that diaphragmal (yeah, I know, not a word) noise coming from who is undoubtedly my Simone. I quickly turn to find Simone dazed, bewildered, upset, and covering her face. I have no clue what is going on.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ahgh” is all I get.

“Are you OK?”

More groaning.

“What’s wrong Sweetie?”

“Ahgh . . . stupid umbrella. I was trying to close it and it popped open and hit me in the chin.”

Can I laugh? Good thing I suppressed it. I’m concerned of course, this is my wife, but a pop open umbrella to the chin? That’s good stuff.

“What can I do?”

“I think I might pass out”, she says with tears in her eyes. Now I’ve lost any urge to laugh and realize she got it good and I go into “fix it” mode. I look for a place for her to sit and quickly get her down. She rests for a minute or two, groans a bit, and asks me to see if she is bleeding. A good scrape on the chin that is not quite deep enough to drip blood. She doesn’t pass out, but she is pretty shaken. Check out the sadness in the picture of her to the left pointing to her chin, with St Pieterskerk in the background.

"I could have died, you know?!? I could be lying here dead on the floor of a shop in Leuven after only a week in the country" ("Leuven" perfectly pronounced in Dutch).

"Ah, yeah, I know. That could have been pretty bad."

"No, for real. I could be dead on the floor right now and you would have had no idea what happened. You would have turned around to find me dead on the floor. If it would have hit me in nose it could have been like that Kung Fu move where you hit someone in the face and the cartilage goes directly into the brain and kills the person instantly. I could be dead on the floor of a shop in Leuven."

She really says, "Kung Fu", which of course makes me think of Sunday afternoons as a kid watching "Kung Fu" with David Carradine roaming about with his really bad hair. I almost tell her this, but that would only reinforce my legacy for extremely bad timing. Something that does not endear me to my wife. And besides, I don't think she would have gotten the reference . . . I don't think she is old enough to have have seen it and have it burned into her memory as I do.

"Yeah, that's definitely possible." I mutter, somewhat unconvinced. I don't know if that Kung Fu move is actually real. I mean, we all have heard about it, but really? Anyway, in general, she is right, if that thing would have hit her somewhere else in the face (eye, nose, teeth), she could have been pretty messed up.

She is able to pull it together and we find a great luggage/handbag shop. A new bag, that is perfect for day trips, is quickly (by a girl’s standards) found and eating a fresh pastry from the great Saturday market in Leuven quickly makes things all better. You can almost see a smile behind the pastry in the picture below.

The chin is sore for a few days. When she laughs or smiles she grabs her chin, and moans, “Owww”. Thankfully, however, “Death in Leuven, Offending Umbrella Suspected”, will not be the headline in the De Standaard.

Zaventem

Now that the blog is up and running, we can show you some pictures of things described in the first post, plus tell you some interesting facts about our first apartment here in Belgium.

While we are awaiting the arrival of our "stuff" from the States, Avnet is putting us up in nice temporary accommodations in Zaventem.

That's our apartment above the "tiles * ceramica" sign -- that is our terrace off the living/dining room.

The living room, then foyer, then view back to the kitchen/dining room (and Troy!).

To be technical about it, our apartment is just over the provincial border from the Bruxelles Capital Region into Vlaams-Brabant, and on a commune level, our address is at the intersection of 1930 Zaventem, 1932 Sint-Stevens-Woluwe, and 1950 Kraainem. But, that is splitting hairs unless you are attempting to use Google maps.

Zaventem et al are small towns that are now part of the Brussels/EU/NATO metro-area. Like the rest of Brussels, they also suffer from an utter lack of urban planning. There are completely beautiful, historic buildings right next to utterly hideous remnants of the 70s.

Flemish row house

 
 

View from the terrace across the alley


View up the alley

Sint-Stevens-Woluwe

Still, Zaventem is a livable place, with banks, pharmacies, groceries etc...nearby. Transit by Metro is a bit further, but there is a bus stop located across the street (the Flemish carrier De Lijn).

Advantages of living in Zaventem: Well-furnished apartment; close to Troy's office in Diegem; close to every home improvement and home furnishing mega-store in Brussels (Ikea is just the tip of the iceberg!); exposure to Flanders and the Flemish language; on auto-dealership row, which makes walking to test-drives a possibility.

Test-driving an Aston-Martin (yeah right)




Actually, just passing the dealership while walking to the 'O Cool', the gourmet-food-store-slash-frozen-food-emporium.

Disadvantages: aforementioned stinky smells; construction noises at early hours; long commutes downtown via multiple modes of public transit; oddly named "Family Game Center" casino located in the basement level of our apartment building.

This is the street view of our apartment building, complete with casino, just across the alley from the pretty historic row houses above.

On the whole, though, this is a pretty nice place to be in the short term...

First Week+ in Belgium

Thus far, the move has gone about as well as one could hope for in an international relocation. The movers came a week ago Thursday (3/27), packed our shipment, and took it to their warehouse for crating. They loaded it into a 20-foot shipping container with other crates and put it on a train to Houston. Next they will put the container on one of those huge container ships, ship it across the ocean to Antwerp, then truck it down to Brussels from Antwerp. It is supposed to arrive in Antwerp on about May 2nd, but depending on how long customs takes, we should have our stuff by June 1st (maybe earlier).

Because of the shipping time, we took literally a mountain of luggage with us on the plane, thankfully all of which arrived with us! We found a taxi big enough to hold it all, and were at our temporary apartment in Zaventem in no time. Zaventem is one of the outlying little towns that is now part of the Brussels metro area. It is way more Flemish than Brussels (which is largely Francophone), though Brussels is only 10km away. Right now we live on a street called Leuvensesteenweg, and spelling it right is a minor triumph! We 'take possession' of our permanent residence on Rue de Livourne on April 15th, but since we will not have our stuff yet, it is unclear about when we will actually move in.

If all goes well, the police are supposed to visit me sometime in the next two weeks to verify my 'domicile'. Once they file their report, I can get my resident card. Once I have that, I can get my drivers license too! We have been test-driving cars this week (Troy drives, I observe) and have picked out a pretty sweet Volvo. I must confess that I, a pretty aggressive driver by US standards, am still working up my nerve to conquer even the side roads here in Belgium. Our temporary apartment is on car dealership row, with everything from Seat and Citroen to Bentley and Aston-Martin.

Our temporary apartment is well-furnished, we have maid service, the building is new, etc…BUT apparently there are still some kinks -- like the fact that the hot water and the heat just turn themselves off for a couple of hours at a time (sometimes many hours!) at random times of the day and night. And, I have to hold my breath whenever we are in the hallways or the central areas due to the really bad smoke/cement/construction materials & chemicals smell. Those malodorous scents seep into our apartment too, so we have to crack the windows and have recently started putting a rolled up towel at the front door. Thankfully, the weather has been beautiful thus far! Ah well, reminders that this is real life after all...

Compared to the first month he was here, Troy’s job has gotten much busier since he got back. He visited the Amstelveen office (outside Amsterdam) last Thursday, this week he is scheduled to travel to the Nettetal (Germany) office, and next week is the logistics center in Tongeren (Belgium). Plus, he has actual work to do besides all these meetings.

I have been dividing my time between unpacking and organizing, and conquering things like the grocery store, ordering cable and internet service, and the tram system. I went downtown by myself last Wednesday -- took the Metro to the tram down to my new neighborhood. It is located in central Brussels, on the border of the communes of Ixelles and Bruxelles.

There is a market on Wednesdays in the Place du Chatelaine, so I went down to orient myself in our new neighborhood and shop at the market. It was great! A little intimidating at first when I managed to get all turned around and nearly lost in about 3 minutes, but then it got better. We have visited three farmers’/craft markets since we arrived—really fun and beautiful stuff!

We took our first road trip over the weekend – a quick drive east to Leuven, a college town whose university was founded in 1425! It is a super cute town, great architecture and shopping. I nearly took myself out in a freak umbrella accident (yes, umbrella), but luckily the only evidence is a skinned chin. And, there were lovely pastries in which to drown my sorrows.

Though my French is rusty (that's putting it charitably), I have used it a ton already. Interestingly, my Italian has been helpful as well. We have learned a couple of Dutch words too, so we are starting down the road to multi-lingualism (yeah right). Although most people speak at least some English, speaking French will make life much easier, especially in Brussels. We both can't wait to get in a class...