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Nov 24 2009

Dîner avec nos voisins

Posted by: Lydia in Brussels, tags: , , ,

A few weeks ago I was delighted to find an invitation to “a nice dinner for nice neighbours” taped to my door. Even though we live in a twelve-storey building, but we hadn’t really had anything more than a quick elevator conversation with anyone we live with.

Thus, it was a really lovely experience to be formally welcomed into the building with a delicious dinner of home-cooked mussels and frites. We met eleven of our neighbours, including an architect, students, and a radio documentary maker. Best of all, our host finished off the evening with some amazing magic card tricks. Spectacular, spectacular.

Most of the conversation was in French, as only about half the people there spoke English. My French comprehension was worse than useless. When one man asked me if I understood what was going on, I said that his wife was talking about being blond. No, he replied, she was talking about being the only woman in the class when she was studying medicine. I was mortified.


Photo by poluz

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Brussels.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Dîner avec nos voisins”
  1. Cedric says: November 24th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    How nice! I hope I’ll have such nice neighbours when I move to Brussels!
    I’m a bit surprised that so many people couldn’t speak English though, I guess that’s more common in French speaking Belgium (not saying they should learn it, just surprised)

  2. Peter says: November 25th, 2009 at 12:45 am

    :-)

    Pleased to read you met so many people in your building, in such a truly welcoming fashion.
    Trust me, that doesn’t happen everywhere.

    And yes, it’s not unusual for some French speakers to be monolingual,
    although predominantly the older generation suffers from that issue in Brussels.

  3. Lilacspecs says: November 25th, 2009 at 6:57 am

    Yeah, the only people as belligerent about not learning a second language as english speakers are french speakers. But glad you had fun! And no worries, I’ve been here quite some time and I still have a hard time understanding CB’s father. I can understand his sister and mother but not his dad. Understanding another language is not a perfect science.

  4. lianne says: November 25th, 2009 at 7:10 am

    haha that is too funny, lydia! well, not the part where you’re mortified, but i am so proud of you for trying. :) you have such sweet neighbors that you’ll be fluent in no time.

  5. Amy says: November 25th, 2009 at 10:47 am

    LOL Lyds! so close hey ;) Meh you should be proud of yourself – you are doing great.

    What a lovely way to meet neighbours!

  6. Lydia says: November 25th, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Cedric – Yes, I was surprised when first in Brussels at the lack of English-speakers. A lot of them are in their mid-twenties, too. Very different from Flanders.
    Peter – We are very lucky indeed to be welcomed despite our linguistic and cultural differences.
    Lilac – I wish I could even begin to understand. It is so difficult.
    Lianne – You would have loved his kitchen. A giant eight-burner stove, and plenty of bowls of fresh ingredients waiting to be added to the broth.
    Amy – I think you and I have very different population densities. It would probably take quite a few kilometers to encompass eleven of your neighbours

  7. Ellie says: November 25th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    That picture is making me hungry..