July 2007:
Got married to Adrian in Canada.

Nov 2007:
Adrian claims UK citizenship by descent, thus I become married to an EU citizen.

Sept 2008:
Decide to move to Belgium.

Dec 2008:
Submit our Canadian marriage certificate to the Canadian High Commission in Australia for legalisation.

Feb 2009:
Present ourselves to the Leuven Town Hall.
Discover that the marriage certificate actually needs to be certified by the Belgian Embassy in Canada.
A friend retrieves the certificate from Canberra and posts it to Canada.

March 2009:
Receive my legalised marriage certificate.

Bring my legalised marriage certificate, passport, and rental contract to the Leuven Town hall to initiate my request for residency.
The police verify my address.

April 2009:
I am granted a five-month temporary residency and work permit until August.

July 2009:
We move house, and present ourselves to the Saint Gilles Town Hall. The police will have to verify our address before they can acknowledge our residency.

September 2009:
The police come to our apartment and go through our wardrobe to ensure our marriage is legitimate. Apparently this is quite normal in Brussels.

October 2009:
I receive an appointment at the Saint Gilles Town Hall. I present proof that we are living in Saint-Gilles. They take my temporary work permit, and tell me I will receive the codes to activate my 5-year permit in 15-21 days.

November 2009:
I go to the Town Hall to inform them the codes have not arrived in the post, and request new codes.

January 2010:
We inform the Town Hall that the codes have still not arrived.

February 2009:
I receive a letter from the Town Hall informing me that my codes have arrived.

I go to the Town Hall, and I am given a ticket to return the next morning at 8am.
I return the next morning, and I am told to return the following morning at 8am.
I return the next morning, and I am presented with my very own “carte de sejour de membre de la famille d’un citoyen d l’Union”.

October 2014:
I become eligible for Belgian citizenship if I demonstrate sufficiency in one of their official languages.

I arrived in Europe with almost no knowledge of world history. While walking through Leuven, I noticed that a bunch of buildings contained identical stones that said “1914″, with some strange symbols on them. It looked like a bushel of wheat or something. A bumper crop year? Adrian had to sit down with me and explain that in that year, most of Leuven had been destroyed by the Germans in World War I. The buildings that were subsequently rebuilt all integrated this stone into their facades, in memory of the destruction.

After 22 months of anticipation, twenty-eight year-old Asian elephant Khaing Phyo Phyo has finally given birth to her fourth child at Antwerp Zoo. Phyo Phyo was born wild in Myanmar, then was captured to live in the Netherlands and the UK before moving to Antwerp. Over the past eleven years she has three previous children - Timber, Sitang, and May Tagu. The father, Alexander, has been responsible for nine other healthy offspring, however this baby is the first product of Phyo Phyo and Alexander together.

An elephant birth is a first for Belgium. The anticipation was so great that many Belgians signed up for SMS alerts of the birth. The progress of the gestation, from ultrasounds to a live video of the birth, was projected onto giant screens. She was born at 8:45 AM on Sunday May 17, weighing 80 kilograms, and was on her feet within 20 minutes. Her four-year-old sister May Tagu was originally jealous, but with the help of aunt Phyo Yu Yu Yin, she now seems to have welcomed the little one into the family.

A nation-wide competition was held to name the baby, and the result has just been revealed: Kai-Mook (”pearl”). To celebrate this event, the post office will send 4.8 million postcards to the households of Belgium - a world record number of birth announcements. All of Belgium is united in celebration of this delightful event.

Photos from bebe-elephant.be

I am finding it very hard to dress stylishly for the office. I end up looking like Betty (above), while the rest of the women here resemble Amanda (below). My workplace is full of international women who shop in Paris and who have a knack for pulling together an interesting corporate outfit. I end up looking like a grandmother, a school child, or a flight attendant, rather than a competent business woman. I have no training for this. I have spent my adult life in university settings, where anything above track pants was considered glam. I don’t even know where to shop. I guess the first step is to change my shoes. I am going to try a tiny bit of a heel and if I don’t break my ankle on the cobblestones, I shall consider it a success.