I was very impressed with the quality of the care. They have a 1:3 ratio of staff to infants, and all the children seemed very happy. If one of them was the least bit unhappy there was always someone there to lift them up and give them a kiss. They are constantly chatting to the kids in Flemish and the older ones talk back, pointing out the toy animals and the finger painting on the walls.

The children eat and fresh and healthy food during meal times, but they are never soothed with snacks when they cry. There is no television, and the children are very well behaved, stopping a dangerous or mean behaviour after a simple “nee”. No threats of smacks or other harmful punishments.

In fact, these people look like much better caregivers than I often am, especially when I flagrantly ignore the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of no television for children under two when we sit down to watch “Gossip Girl” together (though I do still talk to him to catch him up on the back story).

The people there were very kind and understanding of our previous tears. They said it’s very common, and they gave me the direct phone number of his room, and said that I can call them whenever I feel sad and they can tell me how he’s doing. They keep a detailed diary and communicate with us every day about his growth and development.

The moment that I knew everything was going to be okay was when I saw a one year old baby fall over. His dummy fell out of his mouth, and before one of the caregivers could reach him, a slightly older girl ran up to him, picked up his dummy, gave it back to him and said “niet huilen” (don’t cry). Being surrounded by these types of children every day will be so much more stimulating than even the best Fisher Price toy that I could buy.

I can see that experiencing a Flemish crèche from such a young age is going to give Hayden a great advantage, and I feel glad that he will be in such a nurturing and stimulating environment while we are at work.

In summer, all of the Oude Markt (old market square) becomes one giant outside bar. One spectacular Thursday afternoon Adrian organised to meet me “at the Oude Markt” and it took us over 30 minutes to find each other. This place is perfect for scoffing some Kriek cherry beer and soaking up the sunlight.

For late nights with a local flavour, we often take visitors to Seven Oaks. The place doesn’t come alive until well after midnight, so when we visit early we usually have the place to ourselves. They have a wide range of flavoured jenever (jin), Laurent-Perrier champagne on tap, plus they let you play a fun party game that involves hammering nails into a tree trunk.

However, my top bar in Leuven is Mattiz. They make the most amazing cocktails I have every tasted. There is a whole page just dedicated to chocolate flavoured mixtures, and I am methodologically working my way down the list. So far, my favourites are Tootsie Roll and After Dinner Mint. It’s a small place, but if you can score the table at the front it makes for the perfect place for a few after dinner drinks.

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.

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.

The next one will be interesting too. Thirty years old. I wonder what that will be like?

So on Easter Sunday, all was right with the world, as we both had a superb Belgian chocolate animal to devour, and they were delicious.

We move from Leuven to Brussels in July. I am really excited to move into the first home that we will own together. I am busy researching people do redo the kitchen and the bathroom and to install wardrobes and bookshelves. For me, the move will be great. It will cut an hour off my commute, and I will be able to practice my French while shopping and walking around the city. The shops are open for longer hours, and there are even a select few that are open on Sunday. For Adrian, it is more of a mixed bag. Leuven is a little too sleepy for us during the weekend, but an increased commute will add substantially to his already long hours at the lab.

I am very proud of Adrian, watching him build a research laboratory from scratch. He is an excellent mentor to his staff, and is constantly thinking about new experiments and possible collaborations. There are always grants coming up, and budget constraints, and so many tiny problems to solve. It isn’t a job that I could handle, but it means that Adrian has autonomy and independence, and can finally do research on his own terms. He has already succeeded in finding a position and a great start-up grant, and I hope that things continue to go well, with many grants and dozens of papers. He even has in his office a copy of the book to which we both contributed, back when I too was an immunologist.

Photo by hopkinsii

• Adrian has permanent residency and a Belgian driver’s licence
• Lydia has five months of probationary residency
• Adrian got his first grant and now has 3.5 lab members
• Lydia has a full time job in clinical epidemiology
• We bought a house, get the keys in June/July
• We have visited Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Germany
• Festivals: Cwarme in Malmedy, Carnivale in Binche, Laetare in Stavelot, and Kattenstoet in Ieper
• Lydia drank beer with Dot in Ieper
• Jeong and Lianne were our first house guests

When I write it out like that, we seem quite accomplished. Our plans for next 100 days:

• Lydia to remain employed past her six-month probationary employment contract
• Renovate kitchen and bathroom of our new apartment
• Lydia to start French classes
• Adrian to start Flemish classes
• Buy a kitten or puppy (?)
• Travels to Iceland and Paris
• Experience more Belgian festivals
• Lydia to buy iPhone 3
• Lydia to see Britney Spears
• Adrian to see Richard Dawkins
• Adrian to speak at conferences in Sweden and Copenhagen

Here’s hoping everything continues to go relatively smoothly for us. So far, we love it here in Belgium.

While the feline exterminations have been occurring in Ieper since at least 1476, the Cat Parade has only been a feature since 1946. These days there are floats representing cats through the ages, cat-related sayings, Puss in Boots, and cats from around the world. Some adorable Flemish feline sayings include “the fur will fly” and “when the cat’s away the mice will play”. We had a Flemish expert translate some more for us: “Sending your cat” means not attending something, i.e. “Many heads of state visited the summit, Barack Obama however, sent his cat”. De kat de bel aanbinden (“belling the cat”) describes a whistleblower. Een Kattenbelletje (“the cat’s little bell”) is a  quick note like “remember the milk”. We saw impressive acrobatic monkey cats, cats from their namesake musical, Garfield, and kangaroo cats from Australia.

The parade culminates with the appearance of the two feline mascots of Ieper. In 1955, Mr Cieper was born, joined in 1960 by his wife Mrs Minneke Poes. The were recognised as full citizens of the city and presented with a giant ID card from the commune. I wonder if they had to present a legalized marriage certificate and have their place of residence confirmed by the police. They have a son, Piepertje, who was born in 1974, however he was deemed to ugly to participate in the parade.

After the parade, a huge crowd began to form under the belfry of the cloth tower in the main square. In medieval times cats were kept in the building to prevent the vermin from consuming all the tapestries. However, the cloth was sold in Spring and the cats needed to be removed. So a jester would catch the cats from within the building, and fling them down onto the cobblestone floor of the square several stories below. It was not until 1930 that velvet cats were used instead for this ritual. Now the crowd still shouts encouragement when the jester holds up a ball of fur, but the prize is a toy kitten rather than a gory death. Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch any of the cats flung down from above, but Adrian bought me an identical one to watch over me at work.

The day concluded with an elaborate recreation of a witch trial. Tellingly, the bonfire and stake were prepared before the trial had even begun. Even though the whole proceedings were in Flemish, it was relatively easy to understand the gist. The judge was the pope’s representative, laughing at the poor woman in the cage, condescendingly listing the evidence of her sorcery. The noblemen and women sat below him,  nodding their agreement. Fellow townspeople hurled accusations.  And the defendant simply whimpered and cried “Neen! Neen! Neen!” until a limp ‘body’ was flung upon the bonfire and set alight. It was very eerie to watch such an accurate re-enactment of a religiously propagated murder, on the very site where such crimes had been perpetrated for hundreds of years.

As seen on the metro. So this is how I am to learn the tongues of my new country. I now know how to say “tighter” and “waist” in Flemish. Luckily “cellulite” transcends the language barrier. This machine scares me.

Image by bbusschots

Strangely, I really enjoy my commute everyday. I have 20-30 minutes on the train, and then 20-30 minutes on the metro. Between the two, I walk though the impressive Bruxelles-Central station, the sharp lines of the architecture reminding me of Taggart Transcontinental from Atlas Shrugged. It is a lovely way to relax and is a useful buffer between my realms of work and home. I can daydream, or read, listen to radio segments from the US or Australia via podcast, or even watch the latest Dollhouse or Gossip Girl episodes on my old iPhone. The Belgian countryside rushes past, and I can see sheep, goats, horses, and cows grazing peacefully on their pastures. Once on the metro, I really enjoy the feeling of energy and bustle as I enter one of the dozens of fast pods that ferry the citizens of Brussels underneath the city.

Image by michaeluyttersp

Pagan festivals to celebrate the end of winter and the imminent arrival of Spring have been recorded in Europe for thousands of years. Fasting, due to the lack of food available at this time of year, was also common. These traditions have been somewhat incorporated into the Christian calendar in the form of Lent. Laetare (Latin “to rejoice”) is the forth Sunday during the 40 days of Lent.

In Stavelot, Belgium, this day is celebrated with a parade dominated by the Blanc Moussi (“clad in white”). They are a non-profit and democratic brotherhood of 300 members who spend months producing ten tonnes of confetti and building giant confetti blowers. To become a Blanc Moussi, you must be male, have lived in Stavelot for at least two years, have been baptized, and then must pass a two year internship. Only then can one wear the white uniform.

Stavelot was once a prosperous town with a powerful abbey, and was filled with skilled tanners, goldsmiths, and metalworkers. Now, it is a small village of 6000 people, and it only comes alive once a year – Laetare Sunday – and we were there to witness the 507th festival. The parade consisted of performers from around the region – Stavelot, Malmedy, Ligneuville, Walmes, Trois-Ponts. From brass marching bands to giant floats pumping out tonnes of confetti to hundreds of white-robed creatures hitting you with inflated pig’s bladders, Laetare Festival has something for everyone.