Snow falling by our apartment in Leuven, February 2009

In February 2009 we migrated to Belgium, the heart of Europe. We spent the first six months in Leuven in a central semi-furnished apartment. Adrian was able to enjoy a short commute to work, but we found the weekends a little too quiet in this student town. I obtained permanent residency and started my new job as an epidemiologist in April. We bought our first apartment together in July, and became Brusselaars / Bruxellois. In August 2009, PepperMint expanded our family from two to four. Our son was born in Brussels in July 2011.

We still love living here. Brussels continues to feel exotic and romantic. We both enjoy our jobs, and we have met some really great people. Belgium offers a great base to explore countries from Azerbaijan to Iceland to Wales.

My biggest frustration continues to be with the language. I had assumed that after three years of living here I would be fluent in French. I have taken group lessons, I have taken one-on-one lessons, I have participated in language exchange meetings, I have listened to podcasts, I have watched movies, I have listened to radio, I have completed verb text books, I have talked to neighbours, shopkeepers, strangers. Every hour that I spend learning French feels like a horrid struggle. I do not enjoy learning another language. I assumed that once I got to a certain level, I would start having fun. I have not yet reached that level. I am constantly in awe of everyone else around me who is effortlessly multilingual, when I can’t even understand my neighbour in the elevator. This is the one thing that really makes me feel apart from everyone else I see on the street, I am not a true resident of this quarter. It also makes it almost impossible to call up anyone from the electricity company to the local government. I am dreading the process of enrolling Hayden in kindergarten in September.

Happily, two of the aspects of Belgium that I complained about last year - the lack of government and the smoking in pubs – have now been rectified. Plus they even opened the shops on Sundays during the January and July sales.

Cobblestones. Yes, they look beautiful and add a certain kind of charm to any street, but I am not one of those European women who can traipse across a paved trottoir in stilettos without mishap.

Smoking in pubs. If a pub makes 30% or less of its profits from food, then smoking is still permitted inside. This makes for an unbearable environment in winter, encouraging us to be a little more selective when choosing a watering hole.

No government. Belgium has now beaten Iraq for the world record for the longest discussions to form a coalition government – over 269 days have passed since the last election.

No Sunday shopping. Walking down the main shopping street of Rue Neuve on a Sunday is a surreal experience, with all doors closed and not another person to be seen.

The language barrier. It is often exhausting to have to get by with my very poor language skills. When a two page letter arrives from the commune, or when the apartment syndic is holding its annual meeting, I am completely out of my depth, and I often yearn for the days of effortless communication.

Too much to do. Not a week goes by without another festival or event. Blue sky days are the worst – it is so quick and easy to get around, and so few plausible excuses as to why one needs to stay inside.

The distance from Australia. I did miss the ambiance of a barbeque and the Hottest 100 on Australia Day, and it is too far away to just pop back to Oz for a wedding or birthday celebration.

The lifestyle. On a weekend we can stroll down those treacherous cobblestone streets to find a cute little crêperie housed in an Art Nouveau building. We might then stroll past some antique markets while listening to an accordion player busking outside, before enjoying a hot chocolate and some macarons in a bustling café. With treats like this, each week feels like a vacation.

The language barrier. Learning French is extremely difficult for me. Even with one-on-one lessons twice a week, I struggle with basic conversation. I hate memorising verbs and vocabulary, so being forced every day to talk with neighbours and read advertisements is the only way that I get any practise in.

The attitude to food. The Belgians take their food very seriously. I love that every hot drink is accompanied by a mignardise – a tiny chocolate or biscuit to finish off the experience. Beer is often accompanied by amuse-gueule (literally “mouth entertainers“), such an exotic term for a bowl of chips or peanuts.

The location. There is so much to do within a two hour train ride. Not only can one reach London, Paris, Aachen, Cologne, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam on the high speed rail, but within Belgium the local trains can take us to a myriad of fascinating towns, each with their own dialect, customs, festivals, and specialty beers, tarts, or biscuits. With a metro-stop right outside, living car-free has never been easier.

Puppies. There are dogs everywhere here. They are welcome in pubs and restaurants and often accompany their owners on a gentle promenade down the street. In winter they are also often outfitted in cute little jackets to keep their bellies warm in the cooler weather.

The healthcare . Every resident of Belgium can access the same world-class healthcare. No one over here needs to worry about losing their house if they get diagnosed with cancer.

The people. The people that we meet here have such interesting stories. If they are expats, they tell us stories about their country of origin and the path that took them here. If they are Belgian, they give us insider insights into this curious country. Dinner parties have never been more fascinating.

Family life. There is a strong emphasis on making time for the family. At my work, most people leave at 5pm and working on the weekend is unheard of. Including public holidays, we have over nine weeks of vacation leave every year. Women are entitled to 15 weeks paid maternity leave, which I hope to make use of when Adrian and I hopefully add an extra member to our family in August this year.

Career wise, I moved from an external consultant to an internal employee of my pharma company. I presented my work at the World Parkinson’s Congress in Glasgow, had my first epidemiology paper accepted for publication, and received an excellent end-of-year performance review. I am really enjoying my job, and I feel that I am very suited to the work that I am doing.

I also received my diploma for my Masters of Public Health, so I can now add a few more initials after my name.

Adrian won over 3 million euros worth of research grants this year, permitting him to expand his lab to include several technicians as well as seven PhD students. He published seven review articles, with several primary papers soon to be completed.

We are becoming more comfortable in our new home. I now have a Belgian driver’s licence and permanent residency, and my French has progressed from beginner’s level to intermediate. I can now have a basic conversation in most stores and usually walk out with the item that I required, as well as helping a person on the street with directions to a nearby landmark.

We have made a small but warm circle of friends in Brussels and Leuven. I have enjoyed Ladies’ Night in Leuven, as well as celebrating birthdays, Halloween and New Year’s Eve with some wonderful people. I have been welcomed into a dynamic English-speaking book club full of intelligent and articulate women.

Pepper and Mint are thriving. Through a regime of clomipramine, feliway, and regular treats, they are now relaxed and happy. No longer hiding under the couch, they run to greet us when we return home and seem to enjoy our company.

Our spare rooms were put to great use this year. Michelle and Grant were regular visitors, arriving with a bag full of home-made jam and Cadbury’s chocolate and leaving with a suitcase full of Cantillon beer. In January, Sydneysiders Robin and Neil used our place to rejuvenate during a round-the-world trip, sampling every gâteau that Pierre Marcolini had to offer. Luke and Shyla came to visit us from London to see and taste a bit of Belgium. Canberran Anna stopped by to help me celebrate my 30th birthday with cupcakes and cosmopolitans.

In July, Adrian’s mum Lynne took her first international flight to see her family in the UK as well as us here in Brussels. We took her on a road trip to Burgundy, France, where she met my mum and Josef for the first time.

In August my sister Amy stayed with us during her eurotrip, and we shared moules et frites in the Grand Place with our uncle Greig and aunt Margaret who also happened to be in Brussels at the same time.

In August, Mum and Josef arrived in Belgium to see our home and our new life. We took them to our favourite restaurants and shared with them the best sights of the region.

We have also managed to see a bit more of Europe. After starting the year in Milan, in February we took our young friends Lila and Grace to see Disneyland Paris in the snow.

Our Canberra friend Lina joined us in April to visit Slovenia, Italy, San Marino, and the Vatican City.

In June we spent a day in Cologne, Germany, to see the Cirque du Soleil perform. A few weeks later, after a couple of days in Belarus we met up with NYC John to journey through Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

We visited the UK several times – to explore Michelle and Grant’s new hometown of Cambridge, to see Luke and Shyla’s new flat in London, and I spent some time with Mum and Josef while they were house-swapping in Chichester.

In November a quick trip to Paris reunited us with the old Seattle team of Jeong, Lianne, Shyla, and Luke for some gourmet meals and spectacular sights.

Sadly, the year 2010 also had its moments of loss and grief. Some were dealt a very personal and heartbreaking loss, while others marked the anniversary of loved ones who had passed away in the years before. My nephew Jayden passed away in July from a sudden illness – this January 7th would have been his 17th birthday.

We are reminded that every day is precious, and we see how lucky we are to live and work in such a beautiful and interesting country. We are thankful for all the experiences that we shared with our friends and family in 2010, and we are looking forward to even greater adventures in 2011.

I have my next big French test on Monday. On my last French test in May I managed to score 87%, which means that technically I am no longer a Basic Speaker and I am now an Independent Speaker.

Since then I have moved from group classes to one-on-one classes twice a week. We started right back at the beginning from the present tense, then past tense, future tense, and conditional tense. The classes are exhausting, but it’s good to be forced to speak French for over an hour, twice a week.

I have had a few very tiny real-world successes that give me encouragement:

• I have asked for and understood directions to find some WD40 (dooble-vay day quarante) in a hardware store
• I have ordered pizza on the telephone, and the correct food was waiting for me at the restaurant
• I talked to my neighbours about the weather
• I explained the location of a parcel that I required to the receptionist
• I gave directions to Ikea to someone lost on the Metro
• I had a five minute conversation with a monolingual francophone at a party

When I listen to people speak, I still find myself frantically translating each word into English, instead of simply letting the meaning wash over me. And when I am browsing the web, it is all too tempting to let Google Translate do the work for me. I am still completely lost when I listen to a conversation between friends on the metro or even a dubbed episode of Buffy.

It is really hard to stay motivated to sit down and practice French every single day, and so easy to stay wrapped up in a tight Anglophone bubble. My iPhone is loaded with French apps and my shelf with French textbooks, yet it’s much more fun to watch an episode of Make it or Break it than conjugate verbs or watch les news on TV5Monde.

However, quite a few times I have ordered a hamburger or a chicken burger, and I have ended up with this:

That is not a hamburger. This is a hamburger.

Luckily Houtsiplou at Rouppe Place does a pretty good True Burger – they’ll even throw in a fried egg if you ask, but sadly beetroot is not yet an optional extra.

I have a soft spot for World’s Fair structures. Seattle has the Space Needle and Paris has the Eiffel Tower, but only Brussels has the Atomium. On a fine day I can see the 102-m tall ball-and-stick model of an iron crystal from our apartment, and it always makes me smile.

Photo by Musely

On Sunday I discovered that Adrian had made secret reservations as surprised me with dinner in the very top atom. The metro line by our door took us all the way out to the site of the 1958 World’s Fair in less than 30 minutes. They had closed the doors to the general public, and one had to be on a very short list to be permitted entrance. Our names were checked and then we were escorted to the elevator for a private ride to the top.

Photo from belgiumtaste.be

We were seated with a view over Mini-Europe, so we could look down at Big Ben and Mount Vesuvius while watching the Thalys on its way to Paris. Most items were circular including the candles and the menus. We were informed that there was a fixed-price menu, and we could choose any three items from the list. The waiter suggested a starter, main, and dessert, but he gave me permission to have one main and two desserts instead. Adrian had the white asparagus, cheese platter, and cheesecake. I chose the chicken risotto, four-layer mouse, and chocolate meringue.

We meandered over our meals, discussing our lives and our plans, and watching the sun slowly set over Belgium. The lights over Atomium were lit by the end of the night, and as we walked back to the metro station it seemed to twinkle at us in farewell.

Photo by Merdichesky

The beer is only brewed between October and May when the conditions are perfect. In summer it is too hot, and the wrong bacteria will enter and spoil the beer. After the water from their own well is mixed with and wheat and barley are boiled in giant copper boilers, the liquid is then poured into a broad shallow pool up in the attic. The windows are opened, and 86 different types of wild yeast drift inside to impregnate the liquid. Wooden beams line the rafters to act as a sponge and slowly release the microorganisms over the day. In order to prevent spoilage, aged dry hops are added to the beer to prevent bacterial spoilage.

The department of health decided that this process was not safe for public consumption. So the association of lambic brewers went to the European Commission to plead the case. The EC recognised that it was a unique and important process, and granted them permission to continue brewing in this method. They drafted strict rules to ensure that any beer marked as a traditional lambic had to follow a specific brewing process, including a round of pasteurization to sterilise the beer.

We sampled four different beers. Faro, Gueuze Cuvée René, the traditional Kriek Cuvée René, and the modern Kriek.

Faro is one of the simplest types of lambics to brew, based upon the recipe discovered in the middle ages. It is a blonde beer that is quick and easy to make, with candied sugar added at the end of the process to make it sweeter. The Belgians call it a light, low alcohol beer, as it is only 4.2%.

The gueuze is a mixture of lambics of different ages to give a particular sweetness and taste. The young beer contains enough sugar to permit fermentation for another year in the bottle, producing bubbles and peals. Our guide called it the champagne of beer.

The traditional old-style kreik lambic is fermented for at least three years in giant wooden barrels along with whole black cherries, then fermented again in the bottle. It is not filtered and all the sugar has been fermented into alcohol. It is dark and murky, and tastes muddy and sour.

The new modern kreik is much sweeter and is fermented for less than a year in metal drums. Cherry juice and sugar are added to the broth, and the result is a very sweet and delicious drink. While it was interesting to taste the traditionally-brewed lambics, I still prefer the taste of the modern sugary kriek.

We spent the day in Hasselt, sampling a wide range of their delicious jenevers, and snacking on freshly baked speculoos cookies. My favourite part was watching the cocktail jugglers assemble the winning cocktail, a mojito-inspired concoction of lime and mint.

Marden is numb and unable to comprehend the personal and global tragedies of the war, his loss so great it was impossible for me to grasp. What really shook me were the descriptions of Belgium after just after the war. I have visited these cities, now so carefully reconstructed, and it is so difficult for me to imagine them destroyed. For me, these are sunlit towns filled with happy memories, so to read of their annihilation was like learning of the abusive childhood of a dear friend.

It was like having heard of heaven and hell, and finding out, in one revelatory moment, that this is what they consisted of – not magic zones of fire, not fleecy zones of clouds, but a vaguely undulating series of muddy fields that looked like a lumpy pudding.
“Voila“, Conner said, smiling ironically. “The Western Front”.
…
Back on the island he had has a friend named Andre Slater who had a farm and grew potatoes. It wasn’t a particularly big farm, not by western standards, and yet the battlefield he stared at could have fit inside with room to spare. In the end, it was this comparison that defeated him – thinking how many boys had tried trying to cross Andre Slater’s farm.

Photo from JaaQ

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