Most of the people in Belgium are very well dressed. Sometimes I will spend my whole commute examining how my fellow travelers have assembled their outfits. At the moment, there is an emphasis on jeans with boots, or skirts with patterned stockings. While most of the stores display very beautiful objects, there is one place in Bruxelles Midi train station that has consistently terrible clothing. Not only that, they like to emphasize this using clones to demonstrate that this was a deliberate and conscious act of ugly.

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.