Yesterday was a big day. We met in Ghent to sign the final deeds on our mortgage and the deeds for our apartment. We were there with our notary, the seller was there with his notary, there was a representative from the bank, and a legal secretary. They really like conducting business in person here in Belgium. The documents were in French, but verbally translated to us by our notary. The seller and his notary could read French but held their discussions in Flemish. It took two hours for the notary to go through every article and ensure that we understood and agreed to what we were signing. They were very thorough. He even gave us the document that we would need to submit to the government to protect €900/month of our income if the rest was seized by the bank for non-payment of the loan. Each page had a lovely big red stamp that read “Belgische Notaris – Notaire belgique – Belgische Notar”, and was initialed by all parties present. Finally, with a handshake an exchange of the keys, the home was ours.

After that we went to Ikea to order a dining table, chairs, bed, mattress, sofas, desk, and coffee table. It is a big deal to get things delivered to our apartment. The elevator is too small for most items. Thus, we need to register with the police to block off part of the road, and then hire a 15th floor external crane/lift to move everything through the windows. So we need to get everything delivered from our old place and from Ikea on the same day – July 10th.

Finally, it was time to walk through our very own apartment. Adrian hadn’t seen the place for four months, so I hoped that he still liked it. You can see the entrance to the metro from the front door of the apartment complex:

Eleven stories later, we saw our front door:

And our entrance, with a bucket of paint to redo the outside windowsills, if we wish:

The guest bedroom:

The day was glorious, we opened up the windows, and Adrian discovered that we can see six of the Atomium atoms from the lounge-room if we stick our heads out. We could also see people picnicking in the park below:

We welcomed in 2008 on a flight back to Seattle, unaware that it would be our last year in the USA. We both worked very hard during out post-docs in medical science, and we both made novel discoveries and uncovered some of the mysteries of the development and function of white blood cells. Adrian had his work published in some excellent journals, and I learned that the paper from my post-doc “may be suitable for publication, pending revisions” in a great journal. Adrian has been offered a professorship, and I am investigating some interesting jobs in clinical trials. We experienced the freezing winters of the North that will never make me consider Canberra to be a cold city ever again.

I attended MacWorld and witnessed Steve Jobs give his last keynote and unveil the Macbook Air to the world. We explored more of the USA in dribs and drabs – Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii – as well as exploring the Ukraine and Moldova.

The biggest issue that we faced in 2008 was the decision about where we would live in 2009. At first, it was between Maynooth (Ireland), London (UK), Montreal (Canada), and Brussels (Belgium). We visited all four places, and it came down to a battle between the two bilingual cities, Montreal and Brussels, and then Brussels won due to employment and travel opportunities. We celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary in the country that was to become our new home, and Adrian will starting his own lab at the University of Leuven from February 2009.

We finished up our post-docs in Seattle in November, made huge progress towards completing our Masters of Public Health degrees, and finished up the year visiting extended family in Australia that ranged from Brisbane to Adelaide. After nearly two years outside of Australia, we are able to see our birth country with new eyes, and appreciate its charms as well as its challenges. It is a country of relative compassion and opportunity, but is also isolated and monolingual. The weather is nearly always warm with blue skies and extraordinary wild-life, but the water crisis is hitting hard and many of the main rivers no longer reach the sea.

In a few weeks we fly off to Brussels, to begin our new home in Belgium. My goals for 2009 are:
- To find a short-term furnished apartment
- To get a residency permit
- To find a job
- To start learning Flemish
- To get a work permit
- To start my job
- To start learning French
- To buy a house

I think that’s enough to keep me busy for twelve months or so. It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with so many changes, but I realise how lucky that we are to have this opportunity, so the main emotion I feel is excitement. We had a great time in North America over the past two years, and while I think we are better suited to Europe, I am very thankful for all the happy memories that we have of the United States of America.