Amsterdam!

Last Friday afternoon, when Brent got off of work, we headed up to Amsterdam for the weekend! Amsterdam is about an hour drive north of Breda. We stayed at a hotel called the Moevenpick Hotel, which I scored a great price for off of Priceline – and it was a very nice hotel! It was about 2 kilometers from the city center (Dam Square) but that was an easy 20-minute walk – and we walk everywhere! On the drive up, we did spot a few windmills, but I didn’t have time to take any pictures. Other than that, it was a fairly uneventful drive…just very flat and green. We arrived in Amsterdam around 18:00, parked our car outside the city (Amsterdam is not very car-friendly) and took the tram to our hotel. We quickly checked in and headed out to meet some friends for dinner! I have a friend from high school (Jonathan) who has lived in Amsterdam for 2.5 years and then another friend (Erin) who was traveling through Europe for one of her grad school classes. We were all on swim team together at Norcross High School. I hadn’t seen these friends in years, but Jonathan and his wife Jennifer were so welcoming and it was great to see Erin as well! Jonathan and Jennifer also patiently answered all of our random questions about living in Europe. :-)

On Friday night, the 5 of us went to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant (Puri Mas) and enjoyed what is called a rijsttafel. A rijsttafel is a Dutch word that means “rice table” and it is an elaborate meal adapted by the Dutch from an Indonesian feast. A rijsttafel consists of many side dishes served in small portions, accompanied by rice prepared in a few different ways. Since Brent and I love Indonesian food, we were in food heaven.  It’s a great meal to enjoy with a group and the food was so flavorful! We also tried a few beers that I was never a fan of in the USA (Heineken, Guinness) but Jonathan and Jennifer insisted beer tastes fresher here in Europe – we were both pleasantly surprised. Beer really does taste different over here! After dinner, we headed over to Leidseplein (Leiden Square) to catch the end of a World Cup game and just hang out. It was so fun to catch up with old friends and enjoy Amsterdam together – what a great evening!

Brent and I decided to walk back to our hotel from Leidseplein because Brent had never been to Amsterdam before. I told him he needed to experience Amsterdam at night because it’s crazy! We headed back to Dam Square, split another beer, and then wandered over to the Red Light District. The Red Light District was full of guys, tourists, and gawkers like us. :-) It’s always entertaining to walk around the Red Light District in Amsterdam. At night, Amsterdam really has a very distinct smell to it – Brent is convinced we probably were high just walking around for an hour…I think he’s crazy. Anyhow, Amsterdam is a very cool city at night – the people watching is amazing, it is always crowded, and it’s just a really neat city.

Saturday morning we slept in – Brent had a long week at work and I always love to sleep – and then we headed out on foot to explore the city some more. I was super excited because the sun was shining and it was warm! I even got to wear a sundress. We walked over to the floating flower market (Bloemenmarkt), although it’s really not floating – just happens to be on a canal. I love all of the canals in Amsterdam! It’s a very pretty city when the sun is out and everyone is boating out on the canals! We wandered around the flower market, enjoyed some great sandwiches for lunch, walked around the shopping streets, and then went back to the hotel to change. We wandered around the city for about 4 hours, which was really fun! We hung out at the hotel for about an hour, and then headed back out for dinner and to watch the USA vs. Ghana game! We ate dinner at a restaurant called Sushi Me. Sushi is different in Europe, but it’s still good. In fact, it’s probably healthier because it’s essentially just fish and rice – no high-calorie spicy mayo sauce, no crunchies, and no cream cheese. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d do anything for a Pink Roll from RK Sushi in San Diego right now, but we have to make do with what is offered over here. ;-) Dinner was actually quite good and definitely gave us our sushi fix.

After dinner, we wandered over to a bar called Coco’s Outback Pub to watch the USA game with my friends. The bar was packed out with Americans! I was surprised how many people showed up – and a bit jealous too since we haven’t made many friends in Brussels yet. Granted, we’ve spent more time in the Netherlands than in Belgium, so that could be why. Oddly enough, a guy that Brent had talked to on the phone while still job-hunting in the USA is friends with Jonathan, so Brent got to meet this guy he had talked to forever ago while looking for a job. Small world! This guy was very happy that Brent had found a job with PWC as he also works for PWC. The way Brent found his job was through major networking – he talked to about 8-9 people overall, each one giving him a different name/number of someone in Europe to call until Brent eventually talked to a girl who was leaving her job and said she would give Brent’s resume to her boss. Lo and behold, that is how Brent got his job in Belgium. He was extremely persistent and whenever he talked to anyone in Europe, each person almost always said, “Oh, you should try this person, maybe they know of a job opening!” Anyways, the guy in Amsterdam was near the beginning of the chain of people Brent talked to and he was a very nice guy. Ok, so back to the game! It was really fun to watch the game with such a large group of Americans! Even though the USA lost, we had a really good time talking to everyone and meeting new people – watching the World Cup in Europe is a really cool experience.

While at the bar, we met a really cool couple that is friends with Jonathan and Jennifer and after the game, they invited us out on their boat for a bit to ride around the canals. It was super cool of them to invite us when they had so many other friends there! So the 6 of us headed out on their boat. It was so beautiful being out on the canals at night in Amsterdam – and so cool seeing the city from that perspective! We went all over the city; it was a very pretty night with a full moon, the water was like glass, and there were even swans out! We really liked just talking with friends, cruising around, and looking up at all of the people out in Amsterdam. Afterwards we thanked Jonathan and Jennifer for such a wonderful time in Amsterdam and assured them we’d be back. We really had a great experience because of them and their friends! Brent and I walked back to the hotel again after the boat ride – it was a really nice night and it was a fun walk. I think we walked like 15 kilometers on Saturday, so it was nice to finally get back to the hotel and sleep!

Sunday morning, we headed out for more exploring, but this time we had more of a plan. We ate breakfast/lunch at a place called Pancake Bakery. The Pancake Bakery boasts more than 75 different kinds of pancakes and omelets. We got there right after they opened at 12:00, so luckily we only had to wait a few minutes to be seated. This restaurant gets pretty packed out! The pancakes are more like crepes, but they were delicious. I had a pancake with ham, cheese, and pineapple in it; Brent had a pancake with bacon and apple. They had yummy maple syrup jugs on the table too – which obviously didn’t taste good on mine, but it was great on Brent’s! I highly recommend the pancake bakery if you’re ever in Amsterdam! After lunch, we wandered around the city some more and we went on a canal boat tour at 15:00. The canal tour was really cool and we got to go all over Amsterdam. I took tons of pictures, see column on right. I loved seeing the city from the water – Amsterdam has a lot of old churches, crooked houses from the canals, and there are flowers and bicycles everywhere. Everyone has a bike here and it’s basically the only way to get around. I wish more cities were like that – I have really enjoyed not having a car in Europe! After the boat tour, we went to the Anne Frank house. I think this was my 3rd trip to the Anne Frank house, but I always love it and Brent had never been. It’s just fascinating and so sad that she spent all of that time cooped up in that house and then died a month before the liberation. The Anne Frank house is the only museum we went to in Amsterdam, but it is my favorite. We spent about an hour touring the house/museum and by then it was about 17:30, so we headed back to the hotel to get our bags. We dropped our bags at our car and then took the tram back into the city to eat dinner before heading back to Breda. We ate at an Argentinean restaurant (there are tons of Argentinean restaurants in Amsterdam!), took the tram back to the car, and headed back to Breda. We had a really great weekend in Amsterdam – it was so fun walking all over the city, shopping, going out on boats on the canals, spending time with friends, trying new restaurants, and just hanging out in the sunny weather. When you all come visit us in Brussels, we’ll take you to Amsterdam – it’s only about 2 hours by train. :-)

So now it’s Wednesday and we’re in Breda. Monday was fairly uneventful, I hung out at the hotel most of the day, caught up on emailing, and did some preparing for our Africa mission trip next week! Tuesday, I had to rent a bike to go into town to do laundry, which was not so fun. The laundry made the bike heavy and then I had to sit there and wait for the laundry, which was kind of boring. Plus trying to figure out how to actually do the laundry was interesting because the instructions were in Dutch. I think Brent and I are both very ready to get back to Brussels in 2 days. We have a lot to do this weekend to get ready for our Africa trip – we leave one week from today!

I can’t believe we’ve already been living in Europe for a month – time sure does fly!

June 24th!

In honor of June 24th (which is a day to celebrate!), I want to thank all of you for your never-ending prayers, support, love, and encouragement one year ago today. I would not have made it through last summer without you all and Brent definitely needed those prayers. I have to specifically thank Chris & Kelly Reynolds for sitting with me at the hospital that day – I am not sure I would have stayed sane without them by my side – I love you guys! Looking back, I can say I have started to see why God planned it all out like that - our wedding day was perfect and it wasn't 100° outside. :-) Plus what Brent and I went through made us so much stronger as a couple - and we really sought out our dream to live in Europe...and here we are! So thank you for loving us and being there for us on June 24th, 2009 – and might I add I am very glad it’s 2010 and last summer is behind us!

Now on to 2010 and our current adventures!

There hasn’t been too much excitement in Breda. Brent is currently working with a client which is a big American fashion corporation – without saying their name, I'll just say they own a few big brands, one being a large clothing company with well-know underwear/bra ads. He informed me yesterday there are very racy pictures all over the office of half-naked men and women…very large pictures too, like floor to ceiling. It sounds like an interesting work environment. He is working somewhat long hours, but he’s usually back to the hotel by 19:30, so that’s good.

On Tuesday evening, we had to drive back down to Brussels to finalize our apartment plans. We did finally pick out an apartment! We can afford it, but it is slightly out of our original price range, so click on the ads on my blog please...I think I get like 0.50¢ for click. ;-) The reality is I will need to find some sort of job and work at least once/week, which is fine because I will be bored in a few more weeks anyway. So far I have posted ads for babysitting and pet sitting – I have no idea how to go about getting a nursing job here. Since I do not speak French or Dutch, my job opportunities are quite limited. We do however love the apartment we picked out! It’s in a great location – there is a metro stop right out the front door of the apartment building and it’s only about 5 kilometers from Brent’s office. It also comes with an oven, dishwasher, washing machine (no dryers here, only clotheslines), parking spot, small storage cellar, and cool view of Montgomery circle. We’ll be on the 2nd floor (which they call the 1st floor as the ground floor is zero.) The walls are all painted yellow, so it makes Brussels seem a bit brighter as well. The deciding factor for the apartment is that we can walk everywhere due to the great location and it really is a beautiful apartment. I wish it was about €200/month cheaper, but we had to make a decision and the apartments that were cheaper were a bit…cramped. We’re happy with our decision and we’re very confident God will provide me with some sort of odd job to make up the difference. If not, rest assured we’re still in excellent shape with our budget – Brent’s a finance nerd after all! I think it’s also important to mention that as we were standing outside the building taking a picture of the exterior of the building, we noticed there’s a cardiology group in the ground floor of our building – there are 3 cardiologists with offices directly below our apartment. Who knows if any of them will end up being Brent’s cardiologist, but it is still kind of ironic. I’ve certainly never lived in an apartment with a large medical office on the ground floor!

So Tuesday night, we headed back up to Breda. I have spent a lot of time the past few days emailing back and forth with our apartment agent and still tying up loose ends in the USA. Whenever Brent gets home and asks me what I’ve done all day, I always wonder where my days go. I feel like there are always things to be done though – important things like watching the Bachelorette online. ;-) Although, I do sleep until 9:00 – and while I occasional feel lazy, I spent 3.5 years in San Diego getting up at 5:30 – so I figure it’s ok for now as I’m just catching up on years of lost sleep. :-) We have found that in the Netherlands, there are a lot more TV options – there’s the Discovery channel, National Geographic, and Animal Planet in English (with Dutch subtitles) in addition to BBC channels. There are about 6 English-speaking channels here! Sometimes I think it’s nice not having the TV on all the time, other times we’re bored and enjoy watching an old episode of the Deadliest Catch or Monkey Island. It’s truly amazing what you’ll watch on TV when your options are so limited. If only Netflix would get with the program and stream movies online outside of the USA!

So today we are celebrating the fact that Brent is one-year post heart surgery by going out to dinner. Tomorrow after Brent finishes work, we are headed up to Amsterdam for the weekend and we will be meeting up with some of my swim team friends from high school as well! One friend lives there, the other is visiting. I am so excited to go to Amsterdam – and it’s only an hour drive from Breda too! So in honor of June 24th (or whatever day you are reading this), I hope you all celebrate life and remember to always thank God for your health…and maybe throw in a prayer that God will continue to watch over Brent’s heart for many, many years to come! ;-)

Rotterdam, back to Brussels, and now Breda!

Last Monday, we headed up to Rotterdam (in the Netherlands) for a few days. Rotterdam is about 150 kilometers north of Brussels and is the largest port in Europe! Rotterdam was a very cool city, and walking along the water really reminded me of San Diego – except it was only like 50°F. Brent had some big business meetings/trainings in Rotterdam with a lot of tax partners from the USA, all over Europe, and Africa. I think it was kind of a big deal he was invited because he is a manager and everyone else there was a partner. His boss wanted him to network and meet people.

We wandered around Rotterdam Monday night and finally decided on dinner at an Italian place. We stayed at a very nice Novotel about 4 km outside of the city center, so we had to take the very expensive metro (€4.90 roundtrip) into the city. We only then learned parking is much easier in Rotterdam than most cities in Europe so we wished we had driven. Parking in most cities in Europe is near impossible – we’ve had a few frustrating nights driving around looking for parking and cursing ourselves for not taking the metro! Tuesday was not very exciting, so not much to say about Tuesday. Brent had business meetings all day and a big dinner at night, so he was gone all day. I spent the day hanging around the hotel, catching up on some TV online, and finishing up a few things we never took care of before we left the USA. I ate dinner at the hotel – it was neat because the hotel restaurant had these little cubby tables where you could listen to a headset and watch TV while you eat dinner – they must get a lot of solo travelers.

Wednesday I set off on foot to go explore Rotterdam. It was about a 4 km (2.4 mile) walk into the city center, but it was a very beautiful walk along the water! When there was no wind and I could feel the warm sun, I thought for a second I was in San Diego walking along the harbor. As much as we wanted to move to Europe, I think we both miss San Diego a lot. Don’t get me wrong, traveling all over Europe is so amazing – but San Diego is our home, where we met, where we both spent our post-college years, and we left some close friends behind.  So feeling like I was back in San Diego for a second while walking in Rotterdam was bittersweet. Ok, back to reality. So I walked down to the main part of the city, ate a delicious sandwich, and then headed back to the hotel to wait for Brent so I could show him the beautiful views of the city. Walking 5 miles/day is tiring – but good for weight loss! I need some better shoes though. The problem is, in the USA, I felt completely comfortable running errands in exercise shorts/pants, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. In Europe, you can’t wear your exercise or comfy clothes out anywhere without getting weird looks. I know I’m clearly not Belgian and everyone knows it anyway, but I still don’t want to stick out – so tennis shoes are a huge no-no. Walking 5 miles in flats or sandals is not always fun.

When Brent returned from work on Wednesday, we headed back out to Rotterdam, this time via car. We took some pictures (see column on right), admired the city, and decided on dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We miss Mexican food and sushi. You can find “Mexican” food and sushi here, but we have yet to find anything similar to what they’re serving in the states.  Brent ordered a burrito and it had some sort of minced meat, zucchini, baby corn, and carrots inside of it. It was kind of like a weird stew wrapped up like a burrito. When he gave me a bite of it and I saw the baby corn sticking out, I realized we probably shouldn’t get our hopes too high about Mexican food in northern Europe. ;-)  After dinner, we walked back to the car, discovered a parking ticket (it’s impossible to know where to park and how much or when you need to pay if you can’t read Dutch!), and headed back to Brussels. The drive from Brussels to Rotterdam is very flat and green, much like the Midwest USA.

Thursday was pretty low-key, I did some grocery shopping, got a Belgian cell phone number (yay!), and did a few other errands. Brent worked. :-)We’re still apartment hunting, so I spend a lot of time looking for apartments. I do have to say though, there are certain items that I can find in grocery stores here that I will be bringing back to the USA. A can of Thai green curry sauce for €1.00 = awesome. Such an easy meal, just add chicken and veggies! And it’s way better than my homemade curry sauces. Another item is the pre-made but not yet baked baguettes - you can keep them for like a month, pull them out of your pantry, bake one for 6-8 minutes, and voila, fresh baguette! Yum! On Thursday evening, Brent and I went out for a walk to see the locations of some of the apartments we had been looking at and see what was in the area. We discovered an area near the Georges-Henri metro stop that we really liked – lots of cool cafes, bars, and restaurants. The Georges-Henri metro stop is about half a kilometer from where we want to live, by Montgomery Circle. We really like the Montgomery Circle area. We left for our walk at like 21:30 – and the sun was still shining bright, which is very confusing for your body. We ended up walking 5 miles – but this time in tennis shoes, phew!  When we got home close to 23:00, it was finally dark…normal people don’t walk that late at night, but everyone was still out and about. Again, I’m dreading the short winter days!

Friday was apartment-hunting appointments, round 2. The agent that PWC assigned us (her name is Annekien) made appointments for me from 11:00-19:00. I spent 8 long hours looking at apartments, all by myself. But let’s start with Friday morning! Brent and I are going to Africa on a mission trip in about 2 weeks. We did not get yellow fever vaccines in the USA because the vaccine plus a doctor’s visit was about $200 each, and we had to pay for part of our mission trip, so we try to save money wherever possible related to the trip. While we were still in the USA, I suggested to Brent that we not pay $400.00 and wait to see how much yellow fever vaccines cost in Belgium. Since I am a nurse and Brent is a life-long patient, we are very impressed with the healthcare in Belgium. We did not have an appointment at the clinic we went to, so we got there early, expecting to wait a few hours because that is what we are used to in the USA. We waited about 15 minutes. Sweet! We then spoke with a very nice Belgian doctor who very thoroughly went over travel precautions with us for where we will be in Africa, asked us a few questions, and then handed us over to the nurse for our vaccine. We were in and out of the clinic within 1 hour, with no appointment. Here is the best part – the yellow fever vaccine was €16.00 ($20.00) each. We saved $360.00 by waiting to get our vaccines in Belgium and the whole process was so simple! Brent and I were like in a happy state of shock about how amazing healthcare is here. I couldn’t stop talking about it all day. I think the reason government-run healthcare works so well in Belgium is because it is a small country, but boy do I wish the USA could get it together like this! When we told the doctor and nurse how much a yellow fever vaccine + consult was in the USA, I am sure they thought we were lying. I promise you they did not believe us that it was so expensive. Anyways, we were very happy campers after our clinic trip!

Ok, on to “House Hunters International”, Weinberg Belgian edition, part 2. If any of you have seen that show on HGTV, I can guarantee you it’s impossible to pick a house out in one day in a foreign country, and with only 3 options. I think they really look at like 15 and only show the top 3. Things are so different here – we definitely have to make some trade-offs. I won’t bore you with the details of all of the apartments I saw, but instead give you some highlights. I saw one apartment with a guest room included on the ground floor…no idea why, but this particular apartment had a separate bedroom included in the price on the ground floor. Unfortunately it was on a very busy street and was in like a 110-year-old building. The apartment was beautiful, but I already lived in an old house in a loud area – it was cool, but I want something a little more modern now. Another apartment I saw had a small balcony, and when I opened the door to look at what I thought was a storage closet in the balcony, I discovered a toilet. Yes people, there was a small, fully functional extra toilet outside on the balcony. I have no idea why it was there, neither did the real estate agent, but man I wish I had taken a picture! One of the other apartments I saw was also very nice, but the outside of the building looked like a hospital. Overall on Friday, I again walked 5+ miles in my flats, but did have some success in the apartment search. I found one apartment I liked, but we’ll get to that later.

The most exciting thing that happened on Friday is my lunch and our dinner. In case you can’t tell, Brent and I are foodies. We love to try new things, I love to cook, we’re very adventurous eaters, and we love food. Who doesn’t? :-) On Friday for lunch, I wandered into a place that I believe was called Food Concept, near Georges-Henri metro, also where I was looking at apartments. It was just a simple sandwich/deli type restaurant, but it was a great find. Ok realistically, it was probably like every other sandwich/deli shop in Brussels, but it was the first one I found. I know you are picturing a Subway type place, so stop that image and instead imagine a cute little café that serves cheap French food. I enjoyed a delicious smoked-salmon Panini that came with a small side-salad for €4.50. Oh and by the way, Belgians don’t tip – for anything. Not having to tip is amazing. When you see prices for a meal, you add that up and that’s what you pay. When you see a price for a haircut, that’s the whole price. In our minds, it makes things cheaper, but we all know the service charge is already included in the price. I just like it better that way. Ok, back to the sandwich. It was delicious and the perfect amount of food. I didn’t feel stuffed or groggy, I felt healthy and happy. :-) I also realize part of the reason I thought this sandwich place was amazing is because I love smoked salmon. I LOVE that smoked salmon is available everywhere here, prepared in so many different ways, and so cheap. I cannot wait to take Brent back to Food Concept for lunch sometime!

For dinner on Friday, we went to a place in the same area where I had lunch and near where we had walked to on Thursday night. I had read about an Italian restaurant called Mare E Monti (which means Sea & Mountains in Italian) so we decided to try it out. It was fantastic! It is definitely our current favorite restaurant in Brussels – which I am sure will change, but we certainly were excited on Friday night. After dinner, we enjoyed a delicious crepe topped with chocolate and cherry ice cream, headed home, and called it a night. We did mention on the way back to our apartment though that we would love to curl up on the couch and watch a good movie. Instead we watched BBC. Yay for British news.

So Saturday was June 19th, which was a somewhat significant day for us. June 19th, 2009 was when Brent went in for a routine cardiology appointment (which was 7 weeks before our original wedding date of August 9th) and found out he needed another heart surgery. Not only did he need another heart surgery last summer, but he was also extremely lucky to have that cardiology appointment in June. His appointment was originally scheduled for August, so we scheduled the appointment earlier rather than later since we were getting married in August. His actual heart surgery was June 24th, but I will always remember June 19th because Dr. Johnson put his arm around me and pointed out to me on the ECHO exactly what was wrong...and he knew our lives would be forever changed. I still sometimes feel robbed of our last summer in San Diego, but at the same time, God gave us this amazing opportunity to live in Europe and thank God Brent went to the doctor when he did. I’ll never forget June 19th – I remember it like it was yesterday! I also have a happy memory of the day though, because we went to the San Diego county fair that night with our awesome friends Chris & Kelly Reynolds and Aaron & Melissa Betschel. I can’t imagine spending that night any other way than with amazing friends at the SD fair. Those 2 couples really were a lifesaver that day – we love you guys!

Saturday, we got up and continued the apartment search. We looked at one more apartment and really liked it. I had found one on Friday afternoon that I liked, and then we both liked the apartment on Saturday. They are only about half a kilometer apart, one near Montgomery Circle (Friday apt), one directly on Montgomery Circle (Saturday apt.) There are little things about both of them I like and it’s very hard to make a decision. One has a great location and the metro stop is outside the front door of the apartment building, the other has a better layout, is quieter, and has nice views. They both have their positives and negatives. We have arranged to re-visit the apartments on Tuesday evening, so we will make a decision then. Picking out a place to live for 2 years is tough! And we’re not exactly looking forward to driving back down to Brussels tomorrow from Breda.

Saturday afternoon, we went shopping and ran into Brent’s boss at the mall. I asked her and her husband their opinion about the apartments, which was helpful. After the mall, we went to a bunch of furniture and electronic type stores to start figuring out how we’re going to decorate/furnish our apartment. We had originally planned on renting a furnished apartment, but after looking at a few furnished apartments, we realized that was definitely not going to happen. We checked out beds, couches, washers, curtains, etc. It was nice to figure out which stores sell what – and of course Ikea will still be our #1 place for the majority of our apartment furnishings.

Saturday evening, Brent took me to a delicious restaurant he had been to for a work lunch. I had an amazing filet with béarnaise sauce, salad, and fries for just €16.00. We also enjoyed an amazing smoked salmon appetizer – yum! Brent and I have found that food here is slightly cheaper than what we were used to in San Diego – and much better quality. Also, everything comes with fries, which is probably not the healthiest, but Belgian fries are delicious! We drove around for a bit on Saturday evening because we had nothing else to do, and called it a night.

Sunday we got up, packed, and headed off to Breda. Breda is in the Netherlands, right on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands. Brent is working on a client up here for the next 2 weeks, so we’re staying at another Novotel. We are headed to Amsterdam this weekend though, which will be fun! On the way to Breda, we stopped in Antwerp to check it out. Antwerp is only about 30 minutes from Brussels and is beautiful! There is an American food store in Antwerp, so we of course stopped there. We bought a few things – low-calorie salad dressing, some Goldfish, cornbread mix, and instant oatmeal. Most things we eat we can find in grocery stores and markets in Brussels, but for things like salad dressing, we like to eat the low-cal stuff and sometimes we have no idea what we’re buying because it’s in French or Dutch. It’s nice to know where the American food store is and what they sell, but I doubt we’ll make tons of trips to Antwerp just to buy food there.

We wandered around Antwerp for a bit and walked in a beautiful old church called Cathedral of Our Lady. It is a beautiful church – about 650 years old. Remember I love old churches and cathedrals. :-) We didn’t spend tons of time in Antwerp, because we kind of wanted to get to Breda and get settled in, and Antwerp is so close to Brussels. We did of course enjoy a snack of frites and one delicious chocolate each in the main square. After Antwerp, we headed off towards Breda and had yet another adventure. Brent’s company provides him with a car and a gas card. You can only use the gas card at Shell stations in Belgium. The client Brent is working with this week is actually about 25 km from Breda, but there are apparently no hotels/restaurants there, so his boss recommended we stay in Breda. Since Brent is going to be driving so much this week and we’re going to Amsterdam this weekend, we needed to start the week off with a full tank of gas – and remember the gas has to come from Belgian Shell stations. I had found a Shell gas station somewhat close to the border from Shell’s website. So we drove about 15 minutes off the freeway to the address, and discovered it was not a Shell, but some other random gas station. We were a little frustrated, but we had to get gas, so we found another Shell about 20 kilometers away in our GPS. After about 20 minutes of again driving out of the way, we found the Shell station. Well, Brent’s gas card wouldn’t work and eventually the attendant wandered over and told us they don’t take Shell credit cards at that gas station. By now, we were very frustrated because we had no idea where we were in Belgium, nor how far out of the way we had gone. We found yet another Shell station in our GPS and headed off. After another 20 minutes, we finally had success and Brent filled up the car. At least now we know where the closest Shell station is to the border of the Netherlands, but yesterday we were a bit frustrated and tired. :-) Luckily after we got gas, it only took us about 40 minutes to get to Breda. Also, in driving around small towns in Belgium, we passed a lot of farms with massive cows. I mean, I am convinced they give their cows growth hormones or something. Brent thinks they were a different type or breed of cow – all I know is they were huge and I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures. Look for pictures in the future though, of the giant Belgian cows!

Last night (Sunday), we settled into our hotel, drove into the main city center of Breda, and ate dinner. We had these massive burgers – they had bacon, an egg, cucumbers, cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onions on them. It was a massive burger – it’s 15:00 on Monday and I’m still not hungry! Breda is actually a very cute little Dutch town – there are tons of restaurants, bars, and cafes. It should be fun to explore this town for the next 2 weeks! It’s a bit cold here, which I am still getting used to. Gone are sundresses and shorts in the summer – we wear jeans, sweaters, and scarves in Belgium and the Netherlands in June. It’s a far cry from San Diego sunshine! I did not realize how cold and gray northern Europe is – it is definitely taking some getting used to, but in 2 short weeks, we’ll be burning up in Africa anyways. I have to think maybe it will warm up some in the later summer months too.

Ok, off to explore Breda!

Our first full week in Brussels!

What a week!

It all started on Monday, when I decided I wanted to make Mexican food for dinner. I believe in an earlier post I mentioned I should be ok finding all of the ingredients I normally cook with in the USA here in Belgium. I had some slight problems this week! We went to Cora on Monday night (Cora is like a Super-Target) and found all of the ingredients I needed...except refried beans. I found Mexican rice, flour tortillas, salsa, tortilla chips...everything but beans! They even had baked beans! Belgians don't eat a lot of refried beans I guess. I was extremely frustrated - we love Mexican food and I didn't know what else to cook for dinner because we have no oven...and beans are kind of a staple ingredient if you're making bean & cheese burritos. We eventually decided on take-out Chinese food (yum!) and I vowed to find refried beans the next day. Nothing else exciting really happened on Monday. It was raining, so I hung out at our apartment most of the day. Really, the main thing I remember is how angry I was I couldn't find refried beans! Silly huh?

On Tuesday, I set out to find the elusive refried beans...and get some exercise. I walked 4 miles and went to 3 different grocery stores. In the third grocery store, I found them! They cost €2.75 a can, but I was ecstatic. I made my purchase and headed home. We have already started a list of things for me to bring back from the USA when I am there in October...I might need to bring back some big suitcases! ;-) Eventually Brent got home from work Tuesday night and we enjoyed some delicious Mexican food. We have discovered a Dutch-speaking TV station (VIJF TV) that airs English-speaking movies every night around 9:00 pm. It is great! They are all totally romantic comedies, so not so great for Brent, but when it's your only option, you'll watch anything. :-) Later on Tuesday night, when Brent crawled into bed, I saw his back and immediately asked him if he'd had chicken pox! We'd been leaving our windows open at night because we have no AC, and apparently we'd been getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I had some bites on my legs, but didn't realize how bad it was. Brent looked at my back, which was also covered, and next thing I knew, I was up googling "bed bugs" at 1:00 am because I had no idea what was going on. Luckily we do not have bed bugs, just mosquitoes! Brent emailed his incredibly nice boss Janet and asked where we could buy a cheap fan, and by Wednesday morning, she had offered to let us borrow one. Phew!

Wednesday was apartment-hunting day! Our agent's name is Annekien - and I have no idea how to pronounce her name. She is not really a real estate agent, but she works for a "settling in" company for expats - she's kind of like the middleman. She had found 13 properties for us to look at, which was exhausting! We had given her our budget and criteria a week prior and we were anxious to see what she had found. I had looked at the addresses of all of the properties on Tuesday night and already decided only about 5 were really in areas we wanted to live, so that was unfortunate. We tried to go into Wednesday with an open mind though. In Belgium, the typical lease is a 9-year lease. Obviously we will not be here for 9 years, but that is the type of lease we will sign anyway and then we will most likely have to pay a fine (or rather PWC will reimburse us) for only staying for 2 years - it's weird to us, but that's how it works in Belgium. So we have to really like where we live - we will be there for 2 years, no matter what! Anyhow - our day started early and was long! The first 2 properties we went to, I had already ruled out due to location. But once we saw them, I really ruled them out! They were both on the 4th floor of buildings with no elevators. I am sure I would be in better shape walking up so many stairs every day, but it would also get annoying fast. Plus the thought of carrying groceries and such up so many stairs every day doesn't seem fun - or what if you forget something in your house - you have to run all the way back up the stairs! Also, the first 2 apartments were "loft-style", so the bedroom was on the "second floor." This would potentially be ok if there were actual stairs - instead they have extremely steep stairs that are like ladders. If I got up in the middle of the night, I'd probably fall down. Needless to say, we were a bit discouraged.

The rest of the morning, we saw the following: an apartment with a toilet with no door in the middle of the living room (the toilets are always in separate rooms here, not actually in the bathroom), numerous apartments with no ovens, an apartment with a bedroom up in a loft like you'd have in college (you climb up a ladder and can't sit up in bed, the bed is like a foot from the ceiling), and some very tiny apartments. We also heard Annekien say once "Your colleagues might tell you this is an unsafe area, but plenty of people enjoy living here!" Brent and I just looked at each other like "is she seriously going to show us an apartment in this area!?" At this point, we were extremely discouraged. We re-grouped with Annekien at lunch and told her we had to have an oven, no apartments under 60 square meters (roughly 650 sq ft), no "loft-style" apartments, and a few other things. One apartment she showed us was cool, except there was no separate bedroom - the bed was just kind of sitting next to the couch with a short wall in between. At lunch, we also clarified for her our exact budget - it seems she was looking at apartments that were actually a little lower than our range - and trust me, we could tell. :-)

After lunch, Annekien canceled some appointments since the apartments were clearly never going to work for us, and then she took us to a grocery store to show us around a bit - which was WAY more helpful than apartment hunting! We told her about our mosquito problem and she told us about these things you can plug into the wall that emit some sort of smell that deters mosquitoes. We didn't really believe her since there is no such thing in the southern USA - which is like the mosquito capital of the world! Sure enough, we walked in, she asked where they were in French, and then she showed us how to use them. I haven't seen a mosquito since...I have NO idea why the USA doesn't have these plug-in devices - or do they and I am just not aware of them? It looks kind of like a Glade plug-in. We've been living in San Diego the past 5 years, so we haven't had to worry about mosquitoes. Annekien also showed us the different types of milk, cheese, butter, and types of beer - all of the staples of course. I have found some of the beers here are very tasty – they are all fruity of course. There’s a cherry beer called “Kriek” that is delicious!

After our grocery store trip, we saw a few more apartments and called it a day. The last apartment we looked at was amazing - it was a penthouse on the 8th floor of a building. The elevator essentially opened up into the apartment and it had 2 huge terraces that were bigger than our entire house in San Diego! We fell in love with the terraces - beautiful views of Brussels - and so cool! There was one terrace off of the bedroom and one off of the living area. The only problem was that the kitchen and living room were tiny - and we just don't think we can make it work. :-( We were pretty bummed though - what a beautiful penthouse! It even included a parking spot, which most apartments don't. Good thing we got a mini-Cooper!

We decided to go to Ikea after apartment hunting on Wednesday night to see exactly how much we would spend on furniture. Luckily, we're going to be ok! It's weird to feel at home in an Ikea, (which is a Swedish furniture store chain) in Belgium...but it was just like the Ikea in San Diego! :-) Wednesday was a very exhausting day, so we were excited to head home and relax afterwards! Thursday & Friday, I spent a lot of time online doing my own apartment hunting. Annekien had told us to look at a few websites and pick out apartments that we thought were interesting. I also spent some time on Skype calling back to the USA to get things straightened out.

On Friday, I went to a luncheon hosted by a member of the American Women's Club of Brussels (AWCB). I learned the AWCB is one of the largest clubs belonging to the Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas (FAWCO). It's like a massive sorority of women living overseas with different chapters. The women were all very kind, but I was by far the youngest woman there, by at least 25 years. They assured me there were younger members though, so I can’t wait to meet some of them! :-) It was nice to speak English for a few hours though and the woman answered a ton of my questions. They also told me all about the clubhouse – the AWCB owns a big, beautiful house in Brussels where they have tons of activities – a myriad of classes, social lunches, fun activities, volunteer projects, etc. It’s their sorority house. ;-) Anyways, I will probably join the AWCB because it’s a great way to meet people and socialize with other Americans when we want to. I truly did have a good time at lunch and met some nice women.

Friday night was sushi and World Cup football night! I scouted out a few sushi restaurants in Brussels, and we picked one called Wasabi Sushi Lounge. The sushi here is nothing like in the USA. It’s fairly basic – no crazy rolls with multiple types of fish, sauces, and toppings. We really miss American sushi – especially our 2 favorite sushi restaurants in San Diego – RK Café and Harney Sushi. We ordered a few rolls and some miso soup and still enjoyed it though! Our rolls were basically just rice and one type of fish, occasionally there was cucumber inside or there was some avocado or salmon on top. I will keep looking though – we will find the best sushi in this city! The fish was pretty fresh though – and as always, the beer was cheap. In addition, the World Cup is on every TV in Europe, so we got to watch the game during dinner.

After dinner, we met up with some of Brent’s friends from work (John and Simi) to watch the France vs. Uruguay game. John and Simi are a super cool couple! They moved away from the USA about 5 years ago – they spent 3 years in Amsterdam, 1.5 years in Dubai, and they have been in Brussels about 3 months. We enjoyed hanging out with them, asking them questions about life here, and hearing about their experiences. It’s always great to make new friends. We headed home on Friday well after midnight and Brent fell asleep on the couch watching “Miami Vice” in French.

Saturday was fairly uneventful…rainy as usual here. I’m doing ok with the rain so far, but at times I definitely miss sunny, beautiful San Diego! Last weekend we had found a suit that fit Brent so well and was a great price, so we went back and purchased it Saturday. We also wandered around the mall some more, tried a Quick burger (Europe’s version of McDonalds), spent some time at H&M, and talked to a few mobile companies about my cell phone. We are probably going to wait to buy a cell phone and plan for me until we get our apartment. In Belgium, a cell phone plan is usually included (and much cheaper) with your Cable & Internet, so it’s worth it to wait. I may even be able to get an iPhone – woo hoo! We also walked to Cora on Saturday – remember when I walked there last week and it took me an hour? On Saturday it took us about 10 minutes to walk there – live and learn I guess. Saturday night, we watched the USA vs. England game at a crowded sports bar near the city center – people here are fanatical about football! We had a late dinner of Thai food – yum! The only other people in the restaurant were a large party of French-speaking people who were having a great time – they kept speaking to us in French (they were a tad bit drunk) – but then when I told them we didn’t speak much French, they laughed and carried on. It was actually quite entertaining – and when we left, they wished us a good night. I can’t wait until my French improves!

So today is Sunday and our 9 month wedding anniversary! :-) We did not go to church this morning – we’re still looking for a church home. I think next Sunday we will try to attend an English-speaking church and see what we think. We did however go to the Gare du Midi market, which was awesome! This particular market takes place every Sunday at the huge Gare Du Midi train station in Brussels. The market is rumored to be the biggest in Europe, and I can assure you it was massive. There were stalls there selling everything imaginable – fresh fruit, clothing, meat & fish, kitchen utensils, shoes, pastries, flowers, leather goods, spices, electronics, pickled vegetables, CD’s, cheeses, dishes, sausages, etc! We had so much fun wandering around for hours – and the food prices were fantastic! Since we’re going to Rotterdam this week, we didn’t buy much food, but we did buy a cool paper towel stand that looks like a bicycle – check out the picture of it in the column on the right. I know we’ll definitely be spending more time at the Marche du Midi! I can’t wait until we have our own apartment and we can go back and buy some flowers and plants – and I think I might buy quite a few of our groceries there – much cheaper than the grocery stores!

After spending a few hours at the market, we decided to wander back to a different metro and see more of the city.  We passed some gorgeous churches, parks, museums, and fun parts of the city along the way. We stepped in a church called Notre Dame de la Chapelle. Construction began on this church in 1210 – so needless to say, it’s quite old! It was beautiful too – I love old churches and cathedrals! I am not a huge museum person, but I love architecture, especially churches and cathedrals. It’s just so neat to think about how many people have worshipped God in old churches over the years – and I think churches are just amazing! We also worked through the Parc de Bruxelles, which is the largest urban public park in the center of Brussels. The park is surrounded by the Royal Palace of Brussels, the Belgian parliament, and the American embassy. It’s funny because when we were walking, I asked Brent if he knew where the American embassy was, and he said he had no idea and we should look it up. Well, when we got home, I read about how the American embassy borders the Parc du Bruxelles – we were literally right next to it while we were discussing it, but we still don’t know which building it is. We eventually took the metro back to our apartment and have just been hanging out and doing laundry ever since.

Tomorrow we head to Rotterdam until Wednesday – Brent’s got meetings all day Tuesday & Wednesday with partners from his tax group from all over the world! People are flying in to Rotterdam from as far as South Africa, the USA, and Turkey – so it’s a very important few days. Brent is excited he was invited and to meet some very important people from PWC. Work is still going really well for him – sometimes I forget that’s why we’re here because we’ve just been having so much fun so far. :-) I’m excited to explore Rotterdam this week! Until next time…

Our first weekend in Brussels

Bonjour!



We had a very fun weekend and were able to see a lot of Brussels! We started out Friday night by going to a pizza place I had found on the Belgian version of "Yelp" called CityPlug. The difference between Yelp and CityPlug is that everyone always seems to give great reviews - there are never any bad reviews on CityPlug. We went to a place called Pizzeria Mirante near the city center, which is also the touristy area. Our pizzas were delicious and well priced, and as usual, the beer was cheaper than water. Since we're not used to drinking a beer or glass of wine with every meal, we started bringing in our own water and tried to be discreet about it. One liter of water (which is about what we drink in one meal) costs between  €5,00-€7,00 ($6.00-$8.40.) We think it's crazy that restaurants in Europe won't just give you some tap water, but perhaps we're just weird Americans. Anyhow - the pizza was great and we really enjoyed wandering around the touristy city center of Brussels on Friday night. There were tons of people out and about, both locals and tourists. It's a really fun area! Of course we stopped and got a piece of chocolate - I don't know how they make chocolate over here, but it really is different and amazing. Luckily we can stop after one piece - the problem is I want a piece every day. :-) We came back to our apartment around 10:30 pm (the sun was still shining bright of course!) and watched part of some weird movie called Salsa - it was the only show on TV in English. We were asleep by midnight - still getting over the jet-lag!



Saturday was also a great day! Brent's boss and her husband (Janet & Kevin) took us all over the city! First we went to their beautiful apartment. It's on the 7th floor of a very nice apartment building overlooking Montgomery Circle, which is a large traffic circle with a big fountain in the middle. The elevator opens up right into their apartment. They have everything we are looking for in an apartment (American-size refrigerator, washer/dryer, American-style shower, etc) so hopefully we can find an apartment like theirs - but a bit smaller and cheaper. They have a gorgeous rooftop patio - I was a bit envious...but I know we'll find something perfect for our lifestyle as well. Next they took us to a large market in Stockel, about 20 minutes by Metro from the city center, and about 10 minutes from where we want to live. I LOVED the market and foresee myself doing a lot of our grocery shopping here. The market is open Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday. There were some amazing fresh fruits & veggie vendors and lots of fresh fish, meat, and egg stalls. We are all about markets, so this was a great find! We wandered around the market for about an hour, and then headed back to Janet & Kevin's apartment to hop in the car.



Our next stop was the military base just outside of Brussels for a "rummage sale." We had to pre-register for this event because civilians aren't normally allowed on the military base. The rummage sale was really just a garage-like sale, but it was cool to see part of the base. I would love to get a job at their health clinic, but that might be pretty tough as a civilian. After that, we went to the British Food store, where English products are sold (i.e. British groceries, books, magazines, and a few American items as well.) I think I will be perfectly fine with what is sold at regular Belgian grocery stores, but it was nice to know where the British food store is in case I need a specific brand. Janet and Kevin also showed us where the massive Ikea is, where furniture stores are, and then took us to lunch - woo hoo! After lunch, we drove around some more, looking at different areas of Brussels, and then they dropped us off at our apartment around 4:00. They spent a total of 7 hours with us, which was very kind and very helpful! I'm so glad Brent has such a nice boss - and her husband is hilarious too.



When we got home, we decided to wander over to the Woluwe Shopping Center - a nice mall about a 5-minute walk from our apartment. Shopping here is very different for me - I am used to buying things on sale, using coupons, or hunting for bargains. In Belgium, there are 2 sales a year - one the entire month of January and one the entire month of July. So we saw some things we would eventually like for our home, but we can't buy them until July. It's a very strange concept to me - but luckily it is almost July. We will be buying a LOT in July. :-) Brent also found a very nice, reasonably priced suit at the mall. European-cut suits fit him so much better than the American style suit - so we were both really excited to find that out. Brent likes to shop - and he loves that European clothes fit him better.



After the mall, we hung out at the apartment for a bit and Brent found the show "The Simpsons" in French on TV! I was super excited and watched 3 episodes in French. We then decided to venture out for some Thai food. Brent drove this time because it was about 9:00 pm and there weren't as many people on the roads. Driving here is...interesting. Traffic circles are a bit scary at times - everyone just goes, there don't seem to be many rules. Brent is doing an awesome job though. I don't know how to drive a stick shift, so I don't have to drive, at least for now. So at the Thai restaurant, in an effort to save money, we split a beer. Again, we are not used to drinking a beer or glass of wine with every meal, and bottled water is way over-priced in restaurants, so we are still trying to figure out what to do. I am going to attempt to find any restaurants in this city that serve tap water or let you bring in your own water, and those will be our new favorite places to eat! As you can imagine, eating spicy Thai food with half of a glass of beer to drink is not so fun. Now combine that thought with no air-conditioning in most restaurants. By the end of the meal, I was sweating like crazy! I think the waiter thought we were crazy for not just ordering some water and sitting there sipping a beer, but I have a problem with spending  €7,00 on bottled water. I will always be carrying some water in my purse. :-) The food was actually pretty good though! Perhaps once my French gets a little better, we can start ordering take-out and then enjoy as much water as we want at our apartment. At least Belgians do not tip - maybe we can justify spending the money we normally do on tips for bottled water at every meal. Hmmm.



We were fairly exhausted Saturday night and went to sleep shortly after dinner. We also slept in on Sunday. We have found quite a few English speaking Christian churches in Brussels, but we decided to wait another week before trying some out. It finally rained on Sunday - supposedly it rains 200 days/year here, but it had been gorgeous all last week. We watched what I imagine is the British version of "Top Chef" (again, only English-speaking show on TV) and the rain let up around 2:00 pm. We set out to explore the city some more and get some exercise! We walked a total of 5 miles, from our apartment all the way past the city center, and then took the metro back. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were walking (although quite humid!) We even stumbled upon a large festival in Cinquantenaire Park. We think it was some sort of ecological festival, but it was fun to walk through. We want to live near Cinquantenaire Park - it reminds us a lot of Balboa Park in San Diego, which was 5 blocks from our old house. Cinquantenaire Park is not quite as big as Balboa Park, but it is nice nonetheless. The neighborhoods around the park are very nice and seem like a fun area to live. When we got to the city center, there was a lot going on, as usual - lots of tourists and locals out enjoying the weekend. One thing we have learned is everything is closed on Sundays. Grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants - everything is closed. In some ways, it's great because you literally have to rest and do nothing, in other ways, it's frustrating because we are used to everything being open in the USA. As you can imagine, Saturday is quite a busy day in Belgium! We did notice though that in the city center where all of the tourists are, there are quite a few open shops and restaurants and even a small grocery store is open.



At the end of our long walk, we discovered a row of restaurants in Saint Catherine Square along a small canal that all have lobster specials. We have no idea why, but all of these restaurants seem to feature lobster. A lot of you probably don't know this, but Brent and I's nickname for each other is "lobster." Neither of us can remember exactly how it started, but I think it's because I was pinching him once on a road trip and I am always imitating animals...even though I am 30, I still act like a kid. :-) We have "lobster" engraved on our wedding bands, lobster beach towels, Brent has a few lobster t-shirts, etc. And now you all know the weirdest part of our lives - that we call each other "lobster" - and every time you see a lobster, you'll probably now think of us. Anyhow - so we also both happen to love lobster, so finding a row of restaurants that all feature lobster was a real treat! You just never know what you're going to find when you're out for a stroll on Sunday! We can't wait to go back and try one of the restaurants.



When we arrived back at our apartment, we decided it was laundry time. One load of laundry costs  €5,00 ($6.00.) We will definitely be investing in a washer and dryer when we move. We also had a grand time trying to figure out what the different settings were on the washer/dryer. Have I mentioned yet that I really have got to pick up the French language again? After laundry, we had a fairly normal night. I cooked dinner for the first time here. Since I have no oven and only pots to work with, my cooking is limited, which is unfortunate because you all know I love to cook! We had pasta with cheese, sausage, and peas. Yes I know, not very exciting, but I don't have a lot to work with here! :-) I think we'll be eating a lot of pasta and rice dishes since I can make those on the stovetop. We start looking at apartments on Wednesday and as soon as we find one, we can have our boxes shipped. I can't wait to have the rest of our stuff here with us! After dinner, we watched various TV shows in English - an old episode of "Doogie Howser, MD" and a show called "Without a Trace." We'll watch anything in English now.



We had a really great weekend overall. Living in Brussels feels like being on vacation so far! There are definitely times I really miss San Diego though...the beautiful weather, our awesome friends, our church family, and playing with our dog Sadie are a few things that come to mind. I am going to a luncheon on Friday hosted by the American Women's Club of Brussels, so I am looking forward to meeting some new friends! The next few weeks will also be fun - next week we head to Rotterdam for 3 nights (Brent has a big training there with all of the European tax people from PriceWaterhouseCoopers) and then the following week, we will be in a city called Breda (also in the Netherlands) for about 10 days. Also, we leave for Africa in just 4 weeks for our mission trip!!! There are a lot of exciting things coming up in our lives and we feel extremely blessed right now!



Ok, I am off to the grocery store for now, which is always an adventure since nothing is in English... :-)

Brent's first day of work and my first day as a housewife

I think I had already mentioned yesterday that I woke up extremely early, so I'll start again there.


After I finished emailing/blogging, I decided to venture out to a store called Cora - which is like a Target or a Walmart - to pick up a few things. Cora is about 1 km (0.65 mile) from our current apartment. According to Google maps, it would take me about 15 minutes to walk there - so I assumed it would take about 10 mins. I wrote down the directions and off I went.


After wandering around for about 40 mins, I finally found a map at a bus stop. :-) I had written down directions with French street names, but some of the streets were in Dutch - and of course I went the wrong way a few times. It's hard to stop and ask for directions because you never know who speaks French and who speaks Dutch - and people get offended if you speak to them in the wrong language. Starting off speaking in English isn't good either. After about an hour, I finally found Cora - and my next adventure began. I only needed about 5 things in total. After about 30 minutes of wandering around, I had found everything but an alarm clock. I found someone who spoke English, and he pointed me to the kitchen stuff. After staring at pots, pans, and dishes for a few minutes, I noticed there were kitchen timers there and he must have thought I wanted one of those. Ahhh, the language barrier. I eventually found an alarm clock, managed to pay, and off I went. I still didn't go the right way home, but whichever way I went, it only took about 10-15 minutes. Thank God - because my backpack was heavy at this point and I was starving!


I spent the rest of the day reading and waiting for Brent to get home. We only have one key to our apartment, so I couldn't really leave. Brent finally got home around 6:30 and told me all about his day. Apparently we are going to Breda, Netherlands for 2 weeks beginning June 21st! Breda is a small town in the southern Netherlands - so that should be interesting. I wish I would've brought more books! I am sure I will find something exciting to do - i.e., try to learn a few Dutch words. ;-) Brent had a wonderful first day at work - about 2,000 people work in his office, so it is significantly larger than San Diego. He also has his very own office, which is pretty cool. They gave him a computer with a European keyboard, so he said that was fun to try and figure out - they are going to give him an American keyboard today he hopes. He also got a cell phone, but we're not quite sure how to make calls yet. He received a loaner car as well, not sure when our car is coming in. He said everyone he met was very nice, there is a huge cafeteria in the bottom floor of his office, and he's already fairly booked up with work until we go to Africa. There are a few more new-hires coming over from the USA later this summer, so I am excited to meet their wives. I should really make him blog some...but then again, I think people just like reading about our crazy adventures, not him sitting in an office. ;-) His new boss (Janet) is so wonderful though - she is always thinking of us and making sure all of our questions are answered. I think Brent is going to enjoy working with her.


So after we exchanged stories about our days, we set out to the grocery store I had found. Navigating a grocery store is fun when you don't speak French or Dutch or know the metric system. I know 1 kg is 2.2 lbs, but trying to convert kilograms to pounds and also trying to convert euros to dollars gets confusing. We eventually bought our bananas for €1,45/kg which is $0.80/lb. It's confusing, but we just want to make sure we're staying within our budget! Next up was milk - in french. We stood there staring at the different types of milk for like 15 minutes, trying to figure out what was skim milk. We eventually ended up with half-skimmed, half-whole milk per google's translation. They also have non-refrigerated milk, which is the most common in Europe. I guess we'll try that next - supposedly it's heated at high temperatures, so it does not have to refrigerated until opened. After milk was the bread section. Bakeries smell amazing over here - I wanted to eat an entire baguette! We noticed people putting their loaves of bread in a machine, and then pulling out sliced bread. We thought this was the neatest thing ever - a bread slicer! We couldn't wait to try it. We got our loaf of wheat bread, headed over to the machine, put in our bread, and pressed the green button. The bread machine started to spit bread out of the bottom, so we pressed the red stop button. Ooops. We then noticed our loaf hanging out, half-sliced - so Brent had to pull out the rest. Needless to say, our sliced bread did not look as great as the locals' bread, but live and learn. It was pretty funny at least! We finally exited the grocery store - and we'll probably laugh at our first grocery trip in Brussels for quite some time. We ate some baguette on the way home - so delicious! We also bought a few kinds of cheese - we're all ready to live off of baguettes, wine, and cheese now. :-)


After our grocery store adventure, it was finally time for dinner! It was already 8:15 pm, but we tend to forget the time because the sun sets so late. We walked down to the shopping center that is nearby and found nothing was open, so we hopped in our mini-Cooper and headed out for some Indian food. We made it safely to the restaurant in about 10 minutes (driving in Belgium is a bit of a challenge - lots of confusing traffic circles) and then spent 25 minutes looking for parking. We'll be taking the metro from now on. Dinner was delicious and reasonably priced - we found the area with all of the Turkish and Indian restaurants, so we'll definitely be eating in that neighborhood again. 


We headed home after dinner, exhausted, and ready to watch Glee online. When I pulled up the Fox website and clicked on "play newest episode", I received the following depressing message "The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your current country." Apparently you can't watch streaming American TV shows in Europe. We were a little bummed, because we can't really afford satellite TV over here. We don't watch very much TV at all, but there are a few shows we love. A few friends have given me suggestions, so we'll figure something out. We did eventually find a way to watch Glee on a very slow website, but we at least got to watch it! Luckily none of our shows will be on again until late September, so we have months to figure it out.


I woke up early again this morning, Brent and I enjoyed breakfast together (mmmm, more baguette) and then Brent left for work. Around 10:00 am, the plumber came to fix our toilet. I had no idea our toilet was broken, but with the little French I speak and his broken English, I just let him do his thing. I'm pretty sure we got a new toilet - after much swearing and singing in French by the plumber. It was pretty funny sitting here listening to him. I have more errands to run today, and then tonight we're going to do more exploring. I can't wait to see how lost I get today! :-) It's very entertaining - and it's not very hot out, so that's great! I also can't wait to explore more this weekend with Brent! More stories to come...

Update on the past 10 months since I stopped blogging...

Ok, so I know I stopped blogging after Brent's heart surgery, and the past 10 months have been crazy! So here is a quick review.

Brent had an amazing recovery from heart surgery #8. :-)

We got married on September 13th, 2009 and had an incredible honeymoon in French Polynesia (Moorea & Bora Bora.) I have traveled quite a bit, but after seeing French Polynesia, I was ready to quit traveling because I didn't know how anywhere else in the world could live up to how beautiful it was there. :-)

The Fall of 2009 was very fun - we were married, I was taking a semester off from grad school, and we were surrounded by wonderful friends in San Diego.

We spent 1o days in Illinois for Thanksgiving (visiting Brent's family) and we were in Atlanta for Christmas (visiting my family.) After Christmas, we went on an awesome 7 day cruise to the southern Caribbean.

Ok, so now we're getting a little closer to the present. :-) We had been praying for a job opportunity and chance to move to Europe for almost a year. Our thoughts were that we are young, we don't have kids, and we love to travel. We live our lives like every day is our last, especially after last summer, so we figured it was now or never to have this amazing adventure! In early February, after months of feeling hopeless and that it was impossible to move to Europe, Brent interviewed for a job in Brussels, Belgium. In March, he was offered and accepted the job! (Brent works in international tax.) And so our next adventure began...

Our last few months in San Diego were incredibly busy - I was back in grad school and we were planning a move overseas! I finished up my semester at the end of April (I have one more semester left, we'll get to that later...), Brent gave his 2 weeks notice, we had an awesome going away party, and of course one last "heart" scare. We spent our last Friday in San Diego at Scripps Green hospital - Brent had to have a cardiac cath done to check out his heart. We waited until right before we moved to make sure everything was ok, at his doctor's recommendation because we were so sure everything would be ok. Long story short, after being scared for a week, his doctor said (and I quote) "I wouldn't do a damn thing about this, just go live your lives and have fun in Europe." :-) Our last weekend in San Diego was not exactly how we planned it, but we have so many wonderful memories of that city. I lived there for almost 6 years and Brent lived there for 5 years. San Diego will always have a special place in our hearts - it truly is America's Finest City and sometimes I think we were crazy to leave! So to all of our San Diego friends - we love you guys, you all have such a special place in our hearts, and please come visit!!!

We left San Diego on May 9th to drive to Atlanta, with our awesome dog Sadie in the backseat. :-) We stopped in Palm Springs, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Moab (Utah), Denver, Wichita, Dallas, Madison (Mississippi), and then finally we arrived in Norcross, Georgia. Our road trip was sooooo fun!!! We love Palm Springs and Vegas, and the Grand Canyon was breathtaking. Moab, Utah was one of the coolest cities I have ever been to. Denver was snowy and beautiful, Wichita was boring and flat. :-) We met up with some wonderful friends in Dallas and then the next day stayed with my brother and sister-in-law and their adorable kids in Mississippi. We finally arrived in Norcross on May 19th. We hung out in Atlanta for about a week. During that time, we also drove to Charlotte, NC for a mission team training (We're going to Africa in about a month, but more on that later...) After a week in Atlanta and another awesome going away party, we flew up to Illinois to spend some time with Brent's family and attend his 10 year high school reunion. His reunion was super fun, it was great to see all of his family and friends, and we even got to go to a Cubs game in Chicago. We then flew back down to Atlanta, spent 2 nights there, and left for our new lives in Brussels, Belgium on June 2nd.

Side note, because everyone asks - our awesome dog Sadie is staying with my kind parents in Atlanta for 2 years. We decided not to bring her with us to Europe because she is 9 years old and it's a long flight overseas. We also will be traveling some for Brent's job and also traveling for fun! We thought it would be best for Sadie to stay with my parents - and she's probably happier there than she was living with us. It was a hard decision because Sadie is like our child, but we know she'll be well taken care of. So far, I have had 3 crying meltdowns because I miss her, but I know she's happy and luckily my sweet husband is here to comfort me when I talk about her. If you're reading my blog though, you should probably be aware I am a huge animal lover...I am sure there will be a lot of animal pictures. :-)

And now you are all up to date! So on to Belgium...

After a long flight, during which neither of us slept much, we arrived in Brussels. We each brought 2 big trunks, one big suitcase, and one small suitcase for a total of 8 bags. Luckily we found a nice taxi-van to take us to our temporary housing. Brent's company is providing us with one free month of housing, which is helpful. Our current apartment is only a mile from Brent's office, but kinda on the outskirts of the city. However, public transportation is great in Brussels! We are only about a 5 minute walk from a metro stop.

The first thing I noticed about our apartment (besides the fact that it's small) is that we have no oven and the fridge is tiny - like a dorm room fridge. Apparently this is common in Europe and something I will have to get used to. I cannot live without an oven though, so I will be asking the agent that is helping us find housing to please find us an apartment with an oven. A big fridge would be awesome too, but I don't have my hopes up.

When we arrived, we unpacked as best we could (closets aren't common in Belgium either apparently), discovered there are 3 English-speaking TV channels (CNN, BBC, and a channel that seems to show re-runs of Frasier all day), took a 3 hour nap, and set off to explore for a few hours.

We first stopped at Maison Antoine for some frites (fries). Belgium is known for their frites stands called friteries or frietkot. I had previously googled "best frites brussels" and found Maison Antoine, so naturally that is the first place we went...especially because we hadn't eaten all day and we are huge foodies. The frites come in huge paper cones and you can ask for about 20 different types of sauces, mayonnaise being the most common. Other interesting sauce choices include curry, onion sauce, chinese, and tartar sauce. We plan on trying them all - and when you all come visit, you're trying them too. :-) The fries were SO good! They are double-fried and cut thick, so they were kinda crunchy. We were very impressed and plan on trying many different frites stands while living here. Maison Antoine is also in an area we are somewhat interested in living, so it was nice to check out the neighborhood.

After that, we headed on over to the Grand Place, which is the central square of Brussels and the big tourist area. I figured since Brent had never been to Brussels, I should show him the highlights in a few hours. :-) We first stopped at Chocopolis. Chocopolis makes fresh Belgian chocolate and gives out free samples! I tried milk chocolate with mango filling, Brent tried white chocolate with raspberry filling. (Apparently we are fruit-filled chocolate people.) The chocolate was amazing - I can't even describe how good it was. I have had good chocolate before, but this was just incredible. It melted in my mouth - and left me wanting to eat the entire store. Brent saw the look in my eye and he felt the same way, so we quickly exited the store and talked about how amazing the chocolate was for the rest of the night.

We next stopped at Mannekin Pis. Mannekin is a small fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. This is probably Brussels most famous landmark - seriously people. There are many different theories why this little guy is so famous, but I'll let you wikipedia that on your own time. :-) All I remember is when I was a teenager, we thought this fountain was hilarious - and it was mobbed with tourists! So we took a few pictures there, and headed back to the Grand Place to enjoy a Belgian beer. While sitting at a cute little cafe sharing a very good beer, I asked Brent what time it was because it was still very light out. He told me it was 9:30 pm. I then remembered Brent's boss telling us the sun doesn't set until like 11:00 pm!!! We decided Brent needed to get some sleep, so we sped our night up a little bit. We grabbed some take-away sandwiches and then decided to try a waffle. We had to do all the touristy stuff on our first day of course! We had a delicious belgian waffle covered in caramel and cream. Soooooo good! I am afraid my diet of waffles, chocolate, beer, and fries might not be healthy. :-) However, we do have to walk everywhere, so I think I'll be alright.

We took the metro back to our cozy apartment, noted the sun finished setting at 11:00 pm, and called it a night. My first thoughts on Belgium are it's very clean, safe, and a big city. Everyone speaks French it seems, so I better re-learn French asap. Luckily I took 3 years of French in college as it was my original major! I also noticed that it is a bit chilly in June (low 50's at night, 70 during the day) so I will be getting used to that. I remember my friend who moved to DC from San Diego once told me it's all about being dressed properly, so I will always be bringing a jacket and dressing in layers!

So here I am, enjoying my second day in Belgium. I woke up at 6:30 am! I never thought I would voluntarily get up at 6:30 am. I walked Brent to the metro stop at 8:30 am, where he caught a shuttle to work. I actually have a lot of errands to run today - so I'll probably be walking a fair bit, which seems a bit daunting, but I guess I'll get used to it. I need to lose a few lbs anyway. :-) After we get all settled in, I'll have to find a place to volunteer as well because I am used to being so busy!

I am in the process of trying to figure out how to share all of my pictures, so please forgive me for that. I think I am going to try to use flickr slideshows and will post links to albums as well. I am open to suggestions too, so let me know what you think.

We are so excited for our new lives and I finally have plenty of time to blog again. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures in Europe!

Rachel Weinberg