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