Show & Tell / Friday theme: How embarrassing!

The last day of April and Taina‘s last Friday theme is: How embarrassing! That was not an easy subject, especially not to illustrate… However, I will tell you one of the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to me:

The summer of 2006 I had a very intense travel and work period; we had a wedding in Zaragoza at the end of June, in July a visit from my Swedish best friends to Brussels plus one week in Sweden, back to Spain in August for one week’s holiday and a wedding, one week later a 24-hour trip to Italy for a wedding, three days later I went to Malta for a week for work, one or two days after coming home from Malta we headed to the north of Sweden for another wedding (actually my 5th wedding that year as I had also been to one in France in May) and spent one week in Lapland and Lofoten (in Norway), and one day after that holiday I was supposed to go to Israel for a 3-week mission* for work.

Is it possible to do laundry here? A hole in the floor in the house we stayed in at Svolvaer, Lofoten, Norway

As you can imagine it was a bit stressful with all this travelling, but also fun. However, between Malta – the north of Europe – Israel I only had 2-3 days at home and this posed a certain laundry challenge! The first stage of the unpacking, washing laundry, drying and repacking went smoothly, especially as the temperature difference between the Mediterranean and above the polar circle is quite high so the same clothes were not needed. When it came to underwear I was running out though and had to pack some old pairs (that I had not brought to Malta).  

When coming back from Lapland I managed to wash everything but since we didn’t have a tumble dryer, not all my laundry was dry when I had to repack the next day… I decided to pack all the wet items in a plastic bag and to try to remember to hang them up once I had arrived to the hotel in Jerusalem. Since I was going for three weeks and I knew that it wouldn’t really be possible to do a lot of washing, I really had to bring all my underwear but with a mental note of throwing the oldest ones away at the end of my stay in Israel.

Laundry hanging to dry in Venice

Monday morning, I went to the office with my suitcase and met up with my French boss with whom I was travelling. He had been travelling back and forth between Brussels and Jerusalem for a few months already and had left most of his stuff at the hotel, and was just bringing a half-empty bag. When he saw my big suitcase, he offered to take some of my things so I wouldn’t have to risk paying for an over-weight bag at the airport. I opened my suitcase and since my wet laundry was on top in a plastic bag, I gave this to him and explained that I hadn’t had time to dry my clean clothes.

Off we went to Israel, flying via Vienna and arriving in Tel Aviv after midnight. A driver picked us up and drove us to the beautiful hotel, The American Colony, that would be my home for the next 3 weeks in Jerusalem (I will have to write about it one day). Arriving at the hotel at 03 in the morning, and considering that in the last 3 days I had travelled by boat from the Lofoten islands in Norway, plane from above the Polar Circle to Stockholm, attended a 30th birthday party in the Swedish capital, back to Brussels to unpack/repack, and then to Israel I was quite knackered to say the least. I checked in, got the key for my hotel room and said goodnight to my boss who was staying in another part of the hotel.

The painting above the bed says in Swedish “Joseph becomes king in Egypt”, the photos on the wall show Swedish missionaries / Christians at the American Colony at the turn of the century

Just when I had climbed into bed, under a traditional Swedish painting (!!), I realised “Oh no, my wet laundry!!!”. Oh well, there wasn’t much to do, I had no idea which room number my boss had, I was in my PJ’s and I was very, very tired. With a little prayer that my boss wouldn’t open the bag of wet laundry, I fell asleep. The next morning I met with my boss for breakfast and I had forgotten about my clothes… We walked to the hotel across the street where our offices were and then I remembered the bag that I hadn’t recovered from the other one’s suitcase!

A little embarrassed I said to my boss; Hey I need to get my laundry back from your suitcase because it is still wet and I need to hang it up so it doesn’t smell… What do you think he answered me? “Pas de problème, j’ai étendu tes vetements dans ma salle de bain” (No problem, I have hung up your clothes in my bathroom). OMG, I wanted to die, how embarrassing!! My BOSS has been hanging up my OLD UNDERWEAR!!!!

Can you imagine my embarrassment – this was not any new and shiny underwear**, these were my old cotton underwear that I was going to throw away before going back to Europe!! Of course I felt a need to explain my old, not so white anymore panties and mumbled something about it all going in la poubelle (garbage) at the end of the mission, and hoped that he hadn’t inspected them too closely. I actually don’t even remember how I got them back, but I guess neatly folded and dry, ha ha!

How do you think the beduin families do their laundry? The desert Wadi Rum, Jordan

The same evening we went out for dinner and my boss suggested that I should start stop saying vous (polite form of you, “ni” in Swedish) to him and that on peut se tutoyer, non? (use the more informal form of you (“du”). I refused!! It was enough that he had seen my underwear and I guess I was trying to draw a line at the intimacy between us… a bit too late though.

We did sleep in a beduin tent together in the Jordanian desert a few weeks later but fortunately there were some German tourists sharing it with us and I avoided (??) another embarrassing situation when in the middle of the night I tried to sneak out for a pee under the stars (no toilets of course), and my boss asked me if he should go with me - NON MERCI!!  

Other embarrassed Friday theme participants:
Anki, Anna, Anne, Anne-Marie, Annika, Bejla, Desiree, Erica, Helena, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Jenny, Mais-oui, Mrs Clapper, Musikanta, Nilla, Olgakatt, Petra H, Pettas, Saltis, Strandmamman, Sunflake and Taina.

And speaking of embarrassing, I just read in the Swedish newspaper that more than 100 drunken and unruly Swedes had been rounded up and sent back to Sweden from Denmark tonight. How embarrassing!! People used to do this in the 1980′s when the alcohol was so much cheaper in Denmark, but it is 2010 for goodness sake!

*)  A so-called mission as it is called in international organisation lingo… My father always questioned if we are missionaries

**) The question is: if it had been sexy – would that have been more or less embarrassing?? I mean he could have wondered why I was bringing sexy underwear for a work trip!? Oh well, the best would have been if he had never seen my underwear, full stop!!

Belgian political crisis (again)…

I wrote about Belgian politics already 3 years ago when it took several months to form a goverment after the elections (click on the link for some background information). Belgium has appeared in the news again, as the Prime Minister Yves Leterme (who famously confused the Belgian anthem for La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, 3 years ago!) resigned last week. Third time lucky / unlucky you might say, since it was the third time since July 2008 that he had offered his resignation to the Belgian king.

Belgian headlines: “Total Paralysis”

The crisis is due to failed negotiations on the so-called BHV-case. What is BHV you might ask – we certainly did when we first saw the abbreviation in the newspapers when arriving to Belgium almost 3 weeks ago. BHV stands for Brussels – Halle – Vilvoorde and is a disputed electoral district in and around Brussels. As you know Brussels is a mainly French-speaking city, but officially it is bilingual with Flemish (Dutch) as the other official language. However, Brussels and its 19 communes (municipalities), known as the Bruxelles-Capital region, is surrounded by Flanders where only Flemish is the accepted language (with some exceptions, see link below for explanation on the language laws).

During the political crisis of 2007 when Belgium was without a government for several months, and people were fearing for the future of the country, Belgian flags have been flying from the windows and balconies of houses and apartments to show the residents’ support for Belgium!

The political system of Belgium is completely divided and separate between Flemish and Walloon (French-speaking) parties, and people living in Flanders can only vote for Flemish parties and vice versa in Wallonia. Nevertheless, many French-speaking Belgians (and foreigners) have in recent years settled in some of the officially Flemish communes outside Bruxelles-Capital, and they want to be able to vote for whichever party they’d like.

Since I haven’t been following Belgian politics very closely the last few years, I have been trying to figure out the reasons for the problems facing the country at the moment. Obviously strong sentiments and opinions are flying high since the French-speaking Belgians and many Flemish are worried that this political crisis will eventually lead to the separation of Belgium, something that at least one Flemish party is aiming for. The current crisis might also influence the work of the European Union in just a few months as Belgium is set to hold the presidency of the EU (from the 1st July for 6 months).

The town hall of the municipality of Woluwe-St-Lambert, one of the 19 Brussels communes

Another reason for the political upheaval is the case of the three elected mayors of the communes Kraainem, Linkebeek and Wezembeek-Oppem, whom the Flemish Minister of Interior has refused to nominate. The official reason? They had sent out electoral information in only French to their voters. This was a breach of the country’s language laws because even though the three communes are mainly French-speaking, the municipalities are situated in Flanders (read more about the Belgian language laws and rules here). One politician compared the refusal of the Flemish minister to nominate the mayors, with the behaviour of the German occupiers during the Second World War, a comparison that was criticised from both sides but it shows how strong people feel about this case.

The banner says: “Respect for universal suffrage, solidarity with the three mayors of the Brussels outskirts”

Various rumours that we have been told / read:

• Some Flemish members of parliament taunted the Walloons when the Prime Minister had announced his resignation and sang a Flemish separatist song! Honteux (Shameful) as the French would say, if this is true!
• Flemish mayors in the communes surrounding Bruxelles-capital have instructed real estate agents to not show & sell property to French-speakers and foreigners (who usually speak French instead of Flemish) (read more here, in French).

 I spoke to two Flemish friends yesterday and they are as dismayed about the crisis and its possible implications for Belgium as a country, as we are. It has to be underligned that most Flemish seem to support the raison d’être of Belgium and it seems that is is mostly the politicians who are creating the tensions. I will write more about the linguistic issue another day, but here is a funny, but outrageous clip from France’s biggest tv-channel, TF1 (watch the Belgian map shown in the news):

The French news programme inverting the map of their neighbour Belgium is like if an Irish news broadcast would swap positions of Scotland and England on a map… Almost all my Belgian friends had this link on their FB pages yesterday!

I don’t know the reason, but I thought that it was quite telling that the big Belgian flag that usually hangs in the arc in Parc Cinquantenaire is missing

Jämställda förhållanden eller ej?

Några bloggerskor med spanska pojkvänner / makar har diskuterat “jämlikhet över kulturgränserna“ och jag tyckte att diskussionen var så intressant att jag tänkte skicka den vidare till er, mina läsare: Gå in och läs på Columbus Lögn (Emma Sofias blogg) och skriv vad ni tycker! Som Emma Sofia har skrivit idag, alla är välkomna att tycka till, med eller utan utländsk partner… Tack Bella för bloggtipset!

April weekend in Brussels

When we arrived to Belgium two weeks ago the landscape looked like this from the air:

Forêt de Soignes can be seen in the lower part of the photo. The southern parts of Brussels are surrounded by forests and parks; Forêt de Soignes (4,41 hectare), Bois de la Cambre (actually a park which is part of the first forest, 1,23 km2) and Parc de Tervuren where the African museum is located (we are hopefully going there next Sunday).

And here are some photos from the weekend:

Place Luxembourg in front of the European Parliament – dead on the weekends, super busy on weekdays and especially Fridays when Eurocrats and others gather for after work drinks

Tree in bloom by the European Parliament

Quite discreet Greenpeace grafitti by the European Parliament

The beautiful high school, Lycée Émile Jacqmain in Parc Leopold is finally being renovated

Ice-skating is prohibited! The park and the surrounding neighbourhoods are home to big colonies of wild parrots but we didn’t see any this time.

We were shocked by the amount of garbage left all over the park… A few minutes later we saw a small cleaning truck and three park guardians who were cleaning – on a SUNDAY! Impressive!

Everywhere you go in Brussels on the weekends, you see scouts! I always found it a little sad that they don’t head out in the above-mentioned forests / parks instead of spending time in the asphalt jungle… At least here they were in a park, albeit much smaller than the ones on the outskirts of the city

A yellow tulip must have gotten lost…

This must be the widest streets in Brussels, it cuts the access from the Palais Royal (Royal Palace, not where the Belgian royal family lives – they live in a big park, Laeken, in the north of the city) from the Parc Royal, also known as Parc de Bruxelles.

Parc Royal with the Palais de la Justice (Justice Palace) in the background

I love old signs! This one says that the garden (park), which was created for the pleasure of the public is placed under the protection by all citizens (not a great translation but you understand the meaning, I hope…)

Lilacs in front of the Palais Royal, after we had crossed that wide street fearing for our lives!? O said that the street reminded him of a street in New Delhi (not that he has been to India!) – less traffic but people are driving like mad - stopping, turning, speeding, reversing while pedestrians are trying to cross…

And then we headed home to our French friend S and baked some Swedish scones, which we ate on her terrace (where the previous Sunday, when S was in France, we had brunch with her boyfriend who was now in Greece)

Show & Tell / Friday Theme: Power

Today’s theme of Power can have different meanings, and the meaning I have chosen is not the same as for the Swedish word “makt” which was the word Taina has chosen. However, I hope that she doesn’t mind that I use “Power” in one of its English definitions… (it is actually an excuse for me to show you some more photos from Spain )

Power: a particular form of mechanical or physical energy: e.g. hydroelectric power (Definition No 17 out of 32, from Dictionary.com)

One afternoon (before eating lunch so maybe not afternoon for Spaniards who eat really late) when we were in Spain, O’s mother asked us to come with her to a neighbouring village to buy meat. While O and his mother spent 20 minutes (minimum!) in the carnicería, buying different cuts of meat (beef, lamb, pork, chicken) and sausages (chorizo, longaniza) I walked around the village trying to take some photos. But something was annoying me – everywhere I turned the camera, there were power cables; tangled across the streets, on the walls of the houses… Maybe not all of them were power cables, but telephone lines but they were everywhere!

Carnicería (the butcher’s shop) with power cables above the entrance

Well, you can see for yourselves in these photos:

I find it extremely fascinating that this narrow street is a two-way street!

More power lines across the street

Panadería means Bakery – this photo had been so much nicer without those annoying cables / tubes above the sign! (I guess I should try to learn to use PhotoShop!)

It never ceases to surprise me how many services Spanish villages have – bakeries, butchers’ and fish mongers, banks…

At the same time the streets are almost always deserted – it is rare to see people walking in the street. People seem to like their cars almost as much as the Americans and Puerto Ricans! The flags across the street were probably left after a celebration (celebrations are an integral part of Spanish village life – religious holidays such as Easter and the days of the patron saints etc)

An almost vertical cable of some sort

On the way to Zaragoza from O’s village there is a whole town dedicated to power, La Muela (meaning: molar / back tooth or millstone which is quite suitable considering the modern-style wind mills!). The landscape is covered in wind turbines, and it is quite impressive to drive on the motorway in the night when the only thing you see is hundreds of blinking red lights!

Another fascinating phenomenon in Spanish villages is the loudspeakers: The quality of the film below is not very good (and very brief) but I was attempting to catch the announcement from the loudspeakers, which are set up all over the villages. They announce important events in the village, offers from the shops (“Today the carnicería has a special offer on 1 kg of chorizo”) and during Christmas time they play Christmas songs!!! Crazy if you ask me and maybe no wonder that I sometimes long for some peace and quiet when in Spain!

Other Friday theme participants:
Anki, Anna, Anne, Anne-Marie, Annika, Bejla, Desiree, Erica, Helena, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Jenny, Mais-oui, Mrs Clapper, Musikanta, Nilla, Olgakatt, Petra H, Pettas, Saltis, Strandmamman, and Taina.

Wednesday recipe: Un bocadillo español (a Spanish sandwich) and an etiquette question

What do you say, isn’t it high time for another Wednesday recipe? The last few weeks I have lost count of the days and not realised which day of the week it has been. You might have noticed that I have finally cleaned up the back-log of unanswered comments, dating all the way back to March… It was actually thanks to Bejla and Anna in Stockholm that I got around to reply to the comments, since they both did catch-up reading sessions today and wrote lots of comments (thanks girls!). I think that all comments have been answered now, give me a shout if I have missed any! Thanks for reading and commenting even though I have been so bad with responding lately.

O was supposed to have gone back to Puerto Rico yesterday but his flight was cancelled, and I have to admit that I was quite pleased that I got to keep him in Europe. We are staying with our Greek-French friends Y and S, however Y managed to fly to Greece today so we are keeping S company while her boyfriend visits his family. Fingers crossed that the situation doesn’t get worse again and that he will be able to get back to Belgium on Sunday!

A Spanish-Swedish breakfast at Ikea in Zaragoza

It is no secret that O and I love Ikea, but our 4 (yes, f-o-u-r!) visits to the big furniture store in two days (in a row) while we were in Spain recently, was just a bit exaggerated even for me! Especially as we weren’t looking for anything for ourselves but for O’s brother… We did treat O’s father to his first ever Ikea meal and I stocked up on Swedish sweets (Polly and Daim!). The second day we started by having breakfast in the Ikea restaurant, something we have done several times now and it is always surprisingly good (and cheap). To be honest, much better than the meatballs!  

Un bocadillo español (a Spanish sandwich)

This is a typical sandwich that Spaniards eat as a morning snack. Since a Spanish breakfast usually just means a cafe con leche (coffee with milk), and some magdalenas (Spanish-style muffins / cupcakes), I guess most people end up hungry after a few hours… Many cafés serve small tapas, and sandwiches with jamón (ham) or a piece of tortilla (Spanish omelette with potato).

1. Sprinkle some olive oil on a bread roll / slice of white bread (eg baguette or ciabatta)

2. Spread grated tomato. O has taught me that grating tomatoes is a perfect way to remove the skin. Just grate until you are left with only the skin that you throw away (also great for tomato-based sauces, paella etc).

3. Add a slice of Spanish ham and you have a classic bocadillo español con jamón y tomate

Since it is Wednesday, let’s continue with an etiquette poll:

During our week in Spain I managed to meet up with a Swedish(-Dutch) girl, L who lives in Zaragoza. Her mother and my mother are work colleagues and when they figured out the Zaragoza-link, they thought that it would be nice for us to meet, which we did last year. It was the first time though that we had time to really sit down and talk, we met in a bar / café* where we spent two hours comparing notes on Spanish experiences. It was great to get to know her better and hopefully we will be able to meet next time with our respective Spaniards.

What do you see in this photo from a Spanish bar / cafe that is not very common to see anymore in other countries

One indication that the two of us are not so Swedish anymore was how we handled the whole “who-should-pay-for-what” thing: When I went to order a coffee at the bar, the waitress asked me if I wanted to pay for everything on the tab, which included my fellow Swede’s coffee and water (I was a little late, another sign of my un-Swedishness**). I said yes, and paid. Later on I ordered a sandwich (incidentally one with tortilla and tomato as seen in the middle of the photo above) and L had something more to drink, and she paid for the two of us. No big deal for either of us, but I am not so sure the same thing would have happened in Sweden… However, in Brussels this is also the way things usually work when you are in a bar / café with friends, and I like it!

Same thing with splitting the bill after a restaurant dinner if everybody has eaten and drunk for more or less the same amount. I do not like it when you are a big group of people that you might not know (when out with friends and their friends) and everybody ends up drinking and eating so much more than yourself (maybe you are on a budget or you just don’t feel like having a big meal) and you feel forced to subsidise their dinner (or look very cheap if protesting!). However, among our friends we usually keep the same level of consumption and in those cases I think that it is an ok way of doing things. What do you think?  

*) Quite a typical phenomenon in Europe that a place acts as both café and bar, serving coffee, alcohol and light food such as tapas, sandwiches and salads
**) Or quite simply due to the fact of being married to a “time optimistic” Spaniard!! (who by the way loves that expression – being a time optimist…)

Drinking and eating in Brussels: some reflections

The weather in Brussels has been great ever since we arrived last Sunday, a perfect spring weather with lots of sunshine and t-shirt friendly when in the sun! Yesterday we sat on a friend’s terrace and had a simple brunch while catching up, when we left I told him that this was exactly what we had missed from Belgium! The simple get-togethers; meeting up on a Sunday afternoon or having dinner in a restaurant which doesn’t end up costing too much (or being an uncharming chain-restaurant)…  

Belgian coffee menu – NB. The two different kinds of cappuccino and the “lait russe” which is actually the Belgian version of a caffe latte

O and I have also had quite a few opportunities to do “fika”, before or after having visited a house, and I had almost forgotten the integral parts of café / restaurant / bar life in Belgium:

• The small piece of chocolate or cookie (Speculoos, a ginger-flavoured cookie eaten in Belgium and the Netherlands (there called Speculaas) served with your coffee
• “Madame Pi-pi” – the woman who cleans the toilets in many cafés and restaurants (and even cinemas!), and who you need to pay (0.30-0.35 EUR). A French friend of mine has told me that the first time she visited Brussels and encountered a Madame Pi-pi, there was a woman who refused to pay and actually peed on the floor to make her point!?
• The Belgian “cappuccino” which is made with chantilly (whipped cream, usually the ready-whipped sort that I hate) instead of milk. In some places you can choose, but if you go to a very traditional Belgian café you risk getting this version without any warning!
• The Russian milk (lait russe) which is the Wallon (Belgian French) way of saying caffe latte. In Dutch and Flemish it is called koffie verkeerd* (incorrect coffee!?). O had forgotten the lait russe and ordered a café au lait and got a cup of coffee and cold milk in a jug…
• Another mistake: when having a late lunch at Le Pain Quotidien (last time we went to a Le Pain Quotidien was with Ing in Los Angeles!) O chose between boeuf and rosbeef for his tartine (open sandwich) but finally settled for “beef” while I ordered the roastbeef sandwich. Opps, the beef was actually raw minced meat, which usually is called “filet americain”…
• Speaking of Le Pain Quotidien, the first time I went to Antwerpen with some friends we tried to find the LPQ that we had seen mentioned in the guide book. We asked a few persons on the street but nobody had heard of it… Afterwards I realised that we should have used the Flemish name: Het Dagelijks Brood (The daily bread, same meaning as in French)!!
• BYOS/F** or Bring Your Own Sandwich / Fries to a bar and order something to drink! Of course you have to make sure that the bar / café doesn’t serve food, because then it wouldn’t be very popular to bring your own.
• A plate of cheese cubes, salami slices, mustard and herb salt (I think, I can’t remember right now what it is, some kind of salt) + tooth picks = a apéro (short for apéritif) snack that you can order with your beer in most bars 
• My favourite beer – Hoegaarden blanche (white beer, i.e wheat beer) with a slice of lemon, is the most refreshing on a terrace in the sunshine!

Cappuccino, the normal version and not the Belgian one which is made with Chantilly (disgusting!!!)

Le Pain Quotidien-chain is Belgian!

Roastbeef sandwich

And finally a true spring photo, taken in the garden of one of the houses we saw on Saturday. Too bad that the house was out of our price range because having these flowers in the backyard would make me so happy every spring:

Blåsippan ute i backarna står
niger och säger: ”Nu är det vår!”
Barnen de plocka små sipporna glatt,
rusa sen hem under rop och skratt…

I hadn’t seen the flowers nor heard the song (about the blue version of the flower) in many years.

Wood anemone / vitsippa / anémone des bois

*) And in Switzerland they call it “renversé” (upside down). In Puerto Rico the cafe con leche is such the norm that if you order a cafe you automatically get it with hot milk…

**) It is not really called BYOS/F, I made that one up!

Wallpaper

I have seen some interesting wallpapers this last week – retro, cool, beautiful, and plain ugly. This was one of the sweeter ones…

First days of house-hunting

A collection of houses and interiors that we have seen over the course of this first week of house hunting:

Types of houses:

Maisons de maître (“master’s houses”) – not actually for sale but I thought that they were just so beautiful. O’s dream is to live in such a house, but most of them are out of our price range (or in a terrible state!)…

House probably built in the 1920′s or 30′s… Sold by owner but we haven’t visited it yet

Bel-étage house with garage on ground level, usually built in the 1950′s and 60′s. I am increasingly leaning towards this type since you get garage and parking in front + fairly big gardens, and they are located in tree-lined residential streets.

However, we visited a bel-étage house yesterday that was built “on” the pavement so only parking on the street* and in the garage (as seen on the photo) and the [maximum] 50 m2 back garden was described as “pas mal” (not bad) by the real estate agent. In other words, gardens are not very big at all and are sometimes called “jardinette” (small garden) or “cour” (courtyard). These houses are typical in urban streets with a mix of residential houses and shops with apartments above.

Various interiors:

Maison de maître staircase

Wooden ceiling in maison de maître

Glass ceiling in staircase in maison de maître

Old-style heating in a 1920′s free-standing house**… This kind of heating is actually still in use in many houses / apartments in Brussels (and sometimes the only heating system!)

Same building as the photo above, another floor which was completely covered in mold!!

Same building, retro wallpaper

Cool retro kitchen cupboard

Old bathroom, the warm water gas boiler in the bathroom is a scary feature we don’t like!

This is such a Brussels’ solution – putting the bathroom at the top of the staircase!! Oh yes, even the toilet is behind the divider!! Other creative solutions that I have seen in the past (and lived in myself): having to pass the bathroom to reach the bedroom, bathtub / shower in the kitchen… (the shower in the kitchen was actually in my flat in Geneva)

Old sink

Garden shed – you can see that the land behind the shed belongs to the neighbouring house which has a much bigger garden… This property is still considered to have a big garden of almost 70 m2.

Some more house viewings tomorrow and Saturday but we are probably far from making a decision. We viewed a house in our old street (!!) today, it was very big but also in need of a lot of work in order to be brought to a liveable standard…

*) The garbage you see outside the house on the photo is normal – twice a week the garbage trucks pass and you put the garbage bags straight out on the pavement. The white bags are for normal garbage, yellow for paper and blue for recycling (plastic, carton, metal). The streets look extremely messy on garbage-days but that’s the Brussels’ system… And be aware, do not put out the garbage too early (or too late), there are garbage spies also in Belgium (like in Sweden!) and I know a few people who have been fined!

**) In house ads the number of sides (façade) of the building is always mentioned. Most houses are attached, and free-standing buildings are rare.

Back to Brussels: magnolias, round-abouts and house-hunting

We have been back in Brussels since Sunday and everything is fine! The sun has been shining for the last two days, and even though we have woken up to grey skies this morning, maybe the sun will come out in a few hours (I hope). The magnolias are almost in bloom, the cherry trees definitely are and I have fallen in love with some areas of Brussels that I didn’t know before. Maybe we will end up living there…

Old photo of a Californian magnolia

House-hunting so far has been mostly driving around looking at different neighbourhoods and checking out houses for sale from the exterior – today we will actually visit some of them. Driving in Brussels has always been frustrating but yesterday was extreme; all the roads seemed to be either under construction (+ all the tram lines that are being refurbished all over the city) or one-way, or both… The round-abouts we enjoy though, something that don’t exist on the other side of the Atlantic*!!

Tree in spring bloom – cherry??

Yesterday evening we had dinner with our French-Greek group of friends, in our favourite Thai restaurant Le IIeme element. So lovely and we have already planned two weekend trips with them – Normandie at Pentecost at the end of May, just like three years ago, and then Sweden for Midsummer’s Eve in June. This is what I love about living in the middle of Europe – the trips that you can take without spending too much money! We will drive to Normandie, and the plane tickets to Copenhagen in June were 150 EUR return!

My favourite dish at my favourite Thai restaurant – Nr 38 (fried rice with chicken and vegetables) for 11,90 EUR (remember: No tip, and the VAT is already included!!)

Unfortunately I can’t show you any photos since the hotel doesn’t have wireless in the rooms and only O’s work computer is connected to the internet. I will try to add some photos as soon as possible.

Another food favourite, hardly seen in Puerto Rico, rucola (rocket / arugula)!!

Now, a big hotel breakfast before we head out to visit some houses!

*) I think that I have seen one round-about in Puerto Rico!