Dreaming of a home of our own

On Saturday O and I found a dream apartment… in Brussels!

It had a small terrace overlooking the Park, 400 metres from a metro stop, including a garage (box fermé as it is called in Brussels), a small kitchen that needed refurbishing but already with a double-sink (Hallelujah!!), a huge living room with big windows in two directions and two bed rooms. We immediately tried to call friends in Brussels, could somebody help us check the place out? Maybe O’s brother could get a Ryanair ticket from Zaragoza to look at it…

This morning we found out that the place was already sold – of course! When things seem too good to be true, they usually are… Obviously somebody was quicker than us to react and scooped up a lovely apartment with lots of potential…

An empty kitchen just when I had moved in (2003). I shared the apartment with a French friend for a while before she moved upstairs to the attic flat just above (when she moved out, my boss moved in – upstairs, not with me, but that’s another story)

I got this outdoor set of table and chairs from a Spanish friend who was leaving Brussels when I needed furniture for the kitchen (my flatmate brought the old table with her when she left). Another Spanish friend broke one of the chairs, and I think O might have broken the other one… Spanish men are heavy!?

When O moved in with me, in early 2007, he made this extra counter space from two Ikea Bekväm tables and a spare counter top from the bargain corner.

The bed room just when I had moved in, 2003

My bed room in 2005 – with my cuddly seal called Umbrella on the bed!

While I continue searching for our future home in Brussels, a few things strike me:

• If apartment ads were half as staged as the Swedish ones, you could actually see how the place looks like instead of focusing on open cupboard doors, dirty laundry, unmade beds and other blurry images of the objects for sale
• Does anybody actually cook in Brussels? If the kitchens have been renovated in the last 30 years, it is with shoddy materials, no sense of practicality or planning…
• Can anybody work as a real estate agent in Belgium? There is a myriad of companies (and their photos don’t look a single bit more professional than those of the individuals who pose their ads on immoweb.be*) that don’t seem very professional or serious. Sometimes you will see the same apartment for sale by 4-5 different agents. Different angles on the photos but still all as bad…

Some of you might remember a similar, an equally ranting post about apartments in Spain… scarily almost exactly a year ago (28th August)! Scary, because we are in exactly the same situation as a year ago, not knowing too much about the future and I keep surfing the internet to look at apartments and dreaming of a home of our own…

An interesting looking tile job on the bathroom walls – compare with the kitchen wall.

Living room in 2003 – the red colour was really not by choice, I don’t even like red and prefer blue. However, the cheapest Beddinge sofa bed was sold in red, and then I found a cheap red and white rug… Later on I bought a white corduroy cover for the sofa and a white carpet, definitely more my style!

Dining room when I had bought a proper dining table! The same coat is in THREE of the photos and illustrate the lack of a place to hang coats by the front door. My father finally put up a few hooks behind the door in the dining room (see the photo below, the coats can be seen through the glass in the door).

The dining room later on became the living room… but I don’t seem to have any photos of that arrangement.

The photos are from my old apartment in Brussels – not staged and I would never try to sell an apartment with them! Obviously this was before my blogging days, as I have hardly any photos of my home without people in them. I was just thinking that it was a pity that I didn’t take photos of the rooms before we moved, it would have been nice to have as a memory, when I thought of my father’s photos (on a server that I can access remotely)… Every time my parents came to visit, my dear father seemed to have taken photos of my home! (some of them are mine though) 

This is the kind of photo people would post on the internet when trying to sell their home – you don’t see anything of the kitchen, just all the stuff… O and I had so much food and kitchen utensils, as you can see. Maybe that’s why I don’t have many photos of the last 8 months in the apartment – it was just too full of things and furniture when O had moved in!

*) The equivalent of hemnet.se in Sweden. A website to find houses and apartments for rent and sale in all of Belgium – both for real estate agents and individuals selling their homes without the “help” (??) of a professional.

If you are European and you aren’t going to vote…

…you should be ashamed of yourself*!!!

There is no excuse – nobody who reads any newspaper and / or watches the news can have missed that the European elections are taking place tomorrow**. I just can’t believe one survey made in Sweden which claims that 1 out of 4 Swedish voters do not know about the elections!
My busy friend Å in Copenhagen wrote on her Facebook status the other day: “[I] took a two minutes detour for democracy while rushing between work and kindergarten and speed-voted for the European Parliament. So anyone claiming “I did not have time to vote” will need to look for another argument…”
If you have other excuses why you are not voting – check out this blog (in Swedish) for some reasons why you should vote!

If you are still wondering how the European Parliament and its elections work – check out this FAQs on BBC News, information in Swedish here and this link to the European Parliament itself.

The European Parliament in Brussels

We are 375 million Europeans in 27 countries to vote for the European Parliament, which means that it is the biggest “trans-national election in history” (according to BBC News) and if that isn’t a reason enough to exercise your right to vote, consider that TODAY (6th June) the 65th anniversary of D-Day was celebrated in Normandie! See how far we have come with European integration since that day in 1944! Think of that and don’t tell me that the European Union isn’t important!

The Berlaymont building in Brussels which houses the European Commission

Why are Swedes such Euro-sceptics together with the British? Well, I think that it is very much a problem of how we look at Europe – as the Continent, or in other words as them, not us. We don’t feel as European as a Belgian, German, Italian or French. In most countries on the Continent the European flag always flies next to the national flag, and people cross borders and use Euros without considering it “travelling abroad” anymore…

The City Hall in Aix-en-Provence, France flies the European flag

The City Hall in Zaragoza, Spain with the European flag

The European flag outside a theatre in Lisbon, Portugal

My 89-year old grandfather is one of the anti-EU Swedes (but according to my father he has already voted!) and I think for his generation in Sweden it is a question of fear – they remember the mess of the Second World War, which happened mostly on the Continent and not in Sweden (even though both Norway and Finland were very much involved). So, while Europeans his age remember the war and therefore support the European idea, he and his generation in Sweden still want to keep out to avoid involvement.

American war monument in Bastogne, Belgium

What I can’t understand is that the younger generation is still sceptical – haven’t they realised the marvels of being able to travel, study and work anywhere in Europe? Not having to worry about visas and work permits…

Arrivals and departures at the Venice trainstation – cross-border trains to Geneva (not part of the EU) and Slovenia

And if you are one of the critics of the European Union, without exercising your democratic right (obligation!), I believe that you have no right to criticise – there are lots of Euro-critical parties to vote for!

I am European and I am proud of it! GO and VOTE!!

The European flag in Bruges, Belgium

*) In Swedish there is a saying that goes something like “you will never be a prophet in your own home[town]” and unfortunately O is one of the Europeans who hasn’t voted! I have told him that it is unforgiveable, especially as he has lived and studied / worked in two different European countries, and is married to another European! Without the European Union we probably never would have met…
**) Some member states, such as the UK and the Netherlands have already voted earlier this week.

Living in Brussels…

Every spring for the last three years I have been wondering about my future. Three years ago I was wondering if we were going to move abroad – O had been offered to move to Texas, two years ago I was wondering when we were going to move to Puerto Rico, one year ago I was wondering when and where we would be moving next and… Well, once again I am wondering when and where!

There is a big probability that we move back to Brussels at the end of the year, and it doesn’t feel too bad actually. Both my visit last summer and my most recent Brussels trip in February, made me realise that I wouldn’t mind returning to the capital of Europe!

Here are some of the Brussels thoughts I wrote down over a coffee at the sandwich shop Pulp by Schuman in February:

It is easy to:

• live in Brussels
• to get addicted to the international life in Brussels
• to leave Brussels, i.e to travel to other European destinations (London 2½ hours by train, Paris 1½ hours, Amsterdam 3 hours)
• to get a kick out of using all your language skills in one day



• to eat cheap and well in Brussels
• to find a charming apartment with high ceilings with stucco, and old fireplaces in Brussels
• to fall in love in Brussels
• to make new friends in Brussels
• to get quick and good health care in Brussels
• to figure out the metro system as there used to be only 2 metro lines – this has been changed since April

However it is also easy to:

• to get stuck in Brussels because you can’t think of a better alternative
• get so tired of the rain (even though I managed to get sun stroke in a local park my first summer in Brussels)
• to find a crappy, draughty old apartment with a tiny toilet
• to get shockingly high electricity bills from trying to heat a draughty apartment
• to become very annoyed with the complicated bureaucracy
• to get your heart broken in Brussels
• to realise that all of your friends have left Brussels in the last year
• to always be late if depending on public transport, especially buses and trams



• to be sick and tired of the traffic
• to live in Brussels and only see the Grand’ Place when you have visitors
• to live in Brussels and never see the Belgian countryside
• to live in Brussels and not speak / learn French
• to not recognise the city after a year away…

Personally it would be easy to move back for O and I since we know the city already (despite the last bullet in the list) and we still have quite a few friends who live in Brussels, even though we have a lot of friends who have left – including some Belgians! And it would indeed feel like moving home.

Bilingual and bi-cultural, is that a problem? (Part I)

On Friday evening we participated in a French-Puerto Rican cultural event at the Alliance Francaise – a book written by a French author, Laurent LeMaitre, was being launched. We listened to the bilingual presentation of the book by the author himself, his wife – the translator from French to Spanish, and the father-in-law who runs the publishing company. Afterwards we mingled with Puerto Ricans and French people, and we made some new friends during the evening.

A bilingual street in Brussels – the name of the street means Street of the Fat Tower in French, but what does it mean in Flemish!?

The event made me think about us bilingual and bi-cultural couples… Every time I explain to people that my husband is Spanish, I get the question – which language do you speak together? This is especially puzzling for people who hear that we met in Brussels, a French-speaking city (officially bilingual, but not really). I always say But of course we speak English… but I guess that is just obvious to the two of us!!

Even proper names change in different languages – Jozef, Joseph, José, Josef…

At the event on Friday I spoke in French to two French girls married to Puerto Ricans and O talked in Spanish to a French guy married to a Puerto Rican woman; and of course the language issue came up! Both the two Puerto Ricans married to the French know how to speak French; but one couple speaks mostly Spanish at home and the other couple speaks mainly French. And we, the Swedish-Spanish couple, speak English at home, but we are slowly trying to introduce Spanish as well…

One way of solving the bilingual street sign problem in Brussels!

First of all we all agreed that it is very difficult to change language as a couple – if you met in English / French / Spanish, you will probably continue speaking that language. This is clear in the example of the two French-Puerto Rican couples – the couple speaking French met in France, the Spanish-speaking couple met in Puerto Rico! O and I are different though as we, a Spaniard and a Swede, met in a third [bilingual] country with a third language (French), we speak a fourth language (English) and now live in a fifth country which is also bilingual! [I would probably need to make a diagram here]

One of the girls told me that she has a French-Swedish friend who lives with her Spanish boyfriend in Sweden (or it might have been a Spanish-Swede with a French, but nevermind!) and the couple speaks English together. The girl had complained about the language issue and said that it was very tiring to not speak her mother tongue[s] in the relationship and especially when having to speak a language that is not neither partner’s language. So, obviously the question to me was, is it a problem speaking a third language together? I answered that I have never felt that it has been a problem for O and I that we speak English in our relationship – not something that annoys / tires us, nor something that has caused misunderstandings. I overheard O telling the Puerto Rican husband of one of the girls that he thinks that my English is better than his, but that it is still not an issue in our relationship (that is another discussion which I will save for later).

Whether or not different mother tongues in a relationship becomes a language barrier depends most likely on the level of understanding and as well as on the personalities of the two persons! In a way it is more democratic to speak a third language, which is foreign to both partners. It can also be construed as unfair if one person learns to speak the other language but not vice-versa. However, I have never felt that way when it comes to my efforts of learning Spanish, and O’s almost inexistant Swedish. There are quite a big difference between having to learn Spanish, a world language and the only language my family-in-law speaks, and to learn Swedish, which is not really a useful language outside of Sweden and when English works pretty well inside of the country as well! I also believe that learning Spanish will be very useful for my future career, regardless of where we end up living.

Ale’s rocks (Ales stenar) – a viking settlement on the south coast of Skåne, Sweden

Not learning your partner’s mother tongue can nevertheless be interpreted as an unwillingness to get to know his / her culture and background. In our case I believe that O is showing a huge interest to adopt Swedish culture – eating Kalles Kaviar and Herrgårdsost (Swedish cheese), enjoying watching Swedish films, celebrate Midsummer’s eve and inviting friends to Adventsfika (Swedish celebration in December) and absolutely loving IKEA! He is interested in learning Swedish and I am sure that he will pick up quite a fair amount eventually.

This kind of questions is not just applicable to bilingual couples, but also any expat who lives in a foreign country – with or without a foreign language. Do you try to learn the new language or do you get by in English (or any other second language)? Do you expect people to be able to speak to you in the languages you know?

I have so many more thoughts on this matter and I haven’t even touched upon culture, but I will save it for Part II…

All the photos except the one of the Spanish map are from Brussels, a city which is officially bilingual (French & Flemish / Dutch).

Friday theme / Show & tell: Abandoned

The last Friday theme chosen by Västmanländskan in Skåne is abandoned. Since I realised that I still haven’t shown any photos from our visit to Brussels in February, I have chosen some abandoned scenes to publish today:

An abandoned metro station – this is actually the busiest metro station, Arts-Loi (Kunst-Wet in Flemish), but not just after a train has passed!

A few abandoned Metro newspapers in Flemish… Brussels is officially a bi-lingual city – French and Flemish – but most people speak French (or English, or Arabic, or Turkish…) and therefore there are always Flemish Metros left at the end of the day while the edition in French disappears quickly!

An abandoned park – Parc Cinquantenaire (Jubelpark in Flemish) was quite empty on a misty February afternoon but I love walking in “my” park. I have so many memories from this park, which is situated just opposite my first office building (Breydel). We used to eat our lunch sandwiches in the park, I participated in one or two Friskis & Svettis sessions there and I have had a few pic-nics on the lawns…

An abandoned jogging trail in the park – I used to jog here and the trails would be full of other joggers. I always met the same old man, he was in a great shape which was not surprising as I never ran at the same time so I figured that he spent hours (??) jogging every evening!

Another abandoned angle of the park – no sight of the famous wild parrots! My parents always used to see them when they were visiting but Parc Leopold is a better parrot viewing park.

An abandoned sign hidden behind the base of a statue, I guess the cyclists don’t need to get off their bikes anymore…

The kitchen and living room windows in my old apartment in Brussels. I abandoned it in September 2007, and still miss it!

O abandoned his apartment on the second floor in this building to live with me in my apartment in January 2007. He drove me home on the first night we met and it turned out that we more or less lived on the same street (different street names though), 220 metres apart!

The other Friday theme participants can be found here:
Anki, Anna, Anne, Annika, Cecilia, Christel, Desiree, Emma, Erica, IngaBritt, Jemaya, Lena W, Leopardia, Lia, Mais-oui, Marie, Marskatten, Mia D, Millan, Moster Mjölgumpa, Musikanta, Nilla, Norrsken & Stjärnfall, Petra H, Saltis, Sara, Simone, Sparkling, Strandmamman, Taina, Under Ytan, Victoria, Victoria V and Västmanländskan.

Next month the themes will be chosen by Musikanta.

Wednesday recipe: Tarte au citron meringuée (Lemon meringue cake)

Some of you might remember my blog post about a book I read a few months ago – Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. Well, I finally decided to try out one of the recipes from the cookbook that Julie writes about; Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and what better recipe to try, than my favourite French cake ever – Tarte au citron meringuée! Lemon cake seemed especially fitting for Easter – maybe because of the yellow colour?

In Julia Child’s book the cake is simply called Tarte au citron and I have actually modified the recipe so that the cake would remind me more of those great lemon cakes I have eaten in Brussels over the years… I think the best lemon cake in Brussels can be found in L’amour fou (in Ixelles), one of my favourite restaurants! Have the big club sandwich and then a huge slice of tarte au citron meringuée for dessert – according to the on-line menu it will only cost you 13,55 € for the full meal. Mmmm, I think I need to plan a visit to Brussels soon and include dinner at L’amour fou!

Opps, forgot to take a photo of the whole cake… but at least you can see the consistency of the cake this way!

Anyway, most of you don’t live in Brussels and will probably not visit any time soon, so here is a recipe to try at home:

Tarte au citron meringuée
Pastry base:
100 grams butter
2 decilitres flour
3 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of salt
Mix everything together and add more flour if needed. Cover the base of a greased round springform cake tin (removable bottom) with the pastry dough and make a few holes with a fork. Bake for less than 10 min in a 160 degree oven.

Lemon filling:
1 1/4 decilitre sugar
4 egg yolkes
peel of one lemon / 2 limes
3 tablespoons of lemon / lime juice
Whisk the egg yolkes and sugar together until thick and light yellow. Add lemon peel and juice. Prepare a “bain-marie” (water bath) by putting a [preferably stainless steel] bowl in a pot with simmering water, and add the egg and sugar mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until really thick. NB Don’t let it boil or the yolkes will coagulate.
Pour the mixture into the pastry base.

Meringue:
4 egg whites
3/4 decilitres sugar
a pinch of salt
Beat the egg whites and salt until almost hard, add the sugar and continue beating until you can turn the bowl upside down without the eggs pouring out (ask the help of a strong man if you don’t have an electric whisk!!).

Pour the hard-beaten eggs carefully on top of the lemony mixture (already in the pastry base). Bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle icing sugar on top and serve either warm or cold. The cake might sink a little when cooling but don’t worry, it will still taste great!
Enjoy!!

And don’t forget to look out for the film based on Julie Powell’s book – Julie & Julia, it should be coming out this year!

Friday theme / Show & tell: Coffee

Despite good intentions I haven’t been able to participate in all the Friday theme’s this month, despite all the inspirational subjects chosen by Simone “Fritt ur hjartat“ in Uddevalla.

However, today’s theme “coffee” is perfect since I had a quiet fika this week in Pulp (coffee and lunch chain in Brussels) and pondered over my tiny but cheap caffe latte about Brussels… (photo above is from last summer though)

I think that is what coffee is the symbol for me: some time ‘off’ whatever you are doing to either be social with family, friends or colleagues, or to have a quiet time of reflection on your own.

I don’t know why I was so surprised by the size of the caffe latte, it was the same size last summer! But I guess from having all those coffees in Starbucks while studying Spanish over the last months in Puerto Rico made me forget how tiny a ‘normal’ coffee with milk is in Brussels / Europe! But really – who needs half a litre of caffe latte? I never finish my Starbucks coffee… and I definitely preferred the 2 EUR-price tag at Pulp!

Oh, and actually it is not called a caffe latte in Brussels – the traditional name is “lait russe” or Russian milk, nobody seems to know why though!?

Have a short coffee break is usually the best way to enjoy the atmosphere while travelling, giving the feet a rest while checking out the guidebook…

Two coffees in Paris

Just a short post today since we are heading to Spain this afternoon and I still have to meet up with a few last friends.

This post was supposed to have been published Friday morning, but apparently I didn’t click on the right button

Have a great weekend and check out the other Friday bloggers: Anki, Anna, Anne, Annika, Cecilia, Christel, Desiree, Emma, Erica, IngaBritt, Jemaya, Jennie, Lena, Leopardia, Lia, Mais-oui, Marianne, Marie, Marina, Marskatten, Mia, Mia D, Millan, Moster Mjölgumpa, Musikanta, Nilla, Petra H, Saltis, Sara, Simone, Sparkling, Strandmamman, Taina, Under Ytan, and Victoria.

Wednesday recipe: A Swedish classic – Sandwich cake!

Finally some time to update the blog and since it is Wednesday, what better than with a recipe! We, or rather I since O is busy working, are having a great time in Brussels despite my cold (and subsequently the friends now have my cold…) and I have lots of stories and photos to share, but first that recipe:

On Saturday we celebrated Valentine’s Day by having a yummy three-course meal at home with our friends – a Greek (Y), a Spaniard (O), a French (S), an Irish (MT) and two Swedes (J + myself). The dinner was a joint effort and the team-building reached new levels when the tiny work spaces in the kitchen forced us to prepare the cake “in the air”, i.e one person holding the bowl with the cake batter, another one holding the cake tin while a third was scooping…*

The boys prepared some toasts with caviar as snacks for the champagne “apero”.

When we were discussing the menu O surprised me by suggesting that I make a smörgåstårta as a starter – mostly because I didn’t think that he remembered the Swedish word! During our 2,5 weeks in Sweden he called me “Miss Potatis” since I love potatoes but I thought that he had chosen the most simple Swedish word to learn, so I suggested he try with “smörgåstårta” instead / a bit more complicated Our friends thought that a sandwich cake sounded interesting so for the first time ever I tried to make one – and it was quite a success!

Smörgåstårta or Sandwich cake
- white toast bread
- 2 handfuls of boiled shrimp
- smoked salmon
- dill
- 2 deci-litres mayonnaise
- 2 deci-litres sour cream
- 3 chopped hard-boiled eggs
- red and black caviar (fish eggs)
- lemon

Cut most of the shrimp and smoked salmon in small pieces but save some for decoration. Mix sour cream and mayonnaise together – proportions about fifty-fifty (this is not an extremely healthy recipe!) and add the chopped eggs, shrimp, salmon and dill. Squeeze some lemon juice over and stir.
Cut the crusts off the bread slices (I forgot to do this!). Put 4 slices of bread on a big platter and spread a thick layer of the creamy mixture. Add a layer of sliced bread, and mix in some scoops of red caviar in the mixture before spreading it on the bread. Repeat so that you have three layers of bread and mix. Put in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Before serving, add some shrimps, slices of salmon and lemon + small spoonfuls of red and black caviar. Serve as a starter or part of a buffet (smörgåsbord).

*) Reminded me of that classical joke about how many of x-nationality does it take to change a light bulb

Closed due to a cold

I was going to have lots of things to tell you about my breakfasts, fikas, lunches, dinners and drinks with friends in Brussels but instead I have been in bed sleeping or on the sofa watching Grey’s Anatomy. And no Friday theme either this week! I have a really bad cold that doesn’t seem to improve, rather the contrary…

Hope everybody is more lucky today than my host who got the kitchen blind in his head this morning and had to go to the hospital with blood everywhere, and my hostess who spilt coffee all over her… on Friday the 13th!!

Have a nice weekend and do what we are doing for Valentine’s Day tomorrow – celebrate it by sharing a nice home-cooked dinner with friends!!

Walking down the street…

There are lots of differences between life in Brussels and San Juan and one day I will write a comparative post about those differences. However, there is one big difference that I think about every time I leave our apartment… and I have been meaning to write about it for a long time now. Last week Marianne in Cairo wrote about the issue of street harassment (in Swedish) and she received a very offensive comment from one man who apparently didn’t agree with her. Here is my contribution to the subject:

When O’s family was visiting in August, my [Spanish] sister-in-law came back from the local Walgreens (a pharmacy and convenient store a few blocks away) a little confused – she told me that a man had said Buen día to her in the street, and she had immediately thought that he was just a sleazy guy trying to get her attention [as you often do if you are a woman...]*. But then a woman said Buenos días to her and she got confused… I explained to her that it is common practise in Puerto Rico to say hello to people in the street, also to say ¡Salud! if you sneeze or maybe ¡Buen provecho!** if you happen to be eating something (also in restaurants when people walk past your table)!

A street in San Juan

Why did my sister-in-law react negatively to the first “hello”? Well, I guess that she has the same experience as I do that men who try to speak to you in the street don’t always have good intentions… and they don’t always mean to just say hello!

I learnt it the rough way when I was 18 and went to Paris on a school trip. My friends and I spent a week in the French capital, mostly on our own without the teachers’ supervision, and we were very excited to try out our language skills. One evening while walking along a busy pedestrian street, a man said Bonsoir to us, and I was quick to respond (hey, I understand what he said-kind of thing), but when he continued talking to us, we giggled and kept on walking… which the man and his friend did as well, after us! We tried to ignore them and thought that they had given up on us, but a little later when we ended up on a dark street corner, they jumped on us and started grabbing me and another friend. Our third friend tried to fight them off and we managed to run away from the scene… The three of us were very shaken, and I felt so ashamed and guilty as I was the one who had answered when the men spoke to us. I don’t know if they were really trying to attack us in any way, but it was definitely a rude awakening for three naive Swedish girls.

Since then I have made a principle of never talking to strangers in the street. I also quickly learnt why French and Italian women very often look very pissed off when walking down the street – they are wearing their “bitchy-don’t-talk-to-me-face”! Needless to say, I hardly ever smile either when I am out and about on my own in certain countries…

However, even without speaking to men in the street nor smiling, I have had my fair share of quite nasty encounters such as:

• A so-called flasher (exhibitionist) in Venice, Italy – twice with the same guy. Fortunately I wasn’t alone but when we tried to report it to the local police they laughed at us, and said that we should feel flattered!! The scary thing was that he continued to appear around the hotel where we were living (~50 girls) which wasn’t in Venice itself but in a small fishing village on the island of Lido – the walk from the bus was very dark and deserted. We did raise the alarm again but were told that exhibitionists usually just want to show off their private parts… Unfortunately we found out afterwards that during the week when we were on our field trip to Bosnia, he had physically attacked four girls and raped one – starting his attacks close to where we lived! I guess that this man was the exception to the rule of how exhibitionists behave.
• Walking to the taxi stand at La Bourse in the centre of Brussels from Place St Géry, a 2-minute walk along one of the busiest streets in the city, with my brother and another guy in the middle of the night. A walk that I have done so many times alone, but this time a group of 5-6 young guys came walking towards us and we had to split up – just when we pass them, two of them start groping me!! I was too shocked to say anything and just kind of elbowed them both to get away. My brother and the other guy didn’t even notice what happened and not until afterwards did I realise that they could have snatched my handbag and I wouldn’t have detected it until it was too late…
• Taking a taxi home from a party, sharing it part of the way, but being the one living farthest away ending up alone with a taxi driver that starts asking for my name (I made up a name), and suggesting that we should meet again. I explained that I had a boyfriend but when getting out of the taxi (of course not right outside my front door), I realise that the driver is not pulling away, so I continue walking past my building until I hear it disappearing.
• Having my bottom discussed by teenage boys walking behind me… In this kind of circumstances I wished that I could have spoken my mother tongue and come up with an apt choice of words! However, that can also backfire as it did to a French friend of mine who had a similar experience and actually told the boy what she thought of him, which made all his friends laugh.. A few days later she met him again and he physically threatened her as she had humiliated him in front of his friends!

The list goes on, of personal experiences and stories of other female friends being groped and harassed - in Belgium, France, Spain and Italy. Some people might feel that it isn’t such a big deal – I haven’t been raped or physically abused, not even mugged but the case in point here is that situations like these make you feel very vulnerable as a woman walking down the street on your own! When even walking home from work in broad daylight becomes an uncomfortable experience, when you feel the need to plan your route to avoid certain street corners where boys / men gather and you know that your appearance will be commented upon….

Rue de la Loi in Brussels, however usually not the scene for harassment

Or taking a taxi – I always used to prefer taxis to walking home alone at night as it [obviously] felt safer, until the above mentioned incident. A few months ago I read about a Swedish 19-year old girl who was found murdered in Paris, she had taken a taxi after a night out – and once again I thought of all those times when I have taken taxis in Brussels, initially with or without girlfriends but always the last one to get out of the car… What are women supposed to do? Always have sleep-overs if going out together to avoid that one girl ends up being alone with the driver in a cab? When I was a student in Lund, there used to be a special taxi fare for girls (tjejtaxi) but apparently that was discriminatory and has been abolished!!

Nevertheless, back to the surprise of my sister-in-law and myself to walking alone in San Juan – it is actually really hassle-free (or rather harassment-free); and it isn’t just walking down the main street in the tourist areas! On my way to the bus stop twice a week, I pass idle taxi drivers, a couple of construction sites, and into the not so rich area (where you shouldn’t wander alone after dark) and it is very rare that I get any remark my way except for maybe a Buen día and that is usually from the same old lady walking home from the supermarket!!

I actually had a similar pleasant surprise in Spain when I was travelling on my own from Madrid to Valencia to Barcelona three years ago. Spending a lot of time on your own in train stations and parks usually mean getting lots of unwanted attention, or at least if you are in Italy or France, but not in Spain. It was such a relief to be able to relax and just enjoy getting to know a new country without having to be on my guard all the time, especially in a country where I didn’t speak the language.

I am aware that there are probably lots of cases of street harassment also in Puerto Rico and Spain, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be as obvious as in Italy (after one year in Italy I was ready to punch the next guy who said Ciao bella to me) and Brussels…

A typical street in Venice

Read more about street harassment on the following web-site and this blog! It is an important issue that touches women all over the world – and no, most of us don’t feel flattered by the attention!!

More interesting links: a CNN article on the issue and another blog post from California.

*) and maybe he just was a sleazy guy who tried to get her attention…
**) Salud = Bless you (in Spain they say ¡Jesús!), Que aproveche = Enjoy your meal