It's been too long

I can't quite believe it's been almost two months since our last post. Sincere apologies for any of our blog followers out there - what can I say, it's been a busy few weeks!

Our place is looking better and better as the weeks go by although a distinct lack of storage space means that Joel has a very detailed knowledge of the route to IKEA - a firm Saturday favourite. We are still missing much needed space but have put a hold on our spending so that we can enjoy learning about our new city and making the most of what looks to be the last few days of summer.

August was WET. Really quite miserable, although Joel reminds me that the days that were sunny were really lovely. September has been pretty good so far with just the odd deluge rather than a daily one.

We've been able to head back to the UK twice - once for my friend Sarah's wedding in July and again in August for work. My sister was also home visiting my parents with her 2 girls so it was a chance for the 3 cousins to finally meet. Predictably, the girls adored Joshua and showered him with affection and adoration. He was most spoiled. We've also enjoyed 2 visitors so far. My friend Caroline from my fargone school days and most recently, dear Tamara all the way from Dallas. Her daughter Callie is a month younger than Joshua so I know how much of a sacrifice it was for her to come here and be apart from her for a whole week. Fortunately her husband is a technical whizz and managed to rig up a webcam for nightly chats and giggles. Callie may be a month younger than Josh but her language ability is months ahead! She was chatting about 'open sesame' as Josh still mumbles 'ball', 'shoe' and is now able to snort like a pig. Charming.

We have explored a little more of Brussels and were lucky enough to experience the annual Belgian Beer Festival this weekend. The Grand Place is full of beer tents and it's a very well-organized, not too overcrowded party with 400 or so of the world's best beers. What fun!

We also visited Dinant, about an hour south of Brussels, where we ventured into some caves. Why I'm not quite sure given that I'm claustrophic and we were accompanied by an 18 month old just dying to crawl down crevices into the big black unknown. However it was lots of fun and in the areas where Josh was allowed to explore, he got suitably dirty for the look of a little boy who's had a lot of fun. We also stopped in at Namur which has a lovely citadelle around the outside of the city. We boarded a rather lame 'train' (read: wooden box on wheels NOT rails!) and had a 20 minute bumpy ride around the little paths.

We also made it to Bruges which was beautiful but given the total downpour we had ALL day, it was really rather miserable. We must go back when the weather is better (next summer???!!).

Joshua had his first birthday party a couple of weeks ago for his 'friend', Finley who turned 2. Josh had a fab time although chose to spend most of the party playing IN the bathtub (with no water) happily ignoring the other kids!

Joel had his first hockey practice on Sunday which was a welcome couple of hours for him. The rink is in Leuven, a town about 15 mins away. The team is made up of a bunch of nationalities and hopefully he'll find some good Canadian buddies as a result.

So, we're still finding our feet. Work is going well for me although I look forward to the flexibility of working from home once we get a desk for our study. Being in the office 5 days a week is difficult for me after being able to work from home so much in Dallas.

Our next excitement comes from another trip to the UK for work (combined with a long weekend of fun) followed by the arrival of Joel's parents for 3 weeks. Joshua better get prepared for some attention!!

We all send you much love and hugs. Do enjoy the photos and we'll try to update more regularly!

Callie - missing Josh

This video almost made me move back to Dallas. This is a very brief clip of my very dear friend Tamara's little girl (born almost exactly a month after Joshua), Callie. Looks like she's still thinking of her boyfriend from afar....

What does a boy have to do to get a haircut around here?

Rue Charles Degroux, 53

Golly it's been 3 weeks since we last posted. We have continued to battle with Belgian bureaucracy around form filling, following orders and questioning the logic of almost every single process. Our first trip to the commune of Etterbeek was a bit of a mare. Everyone who lives in Belgium has to register at their local commune. Each commune has its own set of rules and regulations (and required paperwork) so it was a bit difficult to know in advance how our appointment would go. SIRVA (our relocation specialists) forgot to show up ('ooops sorry we double booked') so we struggled through the appointment on our own. The lady who dealt with us was thoroughly confused by the array of passports we presented to her (Canadian for Joel, British for Katie and US for Joshua) coupled with the fact that there is new legislation/forms to fill as of June 1st of this year. She wasn't sure what to do with our situation but ultimately shoved forms in our face, took photocopies and advised us that I would have a temporary piece of paper for about 3-5 months at which point an electronic card (rather like a credit card) would be issued to me. Joel was given a different piece of paper and was told he would get an appointment slip in the mail which he should ensure he keeps and brings with him to the commune. He will then get an orange piece of paper which will be valid for either one or 3 months (she kept changing her mind) at which point we have to return and he'll get a white piece of paper (or was it the other way around??!). Talk about over complicating the whole process.

Joshua's birth certificate wasn't deemed 'valid' - after all, who can trust something signed and stamped by an American state department?? I was a little baffled by this as I would have thought that documents from certain countries would be held to a higher level of scrutiny but I guess I had assumed that the US would be a 'safe' country. We have returned the birth certificate to Austin, TX to be apostilled and returned to us.

The next step is that sometime in the next month (or up to the next 5!!) the police will pop by to check that the Scharlach family really does live here and that we're not actually harbouring illegal immigrants from our apartment.... At that point, the police will notify the commune that we are 'legit' and this, together with the submission of the authenticated birth certificate, will finally mean that Etterbeek commune recognises us as a legal family unit. Unfortunately, until that time, Joel and Joshua will not be covered under 'Euromut' (every time I see that word I think of Penelope Pitstop) which is the health care insurance we have. This doesn't mean that we will be bankrupt if either of them get sick (for the Americans reading this, you may have wondered.....) because it's pretty much socialized. The cost is really small in the first place and Euromut refunds about 90%. Deloitte have offered to reimburse any costs until such time that we are fully registered as a family unit with Euromut.

The biggest news to date is that we are finally IN our apartment! We spent our first night here on Thursday and it's all still a bit of a mess (putting it mildly). We are surrounded by boxes - just hundreds of them everywhere. Until we can get them out of the apartment it's difficult to know what else we need to buy. They are being collected on Monday, the same day that the internet is being connected. I am, right now, using an unsecure wireless connection of one of my unsuspecting neighbours!! On Tuesday we have our new sectional couch being delivered along with a sofa bed for our office/guest room. Wednesday is the day that Joel is most looking forward to as we are having the TV connected to a service called 'TV from home'. It will enable us to watch all the British channels - BBC, ITV, Channel 4, E4, etc. And talking of TVs......you should see the monstrosity we have in our living room. Joel assures me it looked a lot smaller in the huge warehouse of the store he bought it from. Put it this way, our lovely living room (or lovely as it will be!) has gone from being a serene room to entertain guests with a TV in the corner to a room that is all about the TV.....

As you can in our pictures, we have MUCH to do before this place feels like home!

Our first visitor is currently with us. Bless him for putting up with no curtains on the windows (currently being made and due to arrive on August 2nd) and no lights apart from the sconced lights already on the walls. He is sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the guest room with an old sheet up at the window as makeshift curtains! We met him at Church in Dallas and by coincidence he also worked at Deloitte (totally different department from me so I would never have known). He is working in Paris for the next 2 weeks so decided to come via Brussels. Joshua is most taken with him - most likely because the poor little chap is so bored by Ma & Pa by now!

We're off to the UK on Thursday for my friend Sarah's wedding which we're very excited about. Let's hope it doesn't rain......

Remember the first apartment?

These are some pics from that dreaded filth that we stayed in for the first few nights in Brussels. Brings back a kind of itchy feeling.......

Waterloo, da da da da Waterloo....

We went to the re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo this weekend. Mildly entertaining to watch a bunch of adults dress up and prance about in character. To remain true to what really took place, they insisted on doing most of the fighting down in a valley which meant none of us could see what was going on. You have to commend them for staying true to history but it did seem a little pointless!

Time flies

Well it's been a while since our last posting and a lot, yet very little has been done.

Joel has attended a playgroup a few times on Mondays and Fridays which is great. Joshua can have a good run around and mix with other little ones and Joel can interact with some adults! There is another guy who goes, with his 2 year old daughter, so Joel can actually get some male bonding time in - another bonus. The playgroup is run by a group called the BCT and we'll definitely become members as they have a lot of activities and events planned for little ones.

We had a lovely weekend a couple of weeks ago, spending Saturday at my boss's lovely country cottage with a huge garden. Josh 'played' football with Mike's 2 little boys, Daniel and Matthew and at that point Matthew decided to adopt Josh as his little brother for the day. Very cute.

The following day was the BCT's 30th birthday party (see photos above) and even though it was raining, the predominantly British group persevered with their outdoor event! Fortunately there was a little house in the park where they had cake stands and the all-important 'cuppa cha' stand. Joel was bemused by the lack of fizzy drinks/soda/pop and even more so by the teeny tiny cups the juice was served in (no refills here either!).

All in all a great weekend and we were excited that on the Tuesday we were supposed to be moving to our 3rd temporary accommodation which was nicer than our existing one. Of course, when we contacted the agency, they claimed we had totally misunderstood and they had no intention of moving us. I called one of the other reps who had been dealing with us and he agreed that his understanding was that we were supposed to have moved. A big ole' mix-up and noone really apologised or took ownership. Joel and I agreed that we were ok to stay where we were - whilst it's not great, it is on the ground floor so we have access to a small patch of grass for Josh to play on and at least it means we don't have to pack up our things again (just yet).

We are even more excited that our shipping is due to arrive in Antwerp on Thursday. At least we would be, but things are starting to get really confusing.

You don't really exist in Belgium until you have registered at your local commune. You can't register at your commune until you are living there. So, we were going to wait til our shipment arrives before we registered. Unfortunately, in order for the shipment to clear customs, you have to have registered.......

At the last minute we were suddenly advised that we needed to pay 2 months of rent for 'key money' as well as a month's rent upfront. Totally unprepared for this coupled with the fact that all our money is tied up in the US and the exchange rate is just so bad we don't want to move any of it, I asked Deloitte for an advance. They agreed to the advance (after about 15 emails on the subject) and yesterday I went to sign the contract which agreed to pay back the money. The contract required us to pay everything back by the end of July which, given the contract was dated the 23 June, isn't much of an advance if you ask me.

Our internet suddenly went down a couple of weekends ago and we assumed the server was down. When we finally got hold of the agency who own the flat, they confirmed that everything was up and running. Still no connection. This was 9 days ago and we are still battling to try and get this fixed. The agency's IT dept. say it's a problem with my laptop. Deloitte have triple tested it and claim it's a problem with the connection. Noone is really willing to budge and, in the meantime, we have no internet. Customer service doesn't really exist in Belgium. Certainly not to the standards in the US where we felt eligible to complain if something wasn't fixed after a few hours of it breaking!

The weather here has been superb. We've had about 4 days of rain in the almost 4 weeks we've been here and had lovely warm sunny days. Of course, that doesn't mean that it will hold up, but let's be thankful for the gorgeous sun we're getting at the moment.

Josh is really entertaining these days. He recognizes a lot of 'requests' to go find something. His favourite thing are shoes - anyone's - and whenever he is holding an item of clothing or towel, etc, he likes to run it behind his neck in a kind of striptease move. Delightful. He speaks a language that on occasion sounds exactly like Chinese 'ow pow wa' or similar. He also loves to throw himself on a mound of pillows or on Mummy & Daddy's bed (which, let's face it, is NOT the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on - we can't WAIT for our own bed to arrive!!).

We're still finding our feet but more settled than we were a couple of weeks ago. As I've said before, we are kind of in limbo at the moment as everything here is centered around the commune that you live in and your being able to register at that commune. Our temporary accommodation is in Woluwe but our permanent place is in Etterbeek so we can't register til we move there.

We can't find Cheerios, tofu or that cheap 'fake' parmesan in a shaker. However, the fruit and vegetables here are delicious - even Joel is eating tomatoes, a previously unthought of food item - and there are sweets a-plenty everywhere you go. Nothing is so bad that Belgian chocolate can't make it better.

Ups and downs

Yesterday was not a good day. I had the car all day and Joel was stuck at home in the rain with Josh. By the time I got home, he was bouncing off the walls. Fortunately we managed to get in contact with the BCT (Brussels Childbirth Trust) and found out that they had a playgroup on Friday mornings (actually it's a craft group but let's see how Joshua interprets 'crafts'...). So this morning, Joel dropped me off at work and headed over to Wezembeek Oppem in the east of the city to check out the new group. We'll let you know how that went.

The BCT looks like a great organization for us to be involved with. There are playgroups, coffee mornings, craft sessions, etc all over the city. Their 30th birthday party is on Sunday with a party in the park so we are going to head down that way to check out the clowns, face painting and bouncy castles!

Tomorrow we are heading to my new boss Mike's house for a BBQ with his family and another British inpat to Brussels (by way of South Africa and Paris), David. David's a Director with Deloitte and he and I started here on the same day. His wife and daughters are still in Paris until the beginning of July but already Kim (his wife) and I are emailing each other so I look forward to her arrival! The great thing about the 2 of them is that they have known about their relocation for an extended period of time so they are already in their own home. Of course this means they have researched everything to do with internet/phone/cable tv providers, how to register at the commune and a number of other key steps that we will also be going through. David offered to give us Kim's email address so she and Joel can share information - I asked if Kim would mind if it wasn't such a reciprocal arrangement......I'm not sure it will be a give and take relationship!

The weather could be better (miserable grey rain all day yesterday and really very chilly today) but hey, we didn't move to northern Europe for the weather (or the cost of living - although beer, wine and chocolate desserts are all very reasonably priced...). We are really looking forward to the weekend!

Our new apartment (moving date to be confirmed!)

First week in BRX

What a week it´s been! We arrived in Brussels late afternoon on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 after a very long journey from Toronto. The flight to Heathrow wasn´t bad at all but our decision to traipse across London on public transport with 5 bags/cases, a pack and play, a stroller, car seat handbag and diaper bag........oh and & our 15 month old trooper, young Joshua, was not the best one we´ve ever made. However, the train from St Pancras to Brussels Midi was effortless! We had a meal served to us and Joel enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine which, after about 1hr sleep in total over the previous 24 hours went straight to his head!

Once in Brussels we made our way to our temporary accommodation on Rue Dumonceau. I don´t recall if we were immediately shocked by the state of our temporary accommodation or if that sunk in when we´d caught up with our sleep but it really was a dreary apartment. It was really poorly equipped, incredibly uncomfortable, hot, dark and worse still....filthy. The walls were so dirty and if you walked around in bare feet your feet were black within 10 minutes.

We battled through Saturday evening with poor Joshua not really understanding why we were telling him it was bed time as his body clock thought it was still late afternoon. Finally, at about 2am we were all fast asleep.

The crudiness of our apartment hit home on Sunday when we went exploring and neither of us wanted to go back to the apartment when we were done! That night I only got 90 minutes sleep and had to head to work - my first day - with horrendous jet lag and about 8 hours sleep total in the previous 3 nights.

First day was pretty horrific - 10 hours induction.....by the end of the day I was on my knees but the worst was yet to come. The weather outside was getting really bad and soon there was fork lightning, black skies and heavy rain overhead. I was handed the keys to my temporary loan car and basically told I could go home. All well and good but I had no map, no GPS, no mobile phone and was horrified to discover it was a manual transmission which I haven´t driven for over 5 years!

I cried within 5 minutes as I couldn´t get the car into reverse.....one of the new Directors came over to help me (midly embarrasing) and I then managed to get out of the Deloitte car park at least. I headed in the vague direction of Brussels (our office is out near the airport) and got horribly lost almost immediately. I finally pulled over to a gas station and as I burst through the doors I totally lost it. The poor woman behind the counter looked rather scared as I just stood there and cried and cried and cried. She gently said to me ´what are you looking for´ to which I replied through my sobs `Brussels´.

Using a map nice petrol station lady drew for me I managed to find my way back to our dreary apartment and into the arms of poor Joel. Both of us were really fed up. 2 glasses of wine and a vicodin later and I drifted off to sleep.....

Tuesday night I only got 4 hours sleep and Joel and I agreed that we could not continue to stay in our apartment as we were feeling an emotional impact of being somewhere so awful.

On Wednesday we met with the folks from the agency who had placed us there and they showed us a couple of alternative apartments. One of them was great, but not available until June 17th so we agreed to move temporarily to a 3rd option until the nice one was available.

Wednesday evening my parents arrived (HURRAH) which was a welcome respite and just lovely to see a friendly face. They saw our miserable little pad and concurred it was not good, then we packed up the car and drove to our new place in Woluwe, to the east of the city.

Over the next couple of days, Ma & Pa Brazier looked after young Joshua as Joel and I went on a house/flat hunting spree. On Thursday, in heavy rain all day, we looked at 15 apartments and had a ´slight falling out´ in front of the relocation consulant - we were just soooo tired and emotionally spent! We had pretty much narrowed it down to 2 places when on Friday she showed us one more. A 3 bedroomed, 2 floored apartment in the Etterbeek area. We both loved it and Joshua will have his own bedroom and playroom which he so deserves after the month he´s been through!

Every day is getting better as we learn where to go to shop efficiently, how to use our bank cards (Belgium has a whole secret set of rules around bank cards - we´ll save that for another day!), when to NOT give priority to cars coming in from the right and a myriad of other ´character building´ observations.

We do miss Dallas enormously and think of our little cottage there and our great friends with enormous nostalgia. We also find it difficult to be so much further away from our family and friends in Canada, however we are excited to be closer to those in the UK and to have already been able to benefit from being a train ride away from my parents.

Our first 10 days have been really exhausting. We look forward to the next 10 days!!