In Bruges, or Somewhere Like It

I feel like I left this blog rather abruptly, amid the general chaos of moving to a new continent, and wanted to tell you all about my recent return to the homeland as a sort of postscript to my adventures in Euroland.

Having to leave (flee?) Brussels in the middle of September, I made the decision to go directly to Washington DC to live in my cousin Brendon's empty house, rather than going home and seeing my family. I thought that I should get a leg up on the job search and scouting DC, and to be honest I wanted to endure the repatriotization process alone. When coming back to your country of origin, most people experience a sort of reverse-culture shock when reacclimating to the way of life that you left behind. Moving to a new city in a new part of the country really isn't the same as a total repatriotization, but I assumed that it would be a difficult time, and it was.

I hated DC even before I landed, as we flew over northern Maryland and I beheld the miles and miles of identical houses arranged symmetrically around megachurches. After we landed and I stood in the immigration line at Dulles Airport, I cringed a bit at hearing the Southern US accent for the first time in years. Maybe it was odd to be able to even understand other people in public situations, but DC was the first place that I have ever moved to that I wasn't excited to be at in the beginning. Finding a grocery store, choosing a detergent, learning the TV channels and meeting the neighbors had all been exciting in a foreign country, but in the US it was dull and trite.

The first month before I found my job felt like an eternity at the time. Living alone, isolated from my European friends by 6 time zones, and not having a reliable social network in DC (despite having some friends located around the city) made for too much time to think. Isolation begat depression, and with the shortening days of the winter season my mood soured further.

Eventually, after a month, I began work as a webmaster for an NGO in DC. I was good at my job, and able to exercise some skills I hadn’t used in awhile. I joined a gym to help pass the time. Being able to shore up my financial situation after such a long time without working helped to reduce the sense of hopelessness and powerlessness that seemed to ricochet around my mind, and the physical exhaustion from exercise seemed to contain the restlessness that I suppose has always plagued me. But in the end I was only able to keep my life from getting worse, it seemed.

So I suppose I was long due for a vacation, having made some inroads in DC but beginning to feel that I was running on fumes. I had many people to see; people whose love and support had helped me through my time in Belgium. So I put on my travelin' suit and packed a suitcase, and finally in the middle of December, three months after I left Belgium, I finally headed out West.

My first stop was in Colorado. I landed in Denver, and was greeted by my cousin Jacob, who drove me to his parents' house in Lafayette, a suburb an hour North. There was snow on the ground, and the mountain air was cold. I stayed with my Aunt Terry, Uncle Tim, and their daughter Moriah, eating dinners prepared from the vegetables carefully cultivated in their garden over the summer months. Moriah and Jacob and I headed out to the nightlife in Boulder on several occasions that week, taking in the student population exhilarated from finishing their final exams. Driving out to Boulder during the daytime I was able to see Gracum, my grandmother, and her sister and her husband, Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike, who still perpetually drive each other crazy. Those three form some kind of perpetual motion machine, for which science should be grateful. Oh, the tales that will come from that kitchen, with the coffee pot always brewing. For entertainment, Mike wanted to see the new James Bond movie “Skyfall,” which Moriah and I accompanied him to. Later in the week, Mike, Jacob and I headed out to the hills of Colorado to exercise our second amendment rights and fire some bullets into Coke cans.

Near the end of my stay in Colorado, Jacob drove me down to Denver to visit my Grandma Thelma. She's 92 and just out of the hospital from a broken hip. She's still as sharp as ever. When I arrived, she was in the communal hall of her assisted living residence, singing Christmas carols with the other residents. It took her just a second to recognize me. "I didn't think I'd see you again," she smiled at me. I nodded, both of us agreeing to enjoy the time we have with each other rather than guess which time will be the last.

The second city on my itinerary was Boise. Upon leaving the gate at the airport I was lovingly greeted by my Mom and Dad, and received the first smartass comment of the trip when my sister Lara commented how much she liked my "little Frenchie suit." Smartassery be damned;. she will understand European style one day, I suppose. I soon got to see my little niece Lidia, with my sister Erin and her husband Nick in tow. She's a good natured child, generally agreeable but willing to lay down the law when she needs to. My kind of kid.

This was the first Christmas that I’ve been to with the family in many years, so I tried to make the most of it. We decorated the tree with family friends Steve and Pettra, and had a nice jam session on the guitars while we were doing so. Christmas dinner was a medium sized affair by Boise standards, with my family (minus Erin and her brood), my Uncle Mark, Aunt Teresa, and cousin Patrick, as well as my mom's sister Kate, her husband Joe, and their kids Andrew, Jordan and John. A good time was had by all, as they say.

The next week was one with little planned, so I went to snowy and mountainous region of Sun Valley with Kate and Joe and their family. I had business to attend to. Sun Valley is my spiritual home, in part because of the small mountain that divides Elkhorn village (where we stay) with the town of Ketchum. The Mountain and I have had many conversations over the years, yet the last time I had spoken with it 4 or 5 years ago the Mountain told me things I didn't necessarily want to hear, and said that it couldn't help me until these things were resolved (I can't tell you exactly what the mountain said because we have an agreement). So I was a little apprehensive about meeting the Mountain again, having made significant progress in my life during the intervening years but still falling short of the goals that had been set out for me. I climbed the Mountain before breakfast on the last day I was in Sun Valley (I’m not an early riser, breakfast in Sun Valley is at noon), in my boots in the snow, testing my new knee. I thought I knew what the Mountain was going to say before I got there, but, like many interactions we have with people, I was prepared for the worst and was somewhat blindsided when the Mountain greeted me warmly upon my arrival. I apologized for returning prematurely, and the Mountain explained to me that I had somewhat misinterpreted what it had said before, and that things were not as dire as I seemed to make them out to be. And I lingered for a bit and allowed my synapses to absorb the new wisdom imparted, and I walked back down smiling and shouting because I had come home and I was loved.

The final days in Boise came to an end as I helped Joe and Andrew make a batch of their soon-to-be-famous stout ale. And by 'helped' I mean that I stood there and drank coffee and talked about beer for 2 hours while they worked. After pouring through the remnants of my meager possessions, still in Erin and Nick's storage locker, I took what I could carry and headed to the airport for my flight to Portland.

Portland was just as I remembered it: rainy and awesome. Heather picked me up from the airport and we headed to Southeast, where I used to live. Actually, Heather lives right across the street from where I used to live, so we got something to eat at a new cafe on the block, and we headed out for New Years Eve. I don't really remember much about that particularly, but the next morning was pretty great as we cooked breakfast and had Irish coffee and tried to reconstruct where all of our money went. That day I headed out to see my Uncle Bert and Aunt Patty in Southwest Portland, where my cousin Lauren also was. Andrew and his girlfriend Mara were there (having driven from Boise), and we all had nachos (a tradition for New Years Day for this family) and played with their dog Bodie.

The next day I went back to Heather's and went with her to pick up her daughter Hazel. I didn't realize how much kids grow at that age, and she is becoming quite the helper. She helps her mom brew beer and chop vegetables, and now has some of her homework entirely in Japanese.

The following day was band day, with the reunion rehearsal for Camaro Island, held in Aaron's new practice space. It was in a former storage warehouse that had been partitioned into rooms roughly 10' by 15'. The sound insulation is usually imperfect at these rehearsal studios, since there's not much that a 100 Watt amp can't cut through, and sure enough the metal band next door was blazing away at full volume. But we went to work, and soon our own jams were reverberating through the walls, as we played old songs, new songs, and songs we just like. I lost track, but I think it was after the 8 minute extended jam on the Stones' burner "Sympathy for the Devil" that the metal band had ceased, due to either having day jobs the next day or unable to compete with the sheer volume of awesome coming through their wall. We cashed a fifth of Maker's Mark and close to a case of beer, and I had some pretty nasty contusions on my hand the next day. It was a good night.

Later in the week, I visited my old coworkers at my old programming job. They were happy to see me, but they were fewer in numbers. The company had been bought out at the exact time that I left, and the new corporate regime was difficult. Some employees had been laid off and others were being overworked. Many worked from home now. It's hard enough to program database software in a little grey cube in an office with grey walls during the Portland winter, but watching your coworkers gradually fall away like petals from a flower makes the whole thing worse. I wish you luck, guys.

That night I went to the Chinese restaurant (where I used to work) with my friend Sarah. I recognized the girl behind the counter (actually, I had trained her) but she did not recognize me. We got our table and the waitress (actually, the owner's wife) came over. "Wait…..You're the cashier?" she asked. Success! "Go to the back, see Wing." She led me through the kitchen to the back of the restaurant to the same little office. Wing came out, bleary eyed, then saw me and smiled.

"You visit?" he asked. I nodded. "Ha. Get soup. Good soup for you!" and motioned to the prize, the employee soup, full of pork and vegetables, and sometimes fish heads and tofu and whatever else they had. I ladled two bowls and took them back to Sarah. We got the Mandarin eggplant (so good, you'll punch a cop) and some chicken fried rice. We ate our meal, and as I was leaving I stopped back in to see Wing. "This your wife?" he asked pointing to Sarah.

"No," I responded. "A friend."

"Your girlfriend?" he asked.

"No."

"No wife? Here, take her," he said, pointing at the girl at the front desk. "We get you a wife."

Wing apparently already thought I was gay, so I gave him a hug and set off with Sarah. ("Next time, call before you come over. I'll make you a special meal," were his parting words.) We smoked cigars in Old Town, then headed back to a club to watch a transgendered karaoke contest with some of Sarah’s friends. These kinds of things happen quite a bit with Sarah.

The last night in Portland I spent at my favorite bar, Baileys. This was the location of about 90% of my planning and preparations for life in Brussels. The bar had new taps, furniture, and a big TV with the beer listings. I met my friend Rob, and John from my band came out too, and we talked for a bit. Eventually, my Uncle Bert, cousin Dan, and his wife Liz showed up, fresh from picking Liz up from the airport. We talked awhile, and headed home.

The next day I flew back nonstop to DC. I got there in the evening after an uneventful flight, wearing my "Frenchie suit," and, not having shaved for 10 days, I suppose I looked the part. I was lugging my two suitcases up the hill to Brendon's house when a man with a cart walked by. "Welcome home, brother!" he laughed at me. I thanked him, a bit confused. "And happy New Year!" he shouted as he walked away. I wished the same to him.

So, maybe I've been too hard on DC. Maybe I've set unrealistic expectations for DC that can't be lived up to. Maybe I've tried subconsciously to sabotage my time here. I don't believe in New Year's resolutions (I will not base my self-improvement on the tyranny of the Gregorian calendar), but I've made a decision to be more positive about my time in DC. Like all of the places I have lived, my time in DC will be very fleeting, and I will need to make the most of the people who are here, because in the end people are all that you have. At least, aside from my Frenchie suit and this laptop, and a guitar or two, you are all that I have in the world.

Maybe in the end Bruges was here the entire time? I used to think of myself as being so self-sufficient and independent, and now that thought is laughable to me as I sit on my cousin Bernadette's couch (where I'm now living). I look back on all of the support that has been given to me over the years and think it's ridiculous that I could have accomplished anything on my own. I think most people have heard the parable about the two sets of footprints in the sand, and when the person asks God why there was only one set of prints during the hard parts of the journey God says "it's because I carried you." And I liken my own journey in life to this, except that there are dozens of footprints in the sand and one big smear mark, and that is what it looks like when the people who love you drag you along as you're doing your best impression at failing at life.

And I thank all of you.

Love,

Paul

 Photos (aka Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)

(Apologies that I wasn't able to get photos of everybody)

Drivin' Into Denver.

Moriah, and Jacob (holding my beer).

Thinning out Colorado's dangerously overpopulated aluminum can population.

Me and Lidia

The family takes a walk.

Making beer with Uncle Joe and Drew.

Giving back to the land.

The town of Ketchum, as seen from the Mountain.

Me, just standing there.

Lauren and Bodie.

Heather makes breakfast.

Smoking cigars with Sarah, in the depths of Old Town.

New beer taps at Bailey's!

Last Night in Brussels

This is possibly my last or one of my last posts on this blog. The blog is about my adventures in "Euroland," and tomorrow I am moving to Washington, DC, to live in my cousin Brendon's house. I may have a couple of follow-up posts, but I want to keep this blog about a definite segment of my life and won't continue with stories from DC.

It's been a busy week of goodbye parties and farewells. It's been hard, but for some reason it doesn't feel like goodbye for me. The world is, of course, becoming more interconnected, and Brussels will continue to be an important node in the world of international politics that I am trying to break into. The plan right now is to get setup in DC, find a job, and double down on the French lessons. I want to be marketable to send back into the "field."

I leave this country 20 pounds lighter, with a fixed knee and a greatly enhanced sense of fashion. And of course a master's degree and the skills and contacts to make it in the realm of political science. For that I am grateful to my school, the University of Kent at Brussels. It has been a fantastic opportunity that I hope I have taken advantage of to the fullest of my abilities.

I want to thank Cátia and Claudia for hosting me for the past two weeks. It was a lot of fun to be a daily part of your lives. Thanks to all of the friends who I said goodbye to this week, and all of those who have said goodbye earlier. And thank you to you who have been reading this blog.

"A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles." - Tim Cahill

Last Party at Home

I lived in such a beautiful apartment, but it was located a bit outside of the cluster of where my friends lived. So I really didn't have a lot of friends over, usually preferring to go to where they were instead. But before I moved out I had a party at the house. Fahim, Salvador, and Lara came with their instruments, and we sat around playing songs for other friends. It was a good time.

I have completely moved out of the apartment, and am staying on the couch of Cátia and Claudia, who have yet again graciously allowed me to stay with them. When I came to Brussels, I brought a backpack and a large suitcase. I will be taking those two pieces of luggage home, plus another suitcase. As I was packing I unironically wondered how I accumulated so much stuff. It made me realize how I have basically lived with just a handful of clothes, a laptop, and a guitar (which I will sell before leaving) for the past 20 months.

There will be more time to be sentimental as the day comes closer. So here are some photos:

Salvador, Yasmin, Yulia, and me.

Clockwise from left: Me taking myself too seriously, roommates Anneska and Camille, friends Sevil and Natalia.

Roommate Thierry, Anneska, Camille, and Anneska's friend whose name I don't remember but she seemed very nice.

Fahim laying the funk.

The End of the Road

It's official.

The appeals to get a work permit have failed. I went to the Maison Communal once they had summoned me with their decision. I waited in line. Once called, the guy took awhile running around the office before finally finding my papers. In true Belgian style he began by giving the decision from the Ministry of the Interior, before looking at the documents and saying that they were all screwed up and that they would need to be redone, and that they would call me when they were ready. I said OK, and walked away and never heard back from them again. Touché, Belgique.

I have purchased a one-way ticket for Washington D.C. for September 13th. I have asked my cousin Brendon if I can stay at his house, and he has graciously gave the green light. So, more excitement to come, but I have a couple weeks left in Brussels.

Leaving Belgium will be strange. Last week, someone asked me how it felt to be living in a foreign country, and I told them honestly that Belgium really isn't a foreign country to me anymore. It certainly was foreign when I arrived. It was foreign for a long time, but it got me thinking about when this country stopped feeling foreign and felt normal, or even like 'home.' I traced this feeling to last September, right after I broke my knee and got my wallet stolen within 24 hours of each other. Maybe it was the shift in focus that a substantial injury brings, and maybe it was the outpouring of support that my friends gave to me in my time of need. Or maybe it was the fact that I was now mooching off of the socialized health care. Whatever it was, Belgium became home.

Not having a job for the past few months has given me a lot of time to think. Maybe too much time to think. They say that time alone give you time to get to know yourself, but I already know myself very well, and me and myself get tired of each other. Myself tells the same boring stories over and over and sometimes I wish he would just shut up. But the other day I was talking with a friend about D.C., and she was asking about friends there, and she said that it didn't seem like it was very difficult for me to make friends, and that got me thinking. 

For whatever reason, I have found it much easier to make friends in Europe than in the U.S. I think back to my time in the States, and realize that while I made several lifelong friendships, I didn't have a lot of friends in the states. I look back, and notice that I spent a lot of time by myself in Denver and Portland.

And all of that changed when I got to Brussels. I don't know if it was me and my approach that changed, or that the world around me was more interested in me than Americans had been. But it was nice, whatever it was. I got used to it, and it will be hard to let that go.

The night before I broke my knee I was at a friend's house, and we were talking and I told him "I can't go back to the States." At the time I was genuinely afraid that it would be crushing to leave this lifestyle behind me. And now, while I would honestly like to stay a bit longer, I'm not afraid of the U.S. At some point I stopped thinking of this as a year off, or a fluke in my life. I look at it as my lifestyle, even if I need to return to the States from time to time I don't think this will be the last stretch of time that I live in Europe. I will double-down on the French lessons, keep my head in foreign affairs circles, and check the costs of overseas flights.

And now, I have to go because a friend of mine wants to go for a walk, and I need to enjoy this time while it lasts.

Stateless

I'm in a period of limbo right now with Brussels. Ever since the NATO gig fell through, I have had no idea what country I will be living in two months in the future.

It seems like getting a job in Brussels will be difficult. With a flood of new college graduates combing the jobs, most of them with EU work eligibility in place and knowing many more languages than me, I'm a bit outgunned in the job market. The German company that I interned with last summer offered me work as a freelance consultant, but getting the work permit and an extension on my visa has been impossible without a fixed contract.

My primary residency in Belgium expired at the end of April, about a week after NATO pulled the plug on the internship. At that time, other Americans and myself understood ourselves to be on an automatic three month tourist visa. However, after consultations with bureaucrats and lawyer-types this does not seem to be the case. The tourist visa can only be activated by leaving Europe and reentering, something I didn't do until I went to Dan's wedding in Connecticut in June. So for May and half of June I was technically an illegal resident of Belgium. The good news is that now I have a tourist visa, to expire in September.

I am in communication with the authorities about getting the permanent visa and work permit, but the period of illegal residency seems to work against me, as well as the fact that the job is freelance and not salaried. No decision has been made yet though, and they have processed documentation relating to my address change to the new house. 

Last week, I had a meeting with the police relating to my address change. The entire interview was done in French, with me still struggling to understand spoken French and having difficulty with constructing sentences on the spot, but I made it through. The police didn't seem to worried about my former illegal presence; actually no one seems to think I am trying to live here illegally. I know that this would not be the case if I was from another country, and I don't know how I feel about that after watching friends from Russia and Kenya being chased out.

The failure to speak French well was frustrating. I feel like I've been here long enough that I should have a reasonable grasp of the language. I also feel that my knee is not healing as fast as I think it should be. Clearly some changes have to be made. I was thinking about this, and remembered my physical therapist who I haven't gone to in months. She doesn't speak English, and I ended up practicing quite a bit of French when I had sessions. I think I will start going back to PT, and viewing it as a sort of medically-subsidized French lesson. The sessions aren't free, but I should get my money's worth.

I'm starting to apply to places in DC, and actually applied to a job in Oslo, Norway that sounded very interesting. But I don't know where I am going to land. I think I will need to be out of here by mid-September. But who knows anymore.

Mom, Dad and Lara, along with cousin-by-marriage Stephanie came to visit a few weeks ago. It was nice to see everyone and show them around Brussels, and go with them to Paris and Amsterdam. Also I went to Rome in June with a friend I grew up with.

~~ Photos ~~

Uploading pictures to this blog takes kind of a lot of doing, and they are the same pictures I put on Facebook, so I think non-Facebook people can click on these links to see the pictures. If this is too annoying I can try to post some.

~~ Rome ~~

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.421892421187823.93468.100001012052747&type=3&l=a00f1a9bf8

~~ Paris ~~

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.421896027854129.93472.100001012052747&type=3&l=4a39d290d6

~~ Photos with the Roommates ~~

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.421903731186692.93476.100001012052747&type=3&l=48c0158f9e

Well, that's about it right now. Back to applying for jobs.

French

I really have a ton of these little stories, and can't seem to find the words to write them down right now. So I'm hoping that people will forgive a drop in quality in exchange for a higher output.

I just wanted to tell the story of hanging out with my roommates last night, making crepes. It was an impromptu party; I had plans of job searching in the evening but one of my roommates, the French girl, will be moving out soon and wanted to hang out with us for a bit. So we cooked and drank red wine and laughed and talked. At the moment, I can understand what they are saying anywhere from 20% to 60% of the time when they speak to each other in French. When they talk to me directly, and they dumb it down a bit, it's usually 60% to 70%. I still have a hard time expressing myself, lacking the vocabulary and the practice to form sentences in French, so I often have to shift the conversation back to English when I want to explain something.

But a funny thing happened last night, when we were having a conversation that was shifting between French and English and one of them told me something, and I forgot which language they had used to speak to me. It's exciting to be listening to the ideas that they are conveying rather than focusing on decoding the language itself. I've never had that happen before, and it was exciting to me.

I just got back from a meeting with my old boss, where he expressed interest in hiring me as a contractor. I'm not sure that I will be able to do this because of visa issues, but it's nice to know that my skills and awesome personality are still in demand. I will have to do some research and make some calls regarding the feasibility of it. But I feel that the only way to get a job in Brussels (especially when you lack EU citizenship and fluency in three languages, like my competition) is to know somebody.

Tomorrow, I am going to Rome to visit and old friend who is working as a military contractor in Italy. I will just be there for 45 hours or so, so I will try to make the most of it, and will try to post some pictures when I get back.

New Windows

Just a quick blog post, one of those so I can look back and remember how life was in mid-2012. My apartment is having the windows replaced so I am staying with friends. We are all looking for jobs in their apartment, very European with high ceilings and white walls, no future, and a currency that is on the verge of collapse. Weirdly romantic. I told them stories of dropping out of college and having no money and doing part-time construction work, and they asked if it was horrible and I don't remember it that way, but it must have been difficult at the time. We are all panicking, but they don't seem to understand why I am enjoying the panic so much. Because I've noticed that the memories are very different than the reality, and the memories are all that you will have at some point, and I'm already enjoying these.

Jobless (Again)

So, it's all over. No internship at NATO. No security clearance. Note that it wasn't exactly declined; the Department of Defence merely stated that they were "unable or unwilling" to adjudicate the matter and sent the application to another department, playing games with it until NATO had to fill the position already and retracted their offer. So, it was pretty much the dating equivalent of taking me out to dinner and then never calling me again despite assurances that they really had a good time, then never responding to texts so that I can't ask what the deal was. Which is kind of a chickenshit thing to do, in my opinion.

I don't exactly get a lot of sympathy from my non-American friends. "So you got f***ed by the US Government, huh? Big deal, my country gets f***ed by the US Government every day." Europeans just don't understand these things. Or maybe they understand and I really don't....

So this was the beginning and the end of my career in government. It was real, and it was fun, but it wasn't real fun, as they say. I am considering narrowing my career options and making myself permanently unemployable by the feds by registering as a member of the Communist Party in Oregon. Kind of the equivalent of throwing pennies in the trash.

The worst part of this is that now I have no idea what I'm doing, career-wise. So if anybody has any hot tips you know where to find me. I'm a little disappointed in myself that "military waterboy with a master's degree" was the best plan I had. 

Moving This Page

Some changes. Sorry I've been less inclined to post here, but it's been more difficult. Back in the fall I applied for a security clearance, and I've been reluctant to share so much about my life. Applying for the clearance has apparently made me less able to see the humor in life, and I don't want to post here if it isn't enjoyable for someone to read. And I suppose I don't want the federal government to think that I'm some sort of loudmouth who cannot keep a secret.

So, I am changing some things. The URL that I originally gave people (www.paultuthill.com) won't automatically redirect to this blog anymore. The redirected URL (http://belgianpaul.blogspot.com/) will still work, and the blog will still be here for now. I am making this change in the next couple of days, so I'm sorry if you were looking for this blog and you got rerouted somewhere else.

Also, I have posted a copy of my dissertation online because I am including it in the resume package I have been sending out. It is at http://www.paultuthill.com/dissertation. I'm only including it here because some people asked if they could have it. Please don't read it because you think I'm going to ask you if you read it, because it is quite long and boring and I'm sure there are better things on TV, honestly.

So, sorry for another unfunny blog post. But I love you all and will talk to you soon.

New Home

I am sitting at my new desk, in the 4th place I have called home in 65 days, not counting the hospital. My long househunting quest has been finally settled. Just to recap, I left my old apartment in late December, the place where I had stayed since shortly after moving to Brussels. I moved into the Ward in preparation of the knee surgery, and stayed there for another month afterwards while I healed. However, I was unable to find another place to live by the time I had to leave the Ward, so I moved into my friend Cátia's house in Place Jourdan, right across the street from Holly's apartment where I originally stayed when I landed in Brussels before I found my first apartment. 

It was nice to be back in the old neighborhood. Place (pronouced "Ploss") Jourdan is possibly my favorite place in Brussels, and other friends have moved into the neighborhood since those times, so it is always a fun place to visit. It was great staying with Cátia; we got along very well. I worked on my dissertation at the library during the day (a change from my usual vampiric writing schedule) and chatted and watched movies with her in the evening. Admittedly, it was nice saving money on rent, and the savings was enough to justify some lavish dinners and brunches. The two weeks were basically a mini-vacation.

The only downside was that I couldn't live on a couch forever and I had to find a place to live. It was hard to find a place that was accessible to NATO, with a reasonable cost. Also, the roommates had to be compatible (I had to decline living with 22-year old art college students at this time in my life). But I eventually found this place, only about 1 kilometer from my old apartment.

I am now living with 3 other people: a Belgian man and woman (both single professionals) and a younger French girl who is finishing her masters. Which means that all of my roommates speak French natively, which is quite a bonus. I moved in last week, and the next night we had dinner as a group. We all seem to get along quite well. They all know English, but speak French to each other quite a bit. I am already learning more French, and it gives me new motivation to practice what I have already learned.

The apartment is quite beatiful (I will post pictures later). The building is maybe 100 years old, and built like a bank with a marble entrance way and staircase. There is also an old-timey elevator, the kind where you close the cage-type door by hand. The inside has been recently redone by the Belgian man (the owner) with fancy Star Trek appliances and a big dining room area and sitting room. There is no TV, but classy places like this one don't necessarily need one.

This may be odd, but there are three smells that this apartment has that give me instant deja vu. The first is that the kitchen smells like my cousin's house in Boise in the North End. I think it's the mix of an old structure that has been remodeled. The second is that my room smells like my parent's house right after it was built, when all of the wood smelled new. The last is that one of the bathrooms smells like Grandma Hartigan's house. Strange, I know.

So, things are getting settled. I have two more weeks of writing my dissertation and then hopefully I will start the next week at NATO. It's nice to be fully unpacked for the first time in awhile. I will send out my new mailing address when I get the post box set up.