So much money spent on the car

I’ve spent half of my day off waiting at Nissan’s garage while my car was getting her annual check. After 45 min waiting the verdict came out: front disk breaks have to be replaced. Do I have the choice? No because I obviously can’t drive a car that has lousy breaks. Needless to say show up at the “controle technique” with a car that cannot break properly.
So there we go, another 500 euros spent on the car. Sometimes I wonder between the maintenance cost, the insurance and the gas, if it’s worth having a car…

Saint Nicolas

When Jan asked if someone was interested to help taking pictures during the Saint Nicolas event at work this Sunday, I forwarded the email to Wolfram just in case... Turned out he was up to the challenge to spend a couple of hours taking pictures of children with Saint Nicolas.

So after receiving his balloon Wolfram started taking pictures of colleagues' kids with Saint Nicolas
and I went hiding in one the office nearby to update my blog :)

The Chris Joris experience

Last night we went to one of the Jazz clubs in Brussels. After the exciting times in China, I started to feel to much into "we always do the same" back home and suggested we start doing new things in Brussels. Despite we've been living there 3-5 years, there are plenty of things we have never do so let's get moving.
We started with Sounds Jazz Club. After a excellent dinner at 2eme Element (the closest I could find to good Thai food in Brussels), we walked to this Jazz Club, bought tickets for the concert and waited for Chris Joris and his band to come on stage.
None of us are knowledgeable about Jazz musicians nor had heard of the Chris Joris experience, but it turned out to be really nice, even when you have no clue about what you listen to.
They played pieces from his previous album and some of his upcoming one. We left around midnight (yeah, yeah, we didn't make it till the end of the concert) after enjoying 1:30 hour of jazz.
Definitely something to repeat in the future and great success on our first attempt trying something new in Brussels.
Now what's next?

Meeting the neighbours

While visiting our apartment and trying to figure out how we will arrange our furniture in the living room, we saw a couple doing pretty much the same in the mirror triplex. I went to introduce ourselves to these people who turned out to be one of our future neighbours.
Luckily for us they speak French, Dutch and English so contact was very easy. They seem to be nice people even if it was a bit strange that after talking 2min they mentioned to us that we should not be shy and tell them if they make too much noise.
Apparently they had bad previous experience with their neighbours below and wanted to anticipate it.
Fine but let's face it we have no walls in common so most likely we will not hear them. Still it's kind of weird when you meet people and they apologize for the possible noise they might make in the future after 2 minutes talking to them. Wait until I wake up at 4am, take a shower, drag my suitcase out and go catch a flight :)

Progress on the apartment

After a bit of unsuccessful shopping and meeting a local celebrity, we passed by the apartment to check on the progress over there.
And there were big progress vs. my previous visit:
- the pavement at the front of the building is done. Now we can nicely walk to the entrance. No more muddy shoes :)
- the kitchen is fully finished and was amazed by the cupboards and drawers mostly because there are designed in the same way as at my parents'. I'm so looking forward to cooking and having the cutlery, spatulas and pans just below it. Even the dishwasher is ready to use. Something tells me cooking in this kitchen will be great.




- the bathroom is ready and I have to say I'm amazed by the quality of the finishing. Lot's of storage in the cupboards under the sinks and behind the mirrors.

- there will be a thermostat to manage the heating of the apartment, highly appreciated as well (and needed to save energy)
- the boiler is not in the apartment but in the small room between the 2 triplex. This means some extra space for storage by the washing machine
- the 2 toilets are ready and have water saving button
- the doors are there only waiting to be painted (in principle next week)
- the stairs are there!!! this means we could really see how they will fit in the room and also access the different floors.
- the top floor is really nice... so nice we're wondering if we shouldn't put the bed up there and transform the bedroom 1 in a dressing / reading room.
Going to the first floor...
Going to the top floor...

Landlords were there as well and told us we could get the keys on Dec 15th!

Helmut lotti

Every year I buy greetings cards from the Unicef which I send to my family and friends during the Holidays. I received the catalog a few weeks ago and made my selection.
While passing by Inno today I spotted a massive Unicef booths and decided to get my cards directly there, i.e. no need to bother order online and wait for delivery :)
I picked up the cards I wanted and tried to exit the booth. But that was not that simple given there was a crowd of people trying to get an autograph from the Unicef ambassador present on that day and photographs flashing all over the place. When I asked the security guard how I could get out, he first asked "you don't want to get an autograph?" "euh, no, thanks". Recovering from his surprise he showed me the way out. After all I just wanted to pay and the quick glimpse on the celebrity of the moment didn't ring a bell. I had simply never seen this man before.
Actually I must have seen him somewhere on TV as it turned out it was Helmut Lotti.
Now who's Helmut Lotti you could ask?
Helmut Lotti is a popular Belgian singer and song writer. See more about him here. According to Wikipedia he sings fluently in Dutch and Afrikaans, English, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, and Spanish; and he has sold over 13 million albums worldwide and received over 90 platinum and 70 gold albums. Not bad you could say, just not my type of singers.
PS: he also looked way older and bold vs. most pictrures you can find on the internet. Might explain why I really did not recognize him today (while I recall seeing some pictuires of him younger).

It's done

Today I managed to get Wolfram to help me finish removing the branches in the garden. What can I say it goes faster with 2 people and it's easier when one is a man with powerful arms and hands to break branches in small pieces.
We worked on it for a couple of hours, packed everything in green plastic bags which we will drop tomorrow morning. I even emptied all the plastic plant pots getting them ready for new earth and spring.
It's officially done... no more gardening for this season. Winter can come, garden is ready for it.

4:45am

That's way too early to wake up. What was i thinking when i said yes to taking an early flight to save money?

Soaked

Tonight I left my building to walk to the parking lot to meet Wolfram. It was raining quite heavily but still manageable for 2 minutes. But he was not on that side of the building :( so I walked to where he parks and found an empty car. By then I was seriously wet. I went back to his building and climb the stairs to meet him getting ready to leave.
2 seconds after we stepped out there was a massive wave of rain and I was soaked. My jacket, my trousers, everything I wore was soaked. My hair felt like I had just showered, and technically speaking that's what happened except I was dressed and on my way to the parking lot.
Back home, changing clothes I discovered that the water had gone all the way through the layers to my underwear. I don't know if I should cry or laugh about it. Probably laugh :)

8 bags

Today I found the courage to start picking up the branches from the garden. After all when I move they will have to be gone so better start now.
What I hadn't anticipated was how much work that was. I spent nearly 3 hours and packed only half of it. Easily there are another 8 to 10 huge garbage bags to pack.
I brought all of the bags to the garage and will take them to the container park tomorrow.
This little exercise exhausted me as I happened to have troubles with my belly and haven't had much food in the past 3 days and felt really dizzy. So after a well deserved shower I went to bed for a long nap, joined by the 3 kittens.

Power of mind

For 3 days now my belly has been a mess (somehow reminding me of India...) but I kept on working as I had to do the recruiting in Paris and then on Friday I was in the team organizing an event on site. Eating barely nothing, drinking lots of diet coke I mad it through the week. But the moment the event was done, my body gave up. I was exhausted beyond imagination and all I wanted to do was sleep (well I could have used a foot massage but it's not China anymore).
I'm still amazed how much when you set you mind on something you push your physical limits.

Time is passing by

Tonight I’m in Paris. Each year I go back to the school where I studied for the recruiting. And each year I make myself the same observation: it hasn’t changed!
The amphitheaters were we had class are the same (sometimes they’ve been repainted or got a new black board), the student “bar” is still the same, labs look the same, girls bathroom is still not heated, etc. it’s like jumping back into the past when all you cared about was the next party on Thursday night or the exams for which you clearly have not enough studied.
Inevitably this brings another thought: so much happened since I graduated, and I’m very happy with everything I accomplished or lived in the past 7 years :)
But let’s face it, students are looking younger and younger, or is it me getting older…

2012

Daad is visiting me and the two of us couldn't miss the release of 2012. After all she is the one who got me into disaster movies (although we usually watched them on TV vs. in the movies).
We nearly had our own disaster as when we arrived at Kinepolis, the whole area was packed with people and it took us 20min to find a parking spot somewhere down one of the avenues around the cinema. Would be ok unless you get there only 15minutes before the movie... After turning for quite some time thinking "it's ok we're only missing the trailers" I finally saw a car with people getting in, i.e. a spot getting free. I stopped and waited patiently for the car to leave and when I'm ready to make my move I can see a car coming across blinking and speeding to get the slot. Now, it's a fight for death at this point as any further delay means missing the beginning of the movie, so I power through, I cross the road and put my car right in the middle of the road and half on the spot :) I didn't care I was on the wrong side nor blocking the street, I was not going to let a guy in a BMW take MY spot.
We rushed to the movie theater only to find out that so many people were late that they decided to start 15min later. Thus we were in time!
Now what about the movie? a bit disapointing I have to say. Despite all the critical elements being there the movie was missing some energy and there were some boring moments. Not to mention none of the main characters / actors was really convincing.
It's a pity because when you're doing a movie about the end of the world and you have:
- internal melt down of the planet earth
- earthquakes by dozen
- mega ashes clouds
- volcano and lava everywhere
- tsunamis
- and even ice storm
you wonder how you can not succeed...

Finally

"Mme Mimassi, message de la FNAC, votre iPhone est arrive, vous pouvez venir le chercher des maintenant"
That's the voicemail I had given hope on receiving. My iPhone has finally arrived. 6 weeks after I ordered it. Months after I decided to get one even though it's expensive in Belgium.
I'm so excited. I'm driving there right now to get it!

22.89

22.89 euros that how much I paid to get my tire repaired. Much cheaper than if I had to buy 2 new ones.
This morning after picking up Daad we drove to the garage to check what could be done with my flat tire.
We were nicely welcome by a man who asked what was to be fixed and told us it would take roughly one hour and we could wait in the waiting room. Which we did. Exactly 1 hour later a technician came over and told me it was done. He fixed the tire, rebalanced everything and checked the pressure in all the tires. I'm good to go!
To recover from this stressful experience, I treated my car with a car wash, a premium one. Now she is super clean and nicely polished for the cold winter ahead.

2 more

Alice is back from China and going for 3 weeks vacation. Lucky her. How does this impact me? A few months ago I had told her that it was no problem for me to do cat sitting of her 2 cats Mia and Kikou.
The thing I didn't know back then was that I would have 2 on my own on top...
Let's see how it goes. First evening was not very successful. My kittens were running all over the place and her cats were hidding.
They've been hidding in the guest room most of the evening so we brought food, water, etc. and closed the door for the night.
Let's see if tomorrow they dare to step out.

Screw

I'm on my way back home, driving on Chaussee d'Ixelles when somebody knocks on my window. I'm surprised, suspicious, and turn around to find a girl waving at me. I open the window and she tells me I have a flat tire.
Damned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Indeed my right rear tire is looking pretty flat. I call Wolfram for immediate rescue. I could change the tire, did it once already in the past, but it's always nicer to get someone else to do it. He steps out of his Dutch class to come help me.
Somehow I made it to the nearest Shell gas station, actually the first spot I could stop and not block the street. Under bright light it looks even worse... for sure there was not much air left in that tire.
I'm standing there waiting when Wolfram calls me to let me know where he stands... still 10 minutes at least to wait.
I'm already scared at the thought of having to buy 2 new tires... after all those are almost new, only 36000 km or so :(
And suddenly a voice: "do you need help?" A man was right there offering help :)
I explain that I already called my boyfriend and that he's coming over. When I told him he was 10 minutes away he went to my open trunk and said "I'll be faster than that!"
And he was, in less than 5 minutes the flat tire was changed for the donut, he had shown me the screw that was responsible for this mess and told me most likely it can be fixed without having to change tires.
He also gave me the name of the garage where he works telling to pass by tomorrow so they can fix my tire (cheaper than Nissan). I guess I'll go there after picking up Daad at the station. I'm sure she'll be happy to start her Belgium visit by a garage.
What can I say that was very welcome unexpected help.
NB: 5 minutes later Wolfram arrived, very appreciated as well that he dropped everything to come to my rescue.

They've grown up

Not so long ago we brought home 2 kittens. A month and a half later or so, I realized how much bigger they are now when I compare to the first pictures we took. At this speed we will have tigers ar home by next summer.
Moka

Muffin

It's official

... we're moving in in January!
Today we met the real estate agent and the landlords (2 brothers) for one more visit and signing the rental contract.
We were a bit surprised as the work was not advanced as what they said it would (but have we ever seen any construction work meeting deadlines?). Anyhow we took another good look at the place and agreed to proceed.
We then moved to one of the bothers house, right next door, and proceeded with the signature of the contract. Now you would think it will take 5 minutes. But no. We spend nearly one hour reading the contract in Dutch, me having a French translation, and translating every now and then to Wolfram in English. I have to say it's the first time I have the real estate agent taking the time to explain every paragraph of the contract. Really appreciated so we're all clear.
Copies of the contract in our pockets, we walked back to the apartment to take pictures and measure a few things. Indeed some of the rooms have a slope in part of the ceiling so before we start moving furniture around we wanted to make sure it will fit.
Other big surprise was the 3rd room, the one on the top floor, literally under the roof which turns out to be quite big and luminous (and for some reason has parquet and not tiles on the floor).
I know you're all very curious to know what the place look like, but you will still need a bit of imagination as it's still under construction.
The overall building (everything as of the first floor to the left is ours)

The entrance hall (I know not so interesting). On the left you will have one toilet, space for coats / shoes, and one tiny room for the boiler, washing machine etc.

The main room composed of the kitchen to one end and the living room to the other end (and the terrace!!!). As you can lot's of windows on the 3 sides which means a lot of light in the room.

The kitchen, almost finished as the furniture, the oven and vitro-ceramic hot plates are installed. Fridge and dish washer are there but still to be installed.

Stairs were not installed yet so we used the ladder to climb up.

On the first floor you will find 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, one toilet and one small storage room. Bathtub is already there not the furniture. Note that bathroom will have 2 sinks, very important to avoid fights in the bathroom.
Having forgotten our meter we used our own unit for height :) If it touches Wolfram's hair it must be around 2m height! By the way that's bedroom #1 (the master bedroom so it is called)

Bedroom #2 (the guest room). Note that all bedrooms have 2 windows and a view on the fields around.

The bathroom and its bathtub (that's about all there is to see now)

Going even higher comes the 3rd bedroom or the attic or the study or the wii room... we haven't quite decided yet what to do with it but we like it a lot already.

And Wolfram defeating his fear of heights to get the best picture possible of the attic from the ladder.

Obviously work is going on and I guess next week-end we'll pass by to see the progress. It reminds me of when my parents were building our house and we were checking every week on progress. It's quite exciting to see your house (or apartment) coming to life.

That's service

It's not often I praise the service in Belgium, but Auto 5 deserves to be acknowledged.
Why?
When you need to change your wipers, you just go there, pick the wipers (or even ask someone to do it for you), go to the workshop and get them changed free of charge!
Although I have a diploma stating I can change a wiper in 6 seconds (don't ask, this is what happens when you go to your sister's open day), I can achieve this performance only when it's the new generation of wipers: the clipable ones. The old ones are still a mystery to me so I really appreciate when someone does it for me.

This is it

So we ended up going to see the Michael Jackson movie and it was by far not the best movie ever.
Actually it was more like 2 hours of a documentary on getting ready for the concert, very much in the spirit of "making the video" on MTV. Except, 30 minutes, 45 minutes max would have been enough.
It was still interesting to see what was going on back stage but as the first screen of the movie said "for the fans" it was really for the fans (not the somehow fans like we are). It was also shot in a too American style for me (we all love each other, everybody is great, we're a big family, etc.)
Despite it was pretty boring after a while, I have to say it was quite impressive to see Michael Jackson (50 year-old) dancing like he always did. No sign at all of him no being capable of dancing 300% his choregraphies, even when his legs were very likely thinner than my little fingers. Obviously dancing and singing were in his genes and after so many years of break he was still at his top.
And no one else can wear glitter trousers or socks like him :)

The apartment

Here are the answers to all your questions:

Our apartment is the one on the left (terrace facing south). I've added on the plan where is what (Wolfram is working on a more elaborated version where we will add furniture... but that's too advanced for me). Note that the 3rd floor (the attic) is missing.
Saturday when we sign the contract we will make pictures so you can see better.
Floor is tiles everywhere which means we're already debating on the color of the carpet in the bedrooms (any suggestion?). Kitchen is fully equipped (just missing a decent freezer).
Last night I talked to my physiotherapist who lives in the area and she gave me the list of all the bakeries, shops, supermarkets in the area. Clearly she was more efficient than the yellow pages and us driving around. Bottom line is that it's not as remote as it looks :)
Guest room is already identified and as soon as we have moved you're all more than welcome to visit.
PS: you are also welcome anytime until then as well :)

Notice

Tonight I sent my notice letter to my landlord.After a bit more than 4 years in Ixelles, I'm moving out of the city. It's going to be quite some change to wake up in the country side :)
Now, what do we do of all our doubles (beds, TVs, cupboards, coffee machines, washing machines, etc.)? Because for sure not all of it will fit in the new place...

Simple idea

Simple ideas can sometimes be the best.
On Sundays after going to the gym, Wolfram and I go for lunch / brunch at Le Pain Quotidien which is famous for its "tartine".
The special tartine these days is composed of grilled zucchini with sliced chicken and mozzarella, all of this nicely heated in the oven.
Super simple idea (anyone could make it at home) and extremely good :). SO good we hope they will put it in the permanent menu.