Geneva

I think Switzerland was what really convinced me that I wanted to try being an expat. A few years ago, I had to go to Lausanne and Geneva after a trip to (interestingly) Belgium. I was flying through Heathrow for some reason and bumped into a friend of mine from when I worked for a Norwegian company. He is a Swede, who married a Brit and of course, they live in Switzerland. They were in the UK visiting her family and I bumped into them on the jet bridge to the airplane. It was one of those small world moments that you could never expect. I had planned on flying to Geneva to spend the weekend and then have my meetings before heading onward to France. My friend would hear none of it and invited me to stay with them for the weekend. He would drive me to Lausanne Sunday night so I would be ready for my meeting.  I had a really wonderful time with them and seeing their lifestyle,  it made me want to expereince the same thing. I literally came home and said to SWMBO, "I could live in Switzerland, no I want to live in Switzerland". Well, we don't live in Switzerland, but that trip definitely played a significant role in our being in Belgium.

We decided on Monday at the spur of the moment, to use our three day weekend by taking a short trip to Geneva. It is an hour from Brussels and the cab from GVA to central Geneva is 15 minutes. So it is really feasible to do for a long weekend. The weatherman predicted fair to rainy weather but true to form, he was wrong and we had beautiful weather the entire time.

Geneva is an interesting place. It is a bit of a government town crossed with big business, with a bit of resort town mixed in. The one common denominator however is money. There is a lot of it as evidenced by the Ferrari / Lambo quotient, the jewelry and high-end watch stores for which the area is known and of course very pricey looking people. It is possible however, to visit on a reasonable budget. SWMBO searched out a very nice hotel a little further out than we would have ideally liked but still within a fairly easy walk to the center and old town. Mostly we wandered the city on foot. Stopped in the occaisonal museum and enjoyed some of the many cafes throughout the city. We did stop in a few watch shops on the first day but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and we did not come home with any new bling. Although the gentleman at IWC did try to close me on a $38,000 Portugese Perpetual Calendar. Maybe next time.

I did try two new beers while in Geneva from the same brewery. The Calvinus Blonde and the Calvinus Blanche. Both were excellent, bottle fermented artisinal beers. The Blond had a crisp hoppy character with a creamy mouthfeel, while the Blanche was an unfiltered wheat beer with a nice fruitiness. Both were refreshing after climbing the many hills of old Geneva and worth paying the extra couple of francs for if you happen to be visiting.

Roma

Just returned home from 4 Days in Rome and I am conflicted. I really do enjoy history and Rome has a ton of it. It seems like every turn reveals more ancient ruins or something of more recent historical signficance. I think there are few places in the world where you can go that have the density of this many historical sites. It is probably because of this however, that I am conflicted. With all of this history come epic crowds and tourist traps everywhere you go.

I like to think of myself as a pretty experienced traveler. I do it for a living. And I have a few rules that have served me well over the years. The most useful rule has been 'Never Eat on a Main Road'. The principle here is that the best stuff, the stuff the locals eat, is usually in some small out of the way side street away from the tourist traffic. There are few places in the world where this is not the case, like Asia, where you are better off not eating in a restaurant at all and get the good stuff from a guy pushing a cart restaurant on the side of the road. Rome seemed to be a bit of an exception. Dinner the first night we employed our logic and we did find a place with excellent pizza, but also a bunch of tourists. Every other meal though, the food was mediocre and certainly not like what we were able to find in Venice. We finally surrendered our last evening and went back to the first restaurant where we started because we knew that at a minimum, the pizza would be good. And it was.

Another rule that SWMBO and I like to apply is plan as little as possible. There is nothing I dislike more than an agenda on vacation. I don't mind planning a couple of outings or a visit to the theater, but I do not want to live on a schedule. I do it when I work, I don't want to do it when I am relaxing. The best part of this approach, is that you are open to a little travel serendipity and this trip was a great example of that. The lines at the Vatican were miles long so after wandering around the square in front of St. Peters, we bagged going in and started investigating the surrounding neighborhood. While we doing that, we came upon a bunch of people setting up for the Mille Miglia. This is a race of classic sportscars that runs 1000 miles from Brescia to Rome and back. It is something that we have always wanted to see and we had no idea before we made the trip that it was going to be in Rome at the same time as us. Because we hadn't planned anything, we had the opportunity to attend and it was worth the price of admission (free). We saw about 100 new and vintage Ferraris in the Celebration of Ferrari that kicked the event off and then the parade of the Mille Miglia participants. It was a great evening.

So Rome was a mixed bag. Beautiful scenery, lots of History, and some awesome sportscars. Food was just alright and the crowds were insane. The company was excellent and we had a really nice time. Will I rush back, no. But I am glad I went. Now four days until we leave for Geneva!!

Long Time, No Blog

It's been a while. No other excuse other than the usual. Work, travel etc.

The biggest recent event was that the SunDevil graduated from ASU. It is so hard to believe that her college career is over. It seems like yesterday that I was flying out of Sky Harbor wondering what the hell I was doing leaving my little girl behind to fend for herself.

She did me proud though. Magna Cum Laude. No troubles. And a cute Grand-dog. She is now going to start graduate school, which again, makes me really proud. Her fitness regimen may be a little extreme, but it is hard to argue with the results. She could probably kick my butt.

It is times like this that make me wish I was back in the US. 20 hours of travel time to see my girl is a little much. Then again, I have made that trip 6 times since January, so I guess I should be used to it by now.

Golf in the Land of Oily Fishes

Just returned from a golf trip to Portugal. For those of you inclined toward a golf trip, you would be hard pressed to find a better location. The courses were great. The food was excellent (who can argue with grilled meat products?). And everything was cheap.

For me, this golf trip was bitter sweet. I have been going on golf trips with a core group of guys for almost ten years and have a ton of great memories from all of them. About three weeks after I moved to Belgium, I lost one of my dearest friends and the best golfer in our little group. Understandably, we did not go on a trip last year. None of had our heart into it. Over the last year however, we decided that Chris would not want us to stop. He was the guy who always connected everyone. The glue of our team and often the comic relief on the trip. So it seemed fitting that we try to continue the tradition.

We played four rounds in four days, which is a little less golf than normal. The golf itself was our usual mix of hero shots with a solid collection of hacks and laterals. We did a lot of ball-breaking and reliving past glories, but there was a definite hole in the trip. Golf is a game for four and three isn't quite the same.

Say what you want to about golf, but it is a great opportunity for friends to get together, enjoy the outdoors, talk a little trash, and enjoy one another's company without distraction. For us, I think this trip was also a little bit of healing. We will almost certainly do the trip again next year, and I hope for many years thereafter. Our fourth will also be there in the stories we tell and in our hearts.

Out of Synch

I have had two trips to the US  since the year started and am about to head back for a third. It is apparent that I have been living outside of the US for a while.  Nothing major has changed in the year and a half that we have been in Belgium, but there are small things that you miss. A good example of this is television shows. Living here you get a pretty constant stream of the Kardashians and Mythbusters, but of course the new seasons of shows on the major networks or HBO do not exist here.  So we settle ourselves with re runs, and BBC. Not all bad, but I know when we get back to the US we will miss cultural references that everyone else is familiar with.  I see references to Breaking Bad or other shows and honestly, have no idea what they are about.

On the TV front, She Who Must Be Obeyed has begun watching an Australian version of St. Elsewhere. It is called All Saints and could not be more over the top. Essentially if you think of the most extreme thing that could happen in the scene, it will be that with some sort of left field embellishment. That being said, it is in Aussie-English, which is close enough, so is the go to show at 8PM.

Recently, we have been following the election coverage far more closely than we ever did in the US. What is interesting is contrasting the coverage from US media sources with the coverage from the European outlets. There is no other way to say it, The Republican Primaries are making the US look ridiculous. In Belgium, our Prime Minister is openly gay and the Belgian News cannot understand why gay marriage is an issue for the primaries when there are so many other topics that should be at the top of the issue list. I have to say, I agree. The content of the debates has been absurd.

In other news, SWMBO’s Flemish is improving. We went on a Valentines Day “Wandel” through our town. Essentially it was a pensioner who led a group of about 15 people on a walk describing all of the debauchery that has occurred in our town over the last few hundred years. To look at it now, one would never have guessed that it had at various points been full of brothels, sexual intrigue and bastard children. I would never have known any of this had SWMBO not been able to translate the proceedings. So obviously she is getting more fluent by the day.

Car Shows and Free Beer

She Who Must Be Obeyed combated my cranky, jet-lagged self this weekend with a trip to the Brussels Auto Show. I really like cars, new and old, so SWMBO figured that it would be a good way to deal with me after a 9 hour time change and 14 hours on an airplane.

 European car shows, as compared to their US counterparts, are different. There are a lot more car brands on display, most either lacking the market appeal or ability to meet the safety regulations in the US and so are not marketed there. So you get to see a lot of interesting brands. Obviously the French brands are big players Renault and Peugeot being dominant. You also see Skodas, Dacea, Seat, Abarth, and a host of other mostly small cars that few self-respecting Americans would take a second look at. By contrast, a really striking absence from the Brussels Auto Show were pick up trucks. You hardly ever see them here, but in a US show they make up a substantial part of what is on offer. This also extends to whole American brands. Ford had a medium sized display principally focused on the Fiesta and the new concept Ford Evos but Chevy/GM/Cadillac was a complete no-show.

As I covered in my last post, driving and parking here is a nightmare, not to mention fuel costs. Consequently, scooters and motorcycles are very popular alternatives. Fully a third of the auto show was dedicated to scooters and motorcycles in al of their forms. I frankly, had no idea there were so many manufacturers of scooters. I was familiar with Vespa and the kawasakis etc. but there are a huge number of other manufacturers from all over. Lambretta, Neco and a whole host that I cannot remember. On the motorcycle front, I think my favorite was the Triumph Steve McQueen edition. It looks great and is very old school.

Car shows wouldn't be car shows without the extreme high end. Lambos, Ferraris, Maserati Etc. were all represented. The Rolls Royce display really stood out however just because the cars are so large. By American standards, these are big cars, but when you spend all day looking at cars the size of a Mini or Fiat 500, they look positively enormous. One would assume that they are all rain forest and endangered species on the inside, but you need an invitation to get close to them, so obviously we were left outside the velvet rope. It seems positively ridiculous to me to show a car like that in this country. The roads are not wide enough, or good enough and the socialist leaning of the country would make you beyond conspicuous. You would truly need to be an enormous walking talking rectum to want one.

Finishing up with the luxury autos, we decided to leave the Expo and find some lunch. Back at our car, we experienced a typically Belgian parking situation. Parking is tight at the expo and we were wedged into a very small space. The result was that I had to inch forward and backward about 15-20 times in order to get out of my space. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it is not. Thankfully, my parking sensors have two tones so I could tell when I was less than 6 inches from impact on both ends. Most of the time however, they were both going off at once. Thank you BMW.

Returning to this blogs roots, I am reviewing a new and highly limited beer. The Charles Quint Ommegang Limited Edition Beer. Each year Charles Quint makes a special beer for the Ommegang Celebration. It is only available in Belgium and is a very small batch. Ours was bottle 498 out of 11,000. This is not to be confused with the beer produced by Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown New York. Charles Quint is a Belgian brewery with limited international exposure but a fairly large presence in Belgium and are a sponsor of the Ommegang festival. They give away a substantial amount of the beer as part of the celebration and as is typical, SWMBO won a 750 ml bottle. We received it over the holidays and I decided to give it a go this evening.

The Ommegang is a very pale golden beer. It is a bit more hoppy than a typical triple and less sweet, with some sourness and herbal notes. It is quite crisp and I think would be good as a summer beer. It is good, not great, but flavorful and interesting. Three Drunk Monks!

Expatitude

The New Year marks a time of reflection and resolutions, so I thought it would be appropriate to do some reflecting of my own and it is easier than resolving to lose weight or rid myself of any vices. Many of the posts that I have made to this point have been very positive about our experience. We have lived in Belgium for about a year and a half at this point however; plenty of time for the honeymoon to be over and the reality of the situation to be well considered.  So what follow are my New Year reflections, good and bad about living in this strange little country.

Missing Family

I don’t think that we see family any less than we did when we lived in Maryland. In point of fact, we may actually have seen our daughter a little more, certainly more concentrated time, than we did in her first couple of years of college. The distance and time change is the real difference. We have also had to postpone a couple of family traditions. For the last 15 years or so, we have been the hosts every Thanksgiving and I do miss that holiday. This year, as with last, I was working on the holiday, which is fine, Turkeys don’t come out in Belgium until Christmas.

Markets

I have written in the blog before about the little markets that spring up in every town at least one day per week. These are a little like the farmers markets back in the US except in addition to produce and artisan bakers, you have butchers, a guy selling roasted chickens, cheese sellers and fishmongers. You can often also buy clothes and occasionally other oddities. I love that every Friday, we can count on picking up some wonderful French cheeses, breads and a variety of other groceries just steps from our front door.

At Christmastime the Christmas markets are especially festive. Nothing puts me in the spirit like a little tartiflette and some vin chaud while strolling the market stalls.

Parking

I hate parking in Belgium. Hate is not really strong enough.  Driving can be horrible too, but the parking is rage-inducing. Part of it is my fault. I have a BMW 5 series and that is simply too long of a vehicle to park most places. Like my garage. I cannot shut the garage door with my car in it because the car is 2 feet longer than the garage. Even if I were driving a mini, however, parking in Belgium is bad. Too many cars and not enough spots. The spots that are available are barely wider than the car itself, so invariably you find yourself requiring a jug of Vaseline to squeeze between the vehicles. I have driven and parked in every major city in the US and I cannot think of single place that is as universally bad to park.

Food & Wine/Beer

This is somewhat of a corollary to the above comment on markets, but the food in Belgium is generally excellent. I often use the example of the little bar near our house where SWMBO and I go for steak frites every week. In the US a place like this would maybe have nachos and buffalo wings. It is a bar first, food is secondary. That being said, our steak frites comes with a freshly made Béarnaise sauce. You can hear the chef whisking away in the back. This is typical of what you find. Places with bad food, do not survive.

Obviously the pretense of this blog was to review some of the Belgian Beers that I have tried. I have lost a little steam on that front lately but it does not change the fact that there are some great beers here. Wine too is different from the US. Because this is a wine culture, you can get excellent wines for very little money. In many restaurants, a glass of wine is the same price or even cheaper than a coke. I have come to believe that all of the good inexpensive French wine stays here and all of the garbage is sent to the US. It is very easy to find a nice every day bottle of wine here for 5 euro, a rarity in the US.

Politeness and Personal Space

Frankly, politeness does not exist. At least not in the same way that it does in the US. People say please with alarming frequency here but the behavior tends to be something very different. Jeremy Clarkson, who is one of the hosts of the BBC show Top Gear, wrote in one of his articles that he is amazed that anything gets done in the US because everyone is so polite. He may have a point, but as an American, I find the lack of consideration tiresome. It manifests itself in different ways; There is the oblivious lack of consideration, such as when two people block a walkway while chatting. They know what they are doing but don’t really care that it is an imposition to anyone. Then there is the sidewalk chicken. As you approach on the sidewalk they will expect you to move. They do not avoid contact. The best though, is the blatant physical imposition. This tends to be the go to move for the elderly set. Older people will not hesitate to push you out of their way, if you are standing where they want to be. You get this a lot at the grocery store. You might be selecting some tomatoes and all of a sudden some old lady will either ram you with her cart or physically push you out of the way to get the one she wants. SWMBO got this the other day as we were getting off of the plane in Brussels. An older Flemish woman in the seat behind her, shoved her out of the way so she could get off the plane first. I know this happens in the US, but it is not with this frequency and it really gets on my nerves.

Travel

Belgium is the geographic center of Europe and as a consequence, you can be almost anywhere in a couple of hours. London is an hour and a half by train, Paris less than two hours. Barcelona and Rome are two-hour flights. It really provides a great opportunity to see much of Europe. More importantly, it lets you tour in a different way. To fly to Europe from the US takes time. Two full days are shot just with travel, so most people will either do the whirlwind city by city tour or spend all their time in one or two spots.  With a three-day weekend we can easily see any city. A little more time and we can tour by car and get out away from the city to see the sights that we would otherwise have to miss. I believe that this is the best way to see Europe. Too many of the cities are clogged with tourists and the hawkers that result. Get outside of the city and you see where people actually live and you generally have better experiences.

Language

Language generally isn’t a problem…Until it is. What I mean is that most of the time English will get you by. Most people have some English, particularly the Flemish. And since living here, SWMBO and I have gained some rudimentary skills in both Flemish and French. I refer to it as restaurant French/Flemish. We can read 99% of any menu, can order, say thank you, find the toilet, ask for the check, etc. Where things are a problem is when you need a service that is not in the day to day routine. For example, hiring an electrician. Then all bets are off. Neither of us have the language skills to transact that sort of business in any other language than English. This forces us to either resort to some unholy combination of pigeon Flemish and sign language hoping that we don’t cause an international incident.

Vacation

In my last job, I had a little more than three weeks of vacation a year. Not that I could use it. Taking more than a week off was not really looked upon very well. In Belgium, I have a lot more. I will refrain from being specific so as not to rub it in. But it is a lot better. I really believe that the US should move in this direction. Maybe the amount of time in Europe is a bit excessive, but I don’t think the US approach makes us more productive. To the contrary, I think most people burn out quicker. As I write this, I am finishing up two weeks of vacation and I am beginning to think that is a minimum amount of time needed to get recharged. 

Weather

Let’s just say, we did not move to Belgium for the weather.

Business Hours

One thing that takes some getting used to as an American is the relative lack of commercial opportunities. In the US, you can fully expect to shop 7 days a week as long as one of them is not Christmas, and even then you can still buy groceries. In Belgium the shops typically do not open until 10 and it is common for them to close between 12 and 2 for lunch. Most stores are closed by 6 or 7 and almost nothing is opened on Sunday. So you can see where productivity could be questioned.

Living as an expat is hard and we knew that when we moved. For now, the good outweighs the bad and we are generally happy with our decision. I would be lying however if I said that it is completely without challenges and frustrations. It also makes me appreciate even more being an American. The European quality of life can be better in some ways, but it is easier to live and there are more opportunities in the US.