Articles in Red Tape
When your door buzzer shrills loudly at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning, it can never be good news. As I rolled over groggily I realised the bell-buzzer could only be one of two people …
After three years of dealing with Belgian bureaucracy, the uninitiated might think that things would get a little easier. They would be wrong.
I made an important discovery during today’s commune visit – workers are only permitted to give …
When I enrolled in French immersion in Junior High school, I never could have predicted that I’d be using skills learned then to translate rental contracts in Brussels at age 31. (For that matter when I took journalism …
Finally. This morning I had a call from the commune to come and pick up my Identity Card.
It’s orange, which means it’s tied to Andrew’s. So I still can’t work. However, now that I have …
So, after six months of waiting, I think I have finally had my police visit.
I say ‘I think I had’ it, because I didn’t actually answer the door.
After a bad night, with little sleep, I …
It seems just based on odds alone I could leave the town commune at least once without feeling like I’ve been beaten. The odds were still against me today. While what I feel like is …
Some days it feels like Andrew and I are mummified in red tape; and I mean really sticky tape of the Duct Tape variety.
It seems that no matter how many hoops we jump through to …
According to the Belgian government, Andrew and I are not legally married. This came as quite a shock, as I distinctly remember walking down an isle, wearing a white dress, signing papers in front of …
Some days it feels like we are mummified in red tape; really sticky tape of the Duct Tape variety. I remember commenting in Amsterdam that, “when we get settled in Belgium, things will be more …
My Telenet installers arrived at 8am. It took them until 4pm but at long last I have internet access from home. The first thing I did when I got on-line was write the following letter …
This is my first morning in the new house and, even though I can’t post right now, I want to record how I’m feeling about everything. I’m sitting on the floor in the living room. …
Andrew’s work Permit came through! Now we just need the residency permit. We still have lots more hoops to jump through but this was a major one! So hopefully we’ll be able to move into …
