The Key(s) to a Successful Marriage

Thursday night - 11 pm Location: The sidewalk outside our flat Andrew (looking slightly concerned): Um, you have your keys right…? Me: blank stare…What?… Noooo… Andrew: Shit… Earlier that evening: I look at the tiny, impractical (but very cute) evening bag I recently purchased in San Francisco. This will go perfectly with my...

A Clue! or A Day in the Life of a Belgian Commune

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 you one vital piece of information per visit. You must then continue to visit the...

Parlez Vous? Reading Rental Contracts in French

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 in university I never expected to be writing articles about living in Belgium either.) The past...

Possibilities – Considering Moving to Brussels, Belgium

A few weeks ago, I wrote of the autumn expat migration. Since then, Andrew and I have been contemplating a migration of our own. It was about this time, three years ago, that Andrew and I decided to make our dream of living in Europe a reality. We were scrambling to get paperwork done,...

Cook & Book Store and Restaurant in Brussels, Belgium

Andrew and I are opposites in many ways.

Fortunately though, we have a few loves in common. A few weeks ago, we discovered a new way to share two of our passions.

Good roommates are hard to find

Should Belgium remain a country? Unless you live in a cave, it’s a question you can’t avoid these days. As a Canadian, it’s a question that brings forth a strong wave of déjà vu. One of the things I first noticed when I arrived in Belgium was that there are more similarities to...

The Annual Expat Migration

Andrew and I have just returned from three weeks of summer vacation in Eastern Canada. Back in Belgium, as August is drawing to a close, autumn seems to be already in the air. Although we’ve heard about the annual autumn expat migration, this is the first year we’ve felt its...

The Joys of a Low Maintenance Visitor

Monday, an old friend arrived at our house. Andrew and I haven’t seen much of this friend in the past two years. We’ve bumped into each other in hotels and had brief visits when we were back in Canada, but our friend hasn’t ever been in our Belgian home. Now our friend is...

Coming Out of the Shell

This is my Expatica blog from last week in case you missed it. As a footnote, since writing this piece, I've reconnected with a bunch of friends from university on Facebook and it's been really great to see everyone doing so well. We're spread all over Canada and the world,...