Not that many people are reading my blog (there remains the list of people who were invited but have not reacted... what am I to make out of that?) but those who do are becomming demanding! (Lea!) ha, thanks for the kick in the butt. I have been wanting to write, but just not had the free moment to do so. Between life with husband and baby, teaching, disseration work, and trying to deal with paper work etc. relating to the house in Belgium there is not much time left. Of course, I could try not sleeping anymore. Oh, wait, I did that after Evelina was born, for about four months... not a good idea ultimately. Of course then I had no choice. (And yes, it was all worth it!)

So you want to know what is going on with the house? Well not much. We are trying to take care of the final closing. We have until May 16th to complete the paperwork. We first thought to take care of things in person, since we plan on going over there right after my semester ends (May 4th!). But my very cautious husband does not want to push it that close to the deadline. What is one of us gets sick, he forwarns, and we cannot go as planned, then what? Well, then... everything just gets much much more expensive as we will then be responsible for paying daily interest on not paying for the house. So, we will take care of it by power of attorney. That document was drawn up in Belgium, and has been translated already. I am waiting for it to get here. For some reason it showed up as a blank document on my email yesterday. Once I have it, Robert and I have to sign it in the presence of a lawyer and then that lawyer has to sign it stating that he saw us sign it and that we are who we claim we are. And then, it needs an Apostille stamp, and off it goes back to Belgium again.

The University here has legal services for students, so I called to ask if they could take care of this for me. The girl on the phone was not sure so she had to go check with one of the lawyers. I explained several times what it really was about. When she came back she said they were not sure. It turns out that they are very hesitant in dealing with anything foreign. Hmmmm.... let's see this is one of the biggest universities in the country with slightly more than 50,000 students of which about 9 % is foreign. That is about 4,500 students. That is as many of the entire student population of many other colleges. But no matter, they do not like to deal with foreign issues. They will however deal with small wills -- small, that is, up to
$ 1,500.000! Well, I guess that's Texas for ya! Anyway, we will get the document taken care of no doubt. So after all this (and then of course some financial transactions!) the house will be legally and officially ours. YEAH (and...gulp)

So for now, the only thing we are having done is inquiring about bids and having the whole house measured by an architect. The architect will plot every little detail into Autocad and we will have very accurate plans. I will try to post them when I have them. After all that, some of the breaking down of walls can start. That is exciting too, as it will open up some spaces and make them bigger. I will be eager to receive (via my parents) and post pictures of work in progress. But at the moment we are not sure at all when work can, let alone will, begin.

So other than this my class keeps me busy, more than it should. But my students just had their first exam (and no I am not grading the 80 tests myself, thank goodness for beginning grad student-graders! ) and I have started teaching Roman art and architecture. And here is were objectivity falls by the way-side: I will spend several lectures on Rome, even though I only spend a few on the Sumerians and Akkadians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks. I can do that because it is my class. And thinking about teaching and the Romans, I would like to share this image with you all which I will (carefully!) show in class. It always helps to make comparisons with current issues, although one needs to be careful. By university policy I am not supposed to or even allowed to make politically loaded statements nor any religious ones for that matter. And even though UT and Austin are in general quite liberal, we must remember we are in Texas. Not that I want to make those type of statements in class anyway. All I do usually is ask (rethorical) questions and leave them to ponder. Here's an example: The Roman emperor Trajan erected an enormous forum with a large column monument in the heart of ancient Rome after he defeated the Dacian people and returned home with the booty. There were statues of the defeated enemy all over. What would such a public display of victory look like if our current President would be allowed to put one up, let's say in DC? No answers needed on that one.

So here's what you get with a comment like "where are the posts?" Answer: ramblings. I'll post some more pics next time. For now, greetings from a very warm Austin, Texas, with love

Musings of foreigness

Since this house is not the only thing happening in my life, and this blog is not only about the house, I will change the subject just slightly. Hmmm, let's see, let's write about food! The other night the three of us went out for a quick dinner at a local burger place. It is an Austin landmark and they have very good veggie burgers, it is cheap (relatively) and kid-friendly--something that is of course important to us now considering we haven't gotten into the groove of hiring baby-sitters yet.

So as we were sitting there, eating, talking, and entertaining Evelina (really that took most of our attention) I did suddenly notice that I was eating my food with my hands, from a small metal tray lined with paper. I had poored ketchup on the paper and was dipping my (unpeeled!) fries into the ketchup on the paper. Now for all you American readers there is nothing peculiar about that. And there hasn't be anything odd about it to me either. But suddenly, this evening, I realized once again, how odd this is for non-Americans. I suddenly, momentarily was a Belgian again.

I think now that we are directing quite a bit of our attention to this house in Belgium (oops, I am talking about it again) and thinking about living there again, I will continue to experience these brief flashes of non-Americanness. I have been in Texas, in the USA, for so long now that mostly evertyhing here is second nature to me. Usually it takes having a visitor to bring back the foreigness about it all (no pun intended.)


Now look at this photo I took in a local restaurant in Roswell, New Mexico in July 2005. I was taking this sort of photos then because we had just returned from living in Italy where I had taken many many table shots, and because, having just returned I did feel like a tourist in the US all over again. But look at how the bread rolls are served: on paper, in a plastic basket. To Belgians, this is weird.

Just like serving drinks in huge plastic cups with straws (for adults!) is nearly unheard of. And this is a shot taken in the burger-joint I started this triade out with. Sorry to all of you Belgians who now wanted a visual of the ketchup and fries on paper... I will have to procure that next time I go for veggie burgers.

Not that we don't combine fries and paper, mind you! In fact, one of our most famous "dishes" (not a dish at all) consists of just that, fries (double-fried) in a conical paper tote smothered in mayonnaise (the fries, not the bag!). Hmmmmm. I promise photos of this after the May trip.

Here is another Belgian staple, now that I am going this way.

Mussels and fries, or since we had it in Brussels, moules avec pommes frites. Not my favorite, but one of Robert's. With, of course, a good dark Belgian ale.





But I digress (of course this entire post as well this entire blog is one big digression). I was writing about "deja-vues" of foreigness. All these things and customs I have gotten so used to over the many years can seem suddenly foreign again to me if I only pay attention. If I only try to remember what it was like to come here for the first time. I will never by the way, forget the very sight I saw stepping foot outside of JFK the very first time I came to this country: a sea of yellow cabs going this way and that, standing in line noisily. I was overwhelmed by smells and sounds and business of people, waving, yelling, running. It was sweltering, I hadn't slept in over 24 hours and I thought "well, here you are, you made it to America." (Of course, at that time, I did think in Dutch still.) That was 1987.

Well, here I am now, 20 years later (ohmigod!) and this might be my last year in the US at least for a while. So that, not the burger in the basket, is the other thing I will write about from time to time. I have plenty of pictures to accompany any digressions I choose to divulge in. I will leave you with one of my favorite visuals from Texas, that amazing horizontal line underscoring that vast deep blue sky. Ya can't get that in Belgium either.

Greetings, from Texas, with love.

Architects and Interior Designers

So remember how I wrote that I had not heard from any of the professionals since sending all the pictures... well today I heard back from both of them. They both think the house is great with tons of potential and they both want the project! So now, somehow I have to get myself out of this. I am not sure how yet. (No, they are not part of the audience of this blog!) Anyway, the great thing is that they agree with my unprofessional view that the house can be turned into something amazing. Well, of course anything can be turned into something amazing with the right number of euros, right. In any case, they both want to start measuring and putting everything in Autocad so that they can start on the design. Just having that done will put us back quite a few. Oh my. The big decision then is, is the design worth the money, or do we spend that money on materials, etc. and try to design it ourselves? The first of (I am sure) many dilemmas. In any case, it is good to know I wasn't dropped from the drawing board so to speak. More on what we decide later, naturally. For now, it is Friday evening, I am ready for the weekend (but then I always am, and most so on Monday evening) so greetings, from Texas with love.

A few more pics

Great, the audience of the blog is growing. Michele left a great comment and tip in regard to the contract that will be drawn up between us and the contractor. See Michele and Greg just finished fixing up an apartment in the 15th in Paris, and I have seen the pics on their blog. It looks fabulous! So she advised to have a clause in the contract that stipulates that in case the contractor does complete the work in the agreed timeframe, 100 euros gets taken off of his price. Turns out that became a good deal for them since of course the work was not completed within said time. I am surprised any contractor would even sign that! Good thinking on their part. I wonder if that is an OK thing to do if the contractor is a friend of your father?

Anyway, I figured now that several of you are checking in, I will post a few more pictures.
Here is one of the Cogels-Osylei, the main avenue in the district Zurenborg. The lei (avenue) is known for its mix of architectural styles, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Neo-Gothic, etc. Some of the houses are absolutely stunning. Most of this building occured from 1890 onwards and the architects competitively tried to outdo eachother. I was reading recently that they put all of their creativity and efforts in the facades, because once inside apparently these houses are nothing special. I find that hard to believe, but oh well.

The next architectural phase came in opposition to all this ornament and attention to detail, and characterizes the houses that are built in the streets that veer off of this main avenue. This much more simple and subdued building style was applied from the 1900s on, and our house is one of those.

Here is a picture of our street.
Notice how the facades of these houses are all much more streamlined. There is an emphasis on horizontals and verticals. This is all in direct opposition to the frivolous curviness of the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. It is hard to believe now, but those styles were heavily criticized in their day.

And here is the facade of our house.
Ours does not have one of those wonderful little balconies but it does have a bay-window, which on the inside is really great.





So here are two shots of that.





I will leave it at that for now. Greetings, from Texas, with love.