1st briefing from the homeland

Well they say that it takes 2 months to get one's bearings after a big life change and I suppose it is true. I left Austin on January 19th and here we near Easter without any notes on the blog. I had planned to write at my one-month "anniversary" back in the homeland, but alas, it didn't happen. That 1st month was hectic, chaotic, stressful, and felt like a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride with more dips than climbs, ha. Robert arrived (cum felines) 2 weeks after Evelina and I did. I spent that time with my parents while I took care of finding us an apartment. I also made sure that everybody associated with the house knew that I was back and here to stay so that they could contact me from now on. Or in other words, I set free my parents from this burden. It sure seemed like a burden at first, when problems kept popping up here and there. At times I just wanted to get back into the plane and go back to our Austin house. But... of course by then that house was not our house anymore! That is good news of course, the fact that our house did sell in probably the worst market slump since we owned it. Anyway, it is probably a good thing I did not write sooner because the detailed reports would have been quite dreary. When the 1st month was over I remembered how Robert and I actually had celebrated our one-month completed-date in Italy. There we had cooked a nice dinner with goodies bought at the Bologna market and some wine and we had congratulated ourselves on pulling it off and toasted to new beginnings. Here we were just stressed and tired.

When Robert arrived he was exhausted from all the work he had put in to get the Austin house empty and ready for the new owners. That too had been a bigger (much bigger) beast to fight than he had anticipated. We have lots of pics from his final packing and emptying, but they are sad to look at.... Plus, I want for our friends who remember us in that house to remember it full and with us, and not as the empty shell that gawks back at us in the pictures. So I will not be showing these.... Robert came with the cats and with Rebecca, his sister, who was wonderful enough to come along so that he could bring the 2 cats (only 1 cat per person allowed!). Unfortunately, the weather of course was dreary and we were both too exhausted from all that lay behind and before us to make good hosts. So we will have to make it up to her next time she comes! Luckily she is an independent soul and explored on her own and with my guiding she also discovered the city's most famous jewelry designer and went home with a bit more glam on her finger than she came with. Ha. Well done!

So now two months have past since arriving. I have pretty much taken care of all official things that needed to be taken care of. I applied for ID cards for Evelina and I, got us insurance,I found and compared day cares and we got her registered, etc. It doesn't sound like much, but all this took several weeks. On top of this came the fact that we had to get Evelina registered for kindergarten which she will start in November. In Belgium a child can go to KG at age 2,5. Day care ends at age 3 so unless you have your child enrolled in school there is no other option. For the majority of schools enrollment started this year on March 3rd at 8:30 am. There are many schools in the city, of various quality. Unlike in the states (in general) a child can go to any school regardless of where it lives. So as soon as Robert got here we started visiting schools to get a sense of their value and pedagogy and also to find out whether there were spot available for the upcoming school year. And this is where the problem lies. Children who have siblings already in the school get to enroll in January. Then several schools have to comply to a regulation that gives priority to children who are "opportunity-challenged" (I am not sure how else to translate it) so in essence children from immigrant families, etc. Several spots need to go to these kids and these are filled in February. As a result, by the time the March enrollment comes around, there are often no spots left. Especially so for the better schools, since 2006 actually had (among the white middle-class families in Antwerp) a baby-boom. The problem is aggravated by the fact that many families with young children want to live in the city again, versus in the suburbs where the problem does not occur. So.. what does all this mean? Many schools we liked simply had no spots left. Others had 6 or 7 left.

So how then do you guarantee that you make one of those 6 spots on Monday morning 8:30 am? By being there early, and by early I mean the NIGHT BEFORE!!!!!!!!!!! Case in point: Robert and I had visited the Freinet school which is the only one in Antwerp and happened to be very near our house. Freinet has an alternative pedagogy (as does for instance Steiner which we also investigated but voted no for) and we liked it very much. There were 7 spots left to be filled that fateful morning. ( I use this term fateful with sincere intent, because it determines where your child will go to school until 6th grade! Children actually go straight from KG class 3 to 1st grade within the same school. So enrolling your child in another school for 1st grade is even more difficult!) Since we had heard the horror-stories of people camping out all weekend Robert drove past the school on Saturday but found it empty. He drove by on Sunday, still nothing. I was with my parents where I had dropped off Evelina since we could not have her with us if we were going to take turns camping out somewhere. At 6 pm Robert went by the school again, nothing. At 7:10 my train arrived from Hasselt and we went straight to the school thinking that we would probably be fine going over around midnight. When we drove by we saw several people and a tent. I asked and bam! Slap in the face, there were parents for the 7 kids born in 2006 -- with them the spaces would be filled. We were too late at 7:20 pm the night before.

We had 2 choices then: camping out there regardless to be the 1st on the waiting list (in case one of the parents would change their minds and send their kid elsewhere. This IS done... parents bet on several schools and send anyone they can to go camp out so that they are sure to have at least one secure enrollment. Often they make 2 schools and then pick their favorite so that at one school a spot opens up for someone on the waiting list. ) OR, we could gamble all on our 2nd pick and go sit there all night. I must say Freinet is a very popular school and this most likely was the reason for the early show of these parents. We drove past the other school and found it still deserted. There were more spots too, so we were safe for a little bit. We ate, got blankets together etc. and Robert was there at 11 pm as the very first one! Only a little bit later he send me a text message: "I am no longer alone." He had a long and cold night and if you want a full report of this I refer you to his very own blog. I am sure that this night will be one that is featured on there. I walked over around 6 am to take his place so he could catch some sleep. He had to teach that afternoon! At that time all the 12 spots available were spoken for, so the parents who were not so well prepared and just came "early" (i.e. at 7 or 8) were too late. At 9 Evelina was registered for school. It was a BIG load off of our shoulders and I did not care one bit that people stared at me holding a large comforter and pillow in pink sheets on the tram during morning rush hour!

Evelina had a bit of a rough month too with all the adjustments, but she is doing very well now. We eased her into the day care by leaving her first for 1/2 days and that was quite hard on all of us. Once we left her the full day she did great. (Oh no, now that I write this the thought occurs to me: what does this say about us, her parents???) The reason must be that this is what she is used to from Austin and of course that it takes time to get to know the care givers and the routines. They all love her there by now and see now that she is not a cry baby but a fun talkative child with a sense of humor. She is doing GREAT with Dutch and even knows the difference between English and Dutch. "Mamay says ... " and "Papa says..." In stead of being slowed down in language which we expected, she has accelerated. She makes full sentences now and is constantly talking (or singing.)
She has also made an Italian friend -- Salvatore, he owns a great little Italian restaurant in our street (where we live now) and we try to go once a week (to have wonderful pizzas, speak some Italian, and be reminded of our previous ex-pat experience). Evelina knows he calls her "Bella" and that he gives her a lollipop after dinner. We are not so crazy about the lollipop-part of it all but we did let her have it the first time (and of course that means every time now!) I am teaching her that these things are not good for her teeth and we will actually refrain from going for a while. But she feels quite pleased when she is enjoying her little treat. See for yourselves:



I will devote the next entry to the house so as to keep this one from being way too long for anyone to want to read. After 2 months there is so much to report on. This one covered the main reasons why you had not heard from me. Also, as I said, Robert has started his own blog in which he will report from the land of Fries with Mayonnaise as a true ex-pat. His will be open to all so no invites necessary. His URL is:http://frieswithmayonnaise.blogspot.com/
I hope to be a regular again soon. For now until then, groetjes van Antwerpen with love.

The final days of 2007

Note: I am having a problem with pics again, so check again later. I will keep trying, they are worth it!

Happy 2008! We are back in Austin after a nice vacation with family and a week in Santa Fe. I started writing while we were in SF, but never got around to completing it or adding the pics. Travel with a toddler is quite time-consuming! So I will leave the little blurb in this blog entry, and will continue with the current up-date below.

Greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is cold here. 15F (that's -10 Celsius!) But as always, the sky is a beautifully clear light blue and the sun is shining. It snowed again last night, and Evelina actually played in the snow on the plaza today. Her first experience with the chilly white stuff was not such a success. It snowed the day after we got to Amarillo from Austin, where we left sweating again. I will post a picture of that encounter so you can see for yourself what she thought of it. We spent Christmas at Robert's mother's house with everybody there. Rachel, JP, and Cousin Rush, drove down from Chicago and Rebecca and the dog Paka came up from Austin as well. We relaxed, ate, went to the playground and pool with Evelina and of course wrapped and unwrapped gifts. Granma's house was 100% Christmas atmosphere and a delight for the little one. She liked the present exchange very much as well.

And then we left for Santa Fe. Just the three of us. I must say it is a slight challenge keeping an energetic toddler busy in this cold. But so far, so good. I will post some pictures of how pretty things are here. In the meantime, things have of course slowed down on the Antwerp house. Our biggest news is not so good, although ultimately it will all be for the better I think: the house will definately not be finished for us to move into in February. Maybe some of you surmised that already simply by looking at the pictures. I still had some hope. But no, alas. At best it will be done the end of March. So I am looking for a short-term lease now. Arg... I guess it will still be some more months before our lives will be in order again. Sigh.

So, as I said, we have arrived back in Austin, after driving three consecutive days: first from Santa Fe to Amarillo, then on to Abilene the next day, where we got a hotel with pool so Evelina could get rid of some stored energy from sitting in the car, and then on to Austin the next day. She did great! She is a wonderful traveler. It was great to spend so much time together.

So what is going on now that we are back here and have only a few days left (gulp!)?

Work on the Antwerp house has picked up again and is moving along at a nice pace. There was some uncertainty regarding the possibility of bringing a wall back to its original brick in the kitchen and up to the 1st floor, but this now seems to be working out just perfectly. I received pictures of the wall stripped off its plaster and the brick looks exactly like we wanted it to look: 100 years old.

Now it is time for breaking out the old floor on the 1st floor, and prepping it for the new wood floor. Then the glass ceiling/floor will have to be put in between the ground floor and the 1st floor and that will pretty much be the end of all the heavy structural work. Then finally things will start to look pretty! (Right?)

Now that we are used to the idea that things will be rather far from finished by Feb. 1, Robert and I are actually seeing the positive of that. We will both be there to monitor the final touches. This is great actually. There were some things I had decided on rather quickly that one week in September which we now can look over again together. Plus, a great weight will be lifted off the shoulders of my parents I know. They have been coordinating every little detail until now ( a daunting task, constantly worried they might make the wrong decision...) so they will be happy to hand it over to whom it belongs. ha. Bedankt mama en papa, voor al het werk! We hadden het niet kunnen doen zonder jullie!

We have pretty much decided on an apartment after much browsing the various websites and looking at many pictures. So during February and March (and maybe also April) we will be living in the Museum district where all the hip folks live, ha. All in all, this might be for the better as well, as we can hopefully then unpack the boxes etc. without having to stay in the mess.

Our tickets are all in order as well. I leave on the 19th of January with Evelina (that is in a few days, another big GULP!) and Robert on Feb. 3rd. We have made arrangements to take both cats. This too comes after much deliberation. Our little Pumpkin has not been in the best of health lately, but she is hanging on. We could not justify putting her to sleep only because of our plans. So we are taking the whole family, geriatrics and all.

Then the not so good news. The Austin house is still not sold. We really hit an all-time low point in the real-estate market. We have had some bids, but all below value. She we hold on. We will have another open house this weekend, and will keep all our fingers crossed.

All of this takes up most of our time. It is at night that I notice that I am getting quite nervous about all of it. Frantic may be a slightly better term... I am trying to understand the implications of all of it, but honestly, I cannot. I do not fully realize that I am actually leaving this house, this neighborhood ( I am at the local coffee shop writing this), this city that has been my home for the past 15 years. Somehow it seems like I am making just another trip to Belgium. As I said to my good friend Leslie, I think it will all hit me several months from now, when it will become clear that there is no return-flight. The pending dissertation of course will require that I come back to Austin, but my life as I know it now will be over. I WILL miss it, I will miss my friends (or rather seeing them regularly, for the friendships do not have to end) and I will in many ways, miss Texas and the US. I just don't know yet how that will feel, and that is a good thing. It will make leaving and saying goodbyes (hopefully) a little easier.

I might not write for a while. I will be busy. Tomorrow my mother arrives to help me wrap up (also quite literally) things here. And she will fly back with Evelina and me. Then all our furniture will be picked up by the movers and Robert and the kitties will be left here for one more week in an empty house before they join us. So, next time I write, I will god-willing be in Belgium. So for one more time I end with this, greetings from Texas with love.

Birthdays, festivals, and more rubble

Note: Blogger seems to have some problems loading some of the photos, so I will post this one as is and will add the pics later. So check back!

When I look at the calendar I panic a little. December is almost here. That means that in a few weeks movers will come and wrap up our furniture, and will load all the boxes that contain the physical evidence of our lives onto a truck. After that our house will be nearly empty. It will take about eight weeks for everything to get to the port of Antwerp, unless the ship sinks and all of our stuff will end up on the bottom of the ocean, awaiting future archaeologists to dig it up and hypothesize about who we were and what we might have planned based on the sporadic remnants spared by time. (Wow, I digress... that is the archaeologist in me! ha.) Anyway, it will be weird to continue with "normal" life with a nearly empty house. But December is the Holiday month, so we will actually not be here that much. We will spend Christmas with Robert's family in Amarillo, Texas and in New Mexico, and that we are very much looking forward to.

November had my mother's birthday and we sang to her and had cake on her behalf, with a candle as Evelina likes it for a "happy day!" (as she calls it) with my mom connected via Sightspeed. How wonderful this is and how bizarre too, that for Evelina the computer is a connection to her grandparents. She will often ask for them (moeke, baba, gramma) and then run to the computer and point and say "yes, look!" The other day when she came home from daycare, there was no computer on my desk (it was in the shop for repair) and she noticed (of course) and nearly panicked. "Computer gone, moeke-baba gone, gramma gone!!!" she shouted and put her little head in her hands and cried. Robert and I were astounded by her reaction and I quickly showed her that all was OK as we still had the laptop. Phew! She knows they all exist as real people, but somehow they also reside inside the computer and with the device gone, well... they must have been gone too. It was touching to see.

Oh and then there was my birthday too! 38. Hard to believe. This too was celebrated with cake and candles and singing. I must say the biggest gift is having your child all worked up about delivering your cake and gift to you. She could not contain herself and her little feet trampled with excitement. I nearly forgot that there was something inside of the little bag (thank you Robert!) after her exhilaration. Robert and Evelina had a wonderful chocolate ganache cake made for me at the local bakery and it read "happy day Mama!" What more can one wish for.









The weekend before my birthday we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. This is an annual themed outdoor festival outside of Houston. The theme of course being the "renaissance" period which is interpreted very broadly and quite different from what I as an art historian would define it. There are numerous little shops with everything from beads, to candles, to clothes in chainmail (even bikinis!), to costumes, etc. There are shows with belly dancers, jousting, magicians, and all kinds of other entertainment. People arrive in costume, from elaborate gowns, to skimpy gypsie atire, and fairies (why? Don't know but they do), alchemists and witches. People eat (corn-on-the cob, turkey legs, and pretzles) and drink (sometimes too much.) We had gone a few times before, years ago and I had loved it. I am not sure why we forgot about it for several years, but I am so happy we went again! I just loved it. It is tacky, totally white-trash (if my Euro-friends do not know what this means, they can email me and I will explain) and cheesy (same here -- I remember my Italian friend Germano taking issue with this term and trying to translate it!) But I loved it (or should there be no "but" in this phrase?). And of course, this year we had our own little fairy with us. She was adorable and turned many heads. I will post some pics of this day. I could have gone back a second time, but of course we didn't, it would have been less exciting and less "magical" the second time around. Oh, one more thing I should mention about this day. Evelina saw real elephants and camels and was pretty amazed about that. We were standing quite close when suddenly one of the elephants pooped! This made such a big impression on her that we still hear about that BIG elephant-poop that had to be picked up with a shovel no less. The world truly is amazing when you are a little toddler.



Thanksgiving was quiet and intimate. We stayed at home on the most-heavily-traveled long weekend in the country. It is rather ironic that over the years, it is precisly this all-American holiday which brings nearly all families together, we have mostly celebrated with just the two of us in Austin. And so it was to be for this last one (three of us now). We made a smallish Thanksgiving dinner and Evelina helped with everything she could. We also made pizzas much to Evelina's delight and I will share some of those pictures here.



















One other highpoint was the fact that we got to visit Rebecca on the set of Friday Night Lights. For the uninitiated, FNL is a new TV series about a Texas town and its high-school football team. That is how it is known, but it is sooo much more than that. The show is filmed here in Austin and is in its 2nd season and Robert's sister Rebecca is one of the script-supervisors of the show (i.e. the very important person sitting next to the director.) Robert and I watched the pilot and were instantly hooked! Since we don't have TV we have watched all the episodes available on DVD, often 2 to 3 a night. The show really draws you in. So we feel like we know all of the characters. So how awesome when we got to go on set and see them film part of an episode. Now I am not one to be starstruck, and this show really doesn't have any stars in it (although I am sure that many of the actors will become that after this show) but it was supercool to actually MEET some of our favorite characters in the show (or did we meet the actors playing those characters? That is hard to say!) We met Coach Taylor (super cool) and his wife (on the show) and we met one of the football-players. (It was my lucky day because the one in this scene whom we met truly is eye-candy!) Of course we also met the director and some other behind-the-sceners, those very important people but whom nobody really drools over. I would have loved to stay, but space was tight and we obviously did not belong there, so we snuck out... We are trying to get Rebecca to get us in as extras, but I am afraid that it won't happen. The shooting will soon be done. That damned writers' strike. Curse them! I took a picture of Rebecca at work. I was too shy to take pics of the actors!

Our house is still on the market and we approach a difficult period now to try to sell a house. But we persist. It will happen! I had to remind Robert about the fact that most people are not like us and do not decide on buying a house after seeing it only twice (on the same day)! So how are things with THAT house? Well, we finally got the permit! YEAH!! That is 11 months after buying it, by the way. So this means that the heavy-duty interior construction and the replacing of the windows can start now. (yes, in case you thought that those previous pictures were of the heavy-duty work, no! That is still to come.) Several steel beams will be delivered this week actually and will be placed to support the house where we have decided to take walls away. After that, things ought to move more swifly. It is about time, no, considering we will be moving there in about 2 months! I truly cannot wait to be able to post pictures of the construction (as opposed to de-construction.) But for now, all I have is this. Will we truly be living there in February?


Well I will post more pics as I receive them. And I will try to keep everyone abreast of goings-on. With this, many greetings from Texas with love (oh dear, I will soon have to change the title of my blog!) Oh, and I do have to mention that finally the colder weather has blown in. How wonderful it is to be able to put on a jacket and wrap up in a scarf (well I do at least, many students are still wearing shorts and T-shirts, but I think that now they actually must be cold). It came overnight. 85 degrees F one day and 40 the next. That's Texas for ya! I will end with one more picture. Evelina has started using the potty... with drumrolls!

Accessorize!

What happens when a 19-month-old toddler chooses her own accessories? This picture speaks for itself, no?

October is over!

I can't say that I have enjoyed October. It was a stressful month, completely taken up by packing and prepping the house here in Austin for its sale. As we tried to pack things away, it seemed that every room was in chaos. Stuff was everywhere and whenever i needed something I couldn't find it. I am not the world's neatest person in general but this mess really got on my nerves. I was pretty much stressed out throughout the entire process. It seemed that there would be no end to it. But there did come an end to it. It had to as last Sunday we had an open house. Robert worked until about 15 minutes before people started walking into the door. I had taken Evelina for a long walk around town lake as he finished things up, trying (successfully) to take my mind off of things. The FOR SALE sign had gone up the day before while I was shopping with Evelina. As we turned the street, she happily shouted "Thuis!" (Home!) and then I saw it. The combination of her happy exclamation and my stresslevel just popped the tears into my eyes. It is weird to see the house you have lived in for 14 years suddenly slowly becoming not yours anymore. We have been talking about all this for so long, yet this sign made it all truly real and felt like a punch in the stomach. In moments like those I notice the wonderful trees in our street, our wonderful back yard, and now too, the simple fact that this has been Evelina's only home. But no fear... I have no regrets. Moving is an emotional thing to do nomatter how or what the circunstances. On Sunday the house looked fabulous and we left just in time for the crowd to come--cause apparently a crowd it was. The three of us went over to Rebecca's house and relaxed, with all the work behind us. Leave it to a toddler, a dog and a water hose to take your mind off of everything.

















In fact, if you want to share in some of the fun they had go see the video on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWDJSCRRsCY). Yes, Evelina is on youtube now! We made a little video for her Moeke's birthday and this was the only way I could figure out to make it available. So we have started something now. More to come I am sure!

Here is another picture as proof that October was not so great. This is about the only visual we have received from the house in Antwerp where rubble still rules. I just am so ready for some shots where things are actually looking better than when we bought it!

There was one absolutely wonderful thing in October and that was Halloween. It was so much fun to be able to have a holiday such as this one with a child. Last year we did sort of dress her in costume, but we did not take her out. This year, not only was she in full costume, but we took her to the streets, and she actually got really into it. It was so much fun. Evelina as skunk, going trick-or-treating with papa the pirate and mama the heks (witch!) (Which, I know, he didn't actually say it, but Robert found quite an appropriate match to my mood of the month. Never mind, Evelina really liked my hat!) So I will post some pics of the day that made up for all the others in the month. We did quite some seasonal activities as well. I made pumpkin pie which Evelina loved, we painted pumpkins (which turned into total body-painting), carved pumpkins, and put out luminarios. She loved every little bit of it. I have promised her that I will continue the tradition of Halloween regardless of where we are. I am already making plans for a big party next year!











She was a trooper on Halloween night, and stayed up late walking the streets with us admiring people's decorations. She was in awe of all the "spooky spiders and bones and pumpkins and candles." I was relieved that she is still too little to understand the blood and gore that some people get into. Halloween should be spooky, not resemble a stage set of a B-rated horror-flick. She was pretty popular herself, and got many compliments. One man said she was the cutest thing that had come across his porch in years! And that for a skunk. Here is our little stinker after all that, exhausted and very exhausted.




















Well, there was one other highpoint this month. Robert and I saw Sinead O'Conner in concert here in Austin, at a rather small venue. I could write about that experience for a while, but it is late and I am tired. It was by far the ver best performance I have ever seen. We both feel very fortunate to have seen and heard her, but we are bummed too that we will just miss her European section of the tour in the spring. We would travel to experience that performance again, for sure... just not to Australia. Bummer.

Well, wish us luck on the sale of the house, and on the progress on the Antwerp house. November should be a very different month on all fronts! Greetings, with love from Texas.

Moving along...

Fall has arrived in Austin. Suddenly, as it always does. Like a child's high fever the weather here suddenly breaks. One day it is still in the 90s and then overnight the temperature drops to the 40s and it rains. Plants nearly freeze, limbs on trees break because they are dry and brittle and cannot bear the weight of the water, and people sniffle and cough. But oh it feels nice to be able to wait for the bus actually sitting on the bench and not having to hide under a tree scared of the sun. I actually overdressed today with my jacket and scarf. Partly because I actually do already have a cold, and partly because I really felt like wrapping my scarf around my neck. (So, ironically, I am again too warm, ha!) The sun is still out, but she has ceased to burn. It actually doesn't seem like such a weird thing now to see pumpkins and Halloween decorations everywhere.

So with the weather moving along to more bearable temperatures, so we are moving along with our various house projects. Robert and I have managed to pack up some 65 boxes of our belongings. These boxes are filled with items deemed worthy to take along on the transatlantic voyage but without which we can easily continue to go on until they arrive sometime late January or mid February in Belgium. Isn't that strange? Almost an entire 5 X 5 feet storage space filled with things we can live without yet do not want to dispose of! The house looks only slightly "lighter" for it. Granted most closets and cabinets are empty, and many of the "things" that were sitting around are gone -- as Evelina keeps stressing by pointing at the bare spaces and saying "gone!". Several of the bookshelves are gone. All of the personal photographs and most of the artwork is gone. And I am actually beginning to appreciate the beauty of the bare wall. (This will not last long, fear not.)


Getting this house ready to be put on the market is quite some work. We have a great real-estate agent though and he has taken care of quite some things already. The back yard has been nicely cleaned up and trimmed. Several windows have been given new screens, and some broken bricks have been replaced. Now we still need to patch up some cracks in the kitchen and repaint it, and we will be close to ready. We will then try to do away with any mess (this has proven to be quite a challenge in the past) and then make sure it is clean and smells nice. I read once somewhere that the smell of apple pie makes a house sell faster than no scent at all because it recalls coziness and homeliness. Of course,I don't have time to bake a pie the morning of the open-house. I wonder if a plug-in would work too!

In order to rid ourselves of excessive stuff (i.e. things that do not go in boxes to be taken with us) we had a one-day yard sale last Saturday. It was a last minute decision to do it then, mainly because the weather forcast for this coming weekend looked grim. In just one afternoon Robert filled our entire living room with stuff that we could get rid of. Then we made some signs, attached price-cards,a nd I posted the "event" on the local Craigslist. Robert got up at 5:30 to put everything outside, and lo and behold, before 7 am, before sunrise (!!) there were people in our front yard with flashlights and we were taking cash for our stuff. Evelina thought it was quite intriguing to have all kinds of things scattered in front of the house and have strangers poking at it. We had a thermos among the items so she walked around with it saying "coffee, coffee" as if she was a waitress. We did pretty well, and what did not sell we took to Goodwill and items that were not fit for that got a "FREE" sign on it and they had all disappeared by evening. We watched a black pick-up truck pull up with two frat-boys who seemed delighted with the fact that we had a large poster of a nude Natasha Kinski hugging a fat a python waiting to be picked up. I am sure it is now proudly decorating some frat-house nearby. I am all for recycling over adding to the world's waste heaps!

In the meantime in Antwerp work is moving along fast. We have received pictures and I will post some here although they might be hard to figure out, and probably not seem very impressive to any of you. For us they are the first real evidence that all our drawings and plans will actually become living spaces. Not wanted walls are being removed and new ones are being constructed. The plumber is putting in all the plumbing and the electrician is about to start. After that, the walls can be filled in and it will actually start to look better.

My parents have been working hard being our middle-man/men. They found appropiate antique doors which we will have fitted in on two floors and an antique glass pane that will be placed in the wall between my office and the hallway to allow the light to fall into the corridor. We also finally have a carpenter on board which is big news as we were about to give up on the renovation of the bay window for now. But this man and his team has agreed to completely rebuilt and install it in time for the interior finishing work to continue. Yeah!

We have pretty much made decisions on everything that we needed to. Robert and I bought a stainless steel sink (like the ones in professional kitchens) in Austin this weekend and will have it shipped. These things are about three times as expensive in Belgium we found out. We also decided on a large stainless steel table with a maple John Boos top that will serve as a large prep table in the kitchen. We will put it on coasters so that it can be placed whereever we need it. We think this is a pretty clever idea and really look forward to cooking in our new kitchen now. You will all have to come over!

So what is still pending? The fridge still. I keep finding models I like but that are not available in Belgium. Arg. The quest continues. As October comes to an end we hope to hear soon from the City of Antwerp on our building permit. Once we have that, the new windows can be placed and that will change the entire look of the house.

As to moving to Belgium in the broad sense... there still is no government! It has been over 4 months now. At the 100 day mark of absence of government, the Flemish national party had a big feast with champagne and cake celebrating the near-independence of Flanders. How ironic is it that one of main issues the current elected officials of Flemish and French parts cannot agree upon relates to immigrants, while in the high court a case just closed with the conviction of an 18-year old (white Belgian) boy with double murder and assault with racist motives. While the officials argue about how immigrants must be dealt with in Belgium, the family members of the African woman who got shot (only for being African), thanked the country of Belgium for its solidarity and stated that few other countries would hold such a fair trial in a purely racist matter. (That kid by the way, also shot a Turkish woman who survived, and killed a little white girl only because she was in the care of the African nanny. The shooters parents are members of the Flemish national party.)

Then on the (local Flemish) news they reported of several instances of major disruption in local governments near Brussels only because the "wrong" language was being spoken. A mostly French-speaking community located within the Flemish district had its meetings sabotaged (and later officially annulled) because its members were speaking French. The mayor may face charges because he did nothing to prevent French from being spoken. Grow-ups were yelling "Spreek Nederlands!" (Speak Flemish) while the others said "I can speak what I want" (but then in French of course.) Really people, are we not too small of a country to make such a big deal of language? Or are we?

So the point of the matter is, whether we are moving to "Belgium" is at this point still unsure. We can locate the point on the map and we are sure we are going there, but we are not sure what it will be called by the time we get there! (And here is a random thought, I wonder how our royal family feels about all this?)

I will end with some pictures of various things. Adding them on to the end of the text is just quicker than merging them in. I will get back on track some day and make everything match up again, I promise. Now is not the time. With that, many greetings from Texas with love, v





























Sofar for the Austin house and the yardsale. Here are some of the works going on in the Antwerp house. That bottom one will become our closet!

I take a quick break after working for several days on an application for a job in Belgium. It is sent off and I will now try to forget about it. How strange to be writing a letter of introduction in Dutch. I had to look up more words in the dictionary than I do when writing English. At the very least this was a good excercise. Still, fingers crossed everyone.

It is October. Have you noticed? That is Fall. Here in Austin we are still hitting the 90s so I am not convinced yet that this is the month of Halloween and falling leaves. I cannot tell all you people who do not live here how tired I am of the heat. How exhausting it is to still be sweating in jeans and a button-down shirt, and how frustrating it is that Evelina still turns tomato-red while playing in the school's playground. I am sure that next year around this time, when I will be in Belgium in the rain, I will not really remember myself how much not fun it is, the heat. But I will get back to you on that then.

My parents were here and had a good time with Evelina (and us too, presumably). And Evelina had a great time with them. They went to various playgrounds, shopping at Central Market (which Evelina loves as she gets to call out the names of all the produce she knows. She turns quite some heads!) and on a daytrip to Fredericksburg. Here are some shots from all that.





After years of visiting Austin, my parents are pretty comfortable here and very much used to all the little differences between Belgium and Texas. I was more aware of their habits and customs and cravings now because I am about to return to the place of origin of all of those "peculiarities." My mother was really surprised to see several hospital staff in scrubs in a restaurant for lunch. I thought nothing of it. I used to work in a restaurant next to a hospital and I saw them like that all the time. She thought it was completely not the right thing to do. I made the argument that they too have to eat and that cops don't change out of uniform either, but she was right of course to say that working in a hospital is a different matter. Well, yes, I suppose in Belgium this is a big no-no. I am used to it here. But it was interesting that I forgot that this is indeed a difference.

Then there is food. Like my father eating tacos with knife and fork, rather than rolling up the tortilla and eating it from the hands, like us gringos have learned from the Mexicans. One of the major differences that never will be settled is the coffee-culture. My parents like to have their cup of coffee in the early afternoon, especially when we are out together shopping or whatever. At home, when I am out in town with my mother, we walk around, we windowshop, we shop, and then go to a coffee shop (no, not the Amsterdam-kind) to sit and have a cup of coffee and something sweet, a pastry, a waffle, or a crepe (pannekoek -- which is not a pancake.) The coffee is served on a little tray, with three or four types of sugar, with some milk, sometimes with whipcream, or at one place with some pretty strong eggnog, and a cookie or a piece of chocolate. Granted you pay for each cup of coffee you order (no such things as a bottomless cup) but at least you get more than a big ol' mug with drip coffee. That this is just not to be found here seems to be quite difficult to get used to for my parents. So one afternoon while we were shopping I took them to a place where I know you can have coffee and sweets (for the Texans -- I took them to the Cheesecake factory) and they ordered an apple crumble, after having looked through the 20-page menu -- this is after all primarily a restaurant. Good thing I warned them to only get one dessert! They were served a bowl, a huge bowl, of apple crumble and icecream and whip-cream. Good thing there were constant refills on the coffee to wash it all down with. In Texas nothing is dainty, ha.




While they were here, I worked on a masterplan for the house. Since they are in charge of the construction team in Antwerp, it was essential that they know exactly what Robert and I want to happen. So I produced a booklet with all plans, all data, all info, and drawings, that I was aware of for every team-member. So they left with a big list of instructions, which they have been checking off one by one now that they are back. It does feel nice to be able to say that nearly everything has been decided upon. (Yes, we are ultimately putting wood on the floor in the kitchen!) All materials have been chosen, all fixtures, etc. Now all we wait for is for the work to finally begin! I am too tired and exhausted to describe the two recent "problematic issues" we have had to endure, but I hope that we are back on the positive side of things and that all will be OK. Remodeling a house is hard on the nervous system! Let's hope it will all pay off! Since I don't have pictures of anything yet, I will put up this one of Evelina and I pretending to be working in the house while at the Children's Museum.




So now that all is out of our hands on the house in Antwerp, we charge full steam ahead on the Austin house. This place here has to be fully prepped for being put on the market. It needs paint in certain areas, a lot less mess (that is the hard part!) and fixed up here and there. Robert and I have already packed nearly 40 boxes of things that need to be moved and put them in storage. The real-estate person wants the house sparse, so we try to eliminate. We will be selling quite a bit of our stuff now, and then more in January. If we manage to get it all done, we will have it up for sale by the end of this month. Fingers crossed on that one too! The market is at a low and the dollar is lower than ever agains the euro. But we have started this and we are not turning around.

So still no photos of house-improvements. Hopefully soon(ish)! many greetings with love from Texas. And a few more pics to close off. More of Evelina eating, birthday cake (for my father) and melon (with my father, but he is shirtless so I figured it was best to cut him out of the picture, ha), and then Evelina packing up and leaving the story-telling at the museum (I agreed with her, they could not tell a story right. I would have left too!), and one last one with Moeke and Baba at the airport before going back to Belgium.