The turning point...

A quick update for those (few?) of you who are really following our remodeling-narrative... (I know you are Mom!) we have finally reached a turning point! Things are looking great and it seems that finally (it took only a year!) everything is falling into place. I apologize that I have no pictures at the moment. I do have them, but I have no time to load them as I am working on a big editing project with a deadline. But here's the status report: we finally managed to get some workers back into the house to finish up the plastering (it seems that our contractor for that job got himself into a scheduling-mess while also having just become the father of twins...), so now the painter does not have to tip-toe around the unfinished walls anymore. He has been extremely patient and extremely helpful with everything and as of now he is about the only one whom I will recommend without hesitation (but let's wait... he's not finished yet.) He has already finished the 2 upper floors and most of the hallway. Our bedroom looks fantastic and we absolutely love the accent color we chose for there. Evelina's room is a nice and soft pink and we just hope that she will still like pink when we move in (maybe that's a given?) All the fixtures are delivered and will be placed next week. All the tiling is done. All the lights will be put in the week of the 23rd. And tomorrow the kitchen will be placed, finally! (Lots of "finally's" in this note!) THe kitchen was already planned to be placed once, but things went awry, so let's keep ALL fingers crossed for tomorrow. I will be there at 8 a.m. and will be very excited if all goes through. So, pics to follow. I promise. Lots of greetings. And yes, we have a moving date! On the 27th all our stuff will be delivered. WOW.

De laatste loodjes zijn heel zwaar.

In flemish there is
an expression "de laatste loodjes wegen zwaar."It means that the final haul of something always is the most arduous. Well... for me the loodjes are very heavy right now. I thought of the following analogy. Say you are going on a trip with a plane and the flight is about 10 hours long. At first you settle in on the plane, you get comfortable, and you think, well it won't be that bad, I finally get to rest a little, read that book I have been wanting to read, etc. (All this of course, assuming you are not travelling with a baby or toddler...) Then you get fed, and watch the movie or maybe sleep some, and then you start looking at the time. Half-way. Over half-way. And then, the antsyness sets in. By the time you have about two hours to go, it doesn't feel relaxing anymore, you just want out of the darn plane. If you've ever flown like that (and most of you have) you know what I am getting at. Now then, imagine that the captain then announces "we will now be flying around in circles for another five hours." Can you imagine how you'd feel? Well, that is HOW I AM FEELING NOW ABOUT THESE RENOVATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so ready to be out of this apartment, out of this street where there is always traffic and noise and it takes for ever to find parking. I want our things back, I want my clothes, I want for Evelina to be able to have a room of her own with all her toys! The poor thing cried this morning because she was reminded of one of her books that is packed and she misses it!!!!!!!! That breaks my heart. She doesn't even know all of it is coming back to her... I keep telling her but there is no sign of it so why should she believe me? Anyway, we are still planning of being out of here and into the house by the end of the month. But sometimes I just don't know if we will be able to. I was at the house yesterday and so much still needs to be done, that I just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe I will feel better about it all next week, then all the fixtures ought to be in, and all the door ought to have been placed. Deep sighs....

Some happy news? Last weekend Robert and I went to Brussels. See the picture of Fulton street on top? If it hadn't been on a building with several security cameras I might have tried to take it, but as it is I am already on film just taking a picture of it! We really like Brussels now as we are starting to get to know it. Yes, we did happen to walk by our famous little "Manneke Pis" and I am happy to report he is still standing strong and peeing non-stop. I did even take a picture of him but later in the day I saw another take on him and I thought I would post this one instead for you.











We walked around all of Saturday and had a really nice time. We mainly went to check out the antique shops and we had fun doing that. 90% of what you see is either junk, not our taste, or too expensive. But we did find some things we were looking for. So we felt quite accomplished. For one thing we still need to go back because it did not fit in the car. But Brussels is only about 35 minutes away now. This will taking used to, everything is so close, yet so different. We had a great meal, which of course is not a surprise here in Belgium. The land of plenty. Robert will have to write more on this in his blog...











And we sat on the 1st floor of "Le Roy d'Espagne" an old cafe on the Grand Place. And when I say old, I mean built in 1697. Just for fun check out their website http://www.roydespagne.be/. This will make you want to come and have a Belgian beer. We sat until after the sun went down at 10:30 pm. This late sunset is one of my favorite aspects of the spring and summer here. I will post some pictures so you can see why we sat inside on the 1st floor and not outside this wonderful spring evening. We had sat there before, and we just love the view. All other pics are from Brussels too. For those of you who have never been, this is a little bit of what you will get when you come visit us.










Here are a few other pictures showing the typical contrasts between the old and the new(er) architecture, a view of Rue de Boucher, the old butchers' street which is now filled with fish restaurants, and the new Magritte museum which is still being renovated - but I absolutely love it's temporary look! And a shot of a waiter taking a break to check out what is going on in the street below. And of course, there is always new fashion too... while Obama is being celebrated in the most strange places and settings (take a good look!)































Oh and we met 2 new friends while shopping. They are actually looking for another place to live. We talked to them about Antwerp and our house... so we are considering taking them in. They seem like a nice couple, don't you think?




For now, keep all fingers crossed for us that we truly may be able to move soon! Much love from Antwerp.(And you know you can click on the pictures to see them bigger, yes?)

Phew time flies. May is almost over, we have been busy, but still no move this month! First we thought the end of May, then the 2nd week of June. Well, let's say it will be the end of June and there will still be many things to be done in the house. But we are fed up of this apartment (and of paying rent!) so we will move in even if it means camping out on the top floor with a hot plate. Even Evelina protests at the front door of the apartment with " No, not in the apartment, in the new house!" She has been along a few times and strangely enough, even though the house doesn't look a home at all (yet) she seems to like it better than where we are now. The painter is working hard but oh so very precisely that it will now take him twice as long as he had promised me when I hired him. He said 4 to 5 weeks, now, when after him working alone for 2 weeks I was getting a bit nervous about the fact that he was still in the same room, I asked him again and he said about 7 to 8 weeks (on top of the 2 he had already worked!) So I showed him my dismay and told him we would move in regardless. I think that scared him a bit, because it is no fun having to paint around people and furniture.

We had a little set-back again when the kitchen was supposed to be installed so that did not go through. But it might be better in the end, as now we will (hopefully) have the floor down and all the other work finished in the kitchen before the cabinets and the counter go in. As I am writing this, the contractor is tiling and the plumber is placing the radiators. It is weird after 15 years of living in a house where the heat comes from a little vent in the ceiling, to now have to put up with large white metal cases against the walls everywhere. They seem so obstructive... But then, not much to do about that. We will need the heat in the winter, and will porbably not mind the way they look at all. Our outlets have electricity and the next time the electrician returns it will be to put in the lights. We will still have lots of wires with a simple bulb sticking out of the ceilings and walls. This is the kind of stuff I don't mind waiting with. In fact, some things just cannot be decided upon until we actually live there and know what it all will look like. It was hard enough to decide on all the colors before living there. So we kept it pretty neutral, we figured we can always add an accent here or there if we want to later. The painter is doing all the hard work now prepping the walls. We are expecting the carpenter any day too to put in the door frames. After that the painter can place the plinths and then all will truly have a finished look. So at the moment there is not much I can show in pictures. Hopefully soon, there will be some more real stuff to show. The vine on our facade is growing again and that tells me it was exactly a year ago that all three of us where here
on a visit to get the renovation work started...











Evelina was sick this past week. She had an ear-and throat infection, so she was home all last week. Today is the first day she went back to daycare with much protest. She does love it there, but after this long of being with us and my parents. The weekend of the 9th of May was a long weekend (Pentecost) so we spent it at some lakes not too far from my parents' town in a vacation-village. We rented a little bungalow for 6 and spent 4 days there. It was our first time to try something like this and although many things did not live up to expectations, it was actually quite great. Evelina loved it. She got to play in the pool everyday, was outside on the "street" playing soccer every evening (both of her knees bore the results of that!), and got all attention from us and my parents who joined us. She probably got sick from exhaustion... I will post a few pics of this weekend.






















This last weekend she spent with my parents. Robert and I took advantage of this luxury baby-sitting option and decided to spend some evening time in our future hood. We need to remind ourselves that we WILL INDEED really be living there soon. Sometimes the house still feels like just a big project instead of a future home. So we had a nice dinner at one of the many restaurants on the Dageraadsplaats, sat outside and enjoyed the buzz. Every little table outside was filled with people eating and drinking. Children were running around and playing on the big court in front of the church. We ate slowly and enjoyed every minute of it, soaking up the wonderful atmosphere. I have to admit that the summers are great here in the northern hemisphere, at 10 pm it is still light out and people love being outside on summer evenings, eat and drink with friends and family until the wee hours, and there seems to be no set bedtime for the children. Everyone who knows me, knows I am sceptical about Belgium in many ways (ha) and that I romanticize Italy... well I had to agree with Robert... this town is pretty wonderful to live in. (Well, it really will be when we have a house... arghhhh) Many of the things I so love about Italy are here too. I will always idealize that country I think and I will always be pulled to it ( I swallowed the magnet and it will remain inside of me forever) but now after about 4 months back, I am starting to see the beauty of this country again too (or maybe for the very first time.)













I am still teaching and very much like my group of students. I continue to be faced with the realization that English is a very difficult language. Through teaching I am learning lots about Russia, Japan, Korea, and Poland. I think I will keep some friends from this experience, and that will have made it very worth it.

Well wish us luck with the remainder of the renovations. I cannot tell you all how much we are ready to have a home again, to have our stuff again... simply to have clothes again. I have now been wearing the things I packed in January for 4 months... I have no summer clothes so I make do with some things of my mom's and new jeans and new flip flops. Many of Evelina's clothes will be too small when I finally get to unpack them. It is so weird to think that when we left Austin, we were still using the diaper table and now she is potty-trained! (she decided herself by the way, and did it in about a week. She is a super-child!) Anyway, the whole unpacking will be weird, period. I barely remember all the things we had! But miss them all still very much. It will be like Christmas in June (or July!?)

Much love from Antwerp.

Update on the House

I write at the end of a long weekend. May 1st is the Feast of Labor here, so no one does. In fact, since the next weekend is also a holiday weekend (Pentecost)many Belgians do not work for more than a week. I got out of only 2 teaching evenings, but having last Thursday off was very much appreciated. As it will be next Monday. Luckily, the Polish men working on the plastering of our house were willing to keep working through the weekend. They did as much as they could and in fact, might be finished. Robert and I were at the house Saturday when they were still working. We covered the newly-sanded floors on the top floor with the stuff they make drink-cartons out of so that the painter can start up there on Monday! I will post some pics of Robert working on that, as well as of the new (old) floors. Now sanded and varnished they look like new, almost too new... but their light colors really lighten up the house again. Tomorrow too the contractor and carpenter will work on finishing the new roof on the new construction adjacent to the kitchen and they will fill in the large open gap between the ground floor and 1st. We will have to wait on the new wooden floors for there for quite some time, but at least we will get a sense of what that space will look like filled in. And the ceiling in the kitchen will finally be able to get done. At the end of this week (if all goes well!) the kitchen will be installed. But we will cover it all up again immediately so as to protect it while they finish up the rest. But we are moving along... fingers crossed still for a move in at the end of this month???? No, maybe June. Here are some pics...












And then there is the news that I got a brand new bike. We added a little child seat on the back so Evelina can ride along. On our first outing with the three of us we immediately met up with a hailstorm! But we persisted and Evelina was a trooper, all soaked we stopped in at Antwerp's famous waffle and pancake place Desire De Lille and fueled up. After that the sun came out and we had a wonderful afternoon out with the bikes, riding along the shore of river and around town. Evelina loved it. And she loves her helmet!



More soon as things are changing rapidly now! Lots of love from Antwerp.

Spring's here.

Spring has arrived in Antwerp and the rest of Northern Europe. The trees are blooming (a street near the Museum in Antwerp) and people are out any minute they can spare to soak up the first warmth. This is a wonderful time of the year here as everyone is happy that the winter is finally over and the sun-craving Northern-Europeans nearly sacrifice themselves to the Sun god. This picture is just one of many I could have taken, this one in Breda and not in Antwerp though, since we happened to be in this Dutch town when the first sun came down on us all. All the restaurants throw open their doors and put tables outside. Their cozy innards of winter now remain desolate and dark. No one wants to sit inside any more. Antwerp is now far more pleasant than when we arrived a few months ago.

I actually counted the months on my fingers yesterday. Has it really ONLY been three months? It feels like six. Austin seems so incredibly far away. I try to think of our house there, the streets, our habitual places... I have barely even thought of Tex-Mex food! I've been too busy, too preoccupied. I guess that's both good and bad. We are still in the apartment, and will sign on for another month. We are tired of it. Tired of the street, the place, the furniture, the bed most of all! I have certainly learned the importance of a good bed.

Work on the house is still moving along, not as steadily as I would like to see it, but it's moving. They have sanded the old floors and they are looking pretty good now. They are lighter than we thought they would be, but we like it. This week the painter is checking in to see how dry the walls are, which should tell us when he can start painting. That will be exciting! And on May 9th the kitchen will be installed. Pictures of that will follow. I am hoping that the last structural job will be completed this week as well. Robert and I have changed our mind about the glass floor/ceiling in between the ground and first floor. We have decided to put in standard wooden floors and leave a small opening to connect the two floors. The glass would have taken away too much floor space on the first floor. So that framework still needs to be put in. When that is done, it is only finishing everything off. I am so ready to get to that stage...


And meanwhile life goes on. Evelina is doing really well in day care and beyond. She is well on her way to be a "big girl" and "grote meid" without diapers. She is very happy to be free of those bulky things. And, she has a boy friend. A tat earlier than we expected, but the paparazzi shots proof that it is indeed so. They were spotted this sunday at the Zoo. His name is Lucca, he's a few years older than she is and is bilingual as well. We will keep you posted on how this goes. Lucca is leaving on vacation this week as there are several holidays coming up in Belgium. I guess time will tell whether he will prefer Spanish girls or not.


One other tid-bit of news. I have been teaching English through the University's Institute for Language and Communication. I am teaching English levels 1 and 2. It is a very diverse group of students, from Japan, Russia, Belarus, Georgia (not the state of course ...), Poland, Congo, several Latin American countries, and Spain. No, no Belgians. Teaching this beginner's level is a challenging job, especially since all of the students are at a different level in understanding and speaking. It is not a job I applied for, and not what I ultimately want to be doing, but once I am in the class, I have fun. I have enjoyed meeting all these people. Several of them have already taken the Dutch courses and are quite fluent in Dutch, so to get to know each other I break the rules and allow them to speak Dutch-English to me during the break since several cannot yet express themselves with English alone. These people have interesting stories. Belgium is not the Belgium we left 15 years ago. On the streets we hear more Russian and Polish than ever, Arabic too is very prominent, depending on the neighborhood. We used to hear the Antwerp dialect. I am not surprised that the Flemish Nationalist Party has its head-quarters in Antwerp (this does not imply that I agree with what they stand for.) I do think the world is becoming smaller.... but even so, my (past?) life in the US seems so very far away.

We'll keep you posted, lots of love from Antwerp.

Happy Birthday to Evelina!

Yes, our little one turned 2 last Saturday. Check back to the entry I posted last year for her birthday to see how she has changed. Wow. The baby is all gone. She has become a little girl (although she prefers to say "big girl.") I had wanted to be able to celebrate

Evelina's birthday in our new house and make it a housewarming party as well, but that of course did not happen. Maybe for the better I did not plan anything big, because little Evelina got sick on Thursday and was still having fever on Saturday. Because she was sick Thursday night we kept her home from day care on Friday since we did not know what condition she would be in during the day. She was quite well luckily, so we took advantage of that and the nice day to make our first trip to the Antwerp Zoo. Evelina loved it and we will be going back regularly. Now I am not all together a proponent of animals in captivity but I also realize that in this complex world where animal extinction reigns there is no place for unrealistic ideals regarding animals living in the wild only. So I tried to share the wonder of seeing all these various critters with my daughter. The world truly is more beautiful through children's eyes and minds.

The Antwerp Zoo was founded in 1843 and has recently undergone quite some renovations. They are still enlarging it at the moment by constructing a better and larger area for the giraffes. Now, the great but also limiting aspect of the zoo is that is situated right in town. In fact, one day Robert and I were driving around (when on a quest for schools for Evelina) in a previously unexplored part of town when we suddenly at the end of the street saw three giraffes! Now, we know the zoo lies smack in town, but with our heads elsewhere and not completely fully aware of our whereabouts at that moment, this sorta came as a surprise when driving around. But yes, several residents can see the giraffes when looking out of their windows. One side of the zoo lies adjacent to the station with this superb architectural structure recently restored to its full splendor, this causes for some great views from within the zoo.

The zoo is also a great park for the city. Due to its buildings it still provides a turn of the century feeling. Plus, in a city any green is much appreciated. In fact, we bought a membership (courtesy of my father! Thanks!) so that we can go back over and over again without paying each time. Here are some views from that day.











On Saturday of course we had cake and presents. Lina had a great day, despite the fact that she was not entirely well. She is crazy about the birthday songs and candles, so she enjoyed that. Whatever was bugging her caused her not to want to eat, not even the cake, so no pics of Evelina with a chocolate-covered face, alas ... But she was very excited with all of her gifts: a big swing and slide in the garden at Moeke and Baba's and a play kitchen with pots and pans etc. for helping mama and papa in the real kitchen.























On Monday then she was celebrated at day care where they made a crown for her. That too she loved. Attention, attention... And I of course love taking her picture!











I also shot a little video of her. Now, shooting video of Evelina is no small feat because she loves watching herself so much that as soon as I point the camera at her she starts grabbing it and says "Lina see it" over and over. So all of my (very) short videos of her end with a child's hand approaching the lens, a cute but demanding voice and then a blur. So this time I tried to film her while her she was also watching Ratatouille (which she loves.. get the connection? cooking? truly she loves to watch the kitchen scenes! This is promising, no?) So it worked partially, she did not grab the camera, but was also only focussed on my request to sing along for 50%. Can't have it all mama. In any case, we tried. It does not truly capture her excitement for the birthday songs though. But maybe by midweek she had had enough of it too! (Still trying to get this one posted to Blogger--Check back!)


Other news. I accepted a part-time teaching job at the University's Language and Communication Center. I will be teaching English to adults. It is not my first choice of a job, but it is not bad either. The center has a high reputation and I will be on the University's payroll which of course has its benefits. And from experience (I did this in Italy as well) I know that this type of teaching is fun as well. My students will be from all over the world and from many walks of life. So I do look forward to that. Robert on the other hand is starting a course in Dutch. He took the entrance exam and was placed in a high level. So he is looking forward to that as well. He intends to become fully fluent! (Maybe it is the fact that Evelina is already correcting him, ha!)


Keep checking for updates. The house is looking good, and more pics of that project soon. Much love from Antwerpen.