Catching up

David is fixing blanquette de veau (veal stew) in our enormous kitchen, so it falls to me to try to catch you up since our last posting. We went dark on Thursday when we moved out of the hotel and into the house on rue Delbory. We got three deliveries that day: our "express baggage" (sarcasm intended), our appliances, and our loaner furniture. We have a US dryer (which means it's what we consider a normal size) and a European washer (which means you can put about 3 pairs of underwear or one pillowcase in; OK, I'm exaggerating, but only a little). Because the frigo in the house doesn't have a freezer, we also have a US fridge. We were lucky, though, because in contrast to most Belgian homes, our kitchen came equipped with an oven, dishwasher, microwave, and lots of cabinets. We also have overhead lights in every room, another big plus.

The car also came in, so we picked it up on Friday but not in time to get it registered because it being Friday and Belgium, the registration office closed at 1:00. So we went over there today, after picking Becky up at the airport, to do that. Turns out it's only sort of registered - we did all the paperwork but have to go back Thursday, after 3:30, to pick up our plates. Then we went over to get our SHAPE driver's licenses, but of course we can't do that until we get our plates. And apparently that happens in the same office where we registered the car, only our friendly registration agent (who wasn't friendly) neglected to tell us that. We also can't get our Belgian driver's licenses until we get both our SHAPE licenses and our Belgian ID cards, which will come in sometime within a month or so. (The advantage to having a Belgian license is that it's valid anywhere in Europe and never expires!)

So...while we were doing all this Becky was back at the house recovering from her journey, which entailed driving from Nashville to Dulles to catch her overseas flight because all flights from Nashville were cancelled on account of the weather. (We had to hear about the bad weather from the local patisserière because we had neither TV nor internet nor newspapers to know what was going on.) We took Becky back to SHAPE for lunch because 1) the food is pretty good, and 2) families are allowed on the campus, so that was an interesting experience for her.

Our household goods are being delivered Wednesday, which means we will finally have furniture to put in these big empty rooms. We should also have a TV by then so it will truly be home. (David finally gave up on the idea of the 58" screen but we are getting something big and flat and dual voltage and multisystem that we can bring home with us.)

One peculiarity about houses here: if you have a septic system, you can't use bleach in your laundry or to clean anything because it will kill the good germs in the system and produce a noxious odor in your bathrooms. This is going to just kill me because I like my whites white and I hate mold in the bathroom. The combination of an exuberant shower and damp weather makes for a propitious mold-growing environment, so I am going to have to ask Delia the cleaning lady at work how Belgians combat mold.

Other musings: going to work on our last day at the hotel we got behind both the garbage truck and the street cleaners. Picture being stuck behind two vehicles moving at the pace of a ruminating cow down a narrow street wide enough only for two small European cars. The street cleaners and cleaning personnel seem to be part of the Belgian full employment act - or you could think of them as the antithesis of the theory of personal responsibility that seems to be so prevalent here in Belgium, as in: why bother throwing trash in a trashcan when someone will come and pick it up later? ??

Time for a stroll into the village to see if there are any signs of life.