Full of water

Friday evening after picking up Rob from his work I hit a curb with the front wheel. It was pretty bad. The front tire was completely torn so the wheel needed to be replaced.
It was dark, stormy and we had no phone number of the road assistance, we also couldn't find the car-jack in our temporary car.
After an hour or something, when we accepted there is simple none, we did find it (together with the number of the road assistance!).
Despite the pouring rain and a tired and impatient Maarten, Rob managed to attach the spare wheel at last...

This is how my weekend has started.

Saturday night Maarten had a fever, swollen eye and was complaining about earache.
Obviously an ear infection, but this morning miraculously he woke up as healthy as a horse, insisting his ear is not hurting at all, that "it is only full of water".


Therefore I gave up and, however, instead of looking for a pediatrician we went to visit Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Leverkussen Express...

...is on my mind.

This vessel is carrying the container with our furniture and household goods and it has probably almost crossed the Atlantic.
It is actually scheduled for tomorrow to arrive in Antwerp harbor!

Even though it will stay in customs for at least another week, there is a good chance that we will be settled in our new home right before Christmas!

Thanks Hendrik!

Sinterklaas is in the country again! Maarten looks out the window every evening in hoop to spot the old bischop or his helpmate Piet.
At school he's learned some traditional Sinterklaas songs but he is also singing some in French! This is a little frustrating for me since 'Saint Nicolas' and 'tralala' is all I understand.


I didn't have the car today so Maarten had to miss his school.
A long planned trip to the historical downtown was a good option for me but how to make it attractive for Maarten as well?

Luckily I've recently read about Hendrik, the little ghost of Huis van Alijn, a museum right in the downtown.
All children under 9 years of age can put there their shoes at one of the many museum fireplaces.
There we had a good reason to get out to the rainy streets of Ghent!
Maarten drew a picture of Sinterklaas (and me) and put it in one of his sneakers.

After the Saint Nicholas' eve Maarten can pick up his shoe again with, hopefully, a little something in it.
If he has been good of course!

Bos t'Ename

Again I can describe my 'first' impressions and adjusting to the new life here but maybe it's better to safe that for later when the initial heavy emotions will cool off.

Even here in Belgium I want to hold onto writing about my search for beautiful (natural) places.
In California no real effort was needed for that since there are stunning places on every step you make. But what about here in crowded Europe?

Geography was always my favorite subject but I remember learning about the Benelux at the elementary was rather boring. Nothing spectacular considering the landscape or climate and even... not 'real' mountains!

When I first moved to Brussels from Amsterdam in 1998 I surprisingly found a nice combination of historical, cultural and even natural beauty.
But now after spending the last years exploring stunning California I will probably need to make more effort to (re)discover the Belgian natural places again.

If you want to make me really happy bring me to a forest!
Right, but this might be a little problem if you live in East Flanders.

I've been told, there is still some forest in The Flemish Ardennnes, only 15 minutes drive from our home.


I did some research and found a place proudly called The Ename Forest. If you ask me, there are rather stretches of woods (and...sorry, Maarten, there are no bears in there!) but the way the locals try to maintain and expand this natural preserve is impressive.

This wooded area is also interesting due to its long history. The educational information panels along the Mariette Tielemans trail explain the historical importance of many places.


Without these panels you will probably not realize that you are walking on a sunken road used already in Roman times and you will definitelly pass the Rabit Hill without noticing. Such man-made hills with artificial holes were used in the Middle Ages to raise rabbits.


From the windy hill you get a nice view of The Schelde Valley. Walking in such a rural setting truly refreshes your mind.
Nothing new, the outdoors is always good for MY soul!

Despite lack of 'real' forests this hilly region with its pictoresque villages and meadows with grazing cows is a perfect place to find peace and definetelly worth of further exploring.

"Mami, budeš stará babka?"

Mommy, are you u going to be an old grandma?

Yes, probably.

But I don't want you to!

And my never-crying boy started to sob.

Miss Geneviève told us that moms and dads will become grandmas and grandpas and then they'll die.
I don't want you to die!


Ooh yeah.. I forgot about the Grandparents Day at Maarten's school. The children had to be dressed to represent different types of sports disciplines.
Most of our stuff is still somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic so we had to improvise with my T-shirt and hat.

Maarten came home with self made cards for his grandparents. Neither his grandma nor grandpa appeared at the party. What a disappointment!

But you've told me we are going to live closer to 'babi'.

Uhm... ehmm ...yes, we are closer.
Instead of twelve hours fly it's 'only' twelve hours drive...

"Happiness comes when we stop wailing about the troubles that we have and offer thanks for all of the troubles that we don't have."

I should remind myself of this more often.

These are stressful days, but being busy might be a sign of a good progress and hopefully we are on the right track.

Therefore after the last couple of wailing posts I should write something about the nice things of our Belgian life.

Besides the traffic, living in the downtown of an European city is pleasant. There actually are people in the streets, not only cars!
I wish there was also a little more color!






I probably still don't fully realize the nicest part of being back in Europe. The closeness of family and friends!

After one year of separation I could hug my sister and our cute little cousin Jonas again!

Maarten enjoys his new school, even though he seems to fall back into his gestural and mimical communication from a year ago.
Back in California it took a while before he dared to speak English to his schoolmates. Even he is fluent in Dutch he will probably need some time to use this language at school as well.

Luckily he seems to like his new school and fits in well. He even has got his first birthday party invitation!

Maarten's teacher is so kind to blog about their activities. Every week we get updates about what's going on in the classroom. You can follow it HERE. (in Dutch but it's mostly pictures)




There is some progress in making our home more inviting and livable.
Rob finally finished sanding the floor in one of the bedrooms. The formal residents 'accidentally' painted it grey.
I admit, the sanded floor does look stunning but ask Rob if it really was worth three days of heavy labor followed by really bad headache!

Hello from Alex

This morning we enrolled Maarten to school and he could immediately start.
I believe this 'shock method' works the best for him.
He said firmly 'no' when the principal was about to bring him into his new class. When we were leaving him behind, there was the look in his eyes... the same look like two years ago on his first day of the preschool.

Not smart, but I forgot his jacket and therefore I had to return to the school again. I was nicely surprised how he was already participating.

Just minutes ago I received this message from a mom of one of his Californian friends:

Alex wants to say hello to Maarten and is sending two pictures of the human body that he drew in their anatomy studies. He misses Maarten very much and was sad when I picked him at school on Maarten's last day. We attended William's birthday party yesterday, and his mother said that William cried for four days. It sounds like the classroom misses him and wants to say hello.

Maarten also keeps drawing pictures for his Californian friends and many times I have to spell the names of his ex-class mates (especially his girlfriends!), so that he can write it down correctly.

He obviously doesn't understand the situation yet.

Is it smart to show him Alex's message?

Getting somewhere

The air shipment is probably already at the customs right now and we hope it to be delivered straight to our new home. Yes! The house hunt is over and even we will get the keys soon, it will take another month till all our household goods will arrive and we will hopefully finally settle down.
Thanks to our realtor we also found a suitable school for Maarten. Quite surprising is that you can enroll your child to school after one of the school holidays only. We seem to have luck in that. This week was the fall break and tomorrow we have an appointment with the school director. I hope Maarten can start soon!
This school should offer a similar program to the Montessori which will hopefully help Maarten to adjust faster. Lessons are given in Dutch, of course, and even there are no English classes for his age, they offer optional French lessons after normal school hours.
We'll know more after tomorrow.

Speaking about languages. To hear Dutch/Flemish around somehow makes a big difference to me. This compared to the years spent in Brussels feeling uncomfortable because of my poor French.
I know I will get over it soon but I still tend to speak English to strangers. And Maarten's permanent jabbering in "Miss Ruth's language" naturally adds to that.
It was similar when we first arrived to California. Then I would react in French when a stranger addressed me.

There are many things we have to get used to again, such as payable parking and restrooms!, small parking lots, restricted openings hours, so many bikers on the streets and above of all the weather!


We haven't seen here much of the sun till now, yet today we had surprisingly nice sunny crisp day which we spent at the beach!

The first two days

The flight was quite pleasant.
The lay back chairs with footrest were almost as comfy as a bed and I surely used the back massage a lot.
Maarten even slept for a couple of hours but his persistent coughing made not only myself uncomfortable.
I only wish there are direct flights between San Francisco and Brussels.

The Frankfurt Airport was the first downer after landing on the Old Continent. Was it really so dirty or am I already that spoiled from spending last years in the Teletubbie like Tri-Valley Area?

The traffic between Brussels and Ghent was pretty bad and it was really pouring but we safely arrived to our temporary home. We were short on Euro cash for the taxi and the driver of course didn't accept any cards (something we have to get accustomed to again). I was really surprised when he agreed on a lower price (meaning all cash we had) for the taxi fare.
According to many expats the Belgians are friendlier than the Dutch. Was this the case or was he asking too much at first?


Our next-month-home was also a nice surprise. There are some fine hotels in Ghent but we had a preference for a furnished apartment. I believe, one week living in a hotel with Maarten was already enough.
I like a lot this little newly redone loft apartment in the downtown. Only too bad that they forgot to connect the water supply to the washer and dishwasher.

"De laatste loodjes wegen het zwaarst"

It took the movers 3 days to pack all of our stuff. What a sad view to see our home full of cardboard boxes!
Anyway, we finally got the house clean today.
What a relief that the cars and appliances are sold, although only for a charity price.

But there is still no end to our to-do list.

I see how naif it was to think we will spare some time for more trips.


Luckily we managed at least to visit our favorite pumpkin patch and Maarten had even more pumpkin fun at school. By the way, his school is one of the things we are going to miss badly. I may come back to this later...

Among of all those sad good byes it seems I finally came to terms with the local police...since Maarten became a Junior Officer of the San Ramon Police yesterday morning!

I've already brought up my concerns about Maarten's adjusting to the changes but actually it's me who is going to have difficulties with that.
Only the fact that we are staying in a hotel only one mile away from 'our home' gives me a stomach ache. Suddenly everything 'American', seems to me just wonderful, even the Applebee's !
As for Maarten, he really has a blast. He can use the hotel elevator several times a day and instead of oatmeal he gets the colorful cheerios every morning!
What more one can wish for?!


To spare this post any further wailing I should mention our Angel Island outing we did a week ago.
We took the ferry from Tiburon and climbed Mt. Livermore, the highest spot of the island.
Here you get incredible 360-degree views of the stunning San Francisco Bay Area nearly the entire trip.

We couldn't wish for a better good bye to this absolutely marvelous area.