Femme au Foyer LLP

I have had an interesting week that has made me think a lot about working women and stay-at-home moms. On Tuesday I went to my first French class. There are 19 of us in it, and a wide variety of countries are represented. We had to go around the room and say what we do as an occupation. I went right after the Hungarian guy who had to try to explain (in very broken French) that he was an expert in animal husbandry. Needless to say, everyone else's occupation seemed less interesting after that one.

I said I was a volunteer, but the teacher didn't seem to understand that word. So I tried to explain that I was not allowed to work here and she finally said, "Ah! Femme au foyer!" which means "housewife" in French. I don't really care what I am called here because I love my life, am very happy with it, and know that I am fulfilled regardless of my title. However, there was a woman who went after me who actually let out a little shudder when she tried to explain that she was a lawyer but could not work here and the teacher had the same "Ah" moment with her. I know I just said that I am not annoyed by that title, but I got annoyed seeing this woman be so disgusted by it. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of awful thoughts she had about women who are housewives.

That evening I e-mailed Kyle that we were just having leftovers for dinner. At 8:15 he called and asked if it would be ok to invite his co-worker over who was in from Amsterdam. I had a few things in the fridge I thought I could maybe throw together but when I asked Kyle his time frame he said, "Um, we were about to walk out the door." This is a close friend/co-worker and I knew he would be happy with a simple meal, but I wanted to do something nice for him because we hadn't seen him in awhile. So in a total of 36 minutes -- from the time Kyle called until they walked in the door -- I made a dinner of homemade hummus, toasted pita chips, chicken with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes, basmati rice, a tossed salad, and white wine. Obviously each person has different things they see worthy of value, but at that moment I was happy to be more talented at welcoming someone into my home than filing a brief on anti-trust statutes.

I have lived in Brussels (with Belgian TV) for almost three years, yet I just glanced at the clock, saw it was 4pm and thought, "Oh good, Oprah is on." Obviously I quickly realized where I was living and that Oprah was definitely not on, but it shows how marketing and commercials stay in your brain for much longer than you ever realize.

Brussels Daily Life

I don't think I will ever get used to the feeling of having so many friends constantly move away from Brussels. Seeing them have to pack up their things, iron out unknowns in the next location and say lots of goodbyes is always a good reminder to enjoy every single moment I have here.

After having recently heard of several people moving, I decided to sign up for tour of downtown Brussels just to make sure I really knew the city I was living in. It was nice to learn about things I hadn't realized before. But the best part of the tour was having my camera with me all day and getting the chance to take pictures of my every day life. I once read that you should take a picture of every single car you own because each picture will bring back lots of memories. I definitely adhere to that mindset. Kyle and I laugh that we each have a very distinctive style of photography and you can always tell which of us took a certain picture. Here is a hint: if there are people in it or it has to do with daily life, I took it. If the photo focuses on architecture or a statue, Kyle took it.

Click here for some things I love and don't love about daily life in Brussels.

Today was Car Free Sunday in Brussels. Yes, you read that right -- the only cars allowed to drive from 9 am to 7 pm are ones that registered for a permit, ambulances, police, and taxis. I never realized how many people in Brussels owned bikes until today! As much as I enjoyed the day, it did get a bit crazy to have so many bikers, pedestrians, rollerbladers, and strollers taking over the street and not following any rules.

Click here for photos.

Can you tell what stage of life our friends are in?

No, I am not making any of these for me...it is just that all of our friends are either pregnant or have just had a baby. Actually, this seems to be the second wave of pregnancies that we have encountered. Within this wave, congratulations to:

Ashley and Bronson Lee with Jackson
Jennifer and Corey Gill with Clark
Kelly and Rich Willis who will soon have a little girl
Amy and Nate Chan who will soon have a little boy
Sarah and Craig Springer who will soon have a little boy
Lori and David Ettinger who will soon have a little boy
Ali and Chris Gant who will soon have identical twin boys
Lawren and Jigar Desai who will soon have a surprise
Meredith and Jan who will soon have a surprise

I better get to knitting!!!

Bare Naked Ladies

Something that is very different between the U.S. and Belgian medical practices is the amount of clothes you wear during a checkup. In the States you change in private and put on a paper gown. In Belgium you start taking off your clothes while you are chatting with the doctor and keep on taking off your clothes until you end up completely naked. Yes, you read that right -- completely naked. I recently went to the OB/GYN for a yearly checkup and was reminded of just how different this experience is from the States.


The interesting thing is that although nudity is so much more of an issue to Americans, because nudity is an absolute nonissue to Belgians (and most Europeans) they don't even flinch when they see a naked person. And because my doctor doesn't make a big deal of me being naked, I can adopt her attitude and realize that a body is just a body and it really isn't that big of a deal. This time around though, the phone happened to ring just as I was finishing the undressing process. I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I sat there buck naked as my doctor jabbered on in French for a few minutes.


The last time I went there she told me about an American patient who had come to her for five years while she was an expat here. The American wrote her after she had moved back to the States and said that she went to the doctor and forgot she was in America. She took off all her clothes and was completely naked when the male doctor came in. He freaked out because not only was she naked, but there was no nurse in there either and he was afraid of getting sued. I don't know if I'll ever get that comfortable with this idea, but it sure did make me laugh as my underwear hit the floor.

Brussels Rollers

Belgium does lots of great things to help people meet each other around the city and the country. A few Fridays ago I took part in the Belgium Rollers. It is mainly for roller bladers but bikes can participate too, as long as they stay in the back of the pack. I am not great at estimating but there were definitley a few hundred rollers as far as I could tell. In true Belgium fashion they gave out free samples of beer as we waited around for the parade to start and many people seemed to be smoking before rollerblading for the next 3 hours.

Our friends Shannon and Tony took a photo of me from their balcony. Yes, I look like a complete dork when I bike.

Moving -- Belgian Style

I have posted a picture like this before, but since this and Smart Cars seem to be the two things people are most intrigued by when they come visit, I thought I'd post it again. This is how they move most people's things in Brussels if they live in a tall building in the city. It is a ladder that has a motorized platform on it and they load the boxes at the bottom and then hit a button and it zooms right up to the top, where the guys inside the building unload it. This was taken from our kitchen window looking out on our street.

Back in Brussels

I have just returned from a great trip back to Atlanta. Unfortunately Kyle had to stay here and work but I left him plenty of frozen meals, UGA was playing their first game and the Brussels Beer Festival took place all while I was gone so he survived. I am struggling with jet lag right now, but am trying to stay awake by working on my pictures.

I love getting the chance to go home and visit because I get those New Year's Day thoughts whenever I do. Visiting home while living in Brussels gives me time to step away from the everyday chores of life and reflect on where I am, how I am doing, what my goals are in life, etc. We are really lucky to have two sets of friends that we knew in Brussels who are now living back in Atlanta. It is always fun to catch up with them and hear their insight as to how to best re-adjust to life in the US and some things they especially miss about Brussels.

My main goal that I have reflected upon after this trip is to really enjoy what a calm pace of life Kyle and I have here. Sometimes after dinner if we don't want to watch TV we will just play a card game or sit on the couch and talk. It seems like at home there was always another thing on the To-Do list at all times. A few Saturdays ago we were driving to a little lake in Brussels to take a walk and play putt-putt golf. I asked Kyle which route he thought would be the fastest and he replied, "We are just trying to kill time because we have nothing else to do today, so you might as well take the long way." I have a feeling we will never really say that once we are back in the States.

Something that intrigues me about the States is the work ethic there. It is something I love about America but also something that I think is overpowering everyone. Several of my friends mentioned working 12-14 hour days almost every day and then having to go in on the weekends too. Blackberries allow work to stay with a person 24/7 and there never seems to be any "off" time. I can fully understand this mentality because I definitely had it when I worked in Atlanta. I remember some weekends where I kind of wanted to be back at work on a Sunday because there I had purpose and meaning and an excuse for not doing something, "Oh, work has been so busy, I didn't have time to run that errand or call you." When I was at home on the weekend I had no excuse to not do something and sitting in silence gave me too much time to reflect and sometimes I didn't like what I realized. I think that is partly why all of the stimuli of Ipods, DVDs, TVs, computers, IM, cell phones, and voicemail bother me so much. Sometimes it is important to just sit in silence and let your mind wander. I am not saying any of this as a criticism, just more of an observation because of course I am sitting here at a computer writing all of this. This is just what has been on my mind lately.

This visit I had the chance to see a lot of family and also looked through many old pictures. These two things together really reinforced to me how much each of us keep the same personality throughout life. Yes, I am more assertive than I used to be, but deep down, I still hate confrontation, I still like to write everything down, I still keep scraps of paper with little notes floating all over, and I still start almost every conversation with, "A friend of mine..." (just like someone wrote that I did in my yearbook in 8th grade). In some ways this realization frustrates me because I want to think I can alter some bad habits. However, it also makes me feel relief that I can just accept myself the way I am stop trying to change because deep down, this is just the way I am wired.

While I was home I saw two things that made me laugh and made me glad to be back in the South. For those of you not fortunate enough to have visited the South, we really are a civilized group, it is just that a lot of people happen to like to go hunting. I had to stop and take a photo when this was the first thing I saw in the Atlanta airport coming from Brussels. (Notice the camo luggage too).

A few days later I saw this car. Paul noted that it had Fulton County its license plate.

I got back to Brussels and was quickly reminded to watch my step. Look closely at the lower right hand corner and see what a nice surprise some dog owner let their dog leave right in front of our door.

And for those of you still in the South complaining about the heat, this is what I have looked like the whole time I have been typing this. It 60 degrees outside, the inside of our apartment is really cold and the leaves are brown and falling off the trees.