First impressions of our new posting!

Alright, so I wrote a post about my first couple of days in Belgium preparing for our house hunting trip (HHT) but I unintentionally deleted the post, which is ok because it wasn’t my favourite post anyways. So this is a chance to start over!

I’ve been here for about four days, and honestly I have nothing bad to say about Belgium. There are obviously some differences, but nothing negative or disheartening.

I have learned a few things here in the last four days.

It rains a lot, like every day – my first day was full of sunshine, but I noticed that every car had water on it (it was morning) at first I thought this a was dew from the early morning, but it was too much – how dewey could it possibly get? So I asked J about it, and his response was – the rain. Since then it has rained at some point every day or evening and I have come to realize that I will be preptually cold in belgium. But here is the positive spin: cold damp weather means more boots, scarves, beautiful coats and hats – perpetual fall weather clothing!

Aside from the rainy weather, my hair seems to love Belgium, a welcome change from Saguenay, where my hair never cooperated with any kind of weather.

The driving is it’s own kind of crazy. Not only do I have to get used to all of the confusing European signs (I think a circle with a line through it and a circle with an x through it both mean no parking – why two signs?) but also all of the signs painted directly on the road. Most are pretty understandable (turning lane, one way) but then there is the what I can only imagine is another form of a yield/stop sign painted on the road.

Let me explain. So, in belgium cars turning onto oncoming traffic, from the right, have the right of way, unless indicated by this weird painted yield sign across the road. So basically from what I understand if there is no painted yield sign on the side road (right hand side) then that car can just cut off oncoming traffic, and it is the drivers on the main road’s responsibility to yield. I couldn’t find an image of this crazy road sign but I found a description of the rule:

Priority is given to the right; drivers must stop for traffic joining from the right. Marked by an inverted “yield” sign with a red “X” in the middle, the “priority from the right” rule means that cars coming from the right always have priority, unless a yellow diamond sign or other priority road sign has been posted. This does not apply on motorways, roundabouts, and roads sign-posted with an orange diamond within a white background

While there are some things I will need to get used to, there are some really great things as well.

The other night J and I were trying to decide where to go for dinner. It was a hard choice – not due to lack of choice, but the diversity of choices we could make. We had choices of cuisines from all over the world – a welcome change to Saguenay where it’s either poutine, fake Greek, fake sushi, or a semi Thai restaurant. That night we were debating whether to eat Greek, Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian. We ended up choosing Italian, and had a wonderful meal surrounded by a wonderful ambiance. The food was so good, I even dipped my bread in the tomato basil sauce my scampi were baked in for my appetizer. I had the most wonderful pizza, and an authentic tiramisu for dessert. The house wine was delicious and smooth, it was evident by the fresh ingredients, the wonderful aromas, and the superb wine that we were in Europe.

The moment I truly realized we were in Europe was when we entered the main square where we had to make the choice of where to eat dinner. We were in the city of Mons and the main square was all cobbled road. The buildings were very European, and there were people everywhere talking, smiling at passer-bys and generally just having a good time. It was then as I looked around in wonder that I finally realized we were going to be living in Europe.

The people here are so kind-hearted it is unbelievable, and I’m from friendly Manitoba so that is saying a lot! We are about to begin our HHT tomorrow and so have been asking locals about houses for rent. Every time we ask, people go out of their way to give us the most information possible. We have even had people searching online for us on their phones. We obviously had no idea they went that out of their way and when we realized this we couldn’t stop thanking them. Everyone has welcomed us with smiles – a welcome change from saguenay again where for about a year I was gawked at due to my English and different looking characteristics – I honestly felt like an alien. It’s nice to see the variety of cultures again without the feeling that some are considered ‘different’ or ‘strange’.

Speaking about language the French here is very different from Quebec French. The words are the same, but the accept takes some getting used to. It seems that Quebec French has more of a open sound in the end (it’s hard to describe it) for example the word maman (mom) ends in a short ‘a’ sound in Quebec French. Here the same word ends in a ‘ong’ sound at the end. This is the case for every single word that when put into a sentence it is hard to understand what they are saying. To them even J, who is fully bilingual, souds strange. More often than not they will speak to him in English when he is speaking French because they have a hard time understanding his French hahahaha (that feels good since for the first two years people in saguenay could not understand my strange accent in French).

Overall my first impressions of Belgium are great! I know that there will be some adjustments (like in every move) but I believe having lived in a place two years longer than we were suppose to has taught me to always look for the positive in every situation, and I believe this will help me in my transition into our new life here. I can’t help but feel excited. The most promising thing about my first impressions is that I don’t want to leave. I don’t miss the normalcy of Canada yet, I don’t miss home. I might still be on my honeymoon phase (or wearing my rose coloured glasses as I had mentioned in the post I mistakenly deleted) but from someone who is a homebody not missing home yet is huge. It tells me that this next posting is going to be very differnt from our posting in Saguenay Quebec.

Thank you Belgium for welcoming me with smiles and a helping hand everywhere I turn. Now I’m off to my first yoga class in Belgium!

And slowly it begins …(as I pick myself off the floor in disbelief)

Believe it or not, life in Saguenay has become comfortable, and leaving my life here, I have realized, is kind of scary. I may have been lost in the craziness that is the twilight zone when we first moved here, but the madness has become ordinary.

Some of the madness I faced when we moved here

The crazy driving – heck, I get ticketed when I leave Quebec so obviously I have unfotunately become accustomed to the very lax definition of road signs that is Quebec.

French – I catch myself talking to myself in French in public at times. Again, this is unfortunate since my Greek has since gone down the drain. Before moving here I used to talk to myself in Greek.

The lack of city life – I’ve actually become accustomed to the mediocre sushi, no Thai, Indian, or REAL Greek food (I cook a lot of Thai and Indian at home – and obviously I cook Greek dishes as well).

New and strange job opportunities – I had taught before when I lived in Greece for two years (before my military life) but Saguenay was different. I have taught in hospitals with chalk boards (yeah, how ghetto is that!), in office conference rooms with no board at all, in a law firm, on base with all the equipment you could imagine, and I’ve gotten quite used to the work, I actually loved it.

So why am I semi-panicking?

I’m not second-guessing our move at all (geez wouldn’t that be crazy) but I am realizing that life is very quickly going to become very foreign to me. The things that I found so difficult about Saguenay are going to become fond memories very very soon. I realized this today because (unlike Saguenay) I have a chance at finding a job very quickly in Belgium (like starting the day after we move) however it is nothing like I have ever done before. I have had many kinds of jobs, and I have many (if not all) of the skills required for this job, but it is very different from teaching. It’s going to be a whole new world. And today as I went about my day feeling like super woman due to a powerful yoga practice this morning, the floor suddenly disappeared from underneath my feet, because I received an email about the job posting and I realized how different and new this job would be.

Back to square one, once again.

I finally get why my friends have been staring at me googly-eyed asking me if I understood how quickly we will be on our way out of Saguenay. My response to this up until now has been: No not really, I don’t really believe it yet. We are about to head to our house hunting trip in a week and I’m more concerned about cleaninng the house than preparing for the move. But today it suddenly hit me, or rather it pushed me to the ground in disbelief, things are about to change drastically.

Am I ready? I think so. Can I imagine what life will be like? No, I know better than that – it’s never what you imagine it will be. It’s usually very very hard to begin with but through the turmoil and hard days and lonely nights you become stronger and the strange slowly becomes mundane, and this new place suddenly becomes home – but that takes a while. At first it’s just a lot of spinning around, trying to make sense of things, and feeling all alone.

I have a feeling that this posing will surprise me, but right now I need to get myself ready because the belief that I have more than enough time for everything is going to smack me in the face in a few weeks.

I guess it’s time to put to the test all of the lessons and skills I’ve learnt on the mat. Will I be able to embrace all of the change, keep my centre and find balance in new situations?

I think I’m ready to find out.