I won’t go so far as to say the “f” word… (Forever.) …but I think I could see us living in Ghent for a long time. Longer-than-three-years, long time. Longer-than-Kyrgyzstan, long time. Moving to Bishkek, the plan was open-ended. Well, initially we said, “Let’s stay at least a year and see where it goes from …
Category Archives: Belgium
must learn Dutch
No, really. I’m serious this time. I have to learn Dutch. In Kyrgyzstan, I gave up on learning Russian. Work was the ultimate excuse, plus I had reached a decent level of speaking and comprehension. I was good enough at Russian, I told myself. It wasn’t even a personally satisfactory level, I always wished I …
Darwin’s DIY Learning Tower
I’m not much of a DIYer. I want to be; I’ve wanted to be one for a long time. In Kyrgyzstan, it seemed too daunting, so I silently pined away for a life located near a Hobby Lobby or Joann’s fabric store, filing away all of the DIY projects of my dreams. One day I’ll …
our mini-trip to Bruges
Farrell’s commute (which I do not envy at all) involves two bikes, a train, and about 3 hours total every day. He rides a bike from our house to a train station, catches a train to Bruges, then rides a second bike to his office at the far side of the town (beyond the cute …
food adjustments in Belgium
After nearly four months in Ghent, I think I have a pretty good idea for what’s available food-wise and what, sadly, is not. It’s not quite the food-wonderland I imagined it would be back when we first found out we would move here, but there are lots of things for our bellies to be happy …
I can’t pronounce my neighborhood
Gentbrugge. Gent + Brugge. Brugge is the Flemish spelling for Bruges, which I pronounce like “bruise” with a “zh” at the end instead of just a “z”. Therefore, Gent+Bruges=Gentbrugge. Right? Wrong. One of my first Flemish lessons occurred in Kyrgyzstan without me really knowing it. The last names of one of our Belgian friends has …
would you ever go back?
Farrell’s company is going through some major changes and there’s a small but terrifying (but not end-of-the-world terrifying, and it’s a small chance, so any family emails related to this sentence will be ignored) chance that maybe Farrell could lose his job (but it’s small, probably unlikely, but you never know). This all made me …
my history of living abroad
I’ve done quite a bit of moving around the world, some of which was never shared here or only shared in bits and pieces. I decided to write out my full history of spending extended lengths of time abroad, and maybe I’ll expand on certain experiences in more detail in a later post. In 2007, …
Ghent Christmas Market
Is it just me? Or does January, despite how great it feels to get back to your normal routine, despite how full of promise and potential it is for shiny new resolutions, despite how it inches closer and closer to Spring, feel like a bit of a bummer? New Year’s Day comes and the holidays …
the most shocking culture shock
(so far) There are tons of things to adapt to about living in Ghent/Belgium/Europe that are different from the US or Kyrgyzstan. Little things, like discovering that my favorite mascara costs 11 Euros here (compared to $5-6 in the US) and taking the minuscule step of buying store-brand make-up from a chain I’ve never heard …