Ah, the land of beer, frites, and chocolate. What’s not to love?
We arrived in Brussels last week via the Eurostar after our 3-month tour of the UK. We loved our time there, but we are happy to be back on unsteady feet again, grappling with the language and customs of a new country.
It’s funny that the moment we stepped off the ship in England after journeying from South America, I was overwhelmed to be surrounded by English and to understand every conversation, sign, and most of the customs. It was a heady experience after six months of only Spanish, and we quickly made friends in our travels. What we didn’t count on, though, was the rebound from all that English after several weeks.
It just wasn’t as challenging.
Don’t get me wrong; we loved our time in the UK, especially Scotland. We made great friends and had deeper conversations than we’ve been able to have up on the trip so far. But it is nice to feel that slightly off-kilter feeling again, hyper-aware of our lack of knowledge about an area and people and determined to rectify that despite the language barrier. It is an on-your-toes kind of sensation that heightens the experience in a way that automatically understanding everything does not.
A funny side note to all of this is our brains’ automatic reaction to being surrounded by non-English speakers: we resort to Spanish. We are “hola-ing” to the “bonjours” and “gracias-ing” when we should be “merci-ing.” It is a confusing time to be in our brains right now, and you know we sorta like that kind of thing. I’m just fascinated with the way our minds work and wonder how learning Thai is going to change things.
So here we are in a gorgeous, sun-filled flat pet-sitting 2 cats for a lovely Canadian couple who have lived here for 6 years. They also run the popular Cheeseweb site for English-speaking expats in Belgium. Who better to pet-sit for than a couple who can tell you what to do and where to go to get the best experience?
We started with a decadent French meal our first night after arriving on the Eurostar. A little hole-in-the-wall type of place that a tourist would never find that served food fit for a queen and excellent French wine to wash it all down. Then we moved on to a tasty Lebanese lunch the next day, followed by our host Alison cooking the most decadent, heart attack inducing meal of Flemish Stew over the famous frites from the Antoine’s. Washed down with 9% Belgian beer, of course.
The last preserved gate from the medieval surrounding wall of Brussels
After Alison and Andrew left, we tried the Moroccan restaurant, the Lebanese bakery and the Turkish takeaway. We bought our meat from a halal butcher and our veggies from the international market near the train station on Sunday.
Warren has been cooking with fresh ingredients from the local market, pouring over Alison’s cookbooks and making my life as near to nirvana as it has ever been. We’re walking all over, exploring the wide boulevards, architecture, and foods of Brussels and getting to know our way around.
We have several day trips planned during our time here (Belgium is relatively small and easy to tour from a home base in Brussels), and we’ll be fueling up in between with the world-famous chocolate, frites and beer.
Stay tuned for what I know will be a fantastic month in this beautiful place.
Do you like the challenge of being in an unfamiliar place with a different language, or do you prefer the deeper understanding you get from speaking the language?
About Betsy
Oh man when were yall there? I was just there… like 3 nights ago. I would have loved to grab a beer with yall. Where are yall now? Im in Antwerp now.
Hey, Jaime. We got here on Tuesday of last week - I wish we had known. We are heading to a little town about halfway between Brussels and Antwerp on Friday to meet someone - if you want to meet up for a late breakfast that day let us know. Otherwise, we are here in Brussels for a month housesitting if you make your way back around.
Aww man that makes me sad… I would have loved to met y’all! Im going to be in Antwerp just 2 more nights and then heading to Amsterdam. I wont be making my way back to Brussels… at least not this time around. Maybe we will bump into each other some other point in our travels.
Have a great time in Amsterdam, Jaime. We are heading there in September, so please make sure it is still standing when you leave.
Make sure you visit Leuven while in Belgium!
I like the challenge myself. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who, when confronted in one foreign language speaks another. I’ve learned a smattering of Italian, Spanish, and know a lot of French but when we were in Europe in April, I would periodically come out with a sentence which mangled all three together! Fortunately no one laughed too hard : ) Also, I remember times when I was in London (or Gibraltor) where I still couldn’t understand what they were saying- sometimes the accents get pretty thick. I congratulate you on thinking that Scottish brogue was easy in comparison!
Michelle, the challenge makes it more difficult to travel, but it keeps the brain constantly working and hyper-aware! At least until we open our mouths and speak gibberish.
Ha! I love that feeling of having to use your brain to figure out what’s going on. I remember the first time I arrived in Greece, looking around me and going … Hmmm… Different character set. This is going to be interesting. Fortunately the signs all have the names in Latin characters as well. It was amazing how fast your brain started correlating the latin and greek character sets.
Whenever I am trying to figure out a word in a different language my Swedish pops out first. I do amazingly well in Germany with my 80% German, 15% English and 5% Swedish words
Sitting here in my office working this morning I have to say I hate you just a little bit for being “on vacation” in a place I really like when I’m working
Enjoy!
Rob, you would have loved it here today. The sun came out for the first time and we packed a lunch of cheese and bread and went for a picnic in the park and lazed around for a few hours reading on a blanket. It’s okay if you hate us a little bit - we deserve it!
So jealous, my mind is now wandering to fond memories of street waffles in Bruges, dogs sitting on the chairs eating their very own bowl of frites in the main square in Brussels, mussels mussels everywhere, homemade w/ your fries, the best chocolate AND beer in the world. ahhhhh, so glad you’re getting to experience Belgium, a place not that many travelers get to but one that is so well worth it!! I just wish I was there eating and drinking with you:)
Rhonda, today was our first full day of sun, and it was magnificent. But you know what we haven’t done yet? Tried the waffles! Can you believe it? We’ll have to rectify that tomorrow. Thanks for the reminder.
oh yes…excellent! And I found best enjoyed while wandering around the canals in Bruges. And you MUST see if you can find any westvleteren12 beer. enjoy you guys!
I could kick myself now. When living in the UK I made frequent trips over to Brussels and they were always quick visits. I loved every visit but wish i had spent more time there.
Your comments about the food brought back great memories. I love the Main Square as well. A magical place for sure.
Betsy, I believe the linguistic brain works something like this: there’s your native language and then the 2nd language you learn-which the brain categorizes as “other.” No matter how many languages you subsequently learn, when you try to speak a foreign language, the brain says ” Right, ‘other’ language, and brings up your 2nd language. It takes a long time and much work before you can skip cycling through the 2nd language to speak another one.
Hope that makes sense! bye, bonjour (I mean ciao, auf wiedersehen, adios…)
That is a great explanation, Paula. Thank you! I wonder how this will all shake out as we start to learn Thai (we just got our new Mango Languages software) with a completely different alphabet? We can’t learn the language of every place we visit, but I wouldn’t mind picking up more than a passing knowledge for every place we’re going to stay a while.
How many languages do you speak, Paula? And how do you keep them straight?
duh, au revoir. Guess i can’t even cycle through properly as an example!
Hey guys. A few years ago I was in Leuven for work. It was a beautiful little town. I didn’t see much, but it’s probably worth checking out for a day trip.
Hi Betsey & Warren,
Sounds like your arrival to Brussels has been awesome… and delicious!
Our trip back through Brussels on Thursday is going to be briefer than we expected, but it sounds like whatever we eat and see along the way, we’ll end up full and happy.
It was great to see you guys in London. I’ll be in touch soon with some follow up info and some email introductions.
Have a great time on your day trips!
Shea, we hope you had a great time in Italy. It was great to meet you in London, and we know you’ll enjoy Brussels. Just watch out for the beer - it can be very potent here and you’ll turn red as a lobster!
Brussels sounds incredible. (Though I must confess I’m not a fan of their sprouts.
)
It is funny that it felt good for you to be back into your “comfort zone” of un-comfort! The reality is, for most people the thought of being in a city where you don’t speak the language at all is stressful enough to send them scrambling back to the “safety” of their homeland — where that can’t bitch comfortably in their own tongue about the lack of ice-cubes in the restaurant’s water glasses (or whatever). lol!!
Learning a language is a trip, isn’t it? I can’t carry on a decent conversation with a Japanese person, and now I keep speaking “Japan-english” to English speakers who are left wondering what the hell I just said. (They just chalk it up to the fall-out from nuclear reactors in the vicinity.)
The only one that understands me is my wife-but not because she’s Japanese and speaks English fluently; but because she understands this bastardized 3rd language that I’ve created that is neither Japanese or English-nor really a blending either; more like a failure of each.
Can’t wait to hear more of the Bel-jam.
Tranque, you would love this country. The food is amazing, your wife can shop to her heart’s content, and there is plenty of good beer and inexpensive French wine to be had. It is really a foodie’s paradise here, and I had no idea. We are going on a little gastronomic tour later this week and I hope to have much more to share in that regard…
As to languages, your Japan-English that only your wife understands makes me think of couple language in general. We have phrases and sayings that are total nonsense to other people but mean something to us, and I think other couples are the same way. It just so happens that some of ours are in a different language (or hybridized language). We were walking in South America through a ruin that had been partially rebuilt, including the 4-season garden, and there was a huge cactus in front of me. As we were walking, Warren said “watch out for the cactus.” Like it was hidden or something. And now we use “watch out for the giant cactus” anytime we want the other one to be aware of something (like dog poo in the street). We have dozens of phrases like that, and I’ll bet you do, too (though probably more creative and exotic-sounding with the Japanese thrown in!).
I know how you feel, Betsy, about the language mix-ups. I took French in school (growing up in Ottawa will do that to you); I also took a few years of German in university. I took a Spanish course a couple of few years ago (that was fun) but when I went to Italy last year I got sooo confused…especially with the pronunciation (like ‘de’, ‘les/los’..). One thing being in a different country gives you is a new found respect to newcomers to your home country (in my case Canada) who are trying to learn English!
Joanna, I’ve said that a million times, too. I have a completely new appreciation for new immigrants to the US as well. It is damn hard to learn a new culture, and set up a new life with licenses, visits to the doctor, finding a job, and other things when you don’t speak the language well yet.
How did you find this house-sitting gig? Is it a friend, or did you use an internet resource that I might be able to reference as well? Thanks!
Hi, Margot. We just wrote a post today about house sitting that will go out this afternoon - all the info you want to know. For the gig in Brussels, we found it from a friend of a friend on Facebook.
I’m late seeing this (found your site through Move To Portugal) but wanted to chime in about Belgique
I’ve visited twice, the last time in November 2010 for 2 weeks. Stayed in Brussels, Bruges and Ghent, which we really, really enjoyed. I found the people super nice, the food and beer super, and the shopping too.
Enjoy your time left in Belgium!
Hi, CanadianSaver. Welcome to the blog. Isn’t Move to Portugal a great site? We loved meeting Laura earlier this summer in England.
And we agree about Belgium - we are really enjoying this little country of gastronomic delights!