A new home in Belgium

I arrived in Belgium on Sunday, after an unplanned stop-over in Lisbon, and slept embarrassingly late on Monday morning (let's just say, it was after lunchtime when I finally sidled downstairs to H's parents' kitchen). With a few bursts of melancholy here and there, a couple of minutes of discomfort about being away from my family and friends every few days, this move to Belgium has felt like just about any other move in the states. Perhaps it's because I have family here that I know I can trust, perhaps it's just being older and more easy-going, or perhaps it's the giddiness of being with my husband after six weeks of distance, but it feels natural and fine. Then again, I've only been here five days, and perhaps there are rockier paths ahead.

We have a beautiful apartment in Leuven - three floors of a large rowhouse with balcony space and floor-to-ceiling windows to please all the nosy neighbors. The second floor - the kitchen - even has two balconies - one on either side, and opening the sliding glass doors in the morning to hear the bustle of University students on their way to class, and to enjoy the fresh, crisp air makes for a perfect morning cup of coffee. That is, of course, when the weather isn't being particularly Belgian and rainy. We have big plans for outside table and chairs, for quiet dinners with sweeping views.

We have been busy going back and forth after H's working days to retrieve the necessities from his parents' house - a good hour by car or train, so our nights have been late. We have now set up a kitchen table with two chairs, filled our cabinets with odds and ends of dishes, and lay out a couple of twin mattresses for the bedroom until we can get a proper bed. I'll be relieved when we get a couch to curl up in. I'll be even more relieved when we get internet access. (I post this from a Quick - European hamburger chain, and just about the only place listed when I Googled 'Leuven and free wireless'.)

I promise to update this blog much more frequently from here on in. I suspect it will become more of a lifeline here, and a way for me to chronicle my adjustment. For now, I head into my new city with its gnarly, compact streets to find odds and ends for our new home.

Furniture breakdown

When we moved from the small college town where we received graduate degrees, H and I just took everything and made a new home out of our old furniture. It was still a student home - a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs that matched just well enough to offer some interior cohesion. I remember standing in the doorway of our former neighbors - eyeing the Ikea splendor that was their apartment. They had painted their walls a series of matching soft rose colors. The angular, clean couch was situated just-so behind a rug that matched everything perfectly. The t.v. was flat screen. There were plants. Plants! When I returned to the white-walled furniture potpourri that was our apartment, I could only just sigh and shrug. Plants weren't my thing (I've killed every one we've had). Our 10-inch t.v. was over ten years old (it had a VCR built in, for God's sakes), but it was still chugging along. Interior design just wasn't my thing.

My furniture ignorance showed through when I tried to describe various items over the phone to some poor volunteer at a local charity. What kind of wood? It's...brown. Err...like, kind of a darkish, reddish brown color. It's, you know, an old-fashioned writing desk. With drawers and stuff. (Yes, something to that effect came out of my mouth. It was more than a little bit embarrassing.) I had to stop and really consider our collection of things only when this local charity wouldn't take certain items (they did take the writing desk, and a chair). Really? Is my furniture so horribly ugly that I can't even give it away? To our household's credit, the charity just blanket didn't take certain items. And so, I frantically looked for neighbors to unload the last few things onto someone - anyone. And as everything went out, scooted by strangers' hands, I felt not a smidge of nostalgia, but only a sense of relief. Goodbye ridiculously heavy couch! So long burdensome, old-fashioned writing desk! The only time I felt any kind of regret was when I balanced the television badly on the closed car trunk as I was loading the last of the items for a trip to Goodwill. It fell with a terrible crash while I helplessly looked on from the other side of a car door, and the screen shattered into tiny crystals that we did our best to sweep up, and if not up, into the large cracks in the sidewalk. You always hope the stuff you get rid of will find a new, good home. But some things, I suppose, you just can't save.