1st day in Brussels

We went to Brussels for the first time yesterday, and it was quite the experience. First of all people drive like maniacs here, and it is even worse in downtown Brussels. No one really seems to know what they are doing, or where they're going, we were dodging crazy cars and pedestrians the whole time we were there! Theres a part of town where there is just train tracks that take up the whole road...what happens if a train comes??? No one seems to care about the possibility of a train coming and they just continue driving like crazy. Another thing we noticed driving down the road, men, urinating in the street. Not trying to hide it or anything, I guess it's legal here to just unzip and pee on the side of the road, and believe me, they do.

Aside from the crazy drivers and men peeing everywhere, I did find something amazing in Brussels... a waffle van. I could have eaten 300 of these things, for 1.50 Euro you get the most fantastic waffle you have ever eaten in your life, I wish I could send you all one. They are sweet, and gooey inside, made right inside this little street vending van, and delicious!!

After eating two of those we wandered around and looked at all the shops, we went down a little hallway and there was a whole mall hidden away in the buildings. There was every kind of store in there, shoes, clothes, baby stores, phone places. It was like a mall in the states except that you had to pay to use the bathroom. I had to pay .35 euro cents, which is like $0.50 here, to use the bathroom... and I'm not really sure why, there was an old lady in there, and she made me feel really akward, but that was about it. I guess she cleaned it up after people went in. Still a little strange in my opinion.

We found a nice resturant to eat at, and the waither spoke english, that was very helpful. Ate some tasty chicken and another pretty good waffle loaded with whipped cream and strawberries. It still wasnt as good as the van waffle, but it was still really good.

All in all it was a good day in Brussels, next time we go I dont think we'll be driving though. Too much crazy for us to handle.

Intro

Well I have decided to start a blog, to keep everyone updated on what we are doing in Belgium. I will try to keep up with it daily, or at least when important things happen. So far we are staying in a hotel on Chievres Air base, which is about 20 minutes away from SHAPE, where Mat will be working. It is nice here, but we are looking forward to moving into a place of our own and get all of our furniture and things back, I'm getting a little tired of wearing the same 10 t-shirts over and over... lol. We looked at a few houses and found one we think will be perfect for us, we are signing the lease on Tuesday. hooray! We get to move in March 1st, so hopefully all our stuff is already here and ready to be delivered to the house.
The house has 4 bedrooms and a study in the cellar that Mat will be using as a drum room. It has 2 bathrooms, and a shower, which is nice, because a lot of the houses we looked at just had bathtubs, I guess Belgians dont take showers lol. The backyard is fenced, the dogs will be able to run around out there, and the kitchen is nice. I'll put some pictures up after we move in.
I have to make an appointment at the clinic on base, and then get a referral to go off base for my obgyn appts. The clinic on base is just a clinic so i have to go out on the economy to have the baby, hopefully I can find an english speaking doctor! They have translators if your doctor doesn't speak english, but I think it would be much simpler if the doctor can speak my language. : ) Once we figure out which hospital we are going to, and get a doctor we will be ablet to find out the sex of the baby!! yay!!! Then I can start buying cute baby clothes and setting up the nursery!
So far it has been quite an adventure, most people speak english, but some people on SHAPE only speak french. I think we'll adjust alright, we're doing well so far. love you all!!