The time has come for us to leave Brussels. Of course, we always knew the time would come eventually, since my wife was on a contract assignment good for a limited time only. Knowing this in advance keeps you somewhat off-put, like watching the city and its life through Netflix or a really good novel. And maybe that’s why I’m predisposed to write travel books and blogs, because for me life is somewhat of a travel book.
As an outsider, I have to try extra hard to experience the best parts of a city, whether that’s the people, food, places, or simply the sense of its being or its aroma. But it’s an extra-hard trial that has all kinds of limiting factors, like world-ravishing plagues, tantrumatic children, and the impending feeling of doom brought about by the news cycle or social media.
There are ways I’ve learned to deal with it—to drop into social scenes nearly automatically (though these are counteracted by reason: tantrumatic child). I’ve found playing accordion—indeed, any instrument—is such an easy way to make friends. When in Prague, I played regularly at open mics, which got me into a band and a close knit network of some really good lads, and in Brussels I played and helped arrange the sound and music for a few Ukrainian fundraisers that got me meeting a string of friendly folks and my two closest Brusselois mates.
But then lethargy, injury, and fatherhood were some setbacks that were constantly pushing against my need for networking, and my no longer having regular job hit at the most inopportune time: When I had let my networking efforts fall totally lax. Never again, I say!
Feelings about the city
We dropped in on the city during covidtimes, and then my kid was also very needy in his early years, as they tend to be. These two factors gave me a difficult impression of the city. Of course, every city was a bit boring during COVID, with the disease ravishing social life and settings. The biggest events I could look forward to were watching the weekly protests pass below my window and the ensuing battle with the police that would happen after the blackguard anarchist protesters brought up the tail end. Amusing pass time, but ultimately useless.
For a writer like myself, I rely on people for inspiration, whether it’s the stranger or the old friend whose gab is loosened up by a drop of whiskey or three. But after the city began to open up and I made a few friends and explored some neighborhoods, the city began to warm to me.
Brussels is a city of sidewalk cafes, of eclectic architecture, of some of the most beautiful, townhomes and tree-lined streets in the world, alongside some of the most blasé and mismatched planning atrocities (I even say that living now in a post-Soviet city).
Thoughts on how it impacts the kid
Moving is hard on kids. And I would even have liked simply to stay in Brussels, even watching our bank accounts dip into the negative, just for my kid. He’s as fluent as a five-year-old gets in French now, he’s got his first set of friends…
I remember it was hard when his best friend had moved to Paris. He kept asking to hang out with him and when he was going to be back. Even after six or seven months, which surprised me, since I didn’t know that kids even had that long of a memory (but then again, he had been friends for that long too).
Before he was busy all the time. With daycare, he got to hang out and spend time with other kids, which I think is paramount to being a kid. Say what you want about your feelings of institutionalized childcare, but the socialization aspect alone is what makes it stellar. He’s constantly occupied, learning new things, making friends, and learning to conduct himself within his peer group, something he doesn’t at all get with us.
Now that we’ve moved, it’s just us. And we’re working on the house and finding new jobs, while he’s begging us to play. I don’t want to sound selfish about it, but in order for him to get proper play time—and here I agree with him, he should have more play time—he needs to be in an environment with other children.
If you’re a parent, what are your thoughts on that?
How to move from Brussels
Now, to the real knitty gritty of this blog, one everyone can identify with. Moving in Brussels. Like everything in Belgium, it’s an overly complicated process, full of bureaucratic nonsense and lots of hidden fees.
The moving process: Booking the lift
The first step, after agreeing with your landlord that you’re leaving, is booking the lift. You see, in Belgium, the interior elevator (when there is one) is almost always tiny. Just a few people can squeeze in at a time. And when there is a larger elevator, almost always there’s a rule barring residents from using it to bring up their furniture—which nearly everyone always breaks anyway.
In order to do this, you have to know which city administration site to use. If you’re in Etterbeek, for example, you might have to use IRISbox, if you’re in Brussels (proper), then Osiris. For the other neighborhoods of Brussels, which are actually cities themselves, then you’ll have to do a quick Google search. But you should know the correct one, because that is the portal you also use for your health care, kid’s education, and so on. Except in our case, where we were right on the edge of Etterbeek and Brussels and seemed to have to use a separate system for every service.
So, for Etterbeek, you need to book it 7 days in advance and that’s a one-stop service.
For Brussels, you first have to apply for the right to park (which is free and via OSIRIS) and then to reserve the parking using “panneaux”, those little signs they put out that bans parking from one time to the next, and that’s done through their other city site. And you have to do that within 10 working days.
We assumed we were in Etterbeek and applied 10 days in advance. The next day, Etterbeek replied that we should apply to Brussels. That was already past their 10 days! We applied anyway, contacted them, they said everything was okay and to let them know if there were no panneaux on Friday (we had the moving guys on Sunday).
Friday came.
Nothing.
We called. We emailed.
Nobody.
Luckily, there were no real parking spots in front of our apartment building anyway. Unluckily, people tend to park there anyway. Luckily, on that Sunday, nobody parked there, and we made the process smoothly.
The etat des lieux and your deposit
For Brusselois, you might remember the first time you moved in, there was an inspector guy going through the condition of the flat. Well, the inspector comes by at your move-out too, and tells the landlord in detail all the ways that the flat has changed, and then offers his opinion on how much of the deposit to keep.
We paid a two-month deposit, and because of the floor wearing down with an office chair (after a few months, we then saw it and covered it with a rug to not cause further damage), he deducted a month’s rent from the deposit! Ouch. Not sure why I bothered getting the rug.
Lesson learned though: Modern floors are weak. Nothing bothers our Soviet parquet in Tbilisi.
Don’t overstuff your bags
Next step was to sleep on our mattresses on the floor, where for a week we lived like Fentanyl addicts in a squat, with random clothes, suitcases, and other movers’ detritus sprawled out across the floor. With no furniture, it’s surprising how quickly something turns into a general mess.
This is when we found out we badly mismeasured how much luggage we’d need to check. Stuffing things one after the other into suitcases, we realized we had to buy a few more. We had chosen Lufthansa to fly with, for this benefit: you pay per extra suitcase. But with Turkish, for example, you pay per extra kilo. That itself made Lufthansa the better choice (though flying with them nowadays is almost like flying with Wizzair: no free food, no drinks, no TV screens, bleh… American brand carriers seem to have caught up with and passed Euro-brand in quality).
So, extra cheap Chinese luggage (you can actually find good prices on Rue Neuve, believe it or not, just not in Inno). And I'll have to say, with an extra large duffel (and fees to match), I was able to safely pack my widescreen curved monitor. I had the original packaging, carved out the styrofoam to just make a shell, and then packed clothes all around it, lining the bag with the original cardboard. And it worked!
Our Indiana Jones supply route
From the lift to the van, our stuff drove up to Antwerp, where we met it in a truckyard. From there, I helped move it into a marshrutka (a utility van for the Russophobes out there), where the movers must have been experts at tetris, as they were able to fit our entire two-bed apartment into the small space.
After we left, the marshrutka was scheduled to be driven onto a boat, and the boat will meet us at customs in Batumi in a few weeks and then onward to our apartment. This kind of import/export is a common method in Georgia, especially when it comes to automotives. Anyone looking to ship large items often teams up with a shipping company importing cars, since the cars and vans can hold it.
Anway, from living on the floor of one apartment to an old, worn-out couch of another, isn’t the best of conditions. But we’ve almost completed the term, and we’ll be back to normal blogging and videoing then. Until then, bear with me and grab a copy of my upcoming book, A Facetious Guide to Traveling with a Kid. It’s more than just a collection of tips we’ve experienced, also a lot of anecdotes, fails, and general facetiousness.
