Shipping back my expat fat

OK—it’s official. My expat fat’s one-year visa expired on March 21. It’s time for the pounds to kiss my ass goodbye. Now that I have been here one year, I’m evicting all my excuses.

The other day I went by the mirror in our foyer and was sobered by my reflection. Baggy sweatpants, slightly high water, revealing white socks and big clunky Nikes, stretched out turtleneck covered by a floppy charcoal gray zip front cardigan sweaters. OMG, since when did I start embracing the “Mr. Rogers in a Nursing Home” look? All I needed was a walker to complete my sad, saggy ensemble.

My descent into ever uglier daytime attire has been fueled by the ascent of inches around the waist and hips. My cute sweaters did not look cute while gripping my gut. My jeans and chinos have been clenching an area far more personal. Every time I pull them over my hips I feel like I’ve just had an encounter with Chester the Molester. To avoid the degradation of my uncomfortable moments with Chester, I gradually became an all sweatpants all the time kind of gal.  Sheesh.  Not pretty!

So to escape both Chester the Molester and Sweatpant Syndrome,  I bought two “healthy weight loss” cookbooks and two magazines with the same theme. Yeah, I already know how to cook light, cook healthy, and lose weight. Five years ago I lost 15 pounds and kept it off until we moved here. Weight loss isn’t rocket science—it’s just hard work.As such, it's easy to procrastinate getting started. Spending the money on the books and magazines represents a commitment to JUST DO IT. The new recipes with nutrition information should inspire me to change my evil ways and keep track of what I eat. I’ve been doing pretty well with aerobic exercise but need to add weight training to the mix.

No, I’m not bold enough to post my starting weight here but I will tell you my goals:

• I want every pair of pants and every straight skirt in my closet to fit again. No more muffin tops! Goodbye Chester!
• I want to be able to wear my more fitted sweaters and short sleeve shirts without feeling like a random fug.
• I don’t expect to be “skinny” or “buff”—just healthy and trimmer.
• For all this to happen, I probably will need to lose 10-15 pounds and at least one to two inches off my hips and waist.

There now, I’ve put it in writing. This is my contract with myself. You all are my witnesses and virtual support group. Anyone that wants me to join me can send an e-mail or post a comment and we’ll encourage each other. I’ll provide a progress report once a week on Tuesdays until Memorial Day.

Anybody with me?

March 28, 2006

Going to Chievres

One of the expat perks we relish is the ability to shop at American military PXs and commissaries overseas. This is a huge benefit for us both in terms of cost and comfort. Shopping at the commissary and PX allows us to buy American products at reasonable prices.

Things you’d never see in a Belgium store, such as pretzels, cake and brownie mixes, chocolate chips, mac and cheese, Tex-Mex ingredients, cupcake liners, Campbell’s soup, fat-free dairy products, and familiar kinds of peanut butter, salad dressings, condiments, flours, baking ingredients, and frozen foods, are all available at the commissary. It’s nice to get cuts of meat you recognize, labels you can read, and get all the nutrition info that doesn’t appear on European food labels.

The PX carries most of what you’d find in a Target or Walmart--clothes, health and beauty items, shoes, over-the-counter drugs, books, jewelry, candles and colognes, housewares, small kitchen appliances, seasonal items, electronics, sporting goods.

The nearest U.S. military base is located about an hour from Brussels in Chievres, Belgium. Because of the distance, we only go to Chievres once a month and I’m embarrassed to admit how big a deal this monthly outing is for our family.  More than a mere shopping trip, it’s a taste of American life and we treasure the opportunity to unselfconsciously speak English and enjoy a bit of our native culture.

The drive is half on the highway, half on back roads that roam through a beautiful rural area of Belgium. The kids grab books and I normally take a magazine but once we exit the highway, I put my reading material aside and take in the scenery. I love the impossibly old buildings, the barns, sheep dotting the pastures, gently rolling fields, old stone churches, homes with front doors that open straight out onto the sidewalks of small villages.

When we arrive at the airbase, our first stop is the PX. Considering the scope and scale of my shopping choices at home, you’d be amazed that going to the PX makes me happy. It’s the size of a small discount store, kind of like Ben Franklin’s in the South. I can let my kids roam it freely because there’s no chance of them getting lost or being more than a few steps out of my sight. I always check out the women’s clothes—just in case there’s a gem hidden among the ordinary. There are a lot of no-name labels and a smattering of offerings from department store staples like Polo, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Clairborne, Izod.

The key word here is “smattering.” Brands appear and disappear, just a few sizes are stocked in any given item, and what’s going to be on the racks any given month is a mystery. There is no glitz or merchandising here, and the offerings don’t follow the usual retail calendar in the U.S. I never realized how my shopping life marched to the U.S. retail rhythm until I came here. You can never be sure when the collections representing the next season will appear or when things will be marked down. If you were counting on buying discounted gloves and scarves, for example, don’t look for them in January. No, those weren’t discounted until late March!  The clothes in stock don’t always match the season or the Belgian climate. Last summer there were too many tropical looks for Belgian’s cool and rainy weather, the summer clothes lingered on the racks for months and into the fall at a time when I was desperate to see some corduroy and sweaters.

Saturday they had a big clearance sale going and I found a pair of Dockers corduroys that fit me for 75 percent off as well as a pair of Polo yoga pants. One time I found the perfect pair of black velvet flare jeans--in June. The successes keep me coming back and picking through the merchandise.

I love to linger in the book section, eyeball the makeup, test the colognes (of which there’s a large selection of high-end products) and browse through the CDs. And of course I load up on the basics.

The PX also has a small beauty salon staffed by Belgian stylists who speak English, though their native language is French. I’ve started getting my hair cut here because it’s convenient. Unlike in the U.S., the salon isn’t busy on weekends because most of the military wives don’t work, and they get their hair done while their kids are at school during the week.

The stylists are young girls dressed in black dress pants and fitted black knit shirts. They all seem to have a variation of the same hair cut, a long straight shag that reaches below their shoulders but has fringed bangs and graduated piecey layers around the face. Kind of an Ashlee Simpson look. It’s cute. Wish I had straight hair or the patience to blow my curls out and pull off that kind of look. I have neither.

My layered bob works well with my fine, naturally curly hair but at times I think it’s such a boring, old-lady style. So when the stylist asks me in broken English what I want done, I indicate with my thumb and forefinger how much length I want trimmed off and then tell the stylist to make it “A bit more shaggy, and less round.” She says “OK” and I try not to wonder if she understands what I mean—does “shaggy” have a French equivalent? The end result is definitely less round but not exactly shaggy. Then again, it’s hard to get curly hair to look shaggy, except when you’re not trying. I pick up a tin of Bedhead Mastermind, a product and a line I’ve never tried before but that promises add texture and “piece out” my hair. Hmmm. Maybe I can banish my church lady look if I try.

After shopping at the PX, we have our monthly taste of American fast food (ah, real hamburgers!) at Burger King and then migrate over to the commissary for food shopping. This is where the outing begins to lose a bit of its glow. Food shopping, even with a list, requires concentration and thinking, especially when this is your “once a month” opportunity to get what you need. My kids relentlessly pummel me with questions and requests as I move through the store, derailing my train of thought over and over again until my brain is wrecked.

Every fiber of my being wants to tell them to shut up, but instead I tell them nicely to be quiet so Mama can think, or “Don’t ask me about items on the next aisle, I’ll get there when I get there and I’ll pick out what I need.” And “No, you may not have Lunchable anything.” “No I’m not buying frozen dinners.” “No Easter candy in the house until Easter.” “Yes, you can pick out any fruit or vegetable you want, please go to the produce section!” (They pick out kiwis and a coconut, strawberries and grapes.)

All family members are trying to help me shop but for the most part the incessant interruptions and questions just make it all take longer. By the time we hit the dairy section, I’m frazzled and worn out. E unloads the basket, the Belgian employee scans everything, and then gives us the total $410.68.

E is shocked—“Are you sure that’s right?” exclaims. This is one of the “thinking out loud” comments he is famous for and that drive yours truly crazy. The Belgian cashier doesn’t know what to make of E’s comment and searches his face for clues. The receipt is a mile long. A neighboring cashier, who perhaps is the manager, comes over unbidden and glances at the receipt and sort of smirks, as if to say, “What did he expect? Look at all that food!”

All that food indeed. Loading it into coolers and the trunk requires all of E’s engineering skills. We end up with overflow bags that get jammed between E-Grrrl and Mr. A in the back seat and around my feet in the front. By now we’ve been shopping for close to four hours. We’re beat. We’ve had enough. We try not to think about having to unload and carry everything up the stairs at home. As soon as we're on the highway, I close my eyes.

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault

March 27, 2006

Update on March 27, 2006 at 2:13 by V-Grrrl

Update on the problem some of you had leaving comments last week:

Last week, Squarespace was making adjustments to the system to block spam from certain ISPs and inadvertenly blocked all comments originating from blogspot.com addresses. Problem lasted about 48 hours, I think. Thankfully, it's been resolved. If anyone is still having problems commenting, you can e-mail me. Thanks for your patience!

Things That Make Me Go "Hmmmm...."

1. On a tag attached to a $50 purse manufactured by Esprit:

This item is made of fake nubuk. If it gets wet, the color may transfer to textiles. This is not considered a grounds for complaint.

Translation: You’re spending $50 on a fake leather purse that will stain your clothes the first time you get caught in the rain. Hey Stupid, don't make me say you weren't warned.

2. Belgians love frites ( fries) and potato chips. The snack aisles in the grocery stores are full of every imaginable variety of potato chips--BBQ, paprika, dill pickle, vinegar, onion, sour cream—but even in the biggest super stores, you can’t buy a bag of pretzels in any shape or form.

3. Printed on the back of a bag of sugar-free Jelly Bellies:

“Warning—consumption may cause stomach discomfort and/or laxative effect.”

Translation: This candy will make you fart—or worse. Do not consume before long car rides, job interviews, dates, or a visit to the gym.

These are not sold in Belgian stores but they are sold at the American Embassy. If Americans have an image problem abroad, we can blame it on the (jelly) beans.

4. An ad seen almost daily on my Yahoo home page proclaims:

“You can live and work in the U.S.A!”? (Well, DUH! Been there, done that!)

“You’ve been pre-approved to participate in the U.S. Government Green Card Lottery” (U.S. Government Lottery? So what do people have to do—buy a scratch card or pick six? This could be an international money maker!)

“Get a Green Card that lasts a lifetime” (Hey, even my driver’s license is only good for a few years. I think non-citizens are getting a better deal—or they’re dying shortly after arriving in America.)

Being a good American capitalist, I’m investigating whether I can lease my U.S. citizenship to someone else until I move back to America in 2008, just in time to elect a new President.

5. V-Grrrl climbs into bed and realizes E-Man has her favorite pillow. Ever the demure and compliant wife, she hollers, “Hey! You’ve got my pillow! Pillow thief! I don’t know WHY I love you. The outrage! (Sigh) I can see I’m going to have to find myself a new husband.”

E-Man replies without looking up from his book: “Good luck.”

Bricks, bricks, and more bricks

A popular dance song by the 70s R&B band the Commodores was called Brick House. When the funky lead singer leaned into the microphone and drawled, “She’s a brick----hooooouse,” we all knew it was a compliment. A woman was a brick house when she was stacked, good looking, built to last.

I was thinking that maybe Brick House could be Belgium’s unofficial architectural theme song. When I first flew into the country, the image that imprinted on my brain was of red tile roofs and brick buildings gleaming in the morning sun against a backdrop of green. On the ground, I saw bricks, bricks, and more bricks. Homes, barns, commercial buildings, mailboxes, walls, sidewalks, steps, streets--everywhere I turned.

There were charming town houses with stepped roofs, brick buildings with fancy Art Deco flourishes, farm buildings standing stout in the fields, adorable brick cottages with shutters and window boxes full of flowers, sleek and modern homes with vast expanses of glass and industrial details, aging brick rich in texture and history.

Forget the boring expanses of concrete and asphalt that dominate the American landscape, Belgians use brick to create artwork under their feet and wheels. Driveways, sidewalks and roads boast pavers laid in classic running bond fashion or fancy patterns like herringbone, fan, and basket weave. Varying colors are used to punctuate and highlight the designs. It’s a joy to lean out my third-floor window and admire the artwork below.

I live in a peaked-roof brick cottage with a red tile roof, ceramic tile floors, and some brick interior walls. The wind may howl and moan but this house never creaks and squeaks. Only the shutters shake and rattle the calm. No matter the weather, the house stands firm.

A native here told me there’s a saying in Belgium that each baby born is born with a “brick in the belly.” This makes perfect sense. Stalwart Belgians are grounded by that “brick in the belly.” It reflects their national character. The ubiquitous red brick is sturdy and a welcome wash of vibrant color against the omnipresent gray skies and silver rain.

I sometimes imagine that carefully laid brick is the ultimate symbol of Belgium’s past and present. Its pervasiveness unites a country divided by long standing cultural and economic issues. Brick stands strong, transcends time, and withstands the forces that buffet and blow across the Low Countries. Thus far, Belgium has too.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 23, 2006

St. Patrick's Day

As I was getting dressed this morning, I put on a raspberry colored blouse and little E-Grrrl says to me, “Mama, you hafta wear green today. It’s St. Patrick’s Day.” She is wearing an apple green fleece pullover and a St. Patrick’s Day bracelet and pin she made in Brownies. Her pale blonde hair is held back with a light green and blue striped headband. She looks adorable.

Not so her mother. My face is as creased as the sheets, my puffy eyes betray the fact that I ate a bunch of pretzels yesterday, and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to button my pants. I was counting on the raspberry shirt to add life and color to the sad state of my face. But hey, it is St. Patrick’s Day and I’m meeting an expat at an Irish pub in Brussels for lunch, maybe I should wear green.

I pull out an avocado green shirt, identical to the raspberry one except for the color. Yes, I’m one of those women that buys two of everything. If something fits and I like it, I always buy two—or more. So I put on the green shirt and poke around in my jewelry box for accessories. Ah yes, I have dyed freshwater pearls that match.

I put the kids on the bus with a kiss and a have-a-good-day, come back to the house to put makeup on so that the green shirt won’t make me look ghastly, load up my Kipling bag and head into Brussels.

First stop—the Embassy. They have a small employee store there that’s like a gift shop. It carries some Belgian lace, art and crystal, Polish pottery (which many people here collect), Italian leather bags, an assortment of sweatshirts, t-shirts, and jackets, Kipling bags, toiletries, and American snack foods and condiments.

I’m not into Belgian lace, crystal, or beer. Kipling bags are my favorite Belgian product—besides chocolate. Designed and manufactured in Antwerp, Kipling produces sporty purses, wallets, backpacks, and luggage. They come in a wide assortment of colors and styles. I can’t explain why I love them so much—I just do. Sure they’re practical and lightweight, but it’s more than that. The designs please me in some inexplicable way. The shapes, the hardware, the placement of the pockets, the length of the straps, the colors, the fabrics—there’s just something about a Kipling. The Embassy had a new collection in for spring, and I couldn’t resist buying a shoulder tote that matched my shirt. Big enough to hold a sack or two  of groceries, I reasoned it could be my market bag.

I pick up an assortment of granola bars to get the kids through another week of school and then spy a jar of jalapeno pepper slices. The woman I’m meeting for lunch is originally from Texas and on her blog had mentioned her quest to find jalapenos in Brussels. Ah, this will be the perfect gift for her. I check out and have the clerk load everything into my new bag. Now I have a Kipling bag on each shoulder.

After my chiropractor appointment, I stop at a small grocery store to pick up bread, chocolate, and cherry tomatoes and then go on to O’Farrell’s at Place du Luxembourgh where I order a cup of tea and wait for Cindy to show up.

She had e-mailed me last week after reading my blog and invited me to read hers. She arrived in Brussels just a few months ago and has had many hilarious expat experiences. If she were a movie character, she’d be Bridget Jones or Lucille Ball. The best minds in Hollywood could not have imagined the scenes Cindy has lived. A product liability lawyer by training, she writes with perfect comic timing. Check out her blog at http://www.newtobrussels.blogspot.com/. Be sure to delve into the archives and don’t miss her experience in the Galleria Inno ( written in December).  This is the perfect Friday entertainment.

We had a great time at lunch filling in our back stories and sharing expat woes. Favorite moment: we'd been talking about the challenge of walking in high heels on cobblestones, and I pointed to a woman outside the restaurant doing just that--in stilettos no less. She's wearing a big floppy hat, a short skirt and coat, and dark tights with light colored shoes. She looks both fashionable and slightly wacky. She's also enviously thin. 

"Oh sure, she's a skinny bitch in skinny heels, but hey we have more personality than her!" Cindy says.

"Ah yes, that's because we have ROOM to hold all that personality!" Ha, ha, ha.

Yes we're just two  HEALTHY American grrrls and anyone who says our bodies are as chunky as the heels on our comfortable boots will be slapped down and twisted into pretzel shapes and left on the cobblestones. Grrrls with big personalities can have big muscles and big attitudes. And big mood swings? Ya never know.  We plan to meet for lunch again soon.

Have a great weekend!

Locked in, locked out, going nowhere

(To mark the one year anniversary of our arrival in Belgium, I’ve written a series of entries. The first was on how we became expats, the second detailed mishaps on our first day. Today’s entry is the third and final installment in the series.)

As we were preparing to move to Belgium , an American working for my husband’s organization here in Brussels volunteered to help us with the transition. He gathered information for us, made contacts and set up appointments for us to handle administrative tasks, checked out the apartment we were considering renting to let us know if it was OK, stocked it with some groceries before we arrived, met us at the airport, and showed us around. We arrived just a few days before he and his family left for a vacation in Russia , and he generously offered to let us use his car while he was gone.

Ah, freedom! A chance to buy groceries and not have to carry them home. The opportunity to look for a house and to venture outside our neighborhood. A way to attend events at the children’s school. We were excited.

Our first outing with the borrowed car occurred five days after our arrival. With a mix of anticipation and trepidation, we all buckled up, ready for E to tackle driving and navigating in Brussels .

The car starts up, we all smile, we’re on our way! E brings it around to the exit for the parking garage underneath our apartment building and confidently points and clicks the garage door opener--and nothing happens.

He tries again—no luck. Amid flashbacks to the day we were locked out of our apartment, we wonder what could possibly be wrong. The door opener had gotten us into the garage the day before, why couldn’t we get out?

E and I get out of the car, looking along the walls and columns for a button, a keyed lock, a latch, anything to give us a clue on how to get out of the garage. Nothing! E goes upstairs to our apartment and calls an emergency number--no response!

Back down in the basement, E backs the car up the exit ramp and re-parks it. Finally, after shuffling about, we realize power is out to a portion of the garage even while it's on in the rest of the building. E suspects a thrown circuit breaker and calls someone to check on them.

Meanwhile, we decide to load some items into the trunk of the car, which is Italian, not American. Without a thought, E puts the car key into the lock, but the trunk does not open. We’re flabbergasted. We’re starting to wonder whether we’re starring in some bizarre reality show. Our constant difficulties with locks seem too crazy to be true.

We contort ourselves into wacky positions inside the car while we hunt for a trunk release. It’s not on or under the dash, it’s not on the floor, it’s not on the steering column, it’s not next to the seat, it’s not on the driver’s side, it’s not on the passenger’s side, it’s not in the back seat. Where the hell is it?

Oh, of course, it’s INSIDE the glove box. Just where one would expect it. Not!

With relief, we push the trunk release--and nothing happens. We feel like we're experiencing a bad practical joke or the ultimate test of our patience. Why won't the trunk open? Why indeed? Well, through trial and error we finally discover you have to push the trunk release AND use a key to open the trunk.

Grrrrr. Well at least figuring out how to open the trunk kept us busy while we waited what felt like forever for someone to show up and check the electrical circuits. Eventually, we get out of the garage (applause, please!), and E manages to get us to our destination without killing anyone or being killed (take a bow!). We come home like warriors from a successful expedition, proud of all the hardships we’ve overcome in going to the library and grocery store (thump chest, raise arms in victory!).

Little did we know, our adventures with the car weren’t over. On Tuesday morning E had an appointment to meet with someone outside the Brussels area. When he went to start the car to get there, the battery was dead. He returned to the apartment and debated what to do.

He’s fairly certain that the car’s owner is a member of Touring, the European equivalent of AAA in the States. So he calls Touring, who tells him they can’t confirm whether his friend is a member or not without the car’s tag number. So E hangs up, goes all the way back down to the parking garage, writes down the tag number and calls Touring back.

Ah yes, the woman says, our friend is indeed a member. Someone will be there to help us within an hour. E, while tense about the incident, relaxes a bit. Help is on the way.

Or not, as it turns out.

No one shows up. When E calls Touring to inquire what’s up, he’s told there is no record of his service request at all. So he gives them the car tag number again to start the process over, and the person on the phone announces they have no record of this car being in the system at all. No, she tells us, our friend is NOT a member of Touring.

Grrrrr. So E combs the yellow pages and then calls a mobile car service place to see if he can get a jumpstart. Oh sure, they’ll come, but it will cost 270 euros, which is well over $300. No way! We’re not going for this! It’s just a dead battery!

As a last resort, E starts calling people on his short list of American contacts to see if anyone can come to give him a jumpstart. No one can.

Angry and frustrated, he calls to cancel his appointment out of town and grabs a bus to go to his office. I sit on the sofa and have a good cry.

That night E returns home a bit more upbeat. The next day a coworker is bringing him a battery charger. E will be able to recharge the battery and reschedule his appointment—no problem! He lugs the battery charger and a long extension cord home with him on the bus the next day, changes his clothes, and then dashes down to the parking area. I’m astounded when he reappears a few minutes later and tells me there is not ONE outlet anywhere in the entire garage.

How we kept from banging our heads on the wall at that moment is a mystery. Now we can laugh about it, but being locked out, locked in, and going nowhere was an uncomfortable metaphor for expat life during those first few months.

Trying to read signs and menus, navigate bureaucracy, understand traffic rules and patterns, locate items we needed to buy, learn how to bank, understand local customs—everything was a challenge. Yet, here we are, a year later, with the sun shining and spring valiantly trying to make an entrance. Much to our surprise, we’re firmly planted in Belgium , and despite the hardships, we are blooming.

The key to success—PATIENCE. If you're becoming an expat,  pack extra in your suitcase. 

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 16, 2006

Friday

Friday is my favorite day of the week. I like it better than Saturday because anticipating the weekend is even better than experiencing it. The promise of late nights and late mornings, lingering in our bathrobes, sharing a bowl of popcorn and a DVD, a chance to shop, a change in routine—it’s all sweet. Never mind that I’ll probably be scrubbing bathrooms, folding laundry, and barking at the kids to clean their rooms—the idea of the weekend as endless leisure continues to seduce me.

Most Friday mornings, I head to see my chiropractor in Brussels. I catch a bus, then take the Metro into the center of the city. Once there I have about a ten-minute walk to get to his office.

I never bring a book to read because I like to people-watch on the train. Everyone puts on their Metro face—composing their features into a blank slate that leaves me guessing what thoughts are passing behind their masked expressions.

The fluorescent lights make us all look tired, with deep blue shadows cast under our eyes. Even the young girls fail to shine. I avoid my own reflection, afraid to confront the image in my window.

Instead I furtively study the other passengers. Does the teenage girl dressed head to toe in pastel pink have a boyfriend? Did her mother tell her her pants were too tight? Is she cold wearing only a hoodie and scarf? What’s playing on her headset?

Is the dark-haired, dark-eyed young man dressed in ivory and beige a student? Will he get off at the stop near the university? Is he Muslim? Is he checking out the young Muslim girls nearby, their flawless olive skin framed by their perfectly arranged head covers? Are they students too?

That middle-aged woman with the yellow curls, each one an individual work of spiral art-- I’ve seen her before. Being a curly girl myself, I wonder how she gets her curls so perfect. Are they natural or has she spent an hour with a curling iron getting each one to look like a giant rotini? I wonder about the bright hair and the heavy-ish makeup. Does she do this every day? Does she work? What type of job would she hold? Do people love or hate her hair? It almost looks like a wig.

Is the black man in the camel hair coat and burberry scarf on his way to a meeting? Where is he from? What is he planning this weekend? What would he consider a perfect day?

Me, I’m thinking about beggars, about the woman sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with a cup, about the young man carrying a sleeping baby who asked me for money three times while I waited for the train. I wonder if the baby is his or just a “prop,” like a dog or a crutch or a bandage, all used to elicit sympathy and loosen purse strings. Do the props matter? Do I owe these people anything? If so, what?

My thoughts are interrupted when a woman I’ve seen before steps into the Metro car with an accordion and starts to play. I consider this a form of torture—trapped in a confined space underground with an accordion player. My face, however, does not show my dismay. I notice the girl in pink crank up the volume on her iPod. The dark-haired guy across from me does the same.

Meanwhile the accordion lady is smiling and nodding and acting like she’s having the best time playing the same schmaltzy tunes all the other accordion players play. Who are these people? Where do they come from? WHY do they play accordions? Is it the official instrument of some secret society? She passes her cup, I avert my eyes, my Metro mask impenetrable, my force field in place.

She hops off in search of a more appreciative audience, and another group of bodies pushes into the car, including a guy with a guitar and one with bongo drums. Hmmm, now this is interesting. When these two start to play, the corners of my mouth twitch. My Metro mask imperceptibly softens. I want to smile.

They’re playing Beatles songs, the guitar player singing lead, the bongo player singing backup. They do three songs, and each stop I’m secretly hoping they won’t get off yet. The music uncorks happy memories, good feelings, and makes me want to share my Friday face with everyone.

In an entire year of being confronted by street musicians, I’ve never made a donation, but these guys have me reaching into my Kipling bag and picking through my coins. I see the dark-haired guy across me from me digging in his pocket. The woman in the black parka next to me is unzipping her purse. I see another woman shift in her seat.

For one instant, we’re all entertaining the same thought. Without exchanging a word or even a glance, we’re all in agreement that these songs are worth paying for, this moment worth remembering. Behind our Metro masks, we’re smiling, we’re singing, we’re happy it’s Friday. We clutch our coins and anticipate the passing of the hat and the start of another weekend.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 10, 2005

Learning the Hard Way--Our First Day in Brussels

(Last Thursday I related the story of how we were led to a life in Brussels. This week I pick up with our first day.)

Our plane arrived in Zaventem at 6:30 a.m., which is just after midnight in Virginia. We were dazed and yet wide-eyed as we rode from the airport to our apartment in downtown Brussels. I had never lived in an apartment before, and the kids were excited because we’d be living on the second floor, and they’d get to ride an elevator everyday. For them, this was the height of glamour, and they argued endlessly over who got to push the buttons.

I loved the apartment at first glance. In a renovated older building, it had 16-foot ceilings, enormous windows, and hardwood floors. The furnishings were modern yet cozy, the big leather sofas inviting, the bedrooms simple and streamlined. It was small, and the children had to share a room, but we didn’t mind. It was a surprisingly bright and airy space. Though the sun was streaming through the windows, we crashed into bed and slept. When E woke me a few hours later, all I could mutter was “You are not my friend!” E, the veteran traveler, insisted we get up, get outside, and walk around to reset our biological clocks. I knew he was right but it seemed criminal at the time to leave our beds!

Soon we were moving in a herd down the sidewalks of Brussels, gawking at everything and trying to get our bearings. My brain was in a fog, as if the part that organized and stored information had been unplugged. I felt like I was watching TV without the sound. I was going through the motions. We explored parks in the neighborhood, scouted out places to buy groceries and found restaurants with appealing menus.

Back at the apartment, we unpacked our suitcases and washed up before going to dinner. We had three keys to the apartment, and before we left, E and I checked to make sure we each had a key in hand before letting the door swing shut behind us. What we didn’t know was that Belgian locks operate differently than Americans ones.

Back in the States, we always left our extra key inside the house, stuck in the deadbolt. We had no clue this was a big no-no in Belgium until we trudged home after dinner, put our key into the door lock and discovered it didn’t turn.

Convinced he had inserted the key incorrectly, E tried reversing it, jiggling it—no luck. I pulled out my key and it didn’t work either. How was this possible? We’d used the keys earlier in the day and everything was fine.

By now it was 7 p.m. In the past 24 hours, we’d had less than three hours of sleep, and we were beyond exhausted. Having just arrived, we did not have a cell phone, and we also didn’t have any phone numbers in hand of people we could call. All our contact information was in the apartment. We felt both foolish and vulnerable, not sure what to do next.

I noticed an emergency maintenance number posted next to the elevator. and we wrote that down on our restaurant receipt. We walked through the apartment building looking in vain for a public phone. E and our son A decided to walk back to the restaurant where we’d eaten and see if they would allow him to use their phone.

I sat on the steps outside our apartment with little E-Grrrl who kept saying, “Belgium is not what I expected.” And I kept assuring her that everything was going to be fine even as I fought back the urge to cry. At the restaurant, E was told he couldn’t use the phone, and he was sent to use a pay phone. Finally locating one, he learned pay phones don’t accept coins.

Back at the restaurant, a sympathetic waitress told him to go to a tobacco shop and buy a phone card. E found a shop, bought a phone card, and figured out how to use it. Happily the building’s maintenance man answered E’s call and headed on over. What was lost in translation when E described our dilemma was that we had locked ourselves out by leaving a key in the inside lock. So when the apartment guy showed up with the master key, we weren’t any better off than we’d been before.

Sighing, the maintenance guy asked whether any windows were unlocked. E never leaves ANYTHING unlocked under any circumstances. But fortunately, I was fairly certain I had left a window unlocked when I was checking the apartment out earlier in the day.

The maintenance worker let himself into the adjoining apartment, opened the window, and stepped out onto the tiny balcony over the street. He then had to swing a leg over the rail and step out onto a narrow ledge and creep along the building’s face toward our windows. E and A watched the drama unfolding from the cobblestone sidewalk below. E was puzzled because the man seemed to be stuck, and then he was moving ever so slowly.

Thank God, he eventually reached our windows safely, one was indeed unlocked, and he was able to open it from the outside, climb into our apartment, and let us in. When E greeted him downstairs and thanked him for his efforts, the man was perspiring heavily and confided that he is terrified of heights. We felt awful for putting him in such a predicament but ever so grateful to finally be able to get inside and collapse.

It had been a long day, a long journey to this moment. Thus our first day in Brussels was memorable and educational in more ways than one. My first lesson as an expat: never, ever, leave a key in the deadbolt of your Belgian home.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 9, 2006

What's a Grrrl Like Me Doing in a Place Like This?

Let’s get a few things straight upfront. I could describe myself as a person who seeks out new places and experiences, who craves change, who loves to travel and experience new foods and foreign cultures, who is spontaneous, adventurous, and the first to jump in and try something new. And ALL of that would be a big, fat lie.

The truth is far less interesting. I’m an average American, white-bread, suburban mother of two, married to a conservative, traditional guy. We’re the law-abiding, church-attending, community volunteer, salt-of-the-earth types. We even have boring hobbies. Our life is not the stuff of sitcoms. We’re not the interesting people at the party. We’re not the subject of gossip or people in the know. Go ahead and yawn if you want to, but this is our reality.

Now let’s flashback to July 2004.

I was in the middle of a typical summer with my kids. There were camps, play dates, swim lessons, library programs, days at the pool and trips to the beach on the calendar. I was working part-time from home as a PR consultant and writer, a job I’d held for 10 years. My husband E was commuting to the Washington, D.C. area to his government office. Sitting at my desk in the heat of the day, I received an e-mail from E.

“What do you think of three years in Brussels?” A job announcement was attached.

Without hesitation, I responded immediately. “Sounds pretty cool! Let’s talk when you get home.”

E was shocked. This was not the reply he expected from me. We’d been rooted in our community for 15 years and had never seiously discussed living anywhere else, let alone moving overseas.

But I’m a spiritual person and from that first moment the topic was broached, moving across the world to Brussels inexplicably struck me as the right thing to do. When E tells this story, he emphasizes my response to his initial query, implying I’m the reason we’re here. But hey, he’s the one that sent the message and posed the question—and that certainly wasn’t an accident. We were in this together from Day 1.

With very few details in hand about the job or our prospective circumstances, E worked late into the night on an extensive and complicated job application and sent it off. Then the waiting began.

In America, the hiring process from start to finish often takes just a matter of weeks. We had no idea what to expect with the Brussels job, but we thought we would hear something in September.

We heard nothing. We learned through the grapevine that the list of applicants for the job was several pages long, and yet we still felt sure it was going to come through, we just didn’t know when. Our certainty was not born out of arrogance but out of a sense of destiny. Still, life felt suspended and small and large decisions were postponed.

Finally in early November, E flew to Brussels for an interview and we celebrated the holidays wondering what our future would be. A few days after Christmas, a letter arrived by courier announcing he had been chosen by the interview panel but final approval of the panel’s selection was still pending. Then in February, the formal announcement and job offer arrived—on E’s birthday.

This further confirmed our sense of being called to Belgium. E had been born a Belgian citizen in the Belgian Congo in 1957. His father had died in a plane crash in the unrest that followed the Congolese revolution, and when he was about six, his mom had married an American State Department employee she met in Africa. E lived in various countries in Africa and Europe before moving to the U.S. as a teenager. Receiving the job offer on his birthday was a sign he had come full circle.

From that point on, it seemed everything fell into place, but that’s not to say things were easy. We were overwhelmed with paperwork and tasks to complete on two continents, trying to anticipate everything we needed to do before we left on March 20. And if I occasionally succumbed to insomnia or crying jags, I felt God was in the details during these hectic weeks—providing a friend to rent our house who needed it as much as we needed a trustworthy tenant, putting E’s classic car into the hands of a teen who had also lost his dad in a plane crash, settling our silky terrier in with a new widow who needed his company, finding a buyer for our truck days before we were scheduled to fly out.

And Providence proved itself up until the last minute.

The house was empty, our belongings on their way. We were staying in a hotel, and E had to drop our remaining car off in Baltimore, Maryland, to be shipped to Belgium. On his way up Interstate 95, he was annoyed because he realized he didn’t have the screwdrivers he would need to remove the license plates from the car before it was taken away. He had to stop in his office in Alexandria, Virginia, on his way north and catch a train home from Baltimore. On a tight schedule, he didn’t have time to find a store and buy screwdrivers.

As he was handling paperwork in his old office building, the woman who was now occupying his former cubicle came up to him with a bag.

“E, I found this stuff in the back of one of your desk drawers and wanted to give it to you,” she said.

E opened the bag and his eyes opened wide in disbelief. The sack contained two screwdrivers—one with a straight end, one shaped like a cross. Two screwdrivers he’d found on a desolate roadside years before and shoved into a drawer and forgotten about but reappeared at just the right moment. These were the final evidence we were being equipped for whatever Belgium would bring.

We left Dulles Airport two days later in a spring thunderstorm. For months we’d been monitoring Belgium’s weather, and it seemed each time we’d log on to the computer we’d see a solid row of gray cloud icons and forecasts for rain. We told ourselves that if the sun was shining when we arrived, it would be a good sign. As our plane touched down on the runway on the first day of spring, the sun was glinting off the red tile roofs and bright green fields surrounding the airport.

(Coming next Thursday—Trials and Tribulations. The first two weeks)

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

I still remember learning the saying, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” when I was in kindergarten. My teacher explained what it meant and then helped us make posters with the phrase and images of a lion and a lamb. Why was this so memorable? Because I got to cover the lamb in cotton balls and this was an artistic breakthrough for me. I may have even colored some cotton balls brown and put them on the lion’s mane.

Well I may have changed over the years but March hasn’t. It certainly came in like a lion for us. We awoke to howling winds and a blanket of snow this morning.

Belgium’s winter weather this year has proved to be remarkably consistent. Since mid-November, temps have pretty much topped out in the mid- to upper-30s during the day and bottomed out in the lower 30s overnight. Sunny or cloudy, windy or not, there hasn’t been much variation in temperature. And much to my children’s disappointment, there hasn’t been a snowfall with any significant accumulation all winter. The snow might appear in a flurry but it rarely stuck to the ground. At best we’d get a dusting of white which E-Grrrl and Mr. A would scoop off of every flat surface they could find and form anemic looking snowballs to pitch at each other.

But yesterday it snowed all day, alternating between tiny snowflakes the size of raindrops to big dramatic snowflakes that looked more like snowdrops. The snow melted as soon as it hit the ground, but around 3 p.m., in a blowing whirlwind of giant flakes, it started to stick. E-Grrrl and Mr. A were so excited when they got home from school. They quickly grabbed hats and mittens and began lobbing snowballs over the fence at the little boys next door.

They played for an hour, and then the snow stopped. During dinner, we got a little rain. The forecast was calling for snow all over Germany but nothing significant in Brussels, yet overnight we got enough to thoroughly cover the grass and the roads, probably 3 inches. This is enough to close schools in Virginia (and all you Yankees who live with snow from November through April can quit your snickering, OK?).

In the event of bad weather, we’d been told to call the military police’s automated line to learn whether school was closed. E dialed the number at 6:30 a.m. and heard a message that said road conditions were “red,” meaning dangerous, don’t drive if you don’t have to. So E assumed that meant school was out and told the kids. They had been up since 5 a.m. because they were SO excited about the snow and were planning a day of outdoor play and indoor computer games, popcorn and hot chocolate.

Where was V-Grrrl while all this transpired? In bed, of course. You didn’t expect me to separate myself from the flannel sheets a moment before I had to, did you? Snow day! I was planning to stay in my bathrobe all morning.

Well at 7:30 a.m., the time we’re normally loading backpacks, brushing teeth, and heading toward the bus stop, I did drag myself out of bed to see if E-Man was heading into work. “No school?” I ask E. And he tells me about the recording.

Hmmm. What was the story here? Was school cancelled?

So I call the phone number myself and the recording says that at 7 a.m., road conditions had been updated to “amber,” meaning use caution. Well? Did the kids have school or not?

A quick call to the school and I learn the ugly truth: school is indeed open.

Of course, I expected the kids to be disappointed, but I didn’t expect them to fall apart on us. When I told them to get dressed for school, they both burst into tears and began to wail. I hadn’t seen them this upset since their hamster died last summer.

E-Grrrl, her eyes pink and swollen and her face streaked with tears, climbed back into her bed and refused to get out. Mr. A, his shoulders shaking with sobs, could not be pried out of the computer chair.

And no, they didn’t compose themselves after a few minutes and accept their fate. E-Man and I had to physically pull them from their lockdown positions and actually dress them and get them on their feet.

And in that moment I HATED myself. Hated being a responsible mom. Wished so much that I was an easy-going, free-spirited type who would let her kids skip school and play in the only snowfall of the season. But I was worried about setting a precedent that would lead to endless fights every snowy day in the future. Plus Mr. A has a test tomorrow and he hadn’t brought his book home to study for it last night. Tonight is our last chance to prepare him for it, and his grades aren’t such that he can afford to go into a test cold.

So with great regret and lingering guilt, E-Man and I loaded our broken-hearted offspring into the car and he drove them to school. It felt like sending lambs to the slaughterhouse.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 1, 2006