Cook & Book

  • January 12, 2010 5:12 PM

Belgian restaurants are quiet the experience – they’re quiet, intimate, and very classy. But Cook & Book in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert is a little different – it’s a bookstore with 9 restaurants in it…each with a different theme matching the books sold in that area.

Front of Cook & Book

The rooms are decorated to the nines – the travel room has an airstream camper you can eat in, the gardening room has a greenhouse inside and garden gnomes hidden all over the walls.

The Travel Room

There was also a 60s diner room where the cookbooks were sold. You could watch the chefs working here while you wait.

60s Diner Room

The British room, with a nice selection of English books and plush leather seats, would be a great one to sit and browse for a while. There were also rooms for comic books, children, art, and music.

The British Room

My favorite was the fiction room, where books were suspended from the ceiling. My friends and I had lunch here – soups, salads, sandwiches, and pasta.

The Fiction Room

If you’re in the area and looking for a unique dining experience, or a huge bookstore that is just fun to browse, check it out.  I’ve posted more photos on PicasaWeb:

My Belgian Driver’s License

  • January 8, 2010 2:23 PM

Woo hoo!  Yesterday, I got my Belgian Driver’s License.  It was very easy – but kind of anti-climatic.  There’s nothing new that I can do with it…we still don’t have a car.  And in fact, I’d guess that the majority of my American expat friends just drive on their US license here without any problems.

Check out this piece of officialness… The license is a regular piece of paper, folded in thirds, with my photo glued to the inside.  It never expires.  Of course, it’s flimsy and bigger than a wallet will hold. Thomas’ allows him to drive a motorcycle, car, or small truck, but they just gave me a car on mine.  Until the 1960s, Belgium didn’t have driver’s licenses.

The whole process was really easy.  I turned in my US driver’s license, waited several weeks while they inspected it, and then picked up my new Belgian one.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t timed this well with our trip back to the US – I didn’t have either with me to drive there, so Thomas was my chauffeur.  When I move back to the US though, I can turn in my Belgian license and they will return my US one to me.

So why did I get one?  First of all, this easy US license trade will only work in your first year here.  Officially, the option of a US license plus an international license expires once you get your residency card.  Also, we’ve been talking about getting a car sometime this year.  They are a bit of a hassle – expensive insurance, parking on the street, and gasoline is about $7.50/gallon. It’s common practice here that companies will give their employees a leased car and free gas card, but Thomas’ doesn’t.

There are a couple of alternatives.  We’ve thought about just renting a car when we want to go on a road trip.  I think we might have to test this option out on a weekend trip to France. :) We also have a shared Cambio car, like Zipcars in the US, parked near us.  In the meantime, thankfully the public transportation gets me where I want to go.

Rooftops and City Views

  • January 7, 2010 8:48 AM

One of our goals this year is to get to know Brussels better.  We’re so busy traveling everywhere else, we forget to check out our own city. This last weekend, Thomas and I woke up to find more fluffy, white stuff outside, and thought it would be a great day to head downtown to take some snowy city shots and visit the Rene Magritte Museum.

Thomas plays in the snow

The museum does not allow photography, but it was a wonderful exhibit. Magritte was a surrealist who painted abstract subjects in a photo-realistic style. I was hoping to learn about the meaning behind his work, but Magritte said they were just objects he wanted to paint. Hah!

Saint Jacques church from the MIM cafe

Afterward, we headed to the Musical Instruments Museum to have lunch on their rooftop cafe. It was a fantastic view! We then wandered over to Place Poelaert which also has some nice views of the city.

Snowy rooftops and sunset at Place Poelaert

If you’d like to see more of the photos we took, I’ve posted them on PicasaWeb.

It’s Been a Decade

  • January 1, 2010 9:34 PM

Happy New Year!  Thomas and I completed our first year in Belgium – Belgium style, by eating mussels, frites, and waffles.  We headed downtown to Place de l’Albertine for more celebrations.  They were showing videos of the Berlin Wall on the side of the Royal Library in honor of the The Fall, 20 years ago.  We enjoyed a quick drink next to the Mannekin Pis (he was still naked) and then joined the crowd for fireworks.  We had a great time, but thank goodness for the free public transportation – the streets were packed full with happy drunks.

Grand Place

This morning, Thomas and I were talking about the past decade and asked each other who we were 10 years ago.  In 2000, I was a Junior at UNC, living in a very cozy 12ft x7ft dorm room.  It was small (a single), but I loved it.  I had cut my hair very short and dyed it red.  My dream job then was to design interactive informational websites, like they do on news sites to show timelines or crash paths.  I had no idea I would ever live in Europe 10 years later.

Fireworks Reflected

Thomas said he was living in a house with 3 other people and a baby.  He was a sys admin, but working up from the bottom of the ladder – making less than teachers did.  He didn’t have a driver’s license or a car and all of his free time went to studying Unix. He spent the holidays with a coworker and her family because his was still in Sweden.  He had no idea he’d ever be working for a leading Search Engine.

Statue Silhouetted by Fireworks

So how about you? What were you doing 10 years ago?  Did you have any idea you’d be who you are today?  It’s been an amazing decade and I hope the next one is just as grand.

If you’d like to see more photos from last night, I’ve posted them on Picasaweb:

It Really Does Snow in Brussels

  • December 28, 2009 12:30 PM

Between our US and Sweden trips, we had a few days to wash clothes and repack in Belgium, and to our surprise, it snowed!  Despite the stories I’ve been told that it never snows in Brussels, we got a few inches.  Thanks to public transportation, Thomas and I ventured around town.

Thomas and Dallas in the snowy park

We headed downtown for the Brussels Christmas Market.  Many cities in Europe hold handcraft markets throughout December – Brussels’ seemed to focus on knit hats, jewelry, and food items.  We enjoyed the food, trying boudin blanc (white sausage), waffles, frites with mayonnaise, croustillions (doughnut holes), apple cider, hot chocolate, and Christmas beer.  Our favorite part was along Brussels’ Chinatown, where there were Himalayan throat singers and yurts selling traditional Tibetian crafts.

Dallas has traditional Belgian frites - with mayonnaise, in a paper cone, with a fork

We also decided to head to our local Sunday market at Weiner Place.  Many of the booths were closed, but we found a few that were using the snow to  keep their produce chilled.  We grabbed some lunch at a nearby pizza place, and then went for a walk through a couple nearby parks.  It was fun to see all the people out enjoying the snow – we even saw some trying out cross-country skis and snowshoes.

Snowy Produce for sale

I just have to share this photo because this is the most popular Christmas decoration outside Brussels apartments.  They’re little Santa dolls that are set up to look like they’re crawling in the windows.  In Belgium, children leave their shoes out on December 5th for Sinterklaas, and his assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), to fill with candy.  The kids leave carrots for Sinterklaas’ horse, and Zwarte Piet climbs down the chimney (hence the black face) to leave the gifts, or if they’ve been bad, leave them sticks, or kidnap them and take them to Spain.

Brussels' main apartment Christmas decoration

Anyway, if you’d like to see more of our photos, they’re on PicasaWeb: