Small details that makes you wonder

I have this very nice Philipino girl who cleans my apartment once a week. It is sooo nice and I love the feeling of coming home from work and finding my home shining clean and smelling fresh. However there is this one thing I can't help but thinking about. We seem to have very different opinions on how to place decorative items in the home. Every time when she has been here I have to make a round and move candle stands, flower pots and other decorative items back into the right positions.

If I have a group of candle stands for example, I like to place them in a group, maybe a little asymmetric or askew. My five Malian elephants I like to line up a little diagonally so you see them both a little from the front and the side at the same time. But every time she has been here, everything is lined up in straight lines, totally symmetrical and the elephants facing you up front. And then we have the Dutch house!! It is one of those small blue and white Dutch houses in china, that one use/used to get when flying Business class with KLM. It stands on the kitchen fan with the front, which is in this case the gable, facing you, like it would face a Dutch street, or canal. But every time she has turned it 90 degrees so the side is facing front. Ok, maybe it is not totally easy to know that the gable is supposed facing that way and maybe the other way around is more common in the Philippines, but hey it is a DUTCH house, and we live in Belgium, not very far away (I believe she has lived here for quite a while) and anyway, why moving it??! Why not just leave it the way I have left it!?

But of course that goes for all the moving of candles, plants and vases etc. Why not just leaving the way I left them, especially since she must notice that I keep moving then after she’s been here. .

Maybe she just think I am messy and she just has to put things “right”. And ok, I admit, I can at times be a little messy and of course I appreciate that she puts all the shoes that I just leave in a mess in the hall in order, and that she takes care of the laundry that needs to be ironed and folded. But then again, that makes me wonder, why on earth does she think I would mess up among the candle stands at the mantelpiece? Or among the flowers at the windowsill!? Or accidentally turning the elephants and the Dutch house?! What does that say about her thoughts about me??
 

 

The wrong way!

The right way! Its's a DUTCH house!!

First visitor!

I am sooo looking forward to receiving my first weekend guest this weekend!
The place is still a mess since I have not been at home much he three weeks since I moved in and things have not at all found their places in my apartment. On top of that then packing, travelling and unpacking again, even though I had not unpacked in the first place, that made even more of a mess if by place. Nevertheless it will be so fun to have a friend visiting over the weekend. And I am so happy to have a nice guest room. All those years I have been living in different temporary homes without proper chance to receive guests I always felt I missed having a guest room. I have spent so many nights at good friends' places all over h place, now finally I can offer something in return.
So please come and visit!! :-)

Where old people go

Took a couple of days off to have some time to breathe. My friend and I were thinking a lot of where to go this time of the year. We wanted some sun and preferably beach or pool life, some golf and not to much time spent on flying, which can be a challenge this time of the year. Anyway, we ended up on Madeira.
That far I only knew Madeira was known for being very green and and flowery, popular for hiking and among retirees. But I had no time to be picky so why not, let's go!

This far, I must say I am so positively surprised and very satisfied. Weather nice, water nice, excellent food and service and good golfing. Yes, indeed most of the visitors are definitely over 65, but that is really no problem, rather I would even say it is an advantage. They are quiet and well behaved and leave you alone and don't bother you. Much more pleasent than shouting teenagers or screaming kids and families. Around the pool there is a nice calm atmoshpere and you don't risk getting a ball or a frees bee landing on your head. Perfect for just lounging and reading your book in the sun. These retirees are also quite a demanding, but still independent, well off and quality concient bunch of people, meaning they have done all the bickering and complaining for you so service is excellent and prices still very decent.

And you don't have to worry about you beach body not being what you would have wanted it to be. At the poolside with the retirees you will still feel very slim, young and good looking without doing anything but being there. I think from now on I will always travel where the old people go! :-)

A Brussels experience

There are a few things that bind expats living in Brussels together and where you will find almost unanimously experiences. Two of them are registration at the commune and having Belgacom installing tv and internet in your home. Both of then can be rather challenging as I understand.
As a diplomat I don't have to register so that is an experience I will not be able to share, but right now I am waiting for Belgacom to show up. They should come "in the morning" which I understand can last up to one o'clock. Then, if they show up, of course that is no guarantee things will work. They havre already indicated that there is some problem on my address... In a newly renovated house in the city centre...
From what I have heard the compulsory Belgacom visit often includes them digging up the street in front of the house!! Anyway at least I may have a true Belgian expat experience to share.

Brussel buildings

Buildings in Brussels can be very fascinating. These two are just opposite mine and both rather derelict. It is a little difficult to tell if people are living there or not, at least on all floors, but definitely on some floors. There are curtains and flowers in the windows, but at the same time windows are broken and curtains are hanging out. However on both buildings the roofs look quite recently renovated, so someone still cares a little about them, but anyway with those facades and broken windows I guess the houses are still quite rotten. 

My house is nicely kept and my apartment very nicely renovated but still the outside of the window frames would really need some painting, but when we mentioned that while looking at the flat, the landlord just said that it would be too expensive and that you can not do everything at the same time (inside and outside). Which is true of courses. But on the other hand painting the windows now would not cost that much, taking care of them later can get very costly.

Back again

Ok, a Friday morning off from work with the new apartment full of cardbord boxes screaming to be unpacked, i decide to pick up my long time no see blogging again.... don't really know how that happened, but I think it started by me feeling I wanted to write to someone, and tell what's going on in my life, but could not decide to whom, who would be interested in my normal everyday life? Then I vaguely remembered that I used to have a blog called Normal Life and there we go... Or maybe it is just the same old-fashioned procrastination...

Of course I could have decided to pick up the Travel blog instead, but since I now am supposed to live in Brussels for three years I thought this will be the normal life. Who knows, maybe I will be inspired enough to pick up the Travel blog too, once I get going.

There is some work to be done. And before I can do anything I really should clean, since the place was still a building site just two days ago, and has not been cleaned after that, but I will get started soon....

Change

The last couple of weeks a lot has happened. Quite big changes.

But before that I was starting to feeling bored and frustrated. Coming back from the moste wonderful holiday in Rio I found there was nothing much to look forward to. Nothing much happened at work and all my friends were to busy with their families and I don't know what, but I never saw them. All normal people started to look forward to the summer holidays but that is just another stressful moment for me as I never know what to do on my holiday until last moment. Everyone was just tired or ill or just in a very bad mood. Life was simply not very fun. I took out some of my frustration in a status up-date on Facebook, a couple of minutes later I had received and basically accepted an offer of a job in Brazil!

It was an almost religious expereice, as if someone up there saw me and realised I really desperatly needed something to happen (although I know perfeclty well how it all happened). Two days later I had an official offer and the concent of my boss to leave. It all seemed like a good idea for everyone. As my previous office need to cut costs and there was not too much to do anyway it would all be fine.

What happens after that?! Well it seems the whole world seemed to go crazy. First a civil war in Libya and then the absolutely mad situation in Japan with earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents. Since then we have worked more than ever. It has been crazy busy and all the time I thought I would have getting ready for Brazil has just vanished. I still look very much forward to Brazil, but at the same time it feels strange to leave the office at such a busy time and sad to say so, also interesting times. Not that I like disasters or conflicts to happen, of course not, at times I have felt some kind of disaster fatigue, feeling I cant't hear any bad news anymore, getting all depressed and cynical, but still this is what we work with and then of course it is interesting to see how the systems work when things happen, it is interesting to be a part of the handeling.

But soon it is time to change focus completely! I wonder what that will be like! :-)