Xmas Shopping

So arrived in Belgium permanently, and my son is visiting River Song and I for Xmas day. On Xmas day we are having a "Belgium Xmas", but on Xmas Eve we are having a "British Xmas". So that meant we had to find all the necessary stuff in shops in Leuven. Getting up early we hit the supermarket, which was suitably civilised by UK standards for the main shopping day before Xmas.

Almost everything we could get, including ready made pigs-in-blankets, but the main missing item is an Xmas pudding. Can Xmas be Xmas without an Xmas pudding? Only time will tell.....

Banking

A major issue that people have experienced when coming to the UK to work is how to get a bank account. Such a simple procedure seems fraught with problems. To get paid you need a bank account, and to work you need somewhere to live, to get somewhere to live you need a bank account, to get a bank account you need to present bills from where you live (and bills from your previous place abroad do not count). This leads to endless hassle for the various people I have employed over the years from outside the UK.

So I was not expecting anything better when moving to Belgium. But here I am, not even moved to Belgium yet, with a Belgium bank account and an ATM card. OK things are a bit different from the UK, e.g. getting a credit card is a pain, and you have to pay for the pleasure of the banks taking a cut out of everything you spend. But that pain is nothing compared to the complete simplicity of sorting out a bank account before one arrives.

Let us hope the next steps in the move to Belgium are just as simple. Less than one month to go now before the big move, and all sorts need still sorting out.

Not a Meal

So River Song and I decided to go to the Steigenberger Wiltcher hotel in Brussels yesterday. They were hosting chef William Wongso for the first half of November. The publicity said we would be part of an Indonesian gastronomy festival. It was an interesting evening, but food was not really anything to do with it. The Steigenberger is meant to be one of the top hotels in Brussels, but from our evening we might have been in some comedy show.

Arriving at the allotted time we were shown to our table, and then promptly ignored. The young lady whose job was to collect hats and welcome guests was running around doing her utmost to keep things moving; but waiters and table staff did not seem interested in serving anyone in our part of the restaurant. After about thirty minutes we did a "special" concoction which was the compliments of the chef, which to all intents and purposes was pineapple juice. 

We finally got a wine list and ordered wine, not from any waiter but from the young lady who by this time was having to act as waiter.  Finally after about 45 minutes someone else came up and asked if we wanted to know what we would be eating tonight, there was no menu, as it was a set dinner, but he could provide a description. A few minutes later he delivered this description; which was a different version of the wine list. Perhaps this was a sign that they had no food to give us?

There was some Indonesian traditional dancers. Well two dancers actually. One of which danced around the tables for five minutes, whilst the other took a recording of the performance on their phone. All very sweet, but it looked like this was their first outing doing dance in front of the public.

After about an hour, the people in the table next to us, had already left. They had not even managed to get the pineapple juice. But we now got our glasses of wine. I say glasses, more like a third of a glass. The waiter was such a dunce he poured the red wine into the white wine glass, obviously to make it look like a lot more.

Finally totally exasperated we asked whether food would eventually be coming. Getting no definite answer on this we left. Whilst walking out, one gentleman who had been served food, told us that perhaps it was for the best as he thought the food was rubbish in any case. So perhaps we were lucky in the end.

Birthday

So had the big-five-0 this weekend, and it was three days of celebrations. Firstly, there was a party for everyone on the Friday. I am the person on the right of this photo. Now you might think that the Hawaiian shirt is to celebrate the 5-0, but alas this is just my normal dress sense. The party involved people from all over the place, current colleagues, ex-students and employees, ex-people from a start-up I had in Bristol, and people I go walking with. Much Prosecco later we ended arriving home at two in the morning. 

Saturday was a quiter day, Ellie (my daughter) cooked an English breakfast as a hangover cure. Before which I was shocked as River Song, Ellie and Oliver (my son) had bought me a Fender Stratocaster for my birthday. Now just need to learn how to play it! But in any case it makes almost as much noise as my shirts.

Finally on Sunday we went to my favourite Italian restaurant, Il Michelangelo, in Weston-Super-Mare. River Song and I found this a few months back. We went in thinking we could get a quick Pizza after taking some photos of the piers in Weston. A few hours later we came out totally stuffed. It really is a proper Italian restaurant, serving great food. And the staff are amazing fun. We had a party of ten today, ranging from five to eighty in age. The staff were great and the food was also amazing.

I had a  starter of mussels, with a main course of lamb shank. Both of which were excellent. The lamb shank being particularly well cooked, it just fell off the bone. All washed down with some nice Pinot Grigio.

Admin, admin, admin

It is considered that moving house is one of lifes most stressful events. So I am now in the pains of moving so it should all be stress city. Well it is, but not because of the moving house. That is quite easy really, you just phone a removal company up, ask them to give a quote, and then tell them to pack everything up and move it from A to B. I suppose things are simpler as I will be moving into River Song's existing flat in the New Year. We are looking for new places, but there is little around worth looking at, at the moment.

So if moving house is not causing the stress, then what is? Well just about everything else. You see it is not just me that is moving, but also most of my team of researchers (PhD students and Post-Docs). Now that means getting their contracts sorted out in the new University, transfering the grants and projects which are not moving, sorting out what happens to those who are not moving, working out what happens with the projects and grants which are not moving. There seems a million and one little things which need doing, and unlike moving house you just cannot phone someone up and pay them to sort it out.

In addition there is also the little matter of the Steve McGarrett of a birthday which is coming up this weekend. Now there will be no trip to Hawaii for the birthday, but the big five-0, will be celebrated by three days of celebrations.

Travel Connections

One thing I will not miss about Bristol is the awful travel connections to major cities. Do not get me started on the Bristol to London train journey (fast, but very expensive). For now let us concentrate on international connections.  

Bristol Airport used to have half decent air connections to the major cities of Europe. But since British Airways pulled out of this market we are left with either low cost carriers, or high cost ones. The connections to Brussels and Schipol being very expensive if you do not book months in advance. Last week I had the delight of traveling to Paris from Bristol airport. I needed to be in Paris for a lunch time meeting. So lets get what this involves:

• Wake up at four in the morning so as to get a 50 quid taxi to the airport
• Arrive at Paris CDG, Terminal 3, along with another plane from Canada. So about 300 odd people want to get through passport control in the smallest terminal, or what is in my opinion the worlds second worst major airport (after LAX). On this day only has one person checking the passports, and the automatic machines are not working. Why we cannot be part of Schengen I have no idea (see previous post on how nuts the British are about Europe)!
• Finally through the passport control and the fun begins. Luggage is lost! So wait around T3 for ages whilst my details are taken. Clearly should not have put luggage in hold, but I am on a long trip involving Paris, Brussels, Washington DC, Brussels (again) and then back to Bristol. So kind of have a bit of luggage.
• Then get to the delights of the "fast" (ho-ho) rail connection from Charles de Gaulle airport into central Paris, a.k.a. RER B. What other major European capital would put up with a slow train from their major international airport into the centre of the capital? I mean even the idiot Brits sorted this out with the Heathrow Express a decade or so back. In the land of the TGV clearly one would not want to encourage foreign business engagement with a fast train from the airport would you?

Now compare this to what would have happened once I live in Leuven...

• Get up about 09.00
• Short twenty minute trip from Leuven to Brussels Zuid
• Nice fast train (about 90 minutes) right into the centre of Paris.
• For a tiny supplement you get first class and a meal

Roll on moving to Leuven....

Botaniq

Yesterday River Song and myself went to lovely restaurant in Leuven; I said earlier in the first blog post that much of these posts would be focused on food, so we might as well kick off early with food. So to kick it all off we went to somewhere called Botaniq, which is right next to the botanical gardens in Leuven. The restaurant was lovely, and the staff really warm and friendly, with the chef a real character.

The food was a set menu of four courses; and we had the wine flight to go with it (and of course a G&T to start, with a Dutch gin). The highlight of the food was the tuna and foie gras, which was a delightful combination, closely followed by various different cuts of veal. 

However, what was really outstanding was the wine flight. One often goes to restaurants where they try to match the wine with the food, and it is usually (IMHO) a disappointment. But the four wines we had were excellent. First was a lovely fruity light wight wine, then we had a quite contrasting oakey white (a type I would not normally go for, but which went well with the tuna and foie gras). The veal was accompanied by a nice red. The desert wine was also a red, from the French side of the Pyrenees. It was almost like a port wine, but lighter and less sweet. Even better, upon leaving the restaurant, the waiter through in a free bottle of this desert wine; so we can enjoy it at home.

The Start of a New Adventure

So am leaving Blighty to start a new era in Belgium; moving from Bristol to Leuven and joining the Brexodus. The point of this blog is to chart this new adventure and the observations I make upon the way. Also recording different things about the move, what is annoying, what is better, and what I miss and do not miss. 

So why the move in the first place? Well essentially three reasons.

1. My girlfriend is Belgian and lives in Leuven. For the purposes of this blog she will be called River Song. This is because I think stetsons are cool and she always calls me "Sweetie". Now River Song has a similar love of good food, so I suspect a lot of this blog is going to end up being the about the restaurants we visit. She also, like me, likes to travel a lot. In the last year we have had time away in Mexico, Italy, Paris (twice), and Le Touquet; so I suspect the blog will also centre around the places we visit.
2. The second reason is that I have been in my current job at the University in Bristol for nearly 18 years now, and in Bristol for over 20. So a change is needed; having been there, done that, and bought a few hundred T-shirts in the process. Leuven University is kind of cool, a step up in terms of world rankings, a great bunch of staff, and I am joining the world leading group in my area. So should be fun and a challenge (well a Brit learning another language is always a challenge).
3. The third reason is the disaster called Brexit. As a Brit I have become utterly embarrassed by the country which I am meant to call home. But as our PM thinks people like me are "citizens of nowhere", I thought it time to go "somewhere" else. This is especially because I employ a lot of people from the EU and have found it hard to recruit people now that the UK has become unwelcoming to non-Brits. Also being a researcher, the majority of the funding I use, and the collaborations I need, are on an EU wide basis.

So hopefully the blog will not be too dull, and will be interesting to at least some people. Mainly I am writing it for myself so as to record my thoughts over time. And having thought of the name "Moules et Brit" it seemed too good a name to waste.