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.