Things to be missed (by Mindy)

As our time here is winding down, I have been thinking about the things that have changed in me over the past year. This year has been such an amazing year in both good and bad ways. I have several top ten lists that I want to write, but for now we will start with the top ten things I will miss about Belgium.

1. Friday Lunch - we started this with some of our American friends that we met a few months after getting here. Several Americans get together for lunch every Friday at Elisabeth and Colby’s house. Tim and I love routine things like this with friends. It keeps us connected and is something that you can count on at the end of the week to always be there. For me especially, it is a way to get out of the house and socialize.

2. Mia’s school - As a parent there is nothing better than when your child loves the school and teacher that they have. Even though it is all in Dutch and Mia had no idea what was going on for the first few months, she has always loved going. Juf Cristal, her teacher, is absolutely the best. We could not have wanted a better first teacher. Mia’s dutch is coming along very nicely too! Ze kan tot vijf tellen.

3. “The boy who gives Mia ham” - There is a sandwich shop that we frequent whose owner is wonderful. He is originally from Turkey and has lived her for a long time now. He really likes Mia and knows that she likes ham and eggs. When he sees her coming, he makes her a little ham and egg sandwich (a hard boiled egg, wrapped in ham). She loves it.


4. U.H.T. milk in one serving size cartons - Mia loves milk and these are so great to travel with because you do not have to refrigerate them. It took us a bit to get used to the taste, but they are so handy. U.H.T. is ultra high temperature pasteurized, the taste is a bit different than US milk, but no need to refrigerate.

5. Long days in the summer - I love that it stays light until 10 pm in the summer months.

6. The environmental mentality - There are so many thing here that are just obvious standards for them. Take your own bags to the grocery store to eliminate all of the grocery bag trash, bike and walk everywhere you can, recycle everything, hanging your laundry to dry rather than using a dryer, taxes on cars based on the engine size, recycling nearly everything, etc. We have a LONG way to go in the States. Being “green” in the US sometimes has a bad, “liberal” connotation to it which is so sad to me and I am really hoping we can change that.

7. The city streets - there is always something going on in the cities here. When we moved here, there were huge concerts every friday night. The restaurants all have loads of seating outside where you can sit and drink and just enjoy the beautiful weather. People seem to be out and about more here, just sitting, relaxing, and watching the world go by. I love that.

8. The market - Wednesday night is market night in Kessel-lo. The market is about 1 km from our house. In the fall we asked “so when does the market end” thinking it does not go through the winter. They thought we were very strange to ask that question. Markets go all year here. They buy a lot of their fruits, veggies, bread, meat, cheeses, etc from the markets. We have found our veggie guy, our bread lady, and our waffel stand. Nothing beats good fresh fruits and veggies and a freshly baked loaf of bread. Plus it is a fun family outing to meet Daddy at the market!

9. Foods - Chocolate of course! Good chocolate everywhere you look. The smos, which is a ham and cheese sandwich packed with veggies and hard-boiled egg. They use great bread and you just can’t beat a good smos. While you can't find a good mexican place to save your life, they do still have great cuisine here.

10. The walks - being here and living in an apartment again has really freed up our time. We have no lawn to mow, no meetings to go to in the evenings, no parent-teacher conferences, no bowling or softball league, and no remodeling to get done. And while we loved all of those things about our lives back in Champaign, it has been a very different kind of life for us this year. We have enjoyed our evenings by going to parks, going to feed the horses at the abbey, (seriously, we can walk to an old abbey from our apartment) and just going for walks on one of the many different walking/biking paths they have here. For better and for worse (depending on the day) we have been forced to slow down here.