Travel with me abroad

Travel With Me Abroad

Hello to all. I’m very excited for the opportunity to share my upcoming adventures through Themetrip. In the next couple of months my husband and I will be starting a new chapter in our lives with our big move to Brussels, Belgium.
A little about the upcoming blog and myself:
I love food! While eating breakfast I’m already talking about dinner. I will be posting notes and pictures of where we dine, what we eat and sometimes what I cook.
I love adventures! With my husband being in the Navy, we have had and have the ability to visit and experience places all over the world. I will post about our travels and experiences while living in Belgium.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

11/28/2014

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We had our first Thanksgiving in Brussels and it was great. If it wasn’t for Adam’s sponsor’s family inviting us over, this day would have been a sad day. This family has been so good to us. I feel very fortunate getting to know them and being able to call them our friends.

We left our hotel in the morning and rode the Metro to Stockel. This is the town/commune where our friends live and where we will be living starting December 3. It was weird seeing everyone around us going to work or school and not celebrating Thanksgiving. They are missing out on a fantastic holiday.

When we got to Stockel, which is a 15-20 min metro ride from our hotel, we ordered cappuccinos, picked up some croissants, rolls, champagne and of course wine and then walked over to our friend’s home for Thanksgiving.

Colleen purchased a 9 pound turkey and brined it for 2 days. This turkey just fit into the oven. She actually took the back bone out and flattened it. Cooking in such a small oven is a challenge and a fun experience. They were calling it their Barbie and Ken oven. The turkey turned out juicy and so flavorful.   All the sides with the meal were homemade and everyone was in the kitchen helping out with the food, dishes and/or keeping our glasses full.

I did none of the grocery shopping for this meal. I think Colleen’s sister mailed her pumpkin puree, which sounds like it’s either difficult to find here or very expensive. I’m not sure.

Fantastic champagne, wine, ice wine, lemoncello, and laughs throughout our day.

Couldn’t have asked for a better Thanksgiving when being so far away from family.

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I'm on Instagram!

11/25/2014

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I'm thoroughly enjoying sharing everything that is happening with us in Brussels. For those who have an instagram account and would like to follow me here is my instagram name, rosensweet_abroad.

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Tourists

11/23/2014

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We had our first day being tourists and it was great. We started off the morning by riding a tram to Saint-Catherine station. When we got off we were able to see the set up for one of many Christmas markets. The Christmas market starts 28 November. We were told that France has the largest Christmas market and the one we saw, being set up, was the second biggest. Awesome!

We had breakfast at Charli Boulangerie. It was excellent. The smell of warm fresh baked bread fills the café. The cappuccinos had a hint of sweetness. I think it was the sugar in the milk. I don’t think they added sugar. So many choices of baked items. I chose a croissant. I never eat croissants in the US, but I can’t pass them up here. They are light and airy with a slight crisp on the outside. I love how moist they are too.

We took a different tram to Rene Magritte’s museum. We thought we were lost when we started walking down a residential area. Outside a home was a sign for the museum. We actually got to visit Rene Magritte’s home. That was a fun accident. We were able to walk all through the home and learn the history of Magritte. We both enjoyed it so much we wanted to see more. So we did. We took another tram to Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. We saw the collection of Rene Magritte. I think it’s worth paying a little extra for the audio tour. It’s overwhelming seeing three floors of art when you do not hear some of the stories behind the paintings. Most audio tours do not cover all the art pieces, but it’s nice to have an understanding of some and then apply that to other works in the same exhibition.

After the museum we walked to Les Galeries Saint Hubert to have hot chocolate. Oh my goodness, this was fancy hot chocolate. I accidently ordered two. When they brought our little pots of hot chocolate, they also brought a side of whip cream, steamed milk (might have been cream), two cookies, and a spoon. We didn’t know where to start. Do we pour the milk in or chocolate in first? Wow, this chocolate milk was so dark, rich AND delicious!

Still so much to do and see!

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We Found a Place!

11/22/2014

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We chose apartment 1! We have been talking about the pros and cons for the last two days. We started to feel like we maybe chose too fast, but it had everything we wanted.
The apartment is about 2 blocks from a metro, 3 blocks from a market that takes place on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The Saturday market offers champagne with oysters. We will definitely be adding that to our Saturdays. The apartment is close to lots of restaurants, cafés and brasseries.

The apartment itself is two stories. The balcony has a beautiful view of all the European homes. 2 full baths, one half bath downstairs, open kitchen with a tiny fridge (that’s normal), dining room, living room and another huge room… maybe we will use it for… I’m not sure. We will also have a nice big garage. Now we need to buy a car. I will post more pictures of the apartment soon. I don’t think I posted the best photos. The apartment is close to 1800 square feet.

When will we be moving in? Wow, now this is a process. We first told the realtor that we wanted that apartment. Then we had to go to the housing office that helps assist us through Adam’s work. We set up an appointment to receive paper work about leasing in Brussels. Then we set up another appointment so she could explain the lease to us. The lease is in French. We went over billing, which utilities are paid yearly. We discussed how to check the electricity and gas meter monthly to see what we use. This will give us an idea about how much we will owe at the end of the year (Hmm…) We also talked about trash. So many different trash cans. Oh, and we have to buy special trash bags. Each community has different trash bags. We have to buy the specific trash bags made for our community (commune.) These trash bags are costly. We are hoping that we don’t have to deal with this, since we are in an apartment. Hoping they have bins that we can just throw our stuff into. Our next appointment is on Wednesday. This will be with the housing assistant, the realtor, and the owner of the apartment. We will be signing the lease to rent the apartment. After we sign the lease we will set up another appointment to meet with the owner and the inspector at the apartment. After the inspection has been done we will be able to move in. Crossing our fingers for December 3.

When we move in we will get loaner furniture delivered that we can use until our furniture arrives.

So much to share. I know I’m forgetting some things, but I’m pretty sure I have covered the important/interesting things.

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New Art Piece

11/19/2014

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We attended an annual fund raiser at NATO last Sunday. NATO countries set up tables to sell stuff from their country. This included: food, alcohol, jewelry, hand painted ceramic plates/vases, clothes, cook books, Christmas ornaments, and much more. They also had raffle tickets. Adam and I purchased some tickets. There were so many neat gifts to win. Some of these gifts were: art from different countries, complimentary stay at hotels, flights to different places (I thin...k one flight was to fly back to the US) and wine baskets. There were a lot more gifts to win at the raffle. Well, Adam and I WON! We won one gift and our friends won two gifts. AWESOME! he he he... Look what we won...
This art piece if from Slovenia. We had actually joked about winning this out of everything else. Yep, that happened. I haven't learned about the artist. We dropped the painting off with our friends. This will be the first art piece in our home.

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House Hunting!

11/18/2014

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House hunting!'

The other day we had a 2 hour brief on renting in Brussels. This entailed: utilities, other fees, and the efficiency of heating. Instead of paying monthly bills, some bills are quarterly, and/or yearly. We also were given good realtors to use and realtors that we we're not to use. In 10 days, we need to look at 6 places and turn in a document that has the address of the places, and the reasons we did not choose them. These reasons need to be safety issues with the house. Ugh! Here is a reason, “I don’t like it!” That’s unsafe for the people that live with me.

Ok, now to the fun part. We have looked at 5 places in the last 2 days. I’m not going to show the first one, because it’s not in the location we want to live. I want to know which one you like. Please leave a comment. I will show each house in a slide show. When the lease has been signed, we will share the winner! We have another place to see tomorrow. I will share those photos too.

Cheers!
Some of my photos are showing sideways. I don't know how to fix them. Sorry.

House 1:

Apartment 1:

House 2:

Apartment 2:

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Banking in Brussels

11/18/2014

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In the states, we bank through USAA. USAA has been such an incredible bank for checking, savings, insurance, traveling discounts, and for their customer service. I always say I’m going to send them a Christmas card, but I usually forget by the time Christmas comes around. Unfortunately, they don’t offer banking and/or a credit card for military families stationed overseas without foreign transaction fees. They have plenty of great deals for military personnel while on deployment, but the same does not apply while stationed overseas.

We decided to open a bank account in Brussels with ING. While living overseas, we also have to use an international bank to pay our local bills. To open a bank account, one is not able to just walk into a bank and ask to open a bank account. We went in last Thursday and made an appointment for today (Tuesday.) In one way it’s nice that they take the time just with you and are in no hurry to rush you. In another way it’s hard to get stuff done, quickly. We keep having to make appointments, or just have to walk in and see if the person we are looking for is there or not. They are usually not there.

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I Miss My Beauty Sleep

11/16/2014

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This 9 hour difference is kicking my butt. I'm up at 3:30 AM every morning, which seems to be the time I have all my great ideas, I'm saying French terms better than I have all day, and I feel so organized, because I'm making lists in my head of what we still have to do (which also makes me anxious.) 2 hours usually goes by and then I pass out. Alarm goes off and I can barely move. 5:16 AM now, almost time to go back to sleep.
When I traveled to other countries from the U.S., I always slept great and never had jet lag. Usually, I get jet lag coming back into the U.S. And it takes me a few days to get back on schedule.
Hoping this waking up at 3:30 goes away real fast! Good morning?

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Our First Meal in Brussels

11/16/2014

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We walked, and walked all around. We were so tired, but wanted to see a little bit of the area. We passed many delicious looking restaurants. We settled on a laid back restaurant called, Dukes. I don’t think we would have enjoyed a sit down fancy dinner. We got to Dukes around 8pm. There were a few people in the restaurant, but nobody had food, only drinks. We ordered a cheese and meat plate to start with, by the time we ordered dinner, people around us were still drinking, but had no food.
Our order: La frisee auz lardons- frisee, lardons, aeuf poche (salad with tomatoes, bacon, cucumber, a poached egg, and some kind of mayonnaise dressing.) This salad was delicious!
We also ordered, moules et frites (mussels and fries) These were the best mussels I have ever had! The mussels were cooked in a light broth with onions and celery. The fries were standard fries. Dukes served them with a mayonnaise sauce that had a hint of mustard. Meh…
In the middle of eating our dinner, people around us, had started ordering food and having food come out to their table. We have noticed, European’s tend to eat around 8:30pm at night, no matter what day of the week it is.

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We Made it to Brussels!

11/13/2014

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Waiting for the shuttle in LA.

I can’t really grasp everything that is going on. It’s noon here and 3am back in the US. We just checked into our hotel. What have we been up to in the last…18 hours?

We left our hotel in LA around 9am. We boarded our first plane at 10:30. A great tip to those who travel on planes, the day before our flight I put together little goody bags for the flight attendants. I placed different kinds of chocolates, and a nutritious Kind Bar in each bag. I made sure we had enough for both flights. After we sat down on the plane and before we took off, I took the goody bags to the flight attendant in the back and told her how much we appreciated everything they do. On our first flight, the flight attendant gave me a big hug. She was so thankful. During our first flight, we had the choice of purchasing snacks and lunch. The flight attendant came by and gave us lunch with no charge. It was unexpected. I tried to tell her I was not hungry, but she insisted giving it to me.

On our second flight we did the same thing with the goody bags. During dinner the flight attendants first offered us drinks. We asked for a bottle of wine. I handed them my credit card. The flight attendant took my credit card and pretended to charge it by swiping it above my closed tray. They ended up giving us another complimentary bottle and offering a third – which was tempting but we actually wanted to be conscious when we landed. We talked about our move to several flight attendants, they were all excited for us. We didn’t sleep as well as we wanted to on the plane.

Before we knew it, it was breakfast time. We had an hour left before we reached Brussels.

It was so cool to look out the window and see Brussels. This is it, this is our new home. Customs went very smooth. It was a neat feeling when customs asked how long we were planning to stay. ”We are moving here!”

Adam’s sponsor picked us up and took us to the Garrison (a miniature army base.) We did a couple of things around there and he gave us a lot of information. How much are we really going to retain today? Not sure. He knew it was a lot and didn’t want to overload us, but there are some things we need to start getting done, because everything takes longer over here.

Adam’s sponsor dropped us off at our hotel. Before he took off, he gave us a welcome bag. It had so many goodies, including wine, chocolates, books on Brussels, plastic plates, silverware, paper towels, and some paperwork for Adam to fill out.

It is beautiful outside. We should be out and about, but we’re both exhausted and are unable to properly function. We hope to go out for dinner tonight.

Nap, or no nap?

Spoiler alert! We ended up taking a two hour nap.

Hotel's roof top terrace.

Goody bag for flight attendants.

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About Nakoma

I have always had a passion for Art. After attending five colleges (Navy families move…a lot) I earned my BA in Art History. I’m thinking our first few tours will be art, art, art and then food, food, food. I will post information about the tours we do.

Please note, that my blog posts will not be consistent. We have a very busy, and fun schedule ahead of us, that might limit my time to post.

For those who plan to follow, enjoy!

Cheers!