My Grandma

This was written by my Uncle Jeff and posted with his permission:

Here's a candid shot of your sweet old grandmother enjoying her 92nd birthday party with at least 20 people she'd never meet before in a bar in the Valley. Sheryl (that's my Aunt) had gone in to meet some friends, I and Colton, with your grandmother in tow, went into give her a ride home. Mom struck up a conversation with the kid in the photo who had just turned 21 and before long the entire bar was crowded around Mom and her new friends singing happy birthday and buying her drinks. Do birthdays get any better than that? I was in another room with Colton who wasn't old enough to go in to that part of the bar and therefore had no part in orchestrating anything. Imagine her celebrating a birthday with a candle on a cup cake and a bowl of Jell-O. Just doesn't come to mind does it? The original party animal, your grandmother.
Uncle Jeff

Money Money Money

Nothing much going on around here. Today I think I'll be lazy (sssshhh) to make up for running around yesterday like a chicken with my head cut off.

Just errands, no big deal but stuff that takes a keystroke in the states to accomplish, requires an hour of running around. Case in point...

Banking:

Here in Belgium, of course every transaction is done in euros. We are paid in dollars. When the end of the month looms or when our euro account gets too low for comfort, I have to drive onto SHAPE, write a check for a fairly large amount (you get the best exchange rate for $1000 or over), go to the U.S. cash cage, stand in line, cash the check and physically get the dollars.

With dollars stuffed nonchalantly in my purse, I leave the building, drive to the SHAPE headquarters building (which requires another security/ID check), park and walk about half a mile to my Belgian bank. There I walk up to the second floor, stand in line (there is always a line), and when I finally get to the teller, I hand him the wad of cash, he deposits into my dollar account and then transfers it directly into my euro account at the daily going exchange rate. WHEW.

Luckily, the rest of my euro banking can be done electronically. I have an automatic draft set up for our rent. You can also pay other bills by auto draft on the internet. In fact, checks are non existent in Europe. Everything is on a cash/debit/credit card or Proton basis. Proton is a small amount of money you put on your debit card that you can use for bus fare or parking... small stuff like that.

Internet banking is a little weird here. You have to sign up at the bank and pay a monthly fee. They hand you what looks like a deck of cards. This little box at left is what you get...

Then, at home, whenever you want to bank online, you insert your card into this dohickey thingie and answer all the prompts and it ends up giving you a code to use to log onto your account. A pain in the ass, if you ask me but maybe it's more secure.

Record keeping is also strange to me. There is a lot of paper generated and the bank gives you a little notebook to keep all the paperwork in. We were all instructed (at all the "Belgium" classes) to keep every paper because there will be instances where someone says they didn't get paid or money didn't get deposited and you have to produce paper proving you did. Here's the little notebook.

You also have to download or print all your bank statements immediately because the bank doesn't store the files. They also don't mail out statements.

Anywho... that was my dealio yesterday. Along with getting our cars registered again because our tags expired this month, recycling, shopping, taking Carol for a blood draw (big fun!), French class, taking Thom his suitcase (he left for Germany for a few days) and going to the post office, I also had my lovely monthly encounter with Belgian banking.

Wordless Wednesday #3

Waterloo

Lion Mound seen from the battlefield

Thom had the day off yesterday and the kids were in school so we decided to venture over to Waterloo (40 minutes from us) and check it out.

Waterloo, Belgium (for those of you rusty on your history) is the location of Napolean's last battle - the battle that put Napolean Bonaparte's rule as French Emperor to an end. On June 18, 1815 on the day after a terrible rain, the French did battle with the Allies (Prussian, British and Dutch) resulting in what must have been a big mud pie of death and bodily damage... 9,500 dead and 33,000 injured.

If you are a history buff and want to brush up on Napolean's last battle here is wikipedia's take on it: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo

The battlefield now has an awesome Lion Mound pictured above. You can huff and puff your way to the top for a terrific view of the battlefields. There is also a cultural center with a theatre and gift shop. There is also a Panorama (a 360 degree painting) and a wax museum across the street from the Lion Mound monument and the cultural center.

ADVICE: Take the bus tour, walk up to the top of the mound. Maybe watch the films but they are cheesyriffic at best. The Panorama and wax museum were in sad disrepair, damaged by moisture, poor lighting and dust so thick you couldn't really enjoy the costumes or display cases.

Up the stairs to the topA cut out at the base of the Panaroma erected in 1912

BattlefieldAnother self portrait

To Pee or Not to Pee

We had a great Saturday - went to see Star Trek up in Brussels where they were playing the movie in Original Version (no dubbing, just subtitles). We all loved it!

We shared a popcorn and drink and then when it came time leave we were funneled out of the theatre and out to the street like cattle. No detours or backtracking allowed for the bathroom. So we pop out of the theatre building into an area kind of like the Seattle Center... monuments, Little Europe, Beer Park, lots going on.

Of course we had to pee. Who doesn't have to pee after a movie? We search through Little Europe, no toilets. We walk down through the park by the Iron Atom statue, no toilets. And to top it off, everywhere we look there are soccer fans partying, thousands of them, drunk, staggering and dressed in yellow and red, loud music, buses and beer (you'd think there would be porta-potties?).

We get to our car, which is right in the middle of all the revelry and we can't figure out how to get out with all the soccer fans and their blocking buses. We inch forward anyway hoping no one will pummel us with beer bottles or jump on or in front of the van. Now about 20 minutes have elapsed and we are desperate. We edge our way through about four detours through the park, dodging bodies, moving barricades, smiling and waving at disgruntled partiers and finally we get out of the park. But alas, we are stuck in soccer traffic around the soccer stadium for another 30 minutes. Finally we get onto the motorway.

Our desperate destination... IKEA in Anderlecht (a suburb) for toilets and cheap dinner.

I input Anderlecht into the GPS and off we go but instead of driving by IKEA on the highway and getting off like we normally do, the GPS (being all smart and all) sends us off on a "shortcut" to downtown Anderlecht and on another 15 minutes detour from the bathrooms.

We finally made it (a full hour at least after the movie) and the day was saved and nobody had an accident but it sort of took the rosy glow off the fabulous movie... couldn't think or talk about anything but peeing afterwards.