miei cari, this brief post is only to let you know that in case you are around in Bruxelles tomorrow you have the UNIQUE opportunity to discover the little engineer in you! Wouldn't feel great to build things, see them shaping from random pieces of wood? So come tomorrow at 12 at my place and you will have the chance to experience the bliss of building my wardrobe! Doesn't sound fantastic?? Ehm... OK... then just come for the food. I will cook. You will eat a lot. Pleeeeeeeassssseeeeeeee.
:)
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
first rants from the new flat in Bruxelles
miei cari, as you have probably guessed by the title of the post, I actually did manage to find a flat in Bruxelles, despite the fact that the lady of the relocation agency was actually a real bullshitter. So let's start ranting immediately that I haven't been writing on my blogs for a long time and perhaps you started to think that the world is, after all, a nice place. NO!
where are my square meters? and, by the way, do I look like the secret daughter of Bill Gates?
these were the questions that I had to ask my relocation agency lady after she showed me the 2nd of some 50-to-55 square meter flats. After I specifically told her that I wanted at least 70 square meters. Then she sort of understood so she showed me flats in which most likely a grandma had just died, with old wallpaper, old bathroom, stinky kitchen... All of this for rents that were significantly higher than anything I had seen on internet up to then. Basically I went back to the hotel the first night feeling completely down, thinking that I would have to sleep on the benches in parc du cinquantenaire. Thanks god I had my computer with me, so I went on the site I had been looking at for months, found a flat, forced her to tak me there and now I am writing from the top floor of it:) Alba 1 : relocation agency 0
Having to deal with Belgacom is equivalent to having to drink 300 liters of warm beer when you are hangover
So you might guess that I have internet. Right. And perhaps you think that it was an easy process to get it. WRONG! I wanted to get internet and tv and I decide that I am waaaaaaaay too smart to ask the people that are leaving here already and I choose on my own to get them from belgacom. Then the technician calls me saying that he can come on Friday of the week before last and I told him that I cannot be home; to which he replies that anyway he can do everything from outside of the flat. Bullshit, you think? And you are right. So on Saturday I go to the shop, carry my modem, decoder and 15kg of cables to my flat, plug the crap in and nothing works. So I call them and they decide to come again on Tuesday of last week. The technician comes, impresses me favorably at the very first moment when he shows that he has not batteries for his instrument and after wondering around for 30 minutes decides that he has to leave because he cannot find the phone connection. Yours truly, as the little Sherlok Holmes that she is, tries to point out that that stuff downstairs in the cupboard that really looks like the phone box perhaps looks so because it actually is the phone box, but apparently I don't look intelligent enough. So we reschedule for Friday: the same extremely intelligent tecnician comes, opens the box downstairs (which, surprise!, was the phone box) and connects the modem. I am so happy that I just quickly check that it works before rushing to work. I come back at night to see the DSL light blinking, while it should have been fixed. After a very thorough troubleshooting (unplug the stuff, smoke a cigarette, plug it back in and hope in god), yours truly sadly realized that there is no bloody connection. So called the help support again and eventually today they sent a proper technician that fixed the thing in 15 minutes and now it works. Overall, Alba 1 : Belgacom 4.
OK, enough negative ranting. Let's also list the nice things about Bruxelles - cannot really say Belgium because the farthest away from Bruxelles I have been so far is work (3km outside) and Ikea (12km outside):
- supermarkets sell reaaaaaaaaaaaally nice food - I am currently in love with Delhaize.
- fritten, or French fries, or better even, Belgian fries, are reaaaaaaaaaaaally good.
- the little shop in Place Flagey not only is open in the weekend but sells the Gocciole, so I don't have to starve for breakfast
- this Place Flagey has a bar and "art" center that I reaaaaaaaaaaally like and that I can reach in 5 minutes by foot (or better that I will reach in 5 minutes by foot once temperatures will become bereable)
- there is a Kartell store
- there are a lot of nice weird shops with all sort of junk that I like
- and more
And, most importantly, I am only 47km away from our Preeti, Sameer and their little Ishaan! So this weekend I went there, got a lot of fantastic food (can I move in? I swear I don't teach the kiddo too many curses in Italian) and completely confused the little darling with my Italian words. The kid really looks nice and our Preeti also doesn't look horrendously stressed (or she was pretending very well:) ). Now I am seeing where to send the kiddo to school (well, you never know, perhaps the waiting lists are long...). I am so happy to have them close! Next time I will also make sure that I take pictures so that you can all see this little wonder. Bravi!!
And another great thing was that by chance I found one of my high school desk mates, Stefano, on facebook. I knew that he had become
a sound technician but had lost contact. Some time ago I read on fb that he will go touring with Daniele Silvestri (Italian singer that writes and sings decent quality songs and therefore is completely unheard of outside of Italy). Then 2 weekends ago I was wondering around in my new town when I see a poster of a concert of Daniele Silvestri. To make it short: not only I meet with the guy, but I also get in the place without paying, get free beers, see the concert from the stage (because he is the stage sound technician so I stayed with him and I was at 1 meter from the drummer and 4 meters from the singer) and get completely fascinated by this whole sound technician work thing: basically you are in front of 1.5 square meters of little knobs, buttons and junk and you press, turn, flip and the sound simply changes around you, like magic. Super cool. The other very interesting thing is that apparently Stefano became a really good cook, so I will make sure to invite myself to his place for dinner when I am in Milano:)
OK, need to go to bed now
ciaociao
where are my square meters? and, by the way, do I look like the secret daughter of Bill Gates?
these were the questions that I had to ask my relocation agency lady after she showed me the 2nd of some 50-to-55 square meter flats. After I specifically told her that I wanted at least 70 square meters. Then she sort of understood so she showed me flats in which most likely a grandma had just died, with old wallpaper, old bathroom, stinky kitchen... All of this for rents that were significantly higher than anything I had seen on internet up to then. Basically I went back to the hotel the first night feeling completely down, thinking that I would have to sleep on the benches in parc du cinquantenaire. Thanks god I had my computer with me, so I went on the site I had been looking at for months, found a flat, forced her to tak me there and now I am writing from the top floor of it:) Alba 1 : relocation agency 0
Having to deal with Belgacom is equivalent to having to drink 300 liters of warm beer when you are hangover
So you might guess that I have internet. Right. And perhaps you think that it was an easy process to get it. WRONG! I wanted to get internet and tv and I decide that I am waaaaaaaay too smart to ask the people that are leaving here already and I choose on my own to get them from belgacom. Then the technician calls me saying that he can come on Friday of the week before last and I told him that I cannot be home; to which he replies that anyway he can do everything from outside of the flat. Bullshit, you think? And you are right. So on Saturday I go to the shop, carry my modem, decoder and 15kg of cables to my flat, plug the crap in and nothing works. So I call them and they decide to come again on Tuesday of last week. The technician comes, impresses me favorably at the very first moment when he shows that he has not batteries for his instrument and after wondering around for 30 minutes decides that he has to leave because he cannot find the phone connection. Yours truly, as the little Sherlok Holmes that she is, tries to point out that that stuff downstairs in the cupboard that really looks like the phone box perhaps looks so because it actually is the phone box, but apparently I don't look intelligent enough. So we reschedule for Friday: the same extremely intelligent tecnician comes, opens the box downstairs (which, surprise!, was the phone box) and connects the modem. I am so happy that I just quickly check that it works before rushing to work. I come back at night to see the DSL light blinking, while it should have been fixed. After a very thorough troubleshooting (unplug the stuff, smoke a cigarette, plug it back in and hope in god), yours truly sadly realized that there is no bloody connection. So called the help support again and eventually today they sent a proper technician that fixed the thing in 15 minutes and now it works. Overall, Alba 1 : Belgacom 4.
OK, enough negative ranting. Let's also list the nice things about Bruxelles - cannot really say Belgium because the farthest away from Bruxelles I have been so far is work (3km outside) and Ikea (12km outside):
- supermarkets sell reaaaaaaaaaaaally nice food - I am currently in love with Delhaize.
- fritten, or French fries, or better even, Belgian fries, are reaaaaaaaaaaaally good.
- the little shop in Place Flagey not only is open in the weekend but sells the Gocciole, so I don't have to starve for breakfast
- this Place Flagey has a bar and "art" center that I reaaaaaaaaaaally like and that I can reach in 5 minutes by foot (or better that I will reach in 5 minutes by foot once temperatures will become bereable)
- there is a Kartell store
- there are a lot of nice weird shops with all sort of junk that I like
- and more
And, most importantly, I am only 47km away from our Preeti, Sameer and their little Ishaan! So this weekend I went there, got a lot of fantastic food (can I move in? I swear I don't teach the kiddo too many curses in Italian) and completely confused the little darling with my Italian words. The kid really looks nice and our Preeti also doesn't look horrendously stressed (or she was pretending very well:) ). Now I am seeing where to send the kiddo to school (well, you never know, perhaps the waiting lists are long...). I am so happy to have them close! Next time I will also make sure that I take pictures so that you can all see this little wonder. Bravi!!
And another great thing was that by chance I found one of my high school desk mates, Stefano, on facebook. I knew that he had become
a sound technician but had lost contact. Some time ago I read on fb that he will go touring with Daniele Silvestri (Italian singer that writes and sings decent quality songs and therefore is completely unheard of outside of Italy). Then 2 weekends ago I was wondering around in my new town when I see a poster of a concert of Daniele Silvestri. To make it short: not only I meet with the guy, but I also get in the place without paying, get free beers, see the concert from the stage (because he is the stage sound technician so I stayed with him and I was at 1 meter from the drummer and 4 meters from the singer) and get completely fascinated by this whole sound technician work thing: basically you are in front of 1.5 square meters of little knobs, buttons and junk and you press, turn, flip and the sound simply changes around you, like magic. Super cool. The other very interesting thing is that apparently Stefano became a really good cook, so I will make sure to invite myself to his place for dinner when I am in Milano:)
OK, need to go to bed now
ciaociao
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