chit chat...

Liege is located in French speaking area in Belgium. Its an old town situated by the borders line of Germany (Aachen), The Netherlands (Maastricht) and France. Truthfully, life in here is pretty good and it definitely different as what I thought before. At the first time when we arrived in here, I felt totally bizarre when I heard Belgian speak French, as we normally heard people speak English in the U.K.

The first time we stepped our foot in this country was on 1st April 2008.Our flight touch down at Brussels airport, and we took the train to Liege. At first, it quite awkward and difficult because all the signboards are in Dutch and French only. So we had trouble to understand it. There was incident where I ask a lady about the train directiom to Liege. Luckily, she was heading to the same direction as ours. In fact she’s being my friend since then. We will meet up at least twice per week at mine. The first time she came to my house she brought me a bouquet of tulips flowers as a welcoming gift. Thanks to Stephanie for help me. The journey by train took about 1hour. When we arrived at Liege Guillman train station, Greg (which is Am’s Supervisor) came to collect and drove us to our new apartment, located right in the middle of liege city centre. I thought it a bit outskirt, but I was wrong. Whatever..at least I manage to go everywhere by foot. Such a relief!

Apparently, for the day two in Liege we settled in by, Am registered with the university, opened our bank account and registered with the city council (all new comers must register with city council, if we fail to do so legal action can be charged, the truth is after the registration, in 2 weeks police will come to check our accommodation to make sure it suitable for us or not. In our case we were lucky because police just left the notice and we had to go to the police station to submit the document that was needed by them). The next day Greg invited us to Ikea to buy some furniture since our apartment half furnished property. We only need to buy bed, sofa and washing machine only, the rest are provided by our landlord. Thanks to Greg and Laurence for their hospitality and help.

As the time goes by, now it has been a month since we arrived in Belgium. How fast the time flies! Everything seems familiar to me. We are getting used to the surrounding and the ambiance in Liege . We found Halal butchery nearby ours (10minutes by walking).We know where to go for cheap groceries. Only internet provider and health insurance left to be chosen. Those just in the matter of time. Wait for allowances first!!

New life and new culture so far are doing well for us. Belgian that so polite and friendly, they will definitely acknowledge you by greeting “bonjour” every time we enter the shops. The way they greet you show how sincere they are. So far so good. Unfortunately, we can’t understand the language, If not the condition will be much better than it is now. There is a proverb saying that when in Rome do as Romans, so I think in my case when in Belgium do as Belgian, does it count? hahaha..

Oh by the way, I am looking forward to learn French and in fact my friend Laurence is now doing survey on behalf of me to find the best and cheapest or maybe free place to enroll for French course. I hope I can master in French, maybe in the future. Who knows? Furthermore, French is one of the International language. So such a shame if I’m not learning the language.
That all I can think for the time being of life in Belgium…maybe next time for my next entry, more details about my new life…that’s all..Ciao!!