Inese Dūka

Part II: The new life

Today I was supposed to bring a colleague Stephen Clarke's A Year in the Merde. As I first had a doctor's appointment ( I finally decided coughing for a month cannot be all too healthy) the book came in handy to keep me entertained the 35 min I had to wait for the doctor. I must say that at least the beginning of the book is very very funny and I will be looking forward to my turn reading the book. But it also reminded me that it was high time I come up with the promised story of the new life in Belgium.

It has already been almost 4 months since I have moved here. The last time I have been away from home for so long was my last time in Denmark in the autumn of 2003. But it is not the longest time away yet. My first stay in Denmark in 1999 lasted for almost 5 months. But then again - I am not sure five months here will count for the same because I have already been to Riga once. My dad's birthday, brother's name-day and Depeche Mode concert were conveniently close together… ;-)

How has it been here? Nowhere near as funny as A Year in the Merde. I guess a Latvian in Belgium is not quite the same as an Englishman in France… Partially because who knows what an Belgian is actually like? And partially because working as a translator for an EU institution means working almost exclusively with your fellow countrymen. So work-wise there is almost no difference where I am. Only when you attempt to leave your office or your apartment you feel that you are not where you grew up...

I can't quite agree with the many people who say that Brussels is boring. Perhaps it's just me, but I am not bored here. Though almost the only entertainment I take from the city life is going to the occasional film or an even rarer pub or bar. Why the almost non-existent social life? Have you ever heard of such a thing as sloth?... ;-)) At the moment I am really enjoying going home and not having to do any freelance translation. But then again... Many evenings when we arrive home from work and prepare some dinner there is not much else we feel up to doing. So we end up watching some TV or a film, or a marathon of a couple of episodes from a TV series DVD (so far I have finished 2 seasons of Dawson's Creek, one and a half seasons of Lost and 8 seasons of Friends). Mostly I do it alone because Arta much rather prefers her books, but sometimes Egita also joins me. The other thing that occupies a couple of evenings in the week is going to the gym with Egita. I am quite glad that we have found this thing to do together as it is not only healthy but also interesting for getting to know each other. And there is still some getting to know to be done with Egita, as before we became neighbours (we live in the same house) we had only studied together for 2 years (unlike the 6 years with Arta).

Then there are the weekends. Brussels seems to be located so nicely that it's easy to go to places. All of a sudden Paris is just 80 min away. As a result this weekend will already be the 2nd time for us this year that we are going there. In mid February we took Arta's mom and now it's my mom's turn. Weekends are the time when I spend the least time with Arta because many weekends she spends with her boyfriend in Denmark. But when both of us manage to find a weekend that both of us are here in Brussels we use the time to explore the city a bit more. For example by fetching a ride on a sightseeing bus. It was informative and quite enjoyable. And useful. After our ride we have less trouble trying to form a big picture of Brussels from separate little places. To be continued…