The Belgium I know is not that of Brugges, the Manneken Piss, Brussels or Antwerpen. It is the French Belgium in the province of Namur: A 30km radio surrounding the city, Namur.
As elsewhere in Europe, Belgium's constructions still smell like centuries. The narrow stairs, the small steps, the wood that squeaks when stepping on it, the strong walls, the heatings in the walls, the red color that's predominates.
Suddenly, in one of the many houses I stayed at, I asked:
- Excuse me, the toilet?
- Go to the kitchen and right there, in front of the stove is the toilet.
- Thanks.
A toilet in the kitchen? in front of the stove? and what if...? there's somebody cooking?
I met the afternoon with a friend to get a drink. Now she's married, has two children and just they bought an old house at a very good price in the outskirts of Liege. It has been hard, because like so many young couples here, they have had to do the remodelings. Then she tells me that the first difficult part was to construct a toilet. A toilet? -I asked her- but if a toilet is so part of a house as the kitchen or a room. Well, not completly, in the house they bought use to live an old woman, and so during her generation they used to bath in the kitchen. At that time the toilet where outside of the house.
But with the modern times also new parameters of hygiene were stablished. But the money is always a problem, and people had to construct the toilet, wc, near the kitchen, because the needed to spend less in installing complex pipes all around the house.
Then you star to understand these things, those that seems strange. And you don't feel shame get to the bath between onions, cereal and milk.
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Newlyweds in Belgium
Vincent and Caroline are a couple that decided three years ago to live together. First they rented an apparment, then decided to buy a house.
Nowadays Caroline is waiting their first baby, they don't want to say the name yet, it's going to be a surprise. She follows the cares that must have a woman with 6 months of pregnancy, although between bricks, land and tools of construction.
They are in the late 20's, their jobs are ok for middle-class. They dedicate their free time to the construction and remodeling of their home. Vincent explains me from the cellar the all they been throught to put the pipe of the climate, the electricity, the water.
In the ground floor they've adapted a small space as a kitchen, because there's still walls to throw. In the attic he tells me how they had to do, with the help of their parents, to fix the chimney, to throw the oldest part and to remake it new.
7km away of Namur there's Vedrin, the suburb where they bought the house. The house they bought is kind of old, and because of that they had a good deal on it. With the cost of the workers in Europe, and even the materials for the remodeling, the newlyweds don't have much choice than do it by themselves, and to dedicate the first 3 or 5 years of their life as a couple to one common project: to create a home, from the physical meaning of the term.
Nowadays Caroline is waiting their first baby, they don't want to say the name yet, it's going to be a surprise. She follows the cares that must have a woman with 6 months of pregnancy, although between bricks, land and tools of construction.
They are in the late 20's, their jobs are ok for middle-class. They dedicate their free time to the construction and remodeling of their home. Vincent explains me from the cellar the all they been throught to put the pipe of the climate, the electricity, the water.
In the ground floor they've adapted a small space as a kitchen, because there's still walls to throw. In the attic he tells me how they had to do, with the help of their parents, to fix the chimney, to throw the oldest part and to remake it new.
7km away of Namur there's Vedrin, the suburb where they bought the house. The house they bought is kind of old, and because of that they had a good deal on it. With the cost of the workers in Europe, and even the materials for the remodeling, the newlyweds don't have much choice than do it by themselves, and to dedicate the first 3 or 5 years of their life as a couple to one common project: to create a home, from the physical meaning of the term.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Something about Belgians today
At the end of 2001 Euro (€) became Europe's common currency. It'e been 5 years already from that day.
My last visit to Belgium was right before the Euro existed, my memory had all prices in Belgian francs. So I can see how the price of a beers and many other things have raised, this thinking has been shared by many Belgians.
And in my attempt to have new referrals of prices here I asked for the price of the houses in the suburbs of Namur, perhaps the most bourgeois city in Wallonia. The answer was "800.000" what my mind it became more than a million dollars. So the I was scared, because as expensive this area could be, this is far away from Beverly Hills or Bell Air residences. Then I asked once again, and they told me the same thing; adding the word "franc"; then I understood that they were talked about the old Belgian francs, the currency that I knew and learned to handle when I lived here.
And during my days in here, when I ask people about price of a Jaguar, a house, a 100m² apparment in Downtown's Namur, or anything like that they always have responded in Belgian Francs. Perhaps people around here already knows whatever is in Euros the things of the supermaket, for the household chores and stuff; but when it is about bigger investments, 5 years have not been enought to make those conversions.
My last visit to Belgium was right before the Euro existed, my memory had all prices in Belgian francs. So I can see how the price of a beers and many other things have raised, this thinking has been shared by many Belgians.
And in my attempt to have new referrals of prices here I asked for the price of the houses in the suburbs of Namur, perhaps the most bourgeois city in Wallonia. The answer was "800.000" what my mind it became more than a million dollars. So the I was scared, because as expensive this area could be, this is far away from Beverly Hills or Bell Air residences. Then I asked once again, and they told me the same thing; adding the word "franc"; then I understood that they were talked about the old Belgian francs, the currency that I knew and learned to handle when I lived here.
And during my days in here, when I ask people about price of a Jaguar, a house, a 100m² apparment in Downtown's Namur, or anything like that they always have responded in Belgian Francs. Perhaps people around here already knows whatever is in Euros the things of the supermaket, for the household chores and stuff; but when it is about bigger investments, 5 years have not been enought to make those conversions.
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