Brussels, Belgium - Week 2
Hello Family and Friends,
So I have been trying to hold off on really expressing exactly how terrible the lack of air-conditioning is in Europe. I was trying to leave it for one of our summary post. However, our first three days in Brussels have been consumed with moving hotel rooms and then ultimately moving to a different hotel because the lack of AC was unacceptable. By now I think you have fully captured the heat wave that we have been living through over the last two weeks. Rome was so bad that we are planning on returning in the fall so that we can really experience without the oppressive heat relegating us to our hotel room. But, even without the heat wave, we have had to move rooms at least once at every hotel we have stayed in since arriving to Europe because Brett needs AC to sleep. This moving hotel rooms has been so consistent that I have started to pack an overnight bag that I will live out of for the first night so that I don't need to re-pack my large bag to move the next day. While CeCe and Ian were traveling with us, their AC would work, but whatever room Brett was staying in wouldn't. We have a joke that Brett walks into a room and the AC breaks.
Brett plays this online game with people from around the world. Some of the other team mates are from Europe and Brett was asking them what is going on with the AC and is this normal. One of the team mates says that in Europe there is a 7C differential (about 14F). He explained that the temperature control doesn't allow inside to differ more than 14F from the temperature outside. I told Brett that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. If it is a 100F outside. 86F inside is too hot. And if it is 40F outside, 54 F inside is too cold. Room temperature is 70F and temperature control should be able to keep the inside 70F regardless of the outside temperature. That's just human decency.
We heard statistics that more Europeans die from heat related complications in a year than Americans do from gun violence. Stupid! I mean Europe isn't a 3rd world continent, they really should have this figured out by now. I hear that the World Cup being hosted in America has exposed the world to two things: ranch dressing and air-conditioning as a basic human right, not a luxury.
So our first room in our first hotel, too hot, along with a laundry list of other issues. Brett calls down to the front desk and says. "I hope that I just to happened to get the worst room in this hotel". Second night, windows open because at night it gets down to around 60F outside, but still too warm inside as the heat is running and we wake up with big welps on our arms and legs from bug bites. We spend a few hours reading reviews on other hotels in the city, looking specifically for comments about AC. We find a hotel that has positive reviews about the AC working even during the heat wave. We take a 30 minute bus across the city in hopes to visit a room to see if the AC really works. We are unable to visit a room, as the rooms were currently occupied. However, the lobby is blasting the AC and we specifically ask the front desk attendent if any one has made complaints about the AC not being able to keep up. She tells us that she has received no complaints and that even during the heat wave the AC was able to keep the rooms cool. We ride 30 minutes back to our hotel, pack up and move into the new hotel. And let me tell you, it has been great. It is so cool inside that I am writing this blog while in a sweater. But this is my baseline since being married to Brett. He walks around with as little clothes as possible, I wear a sweater and he complains I have too many clothes on (marriage is full of compromise). But you know what, this time I don't complain about wearing a sweater indoors in July, my husband is cool; my husband is happy; I am happy. When I get tired of being cold, I just go outside in the sun for about 5 minutes and I'm unthawed and ready to freeze again.
Working air conditioning? Check. The next item on the to-do-list is to enroll Atlas in daycare. We quickly realize that daycare in Belgium is for children younger than 3 years old. In Belgium school starts at 3 and daycares only accept children younger than 3. That leaves us wondering what do parents do with children during the summer. One parent told us that if you work for the European Union, you get 2 months off during the summer. Aww that's nice for them. But what about all the other parents who don't work for the EU?! What do they do with their kids over the summer? They put them in weekly summer camps. Okay, that can definently work for us, we are here for a short term, we can do 2 or so weekly summer camps. However, there is one big "but", they only accept potty trained children. Atlas has been playing around with potty training. He will pee in the potty if I tell him too, but he has never told me that he needed to pee in the potty. He will not poop in the potty. He is that kid who will get really quiet, hide under a table in order to poop in private, but he will not go on the toilet. I have caught him right before he is about to poop. We will rush to the toilet and sit there for 10 minutes and he still won't go. My sister, Davina, says his butthole gets shy. It happens to her patients all the time (she is a nurse). So I have a choice to make, I can keep Atlas with me for the next 3 weeks or so, or, I can get serious about this potty training and have him potty trained in under a week. I have decided to potty train. We're doing a combination of run around naked in the hotel and we have really cool "Cars" underwear that we don't want to mess up when we leave the hotel. At the writing of this blog we are on our third day of potty training, in the last 24 hours he has told me that he needs to go potty once and actually went pee. We still aren't pooping in the potty. We have 2 more days until summer camps starts and you best believe I will be sending him with big boy underwear, a change of clothes and wish them good luck!
Other things we have done outside the hotel is that we went to a Belgian parade. It is a commemeration of the coming of Charles V Ommegang of Brussels. It is recognized as a UNESCO historical pageant.
We followed the parade to the center of town to the Grand-Place.
It's a grand square, surrounded by beautiful gothic buildings. We ate dinner right off of the main square at this delicious Lebanese restaurant.
The entire historic downtown is full of shops and restaurants. I told Brett, if we move here I need to live close to downtown. I will never cook again.
On a separate trip to downtown, we went to find the "Manneken Pis" statue.
The male Manneken Pis statue originally served as a water fountain. The manneken was given his first costume in 1698. Since then he has collected over 1,000 costumes from visiting presidents. Many legends surround this manneken from a little boy peeing on a fire and saving Brussels, to peeing on the enemy and saving Brussels, to peeing on a witches house and being turned into stone. This little guy is all over Brussels in various forms.
In this first week, we have learned that the best way to get around the city is the bus. There is a metro and a tram, but those are limited to the center of town. Almost all the nail salon's only operate in cash. The primary language is French (I really don't like French.) There's a lot of diversity here in Brussels. In the past Brussels was a location for the French, English and even Germans to fight their wars without destroying their own cities. Now it is the seat of the European Union.
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