I HATE Belgium

I HATE Belgium. Officially. I HATE the constant summons to the Commune, to be snubbed by some fat, pea-brained Belgian local government pen-pusher with a large salary and no sense of initiative*. I HATE being asked to provide a different document each time and then when I arrive being told that it's the wrong one and I am late and I should have brought Annex X blah blah blah.

I HATE that I have to pay over two thousand euros in social security per year - effectively paying the salaries and child benefits of the fat, brainless local government penpushers - when I have absolutely no intention of retiring here or withdrawing a Belgian state pension.

I HATE the look of simple contempt I got from the fat local government penpusher this morning, simply for being a foreign woman who dared to speak up to him in his own language.

P: Here, my declaration of revenue for last year. Hands over tax declaration.
Fat official: That's no good. I need a monthly declaration.
P: Divide it by twelve! It's a valid declaration of my earnings.
Fat official: It doesn't count. You need a monthly declaration.

Please note, that the Fat, Stupid Official simply kept repeating the same words, over and over, without attempting to explain or justify anything. Because when your salary and social security contributions are guaranteed for life by the Belgian government, you don't have to be polite to people or to think outside the box. No-one is going to fire him, it's too difficult. All he has to do is slump like a fat dollop of stoemp in front of his computer all day and be obnoxious to foreign girls.

See what I mean?! Fat and stupid, all of them. I spend my hard-earned euros here, in their country, paying their extortionate sales VAT rate, and there they are, treating me like a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoes!

I HATE that - although I have every right to be here, as a European citizen with freedom of movement - they decide to make it as difficult as possible for me to function here. Why do I need to register anyway? I pay my rent, I have enough to eat, why do I need one of your silly little identity cards when I have a perfectly good British passport thank you? And what makes you think I'm so desperate to be a Belgian resident anyway? I would love it if work were located in London and I could simply bypass all this ridiculous bureaucracy altogether. Believe me, I am not here for fun!

I HATE that the 'Capital of Europe' has to be this bureaucratically pedantic little city, when it could be in Paris, Florence, London, Kraków, Berlin... Europe has so many beautiful and lively cities. Why does it have to be hateful Belgium?!

I HATE Belgium!

*what did you think I was going to say?!

Ghent

Finally, I got to look around Ghent. At least, I almost did.

For some reason, temperatures in Brussels have once again plummeted. After finishing work I went to meet up with a friend. Ghent is known for being pretty and cool and for having canals. We tried to walk along the canal towards the main square. Icy winds whipped our coats open and our hair around our faces.

- Let's go for coffee. Somewhere indoors.

We found a great café, somewhere that used to be a Socialist Cultural Centre, and stayed there for two hours. Then my friend had to go. I tried hard to visit the centre of Ghent, I really did, but I was dressed to sit in front of a microphone and not to battle with the elements.

The final sign that it was destined not to be came on the threshold of the cathedral. Resolving to do Something Cultural before escaping with relief on the next tram to the station, I decided to go in and have a look around. There were two or three shallow steps up to the main doors. A wedge of rather splintery plywood formed a makeshift disabled access ramp. To one side sat a stout Roma lady with a begging bowl.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

As I approached the door and started up the steps, the Roma lady called out to me. I turned to look at her and at the same time quickened my step...
...causing me to lose my balance and trip on the disabled access ramp. I sprawled forward, one shoe flying off and one knee smashing down hard onto the stone step.
The Roma lady began to chatter urgently. I snatched back my lost shoe and lurched hastily and dramatically into the cathedral, giving what must have been a pretty fair impression of the hunchback of Notre Dame.

I hate to say it but I'm a coward with injuries, especially my own, and once inside my head began to spin and colours flashed in front of my eyes. Relinquishing my last shreds of dignity, I sank onto the floor with my head between my knees, looking for all the world like a four o'clock homeless drunk.
The church floor was cool and smooth and the air dry and clean. The spinning began to subside... and then along came the Sacristan and shooed out me and the other tourists and vagrants so he could close the church.

I gave up and headed for the nearest tram stop.

I promise to go back and take pretty photos of Ghent, some other time. Preferably once Belgium stops behaving like the Siberian steppes and the sun comes out again.

VAT actually

After several months of wavering between one side of the Channel and the other, I finally bit the bullet and joined the dark side. I am taking the plunge and becoming a Resident here. This means I have to pay VAT, even though my turnover is laughably low.

To pay VAT, you first need a VAT number (stay with me, this gets better, I promise). And indeed you have to pay to receive this magic number (why? Do they calculate it by rolling some kind of solid gold dice?), at a place called the Carrefour d'Entreprises. In practice this means your mutualité. Probably.

I went to the counter and took a ticket. It read 520. The number on the display was 739.

- Excuse me... excuse me!
The receptionist glared at me.
- I don't understand: this says 520 but the counter is already at 739.
- There are different series. Yours starts with 5.
explained the receptionist, as if this were obvious.

My turn came, about half a Tok FM podcast later.

The guy behind the counter was a smiley sort of Belgian. He smiled hello, did a double take and smiled again.
I explained my situation and he started tapping away at the computer.

- You seem tracassée
He observed, oozing charm, smiling some more.

- uhhh non, non, pas tellement...
To be honest, I was pretty damn tracassée. I was about - voluntarily - to sign up for significantly higher social security payments (largely due to a state pension that I will never receive, plus child benefits that everyone in Belgium pays, for everyone else's snot-nosed offspring), with no hope of a rebate for the first three years, not to mention all the administrative burden of a quarterly VAT return. And - thanks to major delays from the last French translation company I worked for* - I didn't even have the 75€ in my Belgian account to pay for the bloody VAT number.
I was coming out of the woodwork, while all my instincts were telling me just to lie low and hope no-one at the Comune came round to check. Here I was, volunteering to pay major extra tax, willingly moving from a small-business friendly economy to a bloody-unfriendly-let's-be-frank-here one. Just the thought of it brought me out in a cold sweat.

The guy was very smiley indeed. He took my passport, copied it, clocked that it was British and came back talking in English. I think they may be trained to do this. I certainly don't mind, and if I then rattle off at  lightening pace in my native tongue, dropping in some juicy idioms on the way, is it my fault if they don't understand me? You want to speak English? Bring it on**.

Suddenly, to my great alarm, I realised that Smiley Belgian Guy was actually flirting with me.

He started to go through the social security form. Name, Surname, Place of Birth... oh no.
I could see what was coming.

- Are you married?
- Oh gosh no.
- Ah ha! slightly too-loud laugh, coquettishly raised eyebrow 'So you are all alone?'

No! No, I have a really, really tall boyfriend who works out a lot.

- Well, yes, I mean, I have a dog.
more laughter
- not here, obviously, at my parents' house. I can't bring her here, she doesn't have a passport. Can you go over this social security thing for me again please?

And - get this - now the guy calls to his colleague: 'Hey, how's your English? Can you come over here a minute?' Even though we had been speaking in French up until the moment I handed over my passport.

- Mais il n'y a aucun souci,  je parle français!
- Vous parlez français?! (why does he seem so surprised?!)
- Je suis interprète quand même ...

This is a phrase I find myself using relatively often; I'm never quite sure how rude it sounds to a francophone... but it normally sorts out the English-speaking problem. He did look a bit affronted though.

- Sign here.

All this above-board business was starting to get to me. A twitch had developed in my left eyelid and the pen felt slippery in my hand.

- Anything else I have to do?
- Just e-mail me your diploma*** and pay for the VAT number.
- And where exactly should I email the diploma to?
- Oh yes... another smile - here's my card.

Very smooth.




* I came this close to adding a hyperlink to their website, but now is not the time nor the place.
** Although I realise I should be practising my French while I'm here. I find a foolproof method for being spoken to in French is very blatantly to read a very large book with a very obviously Polish title.
*** In Belgium you're not allowed to be a self-employed professional unless you can prove you're qualified for it.

Are Belgians shy?

I haven't actually had the pleasure of meeting all that many Belgians, now you come to mention it. I've chatted to several at parties, I've met a few in various choirs, but I really haven't actually got to know all that many.

This could be my fault. I am - when not outright shy - at least reserved, in a bordering-on-the-reclusive old-fashioned British way.

But I don't think so. I mean, in Kraków I certainly met plenty of Polish people...

And, now I come to think of it, I probably know more Polish people here than Belgians. Even the slightly scary lady who sells the newspapers on the ground floor at work is Polish (sort of makes sense, doesn't it?). It's rather comforting actually, but that's beside the point. I've been here for almost six months and I only have two Real Belgians in my telephone directory.

I mentioned this to my friend in Antwerp, who has been here a bit longer than me.

- oh yeah, she said, Belgians are really shy.

I have to admit that the Belgians of my acquaintance have not struck me as particularly shy.
Especially the new Belgian friend with whom I hitched a ride back to the UK, across snow-covered Belgium and ice-bound northern France, after I missed my train home for Christmas. Note that she was just popping over to the UK to do a spot of shopping. And made it back - through fresh snowfall - within forty-eight hours. I have a lot of respect for Belgian women now.

However, my Antwerp-dwelling ex-pat friend described the awkward silences in the lift at work, the lack of eye-contact reminiscent of Monday morning on the Tube. One day, she said, two Dutch members of the management decided to play a joke on their shyer netherlandophone colleagues, by putting up posters encouraging employees to greet each other and make conversation in the lift.

The awkwardness must have been excruciating.

At least in Britain there's always the weather to fall back on.

Are Belgians really shy? What do you think?

oh gosh... (again)

I am Working tomorrow, like, properly working, outside, with other people!
This means I have to:

- have a bath
- get dressed before midday
- put make-up on
- leave the flat

On the other hand, it also means that I must not:

- talk to myself
- check the blog during office hours
- take shoes off
- eat hair/pick nose/pick toenails* at desk
- get up every ten minutes to make tea
- mention Poland/my dog every other sentence.

oh gosh... it's going to be hard.

*not that I actually do any of those disgusting things, who me? What were you thinking?!

Freelancing pour les nuls

A friend recently dived off the solid rock of in-house employment into the icy (often shark-infested) waters of the freelance market.

We were discussing the various aspects of working from home, cancelled contracts, weekends spent hunched over a hot laptop, a slave driver of a boss who has you up at all hours to meet a deadline (psst - by the way, that boss is You).

- But doesn't it drive you a bit nuts working from home on your own??
- No it's fine, really. I only ever go two or three days at the most without speaking to anyone.
- Two or three days?!
- It might be a good idea to get a television...

I've been going it alone for about a year and a half now, but only then did I suddenly realise how horrifying it all sounds.

Fortunately, I've found this helpful - if rather patronising - brief guide on how to be a freelancer. All you need to know on how to work from home... and not go utterly nuts.

1/ Make sure you eat properly. Properly means high-fibre breakfast cereal, lean proteins and green vegetables. You will be a lean, mean translating machine. It does not include Liegois waffles, Leffe brune or Nutella.
Eat at a table or - if no table is available - in front of the television. Munching over the computer keyboard (especially while Skyping) is strictly disgusting and we would never dream of doing such a thing.

2/ Leave the house once a day. Checking your letterbox does not count. Good excuses for leaving the house include: running out of milk, buying European Voice (I know you can read it online, but just pretend), visiting the Bureau des Etrangers, going jogging. If you are having trouble getting out of the house to do exercise, try buying new sports shoes or a high-tech sweat-absorbing hat. The prospect of sport is far more enticing when it involves outfits.

3/ Speak to at least one (real) person a day. This can be the lady at the Post Office, the bloke behind the counter at the 24-hour corner shop, the customer services staff at Mobistar, etc. NB Skype chat absolutely does not count.

4/ Maintain your sartorial elegance. Try to be out of your pyjamas by noon. Make sure you own more than one pair of sweatpants. So that you can wash them at least once a week. Remember where you left your hairbrush. Compensate for lack of grooming by wearing very girly earrings.
If you find yourself pulling on a pair of old comfy jeans every day... well done. You still haven't hit the bottom. Real home-workers find jeans formal and restrictive and are longing to ease them off and hang out in baggy tracksuit bottoms.

5/ Try to moderate time spent sitting in front of the computer screen. Do not on any account spend your evenings checking Facebook, scrawling on Twitter or writing blog posts. That is what office hours are for.

6/ Build up a good network of colleagues. You can then meet for regular lunch and coffee breaks. This is an excellent procrastination strategy as it will take you at least twenty minutes to get to the meeting point and back. Plus it counts as work (especially if you speak in foreign).

7/ Build up a good network of other layabouts people who like to drink during the week. This is a lot more important than you would think: Monday morning deadlines are pretty common, which tends to put a damper on your weekend. Then, when you get to Wednesday and are gasping for a G&T, you have someone to call on. This network may include other freelancers, students, the long-term unemployed, musicians, British people.

8/ Remember what time of day it is. This is trickier than you might think. Investing in an alarm clock is probably a good idea. If you can, try and remember the days of the week. It's nice to have an Actual Paper Diary, with little paper corners you can tear off. When things become chronologically distressing, it gives you something comforting to hold on to.

9/ Remember that none of the following are abnormal: talking to yourself, talking to the television, jumping when the phone rings, giving names to household appliances.

That's about it.

Thank goodness for that.

Fear

I am currently in a paradoxical position. I'm about to start the job that I've always dreamed of (not that I would ever do anything so sentimental as dream, but let's pretend). Or in any case that I've dreamed of since that amusing little game in French conversation class where one lectrice pretends not to speak English and the other not to speak French and it's all terribly jolly.
The contradiction is that I'm absolutely terrified. My first day won't be for a little while yet and I'm avoiding all work-type buildings as far as possible. When I do go in (usually to fill in forms) I find myself unthinkingly edging along the corridors, close to the walls, as if I'm in some bizarre Eurothriller, with gun-toting enemies waiting around the corner. I end up standing in the front corner of the lift, nearest the door, not making eye contact with anyone and hoping no-one with heart trouble steps in on the next floor. I peer around doors before entering. I wish I could become invisible.
I am also frightened of colleagues. Even (especially) the lady who sells newspapers on the ground floor. I can just about manage consecutive practice with a Polish colleague. Meeting with English colleagues is slightly fraught but not impossible (all text and email correspondence is edited repeatedly: some people eat under stress - I correct grammar). I am Absolutely Petrified of the boss - quite irrationally because he is actually very nice.

The other day I got what appeared to be a medical bill written in Flemish. It took me a little while to work out what it was and then I remembered.
In about my second week here, I went on a date in Antwerp. I don't often go on dates, for fear of causing harm to myself and to other people.
Some time in the early evening on this date, I begin to feel a slight ache in my stomach. I had skipped lunch (because I was a/ nervous and b/ late for my train) and drunk a beer on an empty stomach, so this was not entirely out of the ordinary. We decided to go and get something to eat, and found a table at a rather posh Thai restaurant.
The food arrived. I ate a little. The stomach ache got worse.
- This is really great, said my date, 'you should try some'
I shook my head.
- Mmm, yours is really good too! He reached over with the fork and speared several chunks of chicken and cashew nuts, while I turned a fetching shade of pale green.
 - I think I need to go home. I said.
We paid up and headed for the station.
The pain got worse.
I started to drag my feet.
- Maybe you should see a doctor?
- No, I'm fine, really, I just need to go home. Sorry.
We moved on, me hunched over and shuffling.
- Just give me a second... I said, and sank to my heels for a few moments.
And then the guy decided to play knight-in-shining-armour.
- I'm taking you to the hospital. Come on, we're getting a taxi.

I wasn't going to argue, and it was a huge relief to sink into the back seat of the taxi.

So that was how I ended up spending half a night in the emergency room of Antwerp hospital. Nothing was wrong with me. When I get nervous, my guts play up. And I was nervous, because I liked the guy.
They bundled me into an x-ray machine, asked me at least fifty times whether I was pregnant and whether I was sure I wasn't pregnant, and then gave me some horrible purgative thing, and I felt worse. It was far from dignified. I missed my last train back to Brussels and had to throw my contact lenses down the sink and stumble home half-blind the next morning (afternoon).

Needless to say, there was no second date.

And now - four months later - a hospital bill for seventy euros, reminding me of what an idiot I am, reminding me that I need to sort out my health insurance and transfer some money into my Belgian account, reminding me that I should really simply not date, at all, for the health and well-being of everyone.

And that fear and nerves have a way of sabotaging everything.