Married to the MOBIB

It is, almost literally, as if I have married Brussels and have had a little honeymoon and am now settling down to work out how I live with this strange, moody creature.  This is known as: the end of the honeymoon period.  Although to be fair, it's not exactly been very honeymoony, unless you find administration and transport strikes and poo of various varieties romantic.  If you do, please get help.

What worries me a little is that I haven't really been excited yet.  I get the odd vertiginous surge that culminates in a tiny whoop, but mainly I'm doing a sort of plodding slalom around the doggy caca, and forgetting to buy toilet paper.   Not for the dogs - they are long gone. 

My work hours have been all over the place this week, and the upside of this was that I found myself in the Place du Chatelain on a Wednesday afternoon, where a small but glorious market happens.  And although it was lovely, and I promised myself that that was where I would live next, there was no feeling, no excitement, no pleasure.

Have I, in fact, married the wrong city?  I have been looking at jobs in Paris, Luxembourg, even Florence, for fucksake.  Now that I have to really start making a life, I plead boredom and look for escape routes.  And this tetchy old cow will be there, wherever I go.  Perhaps this is a normal part of settling in.

There are probably quite a few things I can do.

1.  Stop being such a mardy introvert and go out.  There are nice people out there.

2.  Similarly, go on a few dates, if possible.

3.  Treat the weekends as if they were a holiday.  Be a tourist in my own city.  Have lovely dinners.  Bugger about a bit.

4.  Ignore, as best I can, the well-meant but depressing comments about crime and taxes and the dreadfulness of everything here.  This is very important.   


That will do for now.