THE SOUND OF B X L
7 September 2007
Everyone I know here in Brussels has a kind of love-hate relationship with the city. We love it because it is such an interesting place to work: Fab jobs, an exotic & exciting mixture of people from all over Europe and beyond, delicious food and drinks and a handy proximity to other countries when you want to go travelling. All this in a non-hectic environment where two hour lunches are OK.
Brussels is also great because it is a hub. People actually come here, either for the destination itself, or just passing through. (You see, I have lived in far more remote places where noone came just 'becasue they happened to pass by'!) In the last two weeks I have either randomly or planned, met 4 old friends - who all just happened to live here (without us knowing about eachother), or who are going to move here soon. It's absolutely LOVELY to have old friends just re-appearing like that, out of thin air! This is definitely a great advantage of BXL.
The flipside of this is the huge turnover of people. Just as quick as we came here, we may leave and disappear... You make new friends, get attached to them and then... then they decide to move somewhere else. Many young professionals are on short-term contracts and you are considered lucky to get a long contract - in BXL-terms this means about 1 year or longer. One of the Commission's favourite issues at the moment is 'flexicurity'- however most people working here (apart from in the EU institutions) is without any real job security whatsoever.
People come and people leave. If there was one sound of this city it would be the sound of suitcases rolling on the streets at night: We are arriving or departing from our long weekends somewhere else with our partners or families. London is just 2 hours by Eurostar and if you take the Friday afternoon train to London Waterloo, faces are full of expectations. The Brussels double lives are on the road.
We are here because we love it. We leave because we can't stand it. And then we come back because we realise we have our lives here. Time is moving on and it turns out that, in reality, our 'old lives' are not how we remembered (and sometimes glorified) them.
We are internationalists and have to learn living with the sound of the rolling suitcases. It's not as luxurious it might seem from the outside. But it's usually very exciting.
7 September 2007
Everyone I know here in Brussels has a kind of love-hate relationship with the city. We love it because it is such an interesting place to work: Fab jobs, an exotic & exciting mixture of people from all over Europe and beyond, delicious food and drinks and a handy proximity to other countries when you want to go travelling. All this in a non-hectic environment where two hour lunches are OK.
Brussels is also great because it is a hub. People actually come here, either for the destination itself, or just passing through. (You see, I have lived in far more remote places where noone came just 'becasue they happened to pass by'!) In the last two weeks I have either randomly or planned, met 4 old friends - who all just happened to live here (without us knowing about eachother), or who are going to move here soon. It's absolutely LOVELY to have old friends just re-appearing like that, out of thin air! This is definitely a great advantage of BXL.
The flipside of this is the huge turnover of people. Just as quick as we came here, we may leave and disappear... You make new friends, get attached to them and then... then they decide to move somewhere else. Many young professionals are on short-term contracts and you are considered lucky to get a long contract - in BXL-terms this means about 1 year or longer. One of the Commission's favourite issues at the moment is 'flexicurity'- however most people working here (apart from in the EU institutions) is without any real job security whatsoever.
People come and people leave. If there was one sound of this city it would be the sound of suitcases rolling on the streets at night: We are arriving or departing from our long weekends somewhere else with our partners or families. London is just 2 hours by Eurostar and if you take the Friday afternoon train to London Waterloo, faces are full of expectations. The Brussels double lives are on the road.
We are here because we love it. We leave because we can't stand it. And then we come back because we realise we have our lives here. Time is moving on and it turns out that, in reality, our 'old lives' are not how we remembered (and sometimes glorified) them.
We are internationalists and have to learn living with the sound of the rolling suitcases. It's not as luxurious it might seem from the outside. But it's usually very exciting.
posted by Cat @ Friday, September 07, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home