Tag Archives: belgium

in english

Belgium and the Netherlands, so close but so different

I did a lightning trip to Amsterdam yesterday, and was really surprised at the slight but definite changes at the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, even though they’re both part of what is generally defined as the Low Countries and I had made the same trip before. Below some that I could think about:

  • Languages: Suddenly people only speak English and Dutch in the train, German and French disappeared (except for the tourists, of course).
  • Landscape: Much more channels, bridges and water surrounding you.
  • Infrastructure: The train stations look newer. Funnily enough, they also look somehow dirtier.
  • Architecture: We went past a few windmills, and there are some definitely distinctive elements of architecture that are not found in Belgium. Brussels is more Frenchified, the Netherlands looks somehow, well, I don’t know how to explain it… German/Nordic maybe? We also passed in front of a couple of mosques.
  • Bycicles: I expected that to be part of the Brussels landscape, but it isn’t. In the Netherlands in general but in Amsterdam in particular bikes are everywhere.
in english

Belgian bureaucracy

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I had heard before that Belgium is renowned throughout Europe for being so thoroughly bureaucratic. I didn’t want to believe it (after all, Latin countries have exacly the same problem), but, boy, were they right. I won’t rant here about the immigration/residence permit procedures, which are excruciating as usual, but even simple stuff like ordering cable TV and getting WLAN at our flat has been an ordeal. The bureaucracy at the school has been the exception that confirms the rule, though, they’ve been spotless.

My advice: if you move here, make sure you don’t need anything urgently.

in english

Séléction Féderale

You can see that Belgium is quite a dividied country when the newscasters here don’t talk about the football national team, they talk about the football federal team. They say that Belgians are only united around the football team, the king and the flag, and I’m really starting to see that it’s (almost/mostly/???) true. Interesting.

in english

Creativity World Forum in Ghent, Belgium

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Creativity World Forum in Ghent, basically mentioning how regional governments, enterprises and individals can compete and benefit in the so-called creative economy. The event was comprised of two days of conferences and workshops, with some cocktails and extensive networking thrown in between as it happens in this kind of events.

Generally I can say that I was inspired by the congress, but there is still left one nagging feeling that the word “World” is slightly too pretentious in the name, given that there was nobody from two continents (South America and Africa) and the vast majority of the participants were Belgians from Flanders. However, I believe that it was a very good initaitive by the local government and it’s interesting to see the already the rise of the region-state that had been predicted by Thomas L. Friedman and Kenichi Ohmae.