1/21-1/24/2011- Our first couple days in Belgium

After getting most of the boxes unpacked on day one and day thanks to Margarets help!  We made some trips to our local grocery store (Carrfour) which is truly an intense process since all of the labels are either in French or Dutch and since we are not fluent or not even close to fluent in either it makes things a challenge to say the least.... you could be buying meatball or bull testicles...who knows :)  It is always refreshing to see pics of branded items  (Mr Clean pic is always the same but its not called that here).  

On Monday 1/24 we made had our big appt at the ING branch with the manager to get our accounts finalized which despite the nearly two hour meeting things went smooth.  We left with a temporary cash card and after our money was wired from our US account we actually had some funds! 

Shortly after it was off to the city hall where our relocation agent met us to help with process of filing for our residence permits...Got to love all the legal documents...thank goodness for the for immigration attorneys.  After filing for our residence permit a police officer came to our door abour a week later to confirm we live there (yes we do) and then our applications were almost done.  Once they are finalized all of us will get a hard plastic electronic residence card which we will bring with our US driver license to the police station to get our international driver license. 

The pictures below are from our first day in the house, the kids first ride in mommy's new car and then our first trip into brussels (in the underground parking ramp)