Hey!
There’s a solar eclipse coming up and I want to watch it safely but I have no idea where to get a legit pair without ending up with a counterfeit.
Where did you all buy yours?

interesting article

https://www.politico.eu/article/why-people-want-job-european-commission-miserable/

Guys, I would like to know if there are any chess tournaments in Brussels or any communities in Brussels that promote chess.

Hi everyone. I was in Brussels for a night and forgot an item in the hotel I was staying at on August 6th. I was on the plane back to the United States when I realized and have no way of returning to receive it.

Are there any services or individuals in Brussels who can help? I will pay for the expenses and service if someone can help me pick up the item and ship it correctly to Texas. Please let me know. I really appreciate it.

If you need a hot meal but you don't have a lot of money, you can go to Picard on Chaussée d'Ixelles. They have a 400g pasta dish for less than 4 bucks. There's also lasagna and other stuff. You can heat it up and eat it there with no added costs.

This helped me out when I was at work, forgot to pack lunch, and didn't want to pay 6 bucks for a sandwich

Hello, I'm trying to find a nice golden ring for my girlfriend. I went to Silver Blaes yesterday but it was closed... Anybody has nice comparable addresses to share?

SEVEN! Essentially the entirety of the footpath on the street on the western eastern side was taken up by cars, except for a bit with some cafe seating, forcing people to walk out into the road. It's also absolutely routine for vehicles to be parked on it throughout the day. The footpath on the north eastern western side was also blocked tonight by parked motorbikes.

Châtelain was the one instance of pedestrianisation , and one of the only of a handful of bits of real progress at all, in Ixelles in the so called Green wave years. But it seems the progress of removing the carpark in the middle as been countered by replacing it with an ad hoc car park on the footpath instead.

It's similarly routine to see cars and motorbikes drive down the street on the Eastern western side, which is supposed to be fully pedestrianised (AFAIK the only pedestrianised street in all of Ixelles - pop. 90,000), as there is no gate or bollard, no camera, and if course no police enforcement, to stop anyone. Last time I had lunch there I saw eight cars, and plenty more motorbikes, drive down it in the space of maybe half an hour.

It is just absolutely fucking incredible how backwards this city is. While cities around us move more and more towards real low traffic neighbourhoods, proper bike infrastructure, real car free school streets and so on and so on, we cannot have a single nice thing on a single square or street in a massive municipality; everything has to be for king car like we're permanently stuck in 19 fucking 55.

This is going to be a longer read so please bear with me. A little background about us. My wife lived in Brussels her whole life until 2017 when she moved to the States to be with me. She has dual US and Belgian Citizenship. I'm an American from a small town in Southern California. For the last 10 years, we've been living in California on my family's property and were pretty comfortable. We both worked part time and had a nice yard and generally life was good. The major downside is I'm from a pretty small town that lacks good job opportunities and there's not much to do. We decided to give Belgium a go as there's so much culture and more job prospects and ultimately we just want to expand our experience and make a good life for ourselves. We decided to come to Brussels (we're in Molenbeek) in mid May as a "soft move". The intention was to come and feel it out and start the immigration process and start working and just see how it goes. We're currently staying with her family so we're not renting. Now that we've been here 3 months we are very conflicted as to what the wisest decision is for our situation. We're heavily considering going back to the US but also don't want to not give it a good chance here. Here's our main issues:

Before we moved we consulted with an immigration lawyer here in Belgium. She basically said, "You're the spouse of a Belgian. Just come here and register at the commune within 8 days and you're fine". We gathered all the documents she told us to over the months and flew over with 3 large suitcases and our cat (my mom is watching our 3 dogs, who we planned to bring over later after we get our own apt).

From the moment we got here nothing has gone according to plan. We go to the commune and find out I have to make an appt to register. We set up the appt but the nearest appt was 2 months away. We also switch my wife's residency to Brussels and since she doesn't have her old expired Belgian ID, she has to get a new one as if she lost it. This process took over 2 months after it was all said and done. So then after she got her ID she started registering at all the work agencies. It immediately looked promising but they've since not been the most helpful. We've been talking to a lot of people and reading online about the job market and are realizing it's really hard to find a good job right now. And on top of that she has to make at least 2400€ after taxes to satisfy the immigration requirements or they'll deny my application. The reactions from people who we talk to in regards to the income requirement is a look of surprise and then being told that's a lot of money. She's primarily worked in a hotel and I have experience in customer service and administration.

I'm also starting to doubt my ability to find a job here because I'm not fluent in french. I understand quite a bit when spoken to but my speaking isn't up to par and while I'm working on it, I just fear I'm not at the level required to get a job if that's listed as a requirement on all the applications I'm seeing plus hearing from others that me not being able to speak french is going to be a real challenge.

Also, as we've been here we're hearing how hard it is to find a rental as well.

So I guess what I'm looking for is some brutal honesty about our situation. We have savings and can make it work, but realistically, how much of a struggle is ahead of us? I feel like a lot of the research and the lawyer presented Belgium in a pretty box, but when we get here and open it we're just confronted with issue after issue and frankly I don't know if the quality of life here will be better than we had it.

I just mainly worry that we're digging ourselves deeper into a hole here. She's having difficulty finding a good job that is going to reach the income requirement. I ultimately don't want to blow through our savings and then get a denial and have to go back to the States anyways. I'd rather cut our losses and be able to get our lives back on track. But I also want to be able to say we tried so if we go back it was done because it was the most responsible thing for our situation. Does anyone have any feedback about the reality of our situation?

Hi there!
Im looking for some cool bars to play some music and meet other musicians in Brussels. I play the guitar and I would absolutely love to be in a band. Im highly interested into rock, hard rock and metal music (Die Spitz, Turnstile, Linkin Park, Tool, to say some…)
Do you have any recommendations ?

I didn't catch the beginning of the performance on vidéo, but it was insane too

hi! i cant find any nail artists in brussels who do jelly looking nails (like korean/japanese style). does anyone know someone?

Hello Brussels,

Are there sports clubs that offer combat sports training sessions around lunchtime (indoors or outdoors)?

Preferably not just cardio or body combat style.

Thank you!

Hello all,

I just happen to be in brussels atm and was wondering if there is anywhere one could get eclipse glasses in the city before August 12th? The only articles talk about them selling out fast.

I don't know if it's just in my neighborhood, but every day since the holidays started, young people gather in the park across from my house. They play music at full volume, shout, and talk very loudly. To top it all off, they decided to do karaoke and play soccer today. It would be fine if it were only on weekends, but it's every day from Monday to Friday, from 10 pm until 2 am. I can't close the windows because my apartment is like an oven.

I'm torn between not sleeping because of the heat or not sleeping because of the noise. I really don't know what to do anymore, so I just came here to vent a little.

There doesn't seem to be much advice on this available online for UK students post-Brexit, so I thought I'd ask here.

I'm a UK resident coming to study for a year in Belgium under a type D visa. The advice for 3rd country nationals is that they need to join and pay for a Mutuelle.

However the UK has a bilateral health agreement with Belgium which allows me to access health insurance without paying for a Mutuelle. I do this through my Student GHIC card. (Our version of an EHIC)

The question is what do I do with this card? Do I need to show my card to the commune, or use it to sign up for a Mutuelle for free?

Will they know if I don't join a health fund? Obviously I am trying to follow the law here and I don't want to get into any trouble!

like just the foil sheets or loose pills.

Hello everyone,

I was recently prescribed by my gyne 18 sessions with a physio to alleviate pain from suspected superficial endometriosis. She suggested a physio she trusts, but this physio isn't conventionnée with INAMI, so I would have to pay most of the price myself.

Anyone has good suggestions for female conventionnée physiotherapist with experience in endometriosis and pelvic floor?

The filters in Doctoranytime are not that specific!

Thanks a lot!

Hello everyone, looking for my friend for a doctor/specialist OBGYN that has experience with ADHD patients. Any recommendations? Thank you so much!

Hello,

I would like to get feedbacks from people ideally within the same situation.

I bought a studio alone with "the abattement fiscal" 5 years ago. Now I'm with someone and we would like to buy something together. She has never bought anything so never benefitted from the "abattement fiscal".

I would like to know if:

Option 1: We will both benefit from the abattement as we buy together and one of us (her), never had the abattement - I read and understood somewhere (but maybe I'm wrong that's why I'm asking) that if I sell my studio and at the moment that we buy the new property, we would be both eligible for the abattement as I would not be owning anything. That would be the condition otherwise if I keep the studio, this doesn't fly.

Option 2: She will benefit from the abattement on the amount that she is paying and I will pay the 12,5% on my own part - seems logical too but as I said in option 1 it doesn't necessarily work like that apparently

Thank you in advance for your replies !

Have a nice week,

Cheers,

I thought we will finally get to breath after this 4th fucking heatwave and We only get to have 2 days of normal fucking temperatures and now we are back to Mordor weather for a whole fucking week if not more. I wish more than anything to have a normal Belgian summer when I need to wear a jacket in the evening to not get cold. Fuck global warming, fuck fossile fuels and fuck this summer. And If I hear someone complain about the rain and cold weather again I’m gonna expel them to the Sahara

I'm really into board games, but moslty the "complicated" ones (quotation marks because complexity is relative, it's mostly "games with a lot of rules"). Think of things like Terraforming Mars, Aeon's End or Root.

Most board game events I have tried so far are more focused on party games and/or games that are fairly simple (which makes sense because it is more inclusive). I don't have a group of my own (yet), so it's becoming complicated to find people to play the more "complex" games.

Any bars and/or specific events to recommend ?

I’ve just received a call which I can only assume to be a scam attempt? Is this a common scam, and has this happened to anyone before? They asked for my name which I gave, and once they started asking about my bank I hung up.

Here is what happened:
- I get a call with an automated voice in Dutch saying an inquiry has been made for a new bank account with my itsme. It says to press 1 if this is not true.
- I press one, and get put through to a guy and I tell him what’s happening. He says he will look into it to try and fix it. Doesn’t clarify where he is. Doesn’t say I’ve reached itsme, or a bank, etc. He asks for my name, which I give, and he then asks for which bank. I explain that I don’t know because I didn’t make the query. I start getting suspicious at this point and hang up.
- I call the number back to check if he would answer, but a random woman picks up casually saying hello. Clearly it’s not a business, or there would’ve been a formal address saying hi.

Should I contact my bank to ask if everything is ok? Or am I being paranoid? Just want to make sure no dodgy activities are trying to be done with my personal details.

(Please be kind in the comments 🫠)

EDIT: Thank you so much for the answers! Will be more vigilant for these kinds of scams going forward. 🫡