Spending Report Week 7

I'm going to double up the Spending Report with the Personal Development Report from now on on Saturdays.  I think Sunday is a much better day for me to write about Tourism and such because I should be back home from any trips I take.

Push ups:  I sucked this week, I didn't actually do them Wednesday and Friday was kind of a half job.  I'm going to redo the first tier of week three to re condition myself.

Sit ups:  I'm goin strong with these, Friday was tough as the total was over 130 with all the sets together.

Language:  I'm frustrated that I again didn't go anywhere with French (the Scottish language teachers singing numbers didn't help).  I'm also frustrated with myself because I'm not making an effort to attempt to pronounce anything correctly.  I was talking to an Italian co-worker about cheese and pronounced Burrata as any American would and it took her about 10 seconds of thought to understand what I was talking about.  She kinda laughed and pronounced it in a way that made it sound pretty... I didn't even attempt correct pronunciation before hand though.  On a positive note I have been asking the store owners at my regular shops for the names of products in french and make sure to ask for it in French.  I'm still not communicating, but I'm not ignoring  anymore either.

Overall:  96.49

Stuff: 20.00

Transportation: 19.20

Miscellaneous Food: 15.59

Restaurant: 15.00

Tourism:  18.50

Beer: 7.00

Groceries: 1.20

Stuff:  I got a web-cam.  It helps a lot to see the people you miss in real time.  I'm not big on photos so the web cam was a lot more natural way to say hi to family and friends.

Transportation:  One round trip ticket to Bruges AND one round trip ticket to Antwerp (post tomorrow)

Miscellaneous Food:  I'm pretty big on waffles when I'm being a tourist, and I had two tourism days this week = a lot of waffles.

Restaurant:  I bought lunch twice this week and then got dinner while I was in Antwerp.  A toasted panini with prosciutto, cheese and tomato is 3.50 Euro at a store right around the corner from the office.  This is my go-to sandwich.  They're also pre-assembled and I don't have to think too hard about naming what I'd like in the sandwich.

Tourism:  This includes the two dumb museums in Bruges.  It also includes a ticket to the Cinema on Friday.  I went to see "Watchmen."  I would have liked to take advantage of the Belgian release date (Wednesday) but didn't' have a chance.  The theater was impressive, but I found it strange that it cost more to see the movie than take a round trip to Antwerp.

Beer:  I got a few bottles (3) from the "Bottle Shop" in Bruges.  There is some stupid number of beers there, and its usually very easy to find the Trappist and Abbey beers but a little harder to find the Lambic beers.  I should have gotten more of the Cantillon Gueuze but I thought it would be cheaper at the factory here.  

Groceries: I didn't go grocery shopping today because I was in Antwerp all day instead.  I'm going to have to go all the way to the Sunday grocery store (most aren't open).  That one purchase was a loaf of bread I got for sandwiches.

Anyway, It should be obvious that I took the planned trip to Antwerp.  I had a good time with a bunch of folk from the office.  I may actually include a picture of myself being a tourist this time around.

Spending Report Week 6

Make sure you catch up with the last post, I wanted to make sure I put down the spending no matter what.

This week was a little high but hopefully I can amend the numbers soon.  I spent money on food and a taxi this week that may be reimbursed by the company.  The week is also a little high because I had to get myself a new metro monthly pass.  I still haven't been checked once, but I've heard its a pretty expensive ticket.  

Overall:  108.68

Transportation: 51:80

Groceries: 38.68

Restaurant: 16.80

Miscellaneous Food: 1.80

Transportation:  Hopefully I get reimbursed a portion of this for the taxi ride.

Groceries: This number is high again because I bought groceries last Sunday and this Friday do it is basically 2 weeks worth.

Restaurant:  This covers a bunch of lunch and dinner because I spent way too much time at the office.  Some should come back to me.

My first full month I spent about 860.00 Euro with rent and everything else.  I think for long term this isn't feasible.  I've learned I'm over paying for rent and if I'm to stay here longer term I'm going to need to find a much cheaper place.

I'm here I'm here.

SO, I've missed two days.  In a row.  Don't worry, all is well and I'll catch up.  Friday I went out with the company and wasn't really "awake" enough to post when I returned home.  We all went out to celebrate.  Celebrate what you may ask?  Well, Friday of course.  It doesn't really have the same effect since I went to work Saturday and Sunday, but I enjoyed the night anyway.  Last night I made it home early (from work on a Saturday...), unfortunately our building had some weird Internet outage that delayed my posting until today.  Instead of trying to catch up in a few different posts I'm just gonna put up my two weekend posts (personal development & spending report) into one.  

I brought my spending WAY down this week, and it woulda gone down even further without Fridays get together.

Overall: 58.15

Restaurant: 27.80

Beer: 15.30

Miscellaneous Food: 13.55

Groceries: 1.50

Clearly restaurant and beer have gone up.  This is what happens with a super busy week, it could very well happen this week as well.  I went out to lunch more often because our office had some US visitors and it was nice to be a little social.  The only thing that went down this week is Groceries.  Basically I was a little hung over and then worked Saturday and missed my chance to do my grocery shopping.  I went today and kept it pretty low.  Then I spent some money on Sesame oil and Soy sauce to flavor up my fried rice cooking.  Overall I'd like my spending to stay this low from now on, maybe lower if I can but not soooo much on beer.  

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT:

I'll keep it short for this week.  I'm happy to report that I've followed the push ups and sit up schedule almost exactly this week.  I skipped Friday but caught up on Saturday.  In addition to my regular M-W-F schedule I added things on the "off" days.  Total for the week I ended with over 300 sit ups and over 150 push ups.  Most of the push ups were under the scheduled daily events and next week I'm on Week 3.

As for French?  I'm getting there pretty slowly.  I did about two hours of Rosetta stone which is starting to sink in a little bit and five lessons from the "coffee time."  I haven't really tried using it but I'm starting to "hear" things a little differently while I'm on the streets or in the office.

That's about it for this weekend update.  We'll be back to our regularly scheduled posting this week.  I've got one partial guest post (about POMMES FRITES) and a back tourism post or two to fill in.  I've also scheduled a trip to Rotterdam for next weekend so I should have some good content for next week.

OH YEA, I'VE BEEN ABROAD ONE MONTH! WOO!

Spending Report: Week 4

Numbers are up a little off the usual.

Overall:  89.90

Breakdown:

Restaurant: 34.30

Groceries: 23.25

Beer:  11.00

Shipping: 10.90

Misc. Food: 5.45

Tourism:  5.00

Restaurant: A little high this week because of the moderately expensive appetizer sized portion of mussels that taught me that I'm still allergic to shell fish.  I also went out with the office for lunch for the first time to celebrate an all nighter (that I didn't participate in).  Finally I bought some pomme frites at a famous place on Saturday.  In accordance with a recent request, I'll save that for a comparison to a NYC Frites shop.

Groceries:  A lot of the normal stuff... nothing to add this week really.  I added some shampoo to the list also added a day where I bought peanut butter and jelly from a corner store during my lunch hour to make lunch.

Beer:  I bought a few bottles of a Lambic Beer.  There will be a post about beer soon, and you may have already read it.  I had to buy a bunch of different beers from the same brewery to make a good comparison.  During a discussion with some friends in NYC we tried to find bars that also serve the beer I purchased... I bought a few bottles for around 3 Euro a piece.  In NYC the bottles go for 12-18 dollars.  Quite a mark up.

Shipping:  I sent those chocolates out for valentines day using the normal post with great success.  It cost me a little over Ten euro to ship regular, and the package made it on Friday after being sent Monday.

Misc. Food:  Waffles and cookies... I've never had a sweet tooth like I've had here.  I found my favorite waffle stand so far.  It is very convenient, maybe too convenient.  I actually had a conversation with the owner at my metro stop, he is thinking about opening a shop in NYC after his friend graduates from Yale.  I may actually be facebook friends with him soon.  I will let you guys know if he introduces Belgian waffles to the NYC Public.

Tourism:  I went to the Cantillon Brewery and there will be photos up.  This trip was entirely worth it and there are some special people who are going to get credit for it later.

I've only gotten two emails with proper questions so far... You guys are the inspiration I have for doing a lot out of the ordinary.  Some time this week I'll answer questions but email me.  scott DOT corey AT gmail DOT com.

Spending Report: Week 3

So this week I paid my rent.  This brings my number WAY up for the week.

Overall: 941.09! UGH! or 71.09 sans rent...

Breakdown:

Rent: 870.00

Transportation: 0.00

Groceries: 26.79

Miscellaneous food: 20.05

Restaurant: 9.25

Rent:  I had to pay daily for the first 11 Days I was in the apartment and then I had to pay my first month so all in all it was a lot.  Also, my bank account wasn't fully set up so I had to pay in cash.  I will say one nice thing about the ATM's here, they give you options of what bills you want down to a 5.  

Transportation:  I just wanted to show that I spent nothing on transportation this week... This and Rent should be done for the month unless I can take a trip out of the city.

Groceries:  This number is a little high because I got some long term ingredients like Margarine and Parmigiano.  The first time I shopped I got butter, but I hate putting butter on bread and sometimes don't like it for other applications.  Margarine was NOT easy to find though and using logic to decipher the terms... not really gonna help.  I also decided to get garbage bags (the wrong ones) for the apartment.  Belgium has a crazy recycling scheme where you have 3 different color garbage bags:  White for trash, Yellow for paper and Blue for plastics.  All glass has to be taken to bins placed throughout the city.  I knew we needed bags and got Blue... even though we needed Yellow.  OH WELL.

Miscellaneous Food:  This was just things like Beer, Chocolate and Pasteis De Nata... all pretty acceptable.

Restaurant:  This number is way down, I only ate "out" twice.  One time I'll write about during a tourist blog the second is in the Office.  On Fridays someone usually cooks lunch for the office and collects about 3 Euros to gather food for the meal.  I considered it "restaurant" because I paid for cooked food.  It was very nice because it breaks up the monotony of the sandwich and it was relaxing.

Again I'll bring a call for comments.  If you don't want to comment publicly and you want to suggest a post, email me: Scott DOT Corey AT gmail DOT com.

Spending Report: Week 2

You guys should be proud, I brought my spending WAY down.  Its actually nice because this week was almost twice as long as the last.  Next week won't be good though... its got a month and a half of rent on it... I may just do that separately.

Overall: 110.73

Breakdown (I did do that math wrong a little last week... this week is hopefully right):

Transportation: 52.90

Groceries: 16.83

Miscellaneous food: 16.00

Tourism: 9.00

Toiletries: 8.00

Restaurant: 8.00

Transportation... This is a big number this week.  I got Two 10-passes.  Basically my first time using the metro efficiently was Sunday, so I had 4 work days worth of passes (1 each way).  I had to get another one on Friday and I learned about the monthly pass on Saturday.  This means I purchased another 10 pass and only used 4 trips before I got an unlimited trip.  You shouldn't see transportation again for a while.  Well... maybe that isn't true, if you do see transportation it means I got outta Brussels and went for an excursion.  

Groceries is a list of last weeks buys... some successful some not.  My loaf of bread went bad about 2/3rds of the way through so this week I purchased a smaller loaf (400 grams instead of 600 grams).  I also got things like plastic bags, salt and olive oil that I won't have to purchase again.

Miscellaneous Food is a measure of things that aren't meals... you can consider it my waffle expense.  Yes, I spend a lot of Euros a week on waffles.  This expense is entirely worth it.

The Atomium cost me 9 euro.    I don't know how I felt about that cost... it was basically an expensive elevator ride.  

Toiletries are expensive, I had to get lotion and conditioner... that's about it.  

Restaurant.  I didn't actually go out to any restaurants this week.  That 8 Euro represents the days that I was too tired or lazy to make myself dinner.  I fount out the oven pizzas are wonderful and I may submit to them often.  I am more comfortable making myself dinner now that I'm accustomed to my hours.

That's it guys, I finished my first real week.  I still want the overall number to go down, but for now its not SO bad.  I will always have tourism stuff but one major expense from the States was eliminated:  There is a coffee machine in the office that makes delicious coffee.  

I want more comments.  I need more comments.  Ask me more questions, I need some stock questions to answer.  

Groceries and other Errands

My first Saturday after a week of work.  I felt no need to go out for tourism... Maybe I'll do some stuff Sunday.  All I wanted to do was mundane errands and some good old fashioned lazy sitting.  I had a few things to get done:  Groceries, Laundry and purchasing my Monthly Transit Pass.  Monthly transit was pretty easy, just a trip down town and a wait on line, no big deal.  Laundry was a little more fun, mainly because I have no idea how to read french or dutch.  I kinda just guessed which settings and hoped. All my clothing has remained the correct size, so I'll assume I did it right. 

I've gone to the grocery store twice now, each time was a great experience.  I've been planning to write about the grocery store for a little while so I did some reconnaissance. My first trip was the tragic, "I don't know where anything is, or how to read any of the words on things," trip.  Grocery shopping isn't usually a tourist event, so I imagine people were relatively confused to be documented in their natural grocery based habitat.  I had two incidents my first time around, the first was avoidable.  Delhaize is closed every Sunday, so Saturdays are PACKED.  A nice woman tried to walk by me while I waited on line only to knock my basket.  The only thing that popped outta the basket was my carton of Eggs... Luckily this is an event that can happen at any grocery store, so it is not a Belgian special mistake.  The second tragedy was my misunderstanding of the produce section.  Anything that you have to bag yourself... you also have to weigh and tag yourself.  I did not know this, the employee scanning me did not know how to EXPLAIN THIS to me in English.  A nice man behind me was forced to walk me to the nearest weighing machine and show me the error of my ways.  Kind of embarrassing, I've been told it happens to everyone.

My second trip (today) was much more successful.  I put up a picture of my receipt for today's trip to give an example of why I am so happy with this grocery store experience.  My entire bill for today's trip was 15.08 Euros.  That's roughly 18 dollars.  I got a single portion of Pork and Steak to make 4 dinners this week.  I got Bananas, Apples, Broccoli and Carrots (of these, I only had to weight the carrots).  Most of the produce comes in pre-packaged weighed containers.  I also got some lunch meat, some sliced Gouda and a loaf of bread.  Lastly I got eggs and some shaving cream.  

This to me, was a lot of stuff for a good price.  But I also have become extremely interested in the quality and value of the products.  The Broccoli never has a dried stalk and when you actually slice up the stalk and steam it, there is an almost buttery flavor to it.  It is wonderful to be able to cook the whole stalk because it extends the amount of use I get out of each purchase.  The Eggs... are wonderful.  I've only had eggs this fresh once or twice before.  The color of the scrambled eggs is more yellow than I have ever seen, and you can taste the difference.  I also like the fact that I can purchase a true single serving of steak or pork.  At this point I usually still cut it in half, but it is a much smaller portion than anything in the States.

A final thing I really like is the speciality aisles.  I included two examples... the Foie Gras section, which is completely absurd, and the Waffle section.  These Waffles are incredibly disappointing after street waffles.  But then again, there is a waffle SECTION.  I also like the bread and meat areas.  The bread aisle has two sides, one with packaged bread... the other with fresh bread.  They also have a bread slicer, so that you can purchase a fresh loaf of bread and slice it however thick you'd like for sandwiches for the week.  The meat area has more variety than I am used to, mainly because I've never seen quail in a grocery before.  I will save the pastry portion of this thought line for another post.  I may also study those pastries again before posting, so I know exactly what to write.

As for those of you that think I may be going overboard with pastries and waffles.  I'm pretty sure they have 0 calories.  That's what I've been told, and Belgians don't lie.  Also I walk up and down 5 flights of stairs every day (sometimes more than twice when I've convinced myself that I forgot to lock my door... even though I did).  I also have a half hour walk to and from work and about 4 flights of stairs to the subway.  Maybe I'll update with my new daily exercises stuff soon, once it is a full routine.  For now, trust that I'll be OK.

Spending Report: Week 1

To keep me honest (to myself and to you guys) I'm maintaining a spending Diary.  I will try my best to record every euro cent I spend while I'm out here just to get an idea of cost of living.  This first week isn't great because I've got some bigger necessities and some tourism food (i.e. overpriced) under my belt.  I'd like to get the number way down to make some future out of town trips.

Overall: 201.23

Breakdown (let me know if the math is wrong, then I know I've done the spreadsheet wrong):

Necessity: 90.99

Restaurant: 45.25

Phone: 34.00

Groceries:  24.04

Misc. Food:  5.25

Transportation: 1.70

Necessity is things like my taxi ride, which was entirely necessary because no sane human could navigate the luggage I had on subway or bus and somehow make it to the area I live in.  Also included is a Duvet cover, not a cheap thing... but at least I didn't have to get the duvet as well.  Finally is an umbrella, who doesn't bring an umbrella to Brussels?

Restaurant is a range of things from smart to dumb.  My first night in

 town I had a wonderful dinner with a beer and coffee for 12 euro in my area of town.  Last night I went on a tourist night and paid 18 (should have been 12) for an OK meal.  I found a street packed with restaurants, and it seemed like the Red Light District of restaurants.  Men stood outside trying to sell you into their restaurant "come in, its only 12.50, 3 courses and a beer ON ME!"  I roamed around for a while and decided to go into one without talking to the door man only to realize at the end of the meal it was 18 euro unless you let them convince you to come in.  Dumb tourists...

My phone.  I have a whole post on my phone, but the overall price breaks down to a SIM card, an unlocking fee and a replacement charger.

Groceries... I have a whole post for this too.  I'd like to go to another store or two before I divulge the experiences.  I will say I've cooked a few meals for myself, and they have been wonderful.  More later.

Misc. Food is my general snack budget.  This is mostly waffles for the time being, but in next weeks I will include things like chocolate and frites.  Soon I will no longer be a tourist required to purchase waffles and chocolate, just frites so maybe that number will come down.

I should write a whole post about the Metro as well, so I'll save it for later.   That 1.70 is for a single trip, I am saving money next week through the purchase of a 10 trip pass.

Expect posts like this every Sunday recapping the previous weeks spending... we'll all watch my savings go down the tubes!

5 things to do before you leave, pt. 1

Around October the move started to cast a shadow over me and I had to start making real preparations to leave.  I made one big master list of things to get done, and I'll share with you all the things that I accomplished before I left.  This is a list of things that, once completed, made me feel a lot more comfortable before I left.

1. VISA:  Make sure you know what the rules are for getting a visa where you're going.  Many of the EU countries work under the Shengen Laws which allow you to stay in a single country for up to 90 Days and you can't return to the same country until you have been out for another 90 days.  This also means you don't need a visa for stays of less than 90 days, as you can travel through out Europe on 90 day periods.

2. Passport/ID:  You should have paper copies and/or a scan of your passport so that you can reproduce the information if you happen to lose it.  In addition, its always useful to bring a bunch of extra passport sized photos for any other form of ID you want to get in the EU.

3. Driving:  I'm not big on driving, but in the off chance I want to take a road trip I don't want anything to stop me.  I got an International License from AAA.  There are plenty of websites that will get you an International License but AAA is the cheapest and easiest.  Go to their website and fill out a form, bring some passport photos and pay $15.  It took 15 minutes.

4.  Money:  I've been following the Dollar to the Euro for months, I can't rationalize it at all so I just hope and pray that while I'm using my Dollars they're worth something.  One thing I wanted and had to set up was a bank account in Belgium.  The primary method of paying rent is through the bank, so not having a bank account makes life a little more difficult.  On the same note, its not always easy to wire transfer money over seas.  My existing bank accounts (a local and ING) both had different issues with wire transferring.  You would think that because ING is a Belgian bank it would be easy to transfer and set up accounts but it is not, and the American ING does not transfer ANY money over seas.  Thus I found a bank (Citibank...) that allows me to make wire transfers ONLINE.

5.  Cancel/Sign up:  Talk to all your insurance companies BEFORE you leave so you make sure you aren't paying for insurance for no reason.  Also, BUPA is an insurance company from the UK that does pretty inexpensive insurance for expats.  Moving overseas is one of the only ways you can get out of your cell phone contract without paying a cancellation fee.  I put myself on Vacation Mode ($15 to suspend the account for 90 days) so that I keep my account for now and can turn my phone back on when I arrive back in the US.  Try to put yourself on paperless bills for all your credit card or other bills so that you get them in your email and make sure you can pay your bills online.  

Leaving the US has a lot of fun issues to deal with, and I will cover more eventually.  This was the first batch that I thought was most important to cover.  Leave questions in the comments and I will try to answer them in another post.

Making the Move

A few years back I was fortunate enough to take a short (4 days) trip to Copenhagen, Denmark.  This was my first trip to Europe, and I was amazed at how comfortable I was in such a foreign place.  Fast forward to 2008 and I am given the opportunity to work for a Danish Architecture firm whose work was inspirational to me during my first trip to Denmark.  I jumped at the chance and decide to make the move, the catch is that I need to do an internship period in Brussels, Belgium before I can move up to Copenhagen.  

This blog is meant as a recording of my experiences in moving and working as an architect abroad.  I will be documenting travel, personal development, food, work experiences and what it takes to move overseas.