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    "The way of life" in Belgium

    posted by  Natacha Ivanov in Belgium forum 

    Hi Fernando,

    I can only agree with Demona and Niels.
    Unfortunately, Belgium is not a happy place to live.
    I'm 34 years old, came here from Moscow in 1991 with my parents, am fluent in French and in Dutch, have studied in the university here (ULB) and I can tell you the following:

    - For working people life is for sure very difficult. It's difficult to get everything done, because the shops close so early, because it's hard or sometimes impossible to find a cleaning lady, it's hard to go from one point to another because there are huge traffic jams, there is not much to do.

    - People are in general very cold and not sympa. Nobody will talk to you spontaneously (especially in Flemish part), even if you smile and speak their language. Life is very hostile and grey here especially for SINGLE people.

    - If you had a bad luck and did not find a partner (husband) in your young years when you were in university (for instance because then you were not well integrated, did not speak the languages, was hard to study , etc), then had a long bad realtionship, and now as a 34 year-old woman want to find a decent optimist person on who you can count and who you'd like to build your life and family with - good luck. They do not exist. And in Belgium it's extremely difficult to find new friends/partner once you are after 30. Everybody is living very family oriented/children/parents, etc and is not looking for any new contacts.

    - I have a couple of friends or people almost as close as friends (from the Belgians)here but I can tell that I already had some bad surprises. People who are friends with you (especially Flemish) as long as they are interested or want something from you, and then just drop you from one day to another after 10 years because they finally found a girlfriend for instance and they are not interested in you anymore.

    - Each 3 or 4 months I have to go on holidays away from Belgium, otherwise I feel like I become crazy. Life here is certainly very depressive.Huge long raffic jams - getting worse every year and nothing is being done to improve them, political games at work, economic crisis, government that has been paralyzed for years (and after the results of this election it will be worse), no public transport developped, high pollution, not enough green spaces, high taxes, etc.

    - I have a good diploma and a good job, and yet in the past 2 years I lost my job twice because of the economic crisis. Bonne chance in finding another job on your level and getting to know people. All seem very introvert into their problems.

    I'm sorry I can not be more positive for the moment, but a lot of points in terms of quality of life would be a lot better in France or Switzerland in my opinion.

    The worst moments of loneliness I experience them here. I can not leave from here because my father has gone through a surgery recently, otherwise I would have done so.
    The only thing is that indeed it's better to leave once you find a partner, I do not a lot of women who start over at 34 years alone and migrate to another country. It's difficult psychologically.

    Cheers
    Natacha

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