Fruit-Time

Fruit-Time (located in Anderlecht) is a farm that opens to the public in the summer months for you to pick strawberries, flowers and raspberries. It is a bit far from central Brussels (I live near Schuman and it took me 1h15 to get there by public transportation), but definitely worth a visit. As you get away from the city center, this is the scenario you find.

As you arrive, you are given a box to fill with strawberries. The rule is one basket per person, per day, so it allows more people to come and pick their strawberries.

The raspberries are still too green! Wait for middle July, as there are plently of them (more than the strawberries) to pick.

Sneaky kid eating some while picking them!

In the end, you take the fruits you've picked for weight and pay for them. The price is 4€ for each 500g of strawberries. It is a great activity to do on a sunny day, with friends or family, being able to take home then some really fresh fruit bought directly from the producers. I have bought 1kg of them and everyday since Sunday have been making fresh milkshakes and juices with them (delicious!).

Right now the strawberry season is open and in July the flowers and raspberries are on too. See here the available periods:

Strawberries : June and July
Raspberries : July, August and September
Flowers : From July till September

For more information on how to get there, the opening hours and to see when the new cultures will be available, check out their website. Are you wondering how I did to get there? Here's how: I took the metro line 5 and hopped-off in Saint-Guidon. There I took the bus 46, direction Moortebeek (the bus stop is right outside the metro exit). You leave the bus in the stop Sibelius and then walk to the farm for around 15 minutes (it's a straight road). To return, the bus stop is closer to the farm, so you just walk around 10 minutes. But nothing like google maps to help you better plan your trip!

Fruit-Time

Rue du Pommier (left to no. 463 - Restaurant de Notelaar)

1070 Anderlecht

info@fruit-time.be

http://www.fruit-time.be/

Neuhaus' factory shop

After having read this post, I became really curious about visiting Neuhaus' factory shop. It is located in Anderlecht, very close to the metro station Erasme (10 minutes maximum walking distance), so you can easily reach it with public transportation. Inside you'll find all types of Neuhaus' chocolates, being sold for a reduced price. In their regular gift boxes, you don't see that much of a difference in the prices, only in case their expiry date is close (we saw a box of 500g of truffles being sold for 10€, because it would expire in 15 days).

What is really worthy is the called "lucky corner", where you'll find 1kg boxes filled with all types of chocolates (each box only has one kind of chocolate, though, but you have a lot of variety to choose from). Each box currently costs 25€, but if you buy 3 of them you pay only 50€. These are cardboard boxes filled with chocolate (well accommodated with layers and plastic shelves) and you can taste each of them before buying (in fact, everything sold in the shop can be tasted for free, as there are plates with samples in front of each product, so even if you end up deciding not to buy anything, you can still have pieces of some finest Belgian chocolate for free).

I went with a friend and we bought together one of those 1kg boxes. We then split its content half-half (so I got 500g), which I then divided into 5 plastic bags, that I bought in HEMA (10 of these bags are sold for approximately 1,50€, they come with a piece for closing and they have them in several designs). 

So, in the end, I had these 5 little bags to offer as a souvenir to my friends and family, not in one of Neuhaus' classic packages, but with one made on my own and for a much lower price than if I had bought them in a regular shop or at the airport. If you want to offer even a larger portion, it may be worthy to go with a friend with the same idea and buy the 3 boxes for 50€, because then the discount would be even greater. Nevertheless, pay also attention to the expiry date of these boxes, as some have a long period, but others were also finishing in just one month.

Neuhaus Outlet

Postweg 2, 1602 Vlezenbeek, Belgium

Tel: 02-568-23-10

Hours: Mon. – Fri. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. | Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

The outlet is open during the lunch hour.

All major credit cards accepted

Shopping cart

One of the first things I realized I needed to buy here in Brussels was a shopping cart. Indeed, having to carry once a week the groceries from the supermarket and the laundry from the laundromat to my house, even if the distance is small, was a problem. If I hadn't bought one of these.

You can find them in all kinds of places here in Brussels (Rue Malibran, close to Flagey, has them in several shops, in the Midi Market you can find tons of them and this one I bought in a shop inside the shopping center of De Brouckère). All cost between 10 to 20 euros (of course you have more expensive ones all pimped up, but I suppose that if you're not expecting to use them until you're an old lady/sir, you can be fine with one of these), so I considered it an investment for my arms and back. Now every week I am strolling it along the streets of Brussels!

Brussels Vintage Market

Last Sunday I was at Halles Saint Géry for an edition of the Brussels Vintage Market, that takes place on the first Sunday of each month. The environment was great, full of young people enjoying the sun with a beer outside, or inside browsing vintage clothing and handmande goodies through the improvised shelves. They had some cool stuff for sale, but I always find vintage to be a bit overpriced. Yet they also had second hand clothes and handmade accessories for reasonable prices. You have a bar inside (and several outside) where you can eat or drink, nice music was playing and there were 3 floors of stuff to explore. For the content and the atmosphere, it is really worth going!

Jip & Janneke

Jip and Janneke is a series of children's books in the Netherlands, written by Annie M.G. Schmidt and illustrated by Fiep Westendorp. The series is known for its simplicity and wit and started in the '50s. In order to commemorate their 60th brithday, HEMA launched this cute set of a plate, a bowl and a mug for 11€. I couldn't resist to buy yet this other souvenir, even though a Dutch one, but whose cartoons and books were famous in Belgium as well, because of the language.

HEMA

This week I have been to HEMA, which is a great shop for everything house related. The prices are similar to IKEA, but you don't have furniture, yet other things are available (like clothing, food, beauty products). Indeed, you have a great variety of stuff for very nice prices. Just to give you an example, I bought a toaster there for 11€. It is worth taking a look, as everything is very lovely and sweet. If you need just little stuff for your house, it is also more convinient to go there, as it is located in the center of the city (I went to the one next to Port de Namur, it is very close to the metro station).

Tintin cookie box

This was my first souvenirish buy since I arrived in Brussels. I went to the supermarket and saw these boxes (they had them in 3 different designs) full of 1kg of chocolate cookies and I had to buy one. It costed 10,95€ and I have seen them being sold in shops in the center for 15€ or more, so check your supermarket if you also want yours for a cheaper price. I am determined to fit it into my luggage when I return!

Get ready for Easter!

Dress code

One of the things you'll probably start thinking as the beggining of your traineeship approaches (specially women) is: what will I wear? Many of the trainees have recently completed their studies and have little to none professional experience, so they wonder how they should dress in order to be appropriately presented in this new corporate world.

As mentioned in the FAQ's the EC provides for the selected trainees, there is no official dress code, however, you are expected to dress adequately. Well, this leaves us in the same point as we started: what does adequately means? There is no general formula to apply on this (even though, on one of the first presentations given for the trainees, they mention that men shall never wear white socks and women's skirts shall stay under their knees when seated), but I am going to give you a few tips which hopefuly will help you stuff the right clothes when packing.

The dress code for the Commission (and, from what I have seen so far, this applies to the other European Institutions) is described as smart casual. Which means you don't have to dress up in a very formal way, but you're also not supposed to come up with shorts and sneakers. Although I have seen people wearing jeans or leggings with short sweaters (and we all know leggings are not pants!) and of course no-one will say anything to them, but I personally do not find it work appropriate and would not appear here dressed that way. Usually women wear straight-legged pants or pencil skirts with a shirt and a cardigan or a blazer on top. Not too bright colors, everything in the tones of black, blue, brown, grey, cream, white and then maybe one piece or accessory a bit more colorful to top it up. Most women wear boots, flats or shoes, but some of them dare to come up in high-heels (a minority, though). Here are some examples of the type of clothes I see people wearing around here:



All outfits are from Mango. I had some difficulty finding clothes appropriate for the cold weather that we still have right now here in Brussels, as all shops already have their Spring/Summer collection on, but I think from these you can see the style I was talking about (even if now they are all topped up with warm coats, scarves and gloves).

As you can see, it is not a very formal style (you don't have to wear black pants with a matching blazer and a white shirt all days), but it is still not the type of clothes you would probably wear on a weekend or on holidays. For those of you who already had previous work experiences in the corporate world (in companies, enterprises, consultancy firms, law firms, banks, etc), you'll just have to keep the style you were used to and you'll probably be able to bring the clothes you were already used to wear and do not have to buy new ones. I am one of the people who just kept the style she was used to, as the dress code here is pretty much the same as of the law firm where I worked.

Bear in mind, however, that you should wear something more formal in the days you have special events (like a meeting with someone important, or a public conference you'll have to attend). You'll notice that the higher the people are in the internal hierarchy, the more formal they dress (it is completely different to be a Head of Unit or a Director who has meetings and events all days, or a secretary or a trainee who stays in the office most of the time). It also depends on the DG and Unit you work on, I guess. In mine, most people are lawyers, so they dress up in the style I have mentioned... I suppose that in some DGs where most people are engineers, journalists, human resources people, the style can be more informal and seeing people in jeans could be more frequent.

As for men, there's not much to suggest: all of them here wear suits, but during the office hours they hardly ever wear ties. Nevertheless, they have some ties saved in the office in case they have to leave for a meeting or a conference and, in those occasions, they always wear them. In the end, it will be up to you to understand what style you should adopt here and what is appropriate in the context of the work you'll be performing.

Supermarkets: Colruyt and Delhaize

These are two Belgian supermarkets and both of them are quite close to my place, so I've already been to both. Here's my review on them:

• Colruyt: this is a big supermarket where everything is pilled up in the shelves without any particular harmony or appeal. Things are disposed in big quantities and you can get discounts if you buy more than one item of each thing. The cold products area is this division where you enter and it's colder than the rest, where the products are also pilled up in shelves. You have lots of diversity of products and I can highlight the major selection of beers and chips, which were the ones I found more different from the Portuguese supermarkets. You only have the option of taking a big shopping cart with you, that sometimes is difficult to ride along the big corridors full of products and people. The prices are quite cheap, but you have to look for the products of their own brand - Everyday - which are considerably cheaper than the rest and are usually "hidden" in the lower or upper shelves. They have a butchery section where you can buy fresh meet, but I haven't seen a similar one for fish. You should bring your own plastic bags or something to carry your shopping, as they don't have them there. At the checkout machines, the employee scans the products directly from your cart and then you move ahead to another machine in order to pay, so the queues move really fast. Just a negative remark for the fact that they don't accept VISA cards, so I always have to take money with me (and on the first time, as I didn't know that, I had to leave my stuff with the cashier and look for an ATM, which are not so easily found in the streets as they are in Portugal, but, luckily, there's a bank's branch close by).

• Delhaize: This one looks more like the supermarkets I was used to. Everything is organized and ordered in the shelves, the things come in small quantities, you have all the decoration and advertisements typical of a supermarket, food to taste, etc. You have big shopping carts and also those small baskets of plastic when you just want to carry some stuff. The prices seem also nice and they also have their own brand (look for the lion symbol), which is cheaper.

On both websites you can use the "store locator" application and find if there's a store near you. Unfortunately, none of mine are open on Sunday.

Finally, beware of supermarkets which are called like "Shop 'n' go" and "Express", as those usualy are located in the most crowded places (like in the touristic center and Schuman), often open on Sunday, but their prices are way more expensive than in the ones I have mentioned. Try to do your shopping after work or on Saturday and take a big backpack or a carrier with you in order to buy things for the whole week and only go to those other supermarkets in case you need something urgent. This way you can save a lot of money!

IKEA

When you're moving to a new city, it's always a must do to locate the closest IKEA store to your new place. Even if you're going to live somewhere "fully furnished and equipped" (like my studio is), there's always little things that may be missing and that you want to buy. Or you just want to give your new space in Brussels a more personal look, without spending lots of money.

In order to do so, you can go to IKEA Anderlecht, which is the closest to central Brussels to go on public transportation. Just take the STIB metro line 5 and the stop is CERIA / CEVIA. Then you just have to walk 10 minutes along the road (there are signs pointing the direction), et voilá.

If you have one, you can bring your IKEA Family card from your country because it will work there too and in the cafeteria you have gaufres for just 1€!

Moleskine City Notebook: Brussels



Photo by Amazon

The first shopping wish that I had when I found out I was going to Brussels was this Moleskine City Notebook. I had bought the Barcelona one when I was there on Erasmus and thought it was a great catch: you have detailed maps of the most central parts of the city (along with transparent leaves that you glue on top of them and can write there whatever you want without damaging them... great for disoriented people like me to mark where the "supermarket" or a "friend's house" is), a page for the traveling you may do during that period, a diagram of the city's underground, pages divided by sections (such as restaurants, people, places) where you write down the things you find out during your stay and don't want to forget, as well as some blank pages in the end and a paper bag to hold little things (cards, receipts, papers). All of this fit into the usual moleskine black hard cover and the classic elastic. Excellent to keep in your purse and carry along everyday! I ordered mine through Amazon, where I found the best price and the only complaint I have is that it is an edition from 2008, so the underground diagram is not updated. But I printed the current one from the internet and glued it on top of the old one, so now it is as great as any new edition. I can't wait to fill its pages with the good things I'm sure I'll come across with while in Brussels!