Neighbor Creepin’

My room has a wonderful, tall window that overlooks the courtyard connecting the two Erasmus student houses. I’ve grown to love this view, and have seen the trees change from snow in the winter, to buds and flowers in the spring, and now fresh green leaves, blocking the far colorful houses from sight. This view lets me shout hello to friends coming and going between houses, or eating outside on the picnic table just outside our kitchen. It also lets me creep on our neighbors!

Families live on either side of Moulin- I’ve never actually met them, but I see them all the time, especially now as the weather has gotten warmer. The neighbors on my right planted a garden- now the daffodils have come up and other vegetable plants are sprouting stalks and leaves. They seem to have a pretty big family, and I love how they are always outback, often cooking a massive dinner barbeque on their charcoal grill. I’m pretty sure another grilling is happening tonight- I can smell the smoke from the grill drifting up to my window! They all sit outside, eating together, the younger kids playing and generally getting in the way. Very similar to what happens in my family when we all get together. It’s fun to see how similar families in completely different cultures can be, halfway around the world.

Both families, to my left and my right are immigrant families- that’s what Saint-Josse, my neighborhood, is known for- but I’m not sure where from. I hear different languages, but honestly, I’m not that good at picking out Turkish from Arabic unfortunately.

The family that lives on my left seems to have some sort of menagerie. Today they brought out different cages of birds (parakeets) and other animal contraptions, plus I’m pretty sure they have a cat and maybe a dog. I love their backyard though- ever since the weather got slightly warmer, they’ve been fixing things up: repairing windows, trimming hedges, pruning vines and trees. It’s a lovely little garden there, and everyone is always outside in the nice weather helping fix things up or playing with a soccer ball.  My family does the same with our garden, fixing it up outside, or just laying out on the grass, me messing around with a soccer ball, my parents in the garden, my sister painting.

That’s probably enough spying on the neighbors for now, but I wanted to give you a pictures of some of the family life here in Brussels. All different kinds of families live here, speaking loads of different languages, and eating different foods. Despite that, it’s cool to see how some things are just the same as back home. Wherever people may be in the world, we all still love being outside and enjoying a beautiful day.

My courtyard through the seasons:

Snow dusting!

Courtyard in the rain (this happens a lot)

Spring! Flowers on the trees!

Now- slightly warmer, leaves on the trees!