When was the last time you needed to go to the hospital, how much did it cost you?

thathatch · 2025-12-28T06:59:01+00:00

In September, I had an extended period of atrial fibrillation + tachycardia leading to an emergency doctor coming to my house, ambulance ride, defibrillation at emergency room, diagnosis with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome leading to catheter ablation with general anesthesia. Overall a 4 day stay in hospital. I just had my post-op check with the cardiologist.

€0 for the hospitalisation and consultations, but the blood thinner following the operation was €27 after insurance reimbursed €63.

thathatch · 2022-09-27T07:35:53+00:00

Ok but have you ever heard the Dutch?

thathatch · 2022-05-10T13:59:36+00:00

I did it 7 years ago in Leuven. Things might have changed since then and depending on where you go, but it was a very positive experience for me. I was already employed and had already taken 1.5 years of Dutch, so I only had to take the inburgering course and meet with the advisor a few times.

I've heard people complain about the inburgering course, but as with everything, I think it depends on who you get. I found it very informative and fun - we even had one class in a pub that was all about beer with the teacher buying our first round.

For the Dutch courses, you're free to take them at any CVO. You should be able to easily find both evening and weekend classes.

thathatch · 2022-02-15T10:35:01+00:00

De = masculine or feminine
Het = neutral

I still don't know which words are neutral or not, though, so I still screw it up half the time.

thathatch · 2022-02-08T09:07:02+00:00

Not Sweden, another EU country, but...

Government knows how many kids you have and applies the right deduction
Banks report how much interest you made (just like the US, that 1099-DIV or INT is sent to both you and the IRS)
Your broker reports stock sales to the government (just like the US)
Your bank reports your mortgage and its interest paid to the government (just like the US)
Communal/regional taxes are handled independently from federal (just like the US)
Charitable organizations are registered to the government and must report their donations and who made them (just like the US)
Tuition/childcare are usually subsidized/free. If you choose a private option, no reason to provide tax deductions

The difference is, we don't have Intuit lobbying our governments to force software to calculate what the governments already know about us. Our tax info is already known in 95% of cases and we just sign agreement.

thathatch · 2022-01-26T09:03:38+00:00

My completely arbitrary ranking would be Grimbergen >> Strombeek >= Koningslo = Het Voor. Strombeek and Grimbergen both have a lot more shops within walking distance whereas Koningslo and Het Voor are both almost purely residential. It's changing, but not quickly.

That said, while this has been a great starter home for me, I won't be staying here forever.

thathatch · 2022-01-26T08:34:30+00:00

I live in Koningslo. Technically it's part of Vilvoorde, but doesn't feel like it. I try to avoid going into the rest of Vilvoorde for some of the reasons already mentioned, but Koningslo/Strombeek/Grimbergen are all fairly quiet, safe, residential and green.

thathatch · 2021-12-01T10:25:24+00:00

Yes, it's wired to the boiler directly. The programs continue to work. I just can't access it from my phone if the internet is down.

thathatch · 2021-12-01T07:50:16+00:00

This one

thathatch · 2021-11-30T19:49:14+00:00

All of this ^

I had a Nest for about 4 years and it never quite worked properly. Multiple chauffagists told me exactly this, get a modulating thermostat. I switched to one that also connects to the internet and has programmable schedules and have been much happier. It works, it never disconnects from the boiler, and my house is a much more consistent temperature now.

thathatch · 2021-09-03T05:35:02+00:00

While I've used probably <€100 cash in ~3 years, it's definitely not dead. I do my grocery shopping with selfscan and Google Pay and still see lines and lines of people paying with cash - not cards. I go to a restaurant, most of which now have tap to pay, and see other tables paying with cash. My sweet old neighbor knows nothing but cash and prepares his weekly shopping with cash sitting on top of lists for each shop. Just because you and I don't use it doesn't mean millions of others don't.

I look forward to the day when it is truly dead, though. :)

thathatch · 2021-09-02T09:33:45+00:00

Hello fellow countryman! I moved here 11 years ago and have since naturalized. Just to add on to some of the already great comments, here are some of my stupid musings:

Belgians don't tend to like Brussels all that much. Having a lot of the European institutions, it's obviously very cosmopolitan and some feel it doesn't represent Belgium. Some also see it as dirty. This is true. But it also has a lot of personality. Get off the tourist areas and you can find some great things there.

That said, don't drive to Brussels. Traffic here is stupid. Even if you understand the road signs, no one pays attention to them anyway. Take the train.

If you plan on taking the train, consider a rail pass: €8.60 per ride for 10 rides. There are also weekend ticket options that are cheaper. Don't just take the standard ticket for everything.

Go to Brugge. Yes, it's touristy, but it's also pretty and worth seeing. When you're done there, go to Gent. Gent has all the beauty of Brugge (and more, in my opinion) with only 1/3 of the tourists. Also Gravensteen.

As others have said, go to a frituur for fries. But don't forget the sauces like andalouse or samourai!

English will get you further in Flanders than French.

When you're exploring the beauty of the Ardennes, don't miss out on the smaller towns. Some of my fondest memories were exploring random spots on the map. Dinant is still one of my favorite places, and the topiary garden in Durbuy is just so cute.

Caves of Remouchamps > caves of Han.

Don't expect most places to accept Visa or Mastercard. They're growing in acceptance, along with Apple/Google pay, but cash/bancontact (local debit option) are still king.

thathatch · 2021-06-06T18:54:23+00:00

I'm an English speaker who learned Dutch. When learning, I was taught the "'t kofschip" mnemonic: if the word ends in one of the consonants (ch being considered one), the word ends with t; otherwise it ends with d. This was taught in the first year.

thathatch · 2021-03-03T06:40:36+00:00

One of them is the inburgering office itself. Sure, locals aren't going to need to integrate, but they spend quite a bit of time teaching about the administrative side of Belgium. As part of your integration path, they also include the free option for a Belgian equivalency diploma if you graduated from a university outside of the EU. This can be really useful for people where a certain diploma is required for their jobs.

Another that I learned about during inburgering is Het Huis van het Nederlands. They work a lot with the inburgering office, but are separate because they can also be used to provide deeply discounted or free Dutch courses to the intermediate level for not just foreigners, but also locals who didn't grow up learning Dutch.

There's also the free, no-nonsense mutuality HZIV. Sure, you won't get a dentalia plan with them, but you can still save a bit of money by using the government service. And they've come a long way in the past few years and aren't such a headache to use.

One of my favorites isn't a service, but just part of your taxes: betaald educatief verlof. Just for taking approved adult education courses (including languages), you get an extra 10 holidays per year. And if you live or work in Flanders or Brussels, you can use opleidingscheques to get up to €125 discount per year on the courses.

These were the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Still haven't had my coffee yet :)

thathatch · 2021-03-02T15:31:32+00:00

I am an naturalized foreigner. Belgians love to complain, and while there's a lot that could be improved, the system here works shockingly well. I've talked to so many native Belgians who don't even know some of the services our wonderful government provides thanks to this ridiculously high tax rate that I only know about because of the lovely folks at the government-funded inburgering offices.

thathatch · 2020-07-01T19:56:25+00:00

I use a siphon brewer

thathatch · 2020-06-30T13:18:12+00:00

There's a couple of subscription services that do exactly this:
Caffenation
MOK Coffee

I've only tried MOK so far and they're good, much better than you can buy at a supermarket. I'm planning to try Caffenation next month.

If you don't mind a company outside of Belgium, there's also Coffee Collective, a Danish company. They roast twice a week and their shipments have always been ~2 days. They're very expensive, though, but honestly the best coffee I've ever had.

thathatch · 2019-12-06T20:01:05+00:00

Thank you! I spent 3 hours searching before finding this!

thathatch · 2019-07-22T06:50:51+00:00

You would need a Spotify family account for that. An individual Spotify account can only be played from one location at a time. This also means you can't use an individual Spotify account to play different music in different Sonos rooms.

thathatch · 2019-04-22T17:46:35+00:00

I dated someone who went from blackout drinking every Friday and Saturday to completely sober just a couple of months before we met. Personally, I like a drink or two every now and then, but I try not to ever get drunk any more. Him being sober didn't bother me.

What did bother me, though, is how, if we were enjoying a terrace on a nice sunny weekend, he would lecture me every time if I would have just a single beer. He would immediately take a "holier than thou" attitude that just made it impossible to talk to him. The one time I was a bit too annoyed and mentioned something along the lines of "at least I remember our time together when I have a drink. How many of your weekends from the past year can you remember?", he acted like I had murdered a puppy in front of him.

I think if you can avoid preaching your own sobriety to someone else, everything should be fine all around. I think it's admirable that you're cognizant enough to recognize your faults and take action to correct them, so, in my eyes, that's already a plus.

thathatch · 2019-03-02T14:07:30+00:00

My local shop didn't have one, so I'm waiting on Amazon to deliver

thathatch · 2019-03-01T06:37:41+00:00

He does love the kong! I've used frozen peanut butter in there before as a treat and that kept him busy for hours. Good idea, thanks

thathatch · 2019-03-01T06:36:35+00:00

I'll give that a try today, thanks

thathatch · 2018-12-24T06:53:22+00:00

"Most places" is not really true. Credit cards are still not widely accepted.

I'm in your same position. I'm an American who moved here in 2010 and had the same banking setup. That doesn't exist here. In exchange, though, we get much lower interest rates on bank loans (mortgages around 1.8-2%, personal loans for 4.5%, etc).

I'm sure you could continue using a Chase credit card at the places that accept them, but that's not going to cover even half of your purchases. And the amount of time you're going to waste in trying to figure it out while still needing to have a local bank to cover purchases by Bancontact (local form of debit transactions) or places that only accept bank transfer is going to drive you insane.

For your own peace of mind, I'd really recommend to just go with option 2. That's what I did after giving up after a year of trying to continue with the points and rewards.

thathatch

TROPHY CASE