Belgium - The Land of Restrictions

As some of you know Emily and I have been trying, for about six weeks, to get our paperwork processed for long-stay visas and work permits that will allow us to move to Belgium for six months. Since Belgium is part of the EU one wouldn’t think it would be very difficult to go work for a few months, but, since we were technically going to be “living” there, in an apartment nonetheless, we had a myriad of hoops to jump through.

While I’m not going to get into all of the details and paperwork needed, just be aware, if you want to move to Belgium from anywhere outside of the EU or U.K. just be prepared for a lot of red tape. Emily and I both had to get new copies of our birth certificates, our marriage certificate, and then send them off to be apostilled. Next we had to get a medical certificate from a Doctor that was approved by the Belgium consulate, which there are only two of in Chicago. We could only get an appointment with one of the two Doctors, which happened to be in the north side of Chicago, and who happened to be Vietnamese and worked in a office just outside of Korea town. Not that it matters at all...it’s just a little weird that he’s one of the ONLY two Doctors in Chicago approved to do this. I was going to assume he was Belgian or at least European.

Next, we had to get our fingerprints taken for an FBI background check, but guess what. There are only a couple of places in the entire city of Chicago and the Suburbs that will do the fingerprints on a paper card, which is required for this check. We actually went into a police station after our medical check and asked if they could do our prints for us...NOPE. Really? A freaking police station won’t take our fingerprints. I bet if I went outside and threw a brick through a parked car’s window they’d take my fingerprints. We even called the sheriff’s departments and police stations in the suburbs to see if they’d take our prints...NOPE. That just meant another trip back downtown to get them done. Not only was that a headache but the processing of our fingerprints was going to take “anywhere from 4-13 weeks.” 4-13 weeks...really? That’s like the cable guy saying..”we’ll be there between 10am and Wednesday”...you going to be home? After this news we paid to have the fingerprints expedited. Cost...$1,000.

Once the fingerprints get processed, they’re sent to Belgium to get verified, then sent back to Chicago. We fill out Schengen Visa applications, specific for Belgium, because they’re different from all the rest of the Schengen country visas. We attach 45 passport photos, call our insurance company to get a letter verifying we have health insurance, have everything notarized, add in a DNA sample and a vile of unicorn tears, then send this shit to the Consulate in New York with $500 attached. We have our visas processed, overnighted back, and then we have to apply for a residence permit. Which we, to this point, are unsure if we do before we leave, or after we get there. But, when we do get to our apartment a police officer has to come verify that we are who we are, by having us present authentic birth certificates, our passports, and a picture of David Hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger.

To compound this problem Emily has been communicating and getting things expedited through an immigration law firm which has, by the way, been giving Emily vague and unreliable information and telling her different information than what was originally presented by the Belgium company she would be working for. In order to correct this problem Emily has now been calling the Embassy to get the "official" information, because nobody seems to know what it is. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the country is split in half about all policies and they don't have a functioning government. Who knows really? Making it worse is the fact that they ONLY accept phone calls about visas between 2-5pm M-F. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to arrange an apartment that's bigger than a college dorm room, but have found that people in Belgium won’t read your e-mails completely and will respond asking questions that were clearly answered in the original. It's like they don't really care if they do business or not, unless you're ready to shell out $2000 a month in rent (average price) without looking at the place. But what I do know is that all this paperwork has cost quite a bit for both of us...glad we're not paying for it.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get out of the life-sucking hotel room in the suburbs sometime this year. Maybe we’ll finally get to Belgium and around the red-tape. All I can say is...the Chocolate, Waffles, and Beer better be damn good.

Chicago Public Transportation

I’m not sure how many people who will read this brief, yet informative post. But, as a self-declared travel expert, and an all-around great person to know, you will find this info to your benefit, especially if you’re traveling through the Chicago area anytime in the winter or colder months (ie. November - April), and utilizing the public transportation system. First of all, most of the city politicians are not only corrupt, but they’re stupid as well. Anyone who thinks that the public transportation system in Chicago is anything that even remotely resembles efficient is someone who thinks Glen Beck ISN’T a retarded troll. More politicians and public officials encourage people to take public transportation every year. Why? Do they want us to be late for work every day, or get gang raped by some “gangsta thugs” from the South Side? No, they just want more public funds to get pumped into the system that will, in no way, support public transportation, but somehow, get funneled into useless projects that will somehow benefit the corrupt politicians. Not only is the public transportation as inefficient as most airlines, or the public school system, but it’s also as dangerous as being gay in Texas.


First off, as stated before, traveling the public transportation system in the colder months, in Chicago, subjects anyone to the shitty weather that they’ll have to endure. Also, as stated before, since the trains and busses are so completely inefficient, thus, never on time, you could be stuck standing outside or on an elevated train platform for some significant time shivering like Charlie Sheen in rehab.


I’m going to go ahead and admit that I've never taken public transportation in any other U.S. city besides San Diego so my comparison to other U.S cities renders this post irrelevant. However, I have taken public transportation in 10 foreign countries and I will attest to Chicago being the fucking worst out of all of them. And this comes from the City that wanted to host the 2016 Olympic Games, but somehow, and I can only guess, the absolute atrocity that this city calls public transportation somehow played into the decision...well, that and the fact that everyone HATES Americans. But, Yeah, 10 foreign countries in which the public transportation system is noticeably better...and 7 of the 10 were in Asia. 5 of the 7 asian countries blow the Chicago system out of the water.


OH...so you want examples. If you may or may not know, many of the elevated (L) train platforms are cold in winter, so one would think that they’d put up shelter. Chicago, is, after-all, a really cold ass place to live in the winter. But, for some reason the City of Chicago will place overhead heaters above the 3 or 4 wind blocking benches on each platform, but not all; however, only one of those fucking heaters will actually work. So, when you arrive on a platform, you can see everyone huddled around one single wind blocking bench underneath the sole operating heating element looking like day old cafeteria corn dog. The extra kick in the nuts is knowing that the trains won’t run on time so you will see three trains go by in the other direction before a train going your way will run by. WHY? Nobody knows...Chicago is too poor to put up digital time schedulers like developing countries do.


AND, not only do the trains run off schedule, but in the winter time, they’re filled with homeless people sleeping all day and night on the train, just riding back and forth from one end to the other, smelling like urine and cat feces. This problem could also be solved by simply looking at how other countries run their train system...but NOOO, wouldn’t want to do that would we? Next, as most people try to avoid the South Side of Chicago, which is defined as absolutely nothing south of the Chinatown/Cermack stop and nothing west of there, I am afraid of a group of “thugs” on a single train car. There aren’t cameras on the train, hell, if they are, they probably don’t work anyways. So, when I find myself and my wife on a train with a group of teenage south-side “thugs” giving everyone the shit eye when they get on and begin talking some form of language only translatable by someone who went to Morehouse, Emory, or Spelman in Atlanta, GA. I get a little fucking scared. (If, by chance, you think this is Racists, then lighten up. A little insensitive and unwarranted to some good colleges, I agree, but honest nonetheless). All I’m saying is that I’ve never felt threatened in any other city’s public transportation systems besides Chicago’s...hell, I’ve ridden with the dirtiest of Euro Trash trains in Italy and didn’t feel this threatened. BUT, hey, we’re about to go to Europe for a few months, so I’m sure I’ll get mugged for being an American, and when we get back to Chicago, I’ll get shot for being racists or “insensitive.”


The Busses...WOW, these things are even more useless. The city of Chicago actually publishes schedules for these rolling pieces of shit. Why? Only to appease the angry white folk who like to complain, because, we all know, the busses just go and come when they fucking feel like it. My wife and I used to live downtown, literally, across the street from a bus stop and two blocks from the red-line, and I still hated public transportation. The bus across the street had printed schedules, not only on paper, but on the sign. It’s as frustrating as trying to translate an NBA player at a press conference. It is what it is, after-all. I’ve literally seen three of the same busses come one after another, I just waited to get on the third one...because I could. Also, I’ve walked outside at the appropriate scheduled time to see the bus pulling off 5 minutes early, only to wait another 30 minutes for the next bus, which was supposed to show up every 15 minutes.


So, if you find yourself in Chicago, and you’re taking public transportation, don’t be surprised when the train, or bus, that you happen to be on breaks down and you have to get off and either wait for another train or bus, or hike to wherever you want hoping not to get shot because you went too far south or west. The other option is to wait for a taxi so you can pay $40 to go 5 blocks and get some sort of political history lesson from Abu the head bobbling Indian taxi driver. (That actually happened to me)


P.S. The Suburbs Suck...but not as bad as the entire state of New Jersey or Ohio!