More differences…

The washing machines, clothes driers and the refrigerators are SO much smaller than in the US. A maximum of two days worth of food can be stored in the refrigerator and nothing more than a few ice cube trays can be fit into the freezer. One bed sheet and a couple of tee-shirts make up a load of wash. Doing a week’s worth of clothes is a full day’s endeavor.


















Customer service is a foreign term in Belgium. If something is done easily with good customer service, it is very unusual. Mostly you are expected to stay home multiple full days to have anything repaired. When they then don’t show up, they can’t understand why this is a problem. Alternatively, repair people call or drop by unexpected and then exclaim indignantly that “but why where you not there?” The Belgians seem to have resigned themselves to the lack of customer service but we Americans are often seen huffing and puffing around, with (as the Brits say) our shorts in a knot over it.

So between the washing taking all day, having to food shop every other day, and waiting at home to get things repaired for multiple days on end, we don’t know how anyone goes to work.