The ins & outs of health insurance in Belgium

You might not believe it, but in a week, it will be two years since I've returned from France!! Yep, that long ago already, and today is the first day I will spend a day in France since the day I left and returned to Belgium...

However, it has taken about this long to get my health insurance re-activated here... Why, you would ask... Well, there's a couple of reasons, actually...

• If you move from any European country back to Belgium, you have to be able to prove you were insured in that country for the time you were there. Simple, you might say, but no... Put in about 5 requests to social security in France, never got an answer... (they can track you down wherever you are in the world using intelligence & stuff, but that, they aren't able to find out, whether you were insured in another country... Weird, no?!?)
• Secondly, as a Belgian citizen, when you arrive back in Belgium, you have to prove that you have been re-employed here. First question that came to mind: what if I don't want to work anymore? Does that mean that I don't have the right to health insurance????
• OK, now... the proof you need to provide is not that simple: it's not sufficient that you show them your new contract, no! You have to have a form filled in by your employer saying that they employ you (my contract says that same thing, no?!?), and have to send that form back to the health insurance.
• However, sending that form back to them, does not mean that they won't lose it... Mine was lost about 3 times, hence the 2 years I was without health insurance...

If all these steps aren't enough already, and even if the forms were provided to them at the soonest possible moment, that would still have meant that the first 6 months after returning to Belgium, I would still not have had health insurance, because there's what they call "6 months waiting time" before you can get re-insured...

But, as you can see, it can take up to 2 years!!!! Luckily I didn't get a weird disease or break all the bones in my body these last 2 years, I would've been broke in the meantime, I guess...

But anyway, just to warn you... Belgium is still a bureaucratic country!!

The basics of html!

Yesterday in school, we actually had an interesting class for once!!! Thanks Tom!

We learned the basics of html, or in other words: how do I put a title on a webpage, how do I do basic formatting, how do I put an image on a page, how do I link to other websites, etc etc...
You can't imagine how happy we were that this one time, it didn't actually last ages until it was 22h00!!!

So again, thanks Tom!! :)

Weird, weirder, weirdest...

If you have been living in Belgium for the last half year, you probably have noticed as well that the weather has not been splendid these last months... Not to say 'really bad', but I'm getting the feeling that the fact that I'm constantly sneezing and blowing my nose has something to do with that...

I've never took that much medicine in my entire life, just because every second week, I feel like I'm getting a cold again...

Or maybe, it's because my lifestyle has really changed these last couple of months... I'm going out regularly, having fun and meeting new people constantly, which makes it even the more interesting... But I should start dosing it, because staying up until the morning every night of the weekend, is really not that healthy... Might need to ask the new man in my life (ooh, sounds good no?) to do something relaxing and simple (like making dinner together and watching a movie) more often... Might be the solution to my constantly having a cold...

Funny

Look at this: http://www.garagetv.be/video-galerij/prime/Robin_Hood_la_flamande.aspx

How you can mess up curry with chicken... :-s

Don't know what happened with our food today, but our site lunch was chicken curry with rice, and it was the most hideous thing I've eaten in years... !!!

For those of you who don't know... at the small (well, depends on what you think is small of course) furniture company I work for, we all eat together on Tuesday's, our boss' sister makes us food, but this time, I don't know...

Since she couldn't come and make it here in our kitchen, she made it at home, asked one of my colleagues to come and pick it up at her place, and between her stove and ours here at work, something went wrong... The smell of the curry was disgusting, and when you tasted it, it tasted awful... But, tough as we are, we put in a little sugar and spices, and thought 'Oh, it will be OK...'

However... since no-one ate more than one plate, what did we need to do with the remainder of the food, especially because we couldn't keep it, could we? Our whole office already smelled awful...

Decision: flush it down the toilet...
Action: flush it down the toilet...
Result: awful and disgusting smell in the toilet...
Remedy: put a scented candle (vanilla scent) in the toilet...
Result: awful smell mixed with vanilla... Hahahaaa!!

Sodding weather!

No wonder I'm ill... f***ing weather ruined not only my holidays in Berlin, it also turned me into a sniffing, coughing and half-cauging human being... crap!

Why on earth can't the clouds for once just disappear? A little dash of sunlight wouldn't be that bad...

Sorry, did I already tell you I'm in a really bad mood? Well, I am...

9/11 - six years after

Bin Laden's apparently re-emerged from somewhere in the bushes of Afghanistan, and probably, for as long as we live, we'll hear how long it's been since 9/11 every year (isn't there a 9/11 every year???!!!???), but this year on 9/11, it was a nice and quiet day... Didn't even bother to listen to the news, just did some shopping and sat on a terrace, enjoying the fact that it didn't rain for once...