My first week in Brussels

My first week in Brussels

As I knew I was coming to Brussels a lot of time before, I started looking for a room in advance and I found many good offers. The average for a good place is around 400-475 € per month, but if your stay is longer than five months, you should have no problems to find something nice at that price or even less, while for a three months stay like mine could be more difficult.

There are many sites where you can search for a room in Belgium and those can be divided in two types: the ones without the una tantum fee (a small percentage of the total price which you will have to pay for finding the room on that site) and the ones with that fee. Among the latters the principal site is Spotahome, which I wouldn't choose mainly because there are many other sites where you can find by yourself the right place but it can be the best choice if you don't have much experience or time to search for it. It is surely handy because their staff personally visits the room showing you the pros and cons of the place while assuring you that what are you going to pay is not a fraud. Another similar site is HousingAnywhere that in my opinion contains more offers and more affordable prices.

Excluding those two sites, there are a plenty of other virtual place where you can find a room. What I recommend you is to first take a look at the Facebook pages Bxl à louer, Wonen in Brussels and you will find many new offers every day. Usually the offers on Facebook pages are in average higher than those on other sites like MyKot, Appartager.be, Immoweb.be, BruKot, Expat.com, Nestpick.

My experience was not very good as I found myself, once I arrived in Brussels, without the money and without a house. If you find yourself in this situation the only option is, if you have enough money, to find another room. If you don't find it in the same first day, which I think quite difficult, you can take a bed in one the many hostels in the city: they are usually not that expensive but you should take a look at the feedbacks as for the same amount of money the quality may be very different.

I spent four days in the hostel and given my shortage of resources, the limited time and the brief period of my stay I chose a shared room in a home placed in Schauerbeek. The advantage of the place is the fact that it is close to public transports, allowing me to arrive at my internship's location in 20 minutes.

Getting to know the city

The first place I discovered here in Brussels was the station, which has almost everything you would ever need. Travelling from Rome to Brussels my air company had the destination in Charleroi, from which I had to take the city shuttle (around 20 €) to the city center of Brussels. From Charleroi to Brussels it took only one hour by bus.

My first day I was very curious to discover how things worked in the country: this is the first time I go to another country with the same currency as in Italy. In my previous experiences in Romania (lei), England (pounds), Denmark (danish kroner), I had to set my mind and compare the prices and lifestyles in a completely different way. I could say that for now I didn't find a huge difference, but some items seem to have a slightly higher price. I don't really think there are many high price gaps between the two big cities, Rome and Brussels, but here there are definitely a lot of nice and cheap places where you can eat or buy clothing items. Multiculturalism is surely a strength of the city and it really looks like the ensemble of multiple cultures and traditions gave birth to a uniform shining city.

During the first days in Belgium I used my free time (as I really didn't know if I could find another room) to see the city and I walked without a destination seeing a lot of beautiful places. While Rome has a predominant ancient aspect, Brussels shows a combination of classic and modern styles. What is really amazing to visit are the many chocolate shops, as Brussels has a rich culture in this field: is very famous the Belgian pralinés which come in multiple shapes and colors. During my wanderings I actually found the birthplace of the Belgian praliné, invented by Jean Jr. Neuhaus in 1912.

After taking a look at the city, I couldn't help stopping and trying the Belgian waffles: they have a really great smell and they make them very beautiful adding fruit, cream and colorful sweets. I chose the one with banana and cream but next time I would probably choose something simpler as the cream was way too much for my personal taste (even if a lot of people could like it better for the same reason! ).

My hostel was in a very multicultural neighborhood, I find it very easy to eat with a little amount of money: firstly, I tried a local fast food which had tasty stuff but lower prices than the big brands, then I tried tacos and a kebab with falafel, but the best was the sandwich made with baguette bread, chicken or ham and many vegetables.

Once I found a place where I could stay, I immediately bought my monthly ticket to travel freely inside the city: the quarters are very well-connected, and you can easily go from one part of the city to another. Even on Sunday, it is possible to travel inside the city as public transport is rather frequent and punctual. Another thing that I noticed about the metro is that they tell you on the digital schedule at which station the coach currently is.

In my opinion, the best period to visit Brussels is surely the spring as there are many beautiful and tidy gardens with wonderful combinations of colorful flowers.

I spent my first week basically discovering the city by foot and sometimes it is quite incredible how far can you go from one zone to another one completely different in a few minutes.

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