Week 205: Discover by Barge

I get it—we're impatient. Business in Belgium doesn't work that way. There's a reason that Belgians enjoy one of the best work-life balances in the world. They (almost) never answer emails after 5 PM and rarely respond before 10 AM. There's a tendency to want to talk rather than just email.

Ella said we were the same in Greece when we arrived, complaining that the system was frustrating and slow until we figured it out. This is no doubt true, but in Greece, we know how it's done now. I have a feeling in Belgium there are no shortcuts. Just sit back, trust the process and relax while things slowly topple into place one after the other. At least when people say, "I will do this", they always do–unless it's after 5 pm (sorry... 17:00), then you'll need to wait until the next business day.

Sunday we headed back into Gent to explore more of the city. One thing we've been wanting to do is climb "St Baarts" tower on the large cathedral. It's only open during the period of the Gent Festival, so it was well worth exploring that while we could. The top of the tower is about 80 meters above the city and it's a VERY long way to the top up tiny winding stairs inside the turrets that have people heading both up AND down. The view is spectacular. It was mostly locals doing the climb and some of them were well prepared, dragging picnic baskets to the top to sit and rest and enjoy the spectacular views.

On Monday, we spent an hour or so with a company that handles Belgian "social insurance" and learnt about all the ways we now have to contribute to Belgian society. Lots of expenses! We went to the real estate agents to sign our lease. That all went very smoothly, and the great news was that the apartment was available to us from Wednesday. The timing was perfect. Our current Airbnb finished up on Wednesday morning, so we were going to be able to go straight into the apartment.

We headed out to shop on Tuesday. We found a few discount stores and visited the Tweedehands (Second Hand Store) to find some basics like kettles and toasters so we could have a cup of tea and some toast after moving in. In the afternoon, we headed to the city to rent a car for two weeks. It made sense as we need to get to Dijon, France, and back this coming week for the barge and then, of course, moving in and purchasing things would be a lot simpler with a vehicle, too.

With the car, we spent the evening wandering around the festival and then headed to see a show recommended by a friend (Michael Cameron), who spent a year or so living in France and experiencing their street theatre culture.

Called La Bande à Tyrex, they are a French performance troupe that combines music and bicycles in a daring musical ballet. We also spent time in the festival centre, enjoying lots of live music and other street performances.

Wednesday was the big move-in day. We were able to sleep in, and then we packed all our things, loaded the tiny little car we borrowed (a Ford Ka) with our five bags and drove to the (new) local supermarket. It was quite overwhelming navigating "Colruyt", which is a discount warehouse on a scale we're not used to, with a unique checkout system, but we survived and made it just in time to meet the agent at 1 pm.

The handover of the keys was straightforward, and like that, we have an apartment again. It's kind of fun. Somewhere more permanent to leave our things, that doesn't need a mooring or to be watched when we go away.

Our first order of business was to head to IKEA. There, we purchased a mattress. We'd already dragged sheets with us from Matilda, so with a mattress, we could at least sleep in the new home. One benefit of all this travelling around is that we get to sleep on a lot of different beds. When we find a mattress we like, we jot it down. Amazingly, one of our favourites is actually a relatively cheap one from IKEA, so we grabbed that and have been happy with it so far.

The car is tiny, so of course, we can't fit everything in at the same time. We had to make the run home, offload and then return a second time to IKEA to collect the bed frame. This time, we also stopped for dinner (meatballs at IKEA), and when we arrived back at the apartment, Karina unpacked while I put the bed together. By 9 pm, we had a new bedframe, mattress and the beginnings of a place to live. It's a very student-style place. Our goal wasn't some amazing apartment, but cheap and available to let us push all sorts of other things forward.

We were in limbo, waiting for other things to move forward with the business and the boat, so we headed to do more secondhand shopping. There are some wonderful Tweedehand stores around Gent, and we had fun exploring, even if we didn't find anything amazing. Okay, technically we found LOTS of amazing things, BUT nothing we were willing to spend money on!

Part of the reason for holding back is we know that the new barge has a lot of useful things that we won't want for the business, but can use here in the apartment. So we need to raid that before we get too carried away. It's also not our intent to live in the apartment much, although we'll probably spend 3 months or so a year here. It needs to be comfortable, but we'll most likely live on the barge.

Back at the apartment, I put up the wall-mounted clothing hanger, and we unpacked the rest of our things. Finally, we were able to relax and have a very chill Thursday night.

One of the things we're learning about is Gent's rubbish system. It's "user pays," but in an interesting way. You have to buy very specific trash bags in the supermarket, and they are expensive! Essentially, it works out at €2 for every bag of trash. Another quirk is that cardboard and paper are only collected once a month!

Well, the solution to all of our bulky cardboard was to take it back to IKEA. Naturally, there were a few extra things we wanted, so after strolling the halls in IKEA and €100 later, we made our way back to the apartment. Where suddenly, everything kicked off again.

The proxy documents we signed for the notary had to be redone. The barge broker had an update on our contract. People wanted information about the insurance we've been trying to organise for the barge. We scrambled to get all that into place, and then, Friday afternoon, we had a call from the Belgian Waterways department that we'd been waiting on.

By Friday afternoon, Discover by Barge BV officially exists (although it has not yet registered in the company register. That will happen Monday). The contract for the bill of sale for the barge was updated, and we have arranged (pending some photos) insurance. Most importantly, we've figured out what we need to do to "own" the barge.

Like everything, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. It turns out we've been asking (or insisting) on the wrong thing. With Matilda, she is "flagged" by the Polish government. We've been expecting a similar process for the barge. Nope. After a very good conversation with the Belgian Waterways official, the very helpful Kevin, we now understood that this concept, which all our sailor friends will be familiar with, isn't a thing for a boat on inland waterways.

Instead, we need a "Union Certificate" (a European Union Inland Waterways Vessel certificate) that essentially details the vessel's ownership and safety requirements AND a tonnage certificate. The tonnage certificate is the record of "how big am I"—which is important for navigating inland waterways in particular.

Part of the complication is that while the barge we are buying is flying a Belgian flag, it's technically really French now – it has a French-issued Union Certificate. Its tonnage certificate exists on record in Belgium, BUT it's expired! Further investigation and we found out that the current owners haven't updated one in France.

Anyway, Kevin has been incredibly helpful, and the Belgian Waterways are going to issue an extension to the expired tonnage certificate. This will allow us to bring the barge to Belgium, where we will need to have the tonnage certificate renewed.

On Saturday, we started cruising marinas here, trying to find a berth. As we've been warned, it's challenging, but it seems like we'll find something. It's probably not going to be that prime inner-Gent location we dreamed of (but never expected we'd get), none of which matters as far as the barge's "operation" goes.

We've also sent branding briefs to a series of companies to help us refine and position what we're trying to do and emails to the entrepreneurial arm of Gent City Council to see what assistance we can get there.

All in all, it has been a very productive week. We have a place to live, a company, and a contract ready to be signed. Tomorrow (Sunday), we are driving down to Dijon, France, and then on Monday, we will be on the canal near the tiny village of Luneau to sign the bill of sale and purchase our second-ever boat!

And for the next month? We'll see. The barge won't return with us just yet (some people have asked how she will get to Belgium–on the canals! A journey of several weeks), as we need a bit of paperwork in place (insurance, ownership transferred, etc.). We have a critical appointment in Gent on August 7th (for our residency), but after that, most likely, we'll be looking aggressively for that weather window in Greece to move Matilda to Athens and get her stored away on the hard while working out how to move the barge here to Gent at the same time. There's a lot of balls in the air at the moment, but we're enjoying the juggling, and if we drop a ball, we'll just pick it up again and keep going.

Until next time

Tim & Karina