ewagstaff

Hi,

Could anyone tell me what it is like to live in belgium i.e. the pros and cons.
Are there many english living over there. What is housing like. I am currently a nurse in the uk and would be looking for work also.

Ikke

A very broad question but I will try to answer. I have lived in Belgium for six years.

First about work. You won't be able to work as a nurse here unless you get certified here. To work in any medical service you will also need to be fluent in at least one of the official languages - and that varies by area. The largest language group is Flemish (basically Dutch with a few differences) - this is spoken in Flanders. French is the second largest group and is spoken in the south. Last is German which is spoken by about 1% of the population in the east. Brussels is bi-lingual to so work there you should be fluent in both French and Flemish, although in practice about 80% of the people in Brussels are monolingual French.

There is work here for English speakers but usually you are expected to be able to speak either French or Flemish as well.

There is a large English speaking community here mainly working for international companies, NATO or the EU.

For the majority salaries are a lot lower than in the UK and the tax and insurance payments are a lot higher, as a single person I lose almost 50% of my salary each month in tax and social security.

The cost of living is lower than in the UK in general.

The weather is crap most of the time.

There are some very nice places to live and some nice countryside. It is very convenient to visit neighbouring countries.

All in all it has many good points and a number of bad ones.

There is a dedicated site for expats here www.xpats.com and you can ask questions on there too.

Good luck.

ewagstaff

Thanks for the reply much appreciate the information you gave me