My husband Martin and I met in Brussels in 2012, after I actually stepped on his toes at my neighborhood farmer’s market. On the time, I used to be working as a safety supervisor at NATO headquarters, and he was on a enterprise journey from his house within the Netherlands.
Three days later, we went on our first date. 5 weeks later, I moved to Washington, D.C., to take a submit on the Pentagon. Nearly a 12 months and a half later, we determined we might get married and he’d be a part of me in D.C.
As a Marine Corps reserve officer, I took benefit of my VA mortgage advantages, and we purchased a small house in 2014. We introduced our new child daughter house there in 2016.
However we all the time knew we wished to maneuver again to Europe finally.
Discovering ‘the one’ in Brussels
When the pandemic hit, it gave us time to pause and plan our long-awaited return to Europe.
We wished to be a brief drive away from my in-laws in my husband’s hometown of Rotterdam as they aged. We finally selected Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the executive heart of the European Union. We calculated that we may stay there for lower than D.C. or the Netherlands, and it is solely 90 minutes from Rotterdam.
It helped that I already had a strong community of mates in Brussels, too.
Jessica calls Martin her “90-day fiancé.”
Courtesy of Jessica van Dop DeJesus
We bought our D.C. house for $899,000 in 2021 — a 67.7% enhance in comparison with what we might paid for it. And after a 12 months renting in Brussels, we began in search of a spot to purchase. Our two primary necessities: It needed to be strolling distance to our daughter’s faculty and have an outside house sufficiently big to eat exterior.
Six months and 20 residences into our search, we lastly discovered “the one” in Saint Gilles, the neighborhood south of town heart the place I might lived earlier than.
I fell in love with the 14-foot ceilings, the Artwork Nouveau buildings, and the good parks close by.
One among Jessica’s favourite issues to do in Brussels is go to the markets. There are cafés close by the place she likes to order a espresso or, “if I am feeling a bit festive,” a glass of wine.
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We supplied 547,500 euro, or $586,767, for the condominium in Brussels, leveraging the money we had from the sale of our D.C. house to place down a ten% down fee of $58,677 and securing a 20-year mortgage with a 3.59% rate of interest.
Have a look inside our condominium
We stay in a street-level duplex in a constructing with solely three residences. It is barely smaller than our D.C. house, however it’s been value it. Our neighborhood is equal to Logan Circle in Washington, D.C., the place a spot like ours may simply price double or extra. We have been ready so as to add our personal touches.
The entrance door leads into our eating room — certainly one of my favourite components of the condominium due to its excessive ceilings and enormous house for our lengthy eating desk, the place we host many dinner events.
Jessica is a meals and journey content material creator, and cooks just about daily. She loves that she and her household can host dinner events within the eating room.
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Subsequent to the eating room is our front room, the place I made a “health nook” with my stationary bike and weights so I can work out whereas watching TV.
We added an American-style range and oven that matches my Thanksgiving turkey, in addition to a wine fridge to our galley kitchen. We put in terrazzo flooring as an homage to my childhood house in Puerto Rico.
“In Europe normally ovens are very tiny, however not the case with me as a result of I really like an enormous Thanksgiving turkey,” Jessica says.
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Towards the again of the primary flooring, a small room doubles as an workplace and a sitting room. Giant sliding doorways result in our two-level terrace, one with a big desk we use within the hotter months.
Jessica and her household wish to eat exterior on the terrace within the hotter months. Above and past the patio, she says, “we now have an exquisite view of town corridor.”
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The bedrooms, laundry room, storage, and toilet are on the underside flooring.
Lack of closets and cupboard space is widespread in European residences. Happily, the previous homeowners made a storage system below the steps, which we use for further garments, home items, wines, and images tools.
“My daughter’s room nonetheless has the house’s unique tile, which we love,” Jessica says.
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We’ve got an average-sized bed room with a walk-in closet and a small visitor bed room with a full-sized mattress.
Our toilet is huge for European requirements with a bathe and tub, and we plan to renovate it in 2025.
The bed room is “very primary,” Jessica says.
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At the moment, our month-to-month housing prices in Brussels embrace our mortgage ($2,931) and rental payment ($65) in addition to utilities similar to electrical energy ($73), gasoline ($70), water (about $50), and web and cable ($68).
Our life in Brussels
I miss being inside driving distance of my household in Western New York. The primary sacrifice of this transfer is being so removed from folks I am near. However we’re comfortable to be in Brussels.
Our neighborhood, Saint Gilles, has all the time been certainly one of my favourite components of town, full of Portuguese, Brazilian, Japanese European, Italian, Latin American, and North African eating places and outlets. We even had a Latino-themed Christmas market with Colombian meals stands and stay salsa music sponsored by the city corridor final 12 months!
Our daughter, now seven, is a half-Dutch, half-Puerto Rican, third-culture child, so we wished her to develop up in a various group.
Jessica’s seven-year-old daughter already speaks English, Dutch, and Spanish, and can begin studying French at college subsequent 12 months, too.
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Belgium shares borders with 4 international locations: the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and France. This shut proximity makes it straightforward to take a fast weekend journey to discover much more locations and cultures.
I can not say leaving the U.S. for Europe meant the top of all our issues. However I really feel extra content material and relaxed right here. I do not fear as a lot about faculty shootings, for instance, or the potential lack of employer-sponsored healthcare. We are able to afford to stay, get childcare for our daughter, eat and cook dinner just like the foodie I’m, and journey repeatedly.
And we will embrace a slower tempo of life and a tradition that prizes mates and holidays not less than as a lot as work.
Jessica van Dop DeJesus is a contract journalist, a digital media strategist, and the founding father of The Eating Traveler, a multimedia digital platform protecting meals and journey. Jessica was raised in Puerto Rico and started touring as a younger Marine over 25 years in the past. She at present serves because the Latinx facilitator for the Breaking Limitations in Entrepreneurship program for Bunker Labs, offering mentorship to aspiring veteran entrepreneurs. Comply with her on Instagram, Fb, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.
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