Belgium for Indians

[Nikes Shah]

Hello friends,

Recently I got a call from consultant regarding opportunity in Belgium.

As per my knowledge Belgium has mixed people of german,france,dutch.

Any Indian here working or worked in belgium earlier? How is life there? how is the food flexibility?

I am pure vegetarian.

I know english but no french, german or spanish. Please give your point of view on belgium.

Thanks,
Nikesh

[Kj Reddy]

Nikes Shah wrote:

Any Indian here working or worked in belgium earlier? How is life there? how is the food flexibility?

I am pure vegiterian.

I know english but no french, german or spanish. Please give your point of view on belgium.

I do not live or never worked in Belgium. From my friends I understood if you are pure vegetarian(even if you eat only chicken also) it will be tough outside of India.

It is better to know the local language but it will not a problem.

[Paras Jain]

I do not live or never worked in Belgium. From my friends I understood if you are pure vegetarian(even if you eat only chicken also) it will be tough outside of India.

I think that's not true. Not only Indians, there are certain other communities in other countries also who are vegetarian and teetotalers but they manage to live in all the parts of world. (for e.g.... )

Not everyone eat every type of meats also but they also manage to live. I don't know what do you mean by "tough". If easy means being able to eat anything in the menu of any restaurant then there are not many people for whom eating out is easy.

This is my opinion, I may be wrong

[Nikes Shah]

What about communication language, if we know English only?

[Campbell Ritchie]

It probably varies from one part of Belgium to another. The northern half of Belgium (Flanders, Brabant, etc) is Flemish-speaking (usually called Dutch) and the southern half (Wallonia) is mostly French-speaking and in Brussels they speak both languages. A large proportion of the population (but fewer than in the Netherlands) can speak English. I have only visited Flanders in recent years; it is a flat country with fields canals and rivers between the towns. Most of the towns are quite compact; many have historic centres. Small shops and markets abound, more so than in Britain. You should be able to buy most ingredients for your cooking, with or without meat, but you might have to travel a mile or two before you find a good selection of spices or tropical-style fruit. You will probably find there are parts of town where Indian-style food can be bought easily, and other areas where it is hard to buy.

Whenever we have been there, we only found one type of food difficult to buy: fresh milk. Most shops only seem to sell UHT ( ) milk.

[Sandeep Awasthi]

KJ Reddy wrote:From my friends I understood if you are pure vegetarian(even if you eat only chicken also) it will be tough outside of India.

I have visited Europe many times and I am pure vegetarian. I found even Indian restaurants. I did not find any problem of food except once I went for offsite team meeting where the location was away from city and we had to eat in the hotel where we stayed. There were no restaurants around. We got vegetarian food but we indian eat spicy food which we could not get there. But when we came to city, there was no problem with food.

[Kj Reddy]

It may depend from place to place. At least I found it difficult when I visited Germany. Even though I am non vegetarian I like veg food. But when I am in Germany I used to go for non veg food either because the veg food taste or unable to find veg food. Of course it also depends on your flexibility. And my other friend who visited Belgium had similar experience.

But in my opinion the food, language will not be big problem\concern if you want to pursue your career in Belgium.

[Campbell Ritchie]

You would of course do well to learn the language.

And how to eat mayonnaise on chips (= fried potatoes).