We’ve always had a love for jet-setting around the globe, so naturally, we signed up with Belgian Foreign Affairs in 1991. Little did we know, that would kick off a 30-year adventure of globetrotting, culture shock, and enough passport stamps to wallpaper a small room.
Our journey took us to some truly “memorable” spots—by which we mean, a few terrible places in dangerous countries and a few dangerous places in terrible countries. If you’re scratching your head, let’s just say we called Zaire home for a while, and Pakistan too. Afghanistan? Yep, it was in our jurisdiction. And believe it or not, we set up camp in Lebanon for four years, covering Syria too. Yes, really!
But hey, it wasn’t all dodging danger zones. Our jobs also landed us in some fantastic places—like Moscow, which we’re convinced is a country of its own, the Philippines, and Hungary. In January 2020, we touched down in London for our grand finale posting, and on June 31, 2024, we hung up our diplomatic hats for good.
Now, let’s get one thing straight: living in a country for 3-4 years is nothing like a quick weekend getaway or a two-week tour. Nope, living there means you really get to know the place—the good, the bad, and the “oh wow, that’s different.” Sure, being diplomats gave us a VIP pass to places off-limits to regular travelers, but it also barred us from spots where any ol’ tourist could waltz right in. Go figure!
Sadly, this blog doesn’t cover the full scope of our wild ride. We only started jotting down our adventures a few years ago, so you won’t find tales of our time in Zaire/Congo, Moscow, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Thailand, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, or Malaysia here. We know, we know—it’s a tragedy.
We only picked up the pen in 2016, so this blog will cover everything from then to now. But don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten our tiny but mighty Belgium. We’ll be sharing stories from our homeland too, just to keep things interesting.
We hope you enjoy our tales, and we hope you’ll pop back in often. We promise to keep the posts coming—because let’s face it, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover!
