What has really struck me most about living in Belgium is just the absence of fear here. No one fears the cops (aside from maybe the very hard left who work very hard at trying to need to), no one fears being unable to afford healthcare, no one I know fears their boss, few fear for their next meal, everyone is more bemused at their government(s) than afraid of it, and no one fears being unable to afford a pregnancy or a kid. Hell, even the fear of failing that undergrads and masters students in Leuven where I live have is fundamentally different from the fear I knew back home being more reasoned and a hell of a lot less desperate.

Its pretty neat getting to live in a country with more kinds of beer than my liver could conceivably process, a frietkot on every corner where I can get deep fried steak as well as the package of delicious fries the size of my head for a couple euro, a functional social welfare system, and a government where you really can assume laughably absurd incompetence rather than malice when shit goes wrong. Maybe its that I've gotten to experience the darker side of the American dream skewing my perspective, but its like I tripped across the Atlantic and landed on my ass in heaven.