Nice, welcome back. Good that you had the opportunity for an industrial position. Are the downs due to the people side or the research?

Brussels sweet. Good to hear from you. What's your favorite thing about the city?

Good lord there is good beer where you live now. I'm glad to hear that all is well.

Well holy fuck me! I was just poking through my testimonials yesterday and, no shit, I wondered what you were up to.

Sounds like things are mostly pretty good huh? Congrats on getting out of academia. I'm still in - teaching in (I shit you not) Montana. It's a trip and a half, and if you wanna be bored - I can lay it out for you. Long story short: I like what I'm doing, but I'm not sure I can keep doing it.

But that's neither here nor there: welcome back, hope to see ya about.

Yes, welcome back indeed. Maybe we should Facebook it or something.

I'm in Berlin, likely to head out from here in another couple weeks. I've been as close to you as Amsterdam a couple times. I'll likely be hopping a plane to England at the end of February, so crossing another side from where you are now.

Belgian beer ranks among my favorites for sure.

I ended up in China through a mixture of being semi-destitute in Australia (job hunting smack in the worst period of the financial crisis) and online poker. Almost been here a year, with plans on jumping ship in May to do some travelling in Europe and returning home.

Montana is ok. It's stupidly pretty here, and life is easy. I love love love the city (well, "my" city of Chicago). But it's nice to not deal with traffic or parking or spending an hour getting across town. People here are nice. My students are nice. There are a few (too few) good places to eat - beef out here is to die for (you can get an enormous, and amazing, prime rib at a roadside bar just outside of town on Saturday nights for around $25). I also feel sort of manly when my car is disgusting and its 20 below zero but I'm still out and about, it's kind of fun in a "fantasy camp" way.

There are things that are hard too, obviously. I miss great book stores, great food (especially ethnic food), I miss diversity and the general bustle of the city. I yearn for the skyline. I miss the city at night, especially downtown, when the skylines glows and it quiet but people are still out wandering. I miss riding the El. I miss hearing the traffic.

The wife is not out here yet, actually. She has a year of pharmacy school left, but given the state of the academic job market ... well you know. She's visited a few times, and finds this place to be "fine." Which makes it sound passive aggressive. She thinks its pretty, and there adventures to be had. But the final thing it comes down to is: Is this a three year job, a five year job, a ten year job, or a thirty year job? In other words: how long can do THIS? Can we acclimate to THIS? Part of the rub is that the administration here is awful. There are also questions of whether my wife can get work out here, which is insane. But it's a poor state, and smaller town, and she's running into some problems. I may hit the market again as early as this fall. Which sounds exhausting. I may also consider leaving academia for non-profit or government work. We shall see.

How's it feel being an expat by the way?

Interesting to have you back.
I really think SG has been just secretly reactivating old accounts for free. A bunch of people I know have gotten their accounts back.

Europeans in general don't socialize like strangers as much as we do.

Good luck over there.

Can understand that, and the image of a 'giant research machine' is kind of humorous.

I'm ok, swamped with work, but that's my own doing. Kind of normal project research, where the big picture is engrossing but some of the nitty details are very frustrating and stupidly time consuming.

Germany is just my internet cover, as homage to forgotten ancestors. I've mostly been in Beijing for the last year, but also a bunch of trips to Taipei and London, and even Philly once in a while. Might be nice to get to Brussels, and would let you know.

Heh, looks like a few of us got accounts reactivated...

Looks we both came back right around the same time. Belgium, food as good as the French with portions as big as the Germans. Friendliness of the French mixed with the humor of the Germans too though I believe.

Good to see you are back.

Sounds super. :-)
Sounds like you're doing awesome as well!

PS- Belgian beer! I love Frulli!