This Would Only Happen to Me....

I am prone to doing stupid things and having many blonde moments...it is true and I can admit it! I was having trouble with my local Belgium phone so today I met the Belgacom repairman at my apartment. The repairman arrived around 1PM and was able to fix my phone in less than 1 minute! Seriously, 1 minute! Anyway, as he was leaving I saw there was mail outside my door. I walked out of my apartment door into the lobby area right outside my door to gather the mail. As I did, my apartment door shut right behind me....and NO, I did not have my keys....nor did I have a cell phone or list of phone numbers with me. I ran over to it and no luck, it was locked!! Luckily, Maxie is always right under my feet, so she was not locked in by herself.

I decided it was time to meet my neighbors in hope they had the number to the owner of the apartment building. I walked up the stairs and knocked on their door. A man answered and I began explaining what happened and what I needed. He looked at me like I was crazy...I quickly realized he spoke VERY LITTLE English. I took a deep breath (otherwise I was about to lose it and burst out in tears) and did my very best to explain what I needed in my non-existent French and using the universal language of gestures! Imagine me trying to speak French and gesturing being locked out of my apartment!!! Yeah, go ahead and laugh....it was quite a sight!

I think he finally understood what was wrong and told me he did not have the number of the owner. But he did have the number of a friend of a friend who has a friend who is friends with my owner! HA! Seriously, he said that! He called this person and did not get an answer. The owner of my building lives in Holland, but her parents live in Brussels and handle local issues with the building. Anyway, the guy starts looking through the phonebook for a locksmith. Nothing worked. My neighbor's apartment is right above mine so they can look out onto my garden. I asked the guy if there was anyway we could get to my garden from his apartment because my back door was open. He looked out the window and down to my yard was like..."I am too old for that"!!! I laughed and said, "Me too"!! It was a long way down!!!!!!

Then the guy looks at me and asks if I had any friends or family who could come help me. I about lost it when he asked me that. Anyway, I looked at him and said, "no"...which sounded really sad. But I had no one's phone number and no one has a key to my apartment....so even if I did have friends here (which I do have a couple)...they could not have helped me anyway.

I was trying to think of anything I could that would help me. I finally remembered I could call my relocation company who would contact my relocation agent who would have the number of my owner's parents. The phonebook was no help and they did not have a computer...so I finally remembered the US mobile number of my boss. I called my boss on my neighbor's cell phone (he is going to die when he gets that bill)....and was able to get in contact with my relocation agent. After Christian (my relocation agent) laughed at me, he gave me the number. I called the parents of my owner and she came to my rescue immediately.

Another adventure to write home about.....how incredibly stupid was that!!??? This would only happen to me! The funniest part about this story...this weekend Lindsay and I went shopping in Leuven (a little town about 20 minutes outside Brussels). We passed a key store and I said I needed to go in and get some extra keys made because I knew I would end up locking myself out one day. I wanted to give Lindsay a set of keys to my apartment in the event I did lock myself out! The key store was not able to help me because of the 'security' keys I had...you cannot get duplicates made of this type of key! Nice! Then, today while at the office, I was talking to my boss about my desire to get extra keys made to give to friends here....then not an hour later this happened to me! AHHHHH!

I asked the owner's parents about getting an extra set of keys made...and she is getting one for me! Maybe this will not happen to me again!