Uli moved to Brussels in 2003 and must have joined the EU delegation around that time. She said her early work was in translation, but she disliked it and moved to the Directorate-General for Competition, and later to DG Trade. In those days, her apartment was centrally located in a lively neighborhood near the old Bourse. In the years to come, to relax she would often spend weekends on the Belgian coast.
She left Brussels in 2012 to take up a post in Tokyo, and then in 2016 to work in Santiago, visiting Brussels frequently for meetings and training. She moved back to Brussels in August 2020 and — after a brief stay at a hotel and then an apartment in Ixelles — in summer 2021 she moved into her last address, on Square Biarritz. Much time was spent on the renovation, and she was very pleased with the result. At last, there was enough space for her extensive collection of books and art catalogs.
During her years in Brussels, she took full advantage of what the city had to offer. Favorites included the BOZAR arts center and the Europalia art festivals (on Turkey, Indonesia, trains and Georgia, among others), as well as wide-ranging film programs at the Cinematek, such as a Japanese film festival. She enjoyed meeting friends/colleagues, and taking visitors to places like the Horta Museum, a Lebanese restaurant on Place du Châtelain, and a gelateria near Parc Tenbosch. She attended book readings given by visiting authors such as Amos Oz and David Mitchell, who happily signed one of his novels that she’d dropped into the bathtub, calling her his “bath reader.”
Other places that she enjoyed included a Japanese supermarket near her last apartment, the Van Buuren Museum with its house, garden and maze, and the K1 annex. She regularly visited bookshops (Librarie Nijinski, Librarie Candide), the Sunday market at Gare du Midi, the weekly market on Place Flagey, and the opera house at La Monnaie — to see, among other things, part of Wagner’s Ring cycle, though she preferred Verdi and Donizetti. And she enjoyed taking long walks around the city to see the Art Deco buildings and strolling through the Bois de la Cambre. As much as she liked living in Brussels, in 2024 she had been looking forward to her next posting abroad.
In the places, and in our memories of her, something of her presence remains.
(From Jeff)
