emich has a nice story about how he came to be a perfect bilingual. He asks how i learned both languages of our beautiful country.
The story begins when i am 2 years old. My parents have lived in Germany (Köln) so far. Both my parents are from the deepest of the deep south of Belgium, french is their native language.
My dad has a job at a hospital in Gent, and my mum has an interesting opportunity in Brussels. Where, o where to live ? The answer turned out to be a godforsaken village called Aalter (it has grown quite a bit since).
Of course, being the cosmopolitan place it was, Aalter had the fantastic number of 1 (one) school on offer, in flat east-dutch. So i started school there. Like emich i had a very disoriented time (which i still remember !) wondering what was going on – nobody spoke a word of french.
When i was six we moved to Brussels, and I continued going to school in dutch – although it was another variety of dutch than Aalter, obviously.
I’m obviously pretty grateful for having been given this opportunity. Another unexpected result is that i enjoy learning languages, whether it be for real or for holiday. And a natural empathy for lost foreigners.
emich, you stole all the geeky biliniguals i know, i don’t know who to pass this on to 
Anyone ?
Thx for taking the stick
my pleasure