Winter in Brussels

One of the best things about winter in Brussels is the availability and variety of "chocolate chaud." I just love that most events for Belgians somehow involve drinking a hot chocolate.  The best I've found was a cafe near Chatelain where they give you a cup of hot milk with a huge block of Belgian chocolate on a stick for you to mix yourself.  It. is. Amazing.
Even though its cold out, we haven't stopped going to the park.  Our lovely Parc Cinquantanaire is just up the street and there is always something to see or do.  The latest new discovery: there are BIRDS in the park and they like to eat Cheerios! Actually this was my nightmare because I hate birds, especially pigeons, but Sofie was so excited we stayed for a while.  She had dropped like ONE cheerio, and instantly 10-15 pigeons showed up.

Hanging out in the Park

Last week to get out of the cold for a bit we stopped in at the Musee Royeux D'art et d'histoire.  They were having a exhibition on Marie Josee, the Princess of Belgium.  My French is still not great but I was able to gather that she was a daughter of King Leopold, born in the 1920's, married an Italian prince. Mostly I took away from it that she rich, pretty and fashionable, and many of her great evening gowns, and her wedding dress were on display.

A little dusting of snow

Sofie came back from Christmas in America with a new skill: crawling! I found a really nice place on avenue D'Audergeim called L'Espace Famille which is basically a huge room filled with toys, games and even an indoor slide.  It's free to go, and open most days.  Sofie was mostly interested in standing up on a little activity table, a barn toy, and the noisiness in general (she even let out a few random squeals to join in!)  One little girl kept running over and zipping her hoodie zipper up and down- but Sofie didn't blink an eye, in fact she really didn't interact with any of the other babies at all. Maybe next time

We are still swimming and singing on Fridays which Sofie is loving. The pool is really warm and she just lays back and relaxes. I have to bring my camera one of these days!

Happy New Year

One of my resolutions this year was to stay on top of my blogging, as it was starting to become ridiculous trying to recall details from a trip 5 months ago. Hopefully I'll find that New Year, New camera and Newly predictable napping baby will be a good combination and keep us in the present!
But before I can close the door on some of the posts I'd been meaning to make from 2012, I thought I'd do a quick recap from our first full year in Belgium.

January: We escaped the cold and headed to Rome for a long weekend. We stayed right by the Spanish steps, ate delicious Italian food outside in the mild weather, visited the Vatican, Colosseum, Trevvi fountain and toured the Roman ruins.





February: Had a chilly weekend in Paris, our "baby moon" trip. Spent the day in the Louvre, and had a wonderful dinner at Le Maison Blanche, overlooking the sparkling Tour d'Eiffel




 


















March: Chris goes on a boys only snowboarding trip in Switzerland...no photos are returned...;)

April: Chris' 30th birthday trip to the Netherlands.  Saw the Keukenhof gardens, Van Gogh, canals of Amsterdam.


May: Sofie Mai Arrives!


June: The King family visits. Fun times around Brussels, Bruges, and Waterloo


July: The Thompson family visits. Had a blast hanging out around Brussels, Ghent and Grimbergen.

Our Anniversary trip to Ireland where explored Dublin, Galway, The Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry and more




















August: Chris and I headed to the Olympics in London for a day.  The Andiolas visited us for a few days.

Finally we got to see the Flower carpet! Happens only once every two years!

 Next was our true European "holiday" a 2.5 week road trip through France,Barcelona, Nice, Monaco, Montelpulciano, Lucerne and Strasbourg!

Guell park, Barcelona

Our beach in Nice

Cortona, Italy

September: Cherron visits, had a great time in Brussels and Bruge, and even a girls trip to Champagne!


Had a fabulous time in Prague


October: Janine and Christine visit Brussels, and football season

Football season! Go RU

November: Paris to see the Musee D'Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysses. Megan visits for Thanksgiving!

December: Stockholm and New Jersey :)

Czech Please!

I was just reading another blog about Prague and reminiscing about our trip there in September-so I thought I'd better post something before I forgot!
Sofie and I took our first plane ride together (sans Daddy) to meet Daddy who was in Prague on business. Since Chris had been there before, I didn't do my usual trip planning/research which was a very fun change with surprises around every corner! The first night we got there, we headed out for dinner hear the hotel, we ended up on a row of Italian places, so Italian in the Czech republic it was! They seated us, brought a bottle of wine, and Sofie cooperated by napping in the stroller.  About a hour AFTER we had concluded that we were SO European in the way that we waited patiently for our food to arrive- we noticed the wine was almost gone, and yes, the waiter had forgotten our order.  The patience was over, we were American and starving once again!
The next day we took the metro to the downtown area.  The subway was the only non-beautiful aspect of the entire city- very dated, wooden super fast escalators, trains that looked like they were from an old communist movie.  We headed for the "old city" which in Europe, always seems to be the best part.  I never knew how into architecture I was before coming to Prague and seeing the most colorful, intricate buildings, bridges, streets, and palaces.

We saw the astronomical clock, and took a tour of the underground which remains from before they literally built the city higher to avoid flooding.  This tour turned out to be a private one (no one else signed up for our timeslot) which was great- although Sofie was babbling (loudly) over the poor guy's commentary making for a very distracting tour.  
We saw lots of pretty etched glass, puppets and mannequins, and drank Pilsner Urquell which was good, but not as good as Belgian beer ;)

One of the hundreds of little alleyways lined with artsy shops

Delicious street food! Cinnamon buns cooked on a rod

 The next day we stayed on the other bank of the river and visited the royal palace with amazing views overlooking the city, and the Charles bridge. For lunch we found a fabulous Czech pub and had goulash and beef stew. Delish! My beef stew was served with some kind of berry topping (interesting) and whipped cream (surprisingly good)  They served all dishes with dumplings in them, which were kind of like huge slabs of white doughy bread. Very filling!

A look back at the city from the Charles bridge

 

A view over the city from the Palace

Anyways, we couldn't have asked for better weather and would love to walk around Prague again.

Joyeux Noel

We are getting ready to head back to the States tomorrow, so we've been soaking up all the Euro-Christmas we can, it is lovely! It starts a little bit later than in the US, really not in full swing until December.  You will notice the accordion players on the metro playing "Jingle Bells" and although you won't find Santa at the mall, you WILL find a holiday champagne lounge (even better, right!)
We started our festive season with a fun night out at the Sablon.  They had all the shops open late with goodies being served, wine and champagne in the center lot and music on stage. Here is Sofie posing in front of our tiny tree.

Of course we visited the Brussels Christmas market  one night with our friends, the Devines.  The funny part about the Brussels market is that along with the adorable decorated huts, festive lights, gluwine, and roasted chestnuts are things like the "Ice Monster" which is a giant inflatable horror house!  You will also see the most terrifying creatures on the carousel, drunk reindeer, and half naked santa helpers.  It is very strange, but we knew what to expect this year and had a great night!  

Next we had a short weekend trip up to Stockholm to visit Anna and see the Swedish Christmas markets.  Anna lives in a great area on the island of Sodermalm, where we stayed also.  We met up at our hotel, then she took us for a walking tour through the old town and over to her apartment for dinner.  
Saturday we bundled up at took the ferry to Skansen which is an island thats set up as a traditional Swedish village, with little houses, shops, animals, and a Christmas market.  They are definitely more traditional, and it was very interesting to see another set of christmas rituals.  They like to dance around the christmas tree, there was a band playing carols, of course lots of glug and gingerbread (pepperkaken), and little tomta's that you place under the tree. They look like gnomes with red pointy hats and furry beards and according to Anna they "do things" at night to help Santa.


It had just snowed in Stockholm, so everything was so white and Christmasy! It was great to see Anna and Carl- and we really loved Stockholm.

J'adore Paris

Since Sofie's favorite mode of transportation is NOT the car, we decided that our best bet to visit Paris was by Thalys train.  We had a four day weekend so headed to Paris Friday morning, the train was fantastic, so fast and easy, we were there in a little over an hour. Dropped our luggage at the hotel, and found a Brasserie for lunch where I had the best croque madame of my life.  We decided to head to the Eiffel Tower next because we missed it when we came in February when it was FREEZING and we had the best view of it from our hotel anyways, so why bother. So all I wanted was one little picture of the three of us where you could see our faces and the tower in the background.  This took three different nice people on the street that we stopped, plus the time it took them to get out of earshot while I asked the next person.  So...like 30 minutes :) But we got a good one! Next we did a little shopping on the Champs-Elysses, and visited our first "luxury bathroom" which cost 2 euros, but was in fact quite lovely. Cute idea, more like a bathroom store which fun papers, silver toilet bowl scrubbers, and great smells! For an extra 50 cents we could have gone into the "spa" toilette, which we didn't but I REALLY wish we did just because I can't stop thinking about what that could possibly mean.  A massage seat? Heated hand towels? What, what?
Another fun store we visited was the Lavinia wine shop with a huge selection of different wines, mostly French, and a little card that you buy for tasting them!  You basically put money on the card, then stick it into this machine that holds the bottles, put your glass underneath and get a little 3 oz taste.  Genius!
The next day we walked over to the Seine, through the Jardin Tuilleries, and went to the Musee D'Orsay.  As we walked up we got a little turned off by the massive line wrapping around in front of the building until a lovely man who worked there called us over through the line, and told us "our" entrance (aka stroller, wheelchair entrance) was over to the side...with NO line! We got right in and Sofie even permitted us to see everything we wanted (the whole Impressionist floor, some Van Gogh, Rodin and Gaugain) We walked around the city a little more, had some wine with lunch and took the train back to Brussels.
A great trip!

Bucket List!

A few years ago Chris and I came up with our bucket lists, and over the past year we have made some great progress!
When I wrote mine I had decided to include a few "easy" items to get me started and balance the few "harder" ones, such as own a yacht :)  One of the easy items was to go apple picking which is something that I've always wanted to do, and should be a simple task given all the orchards and farms around NJ.  Well,it turns out for one reason or another that I never got to go, so when a friend told me about a place in Belgium I was so excited! We got all dressed up in fall attire, drove about an hour south with our friends, the Weinbergs', down crazy narrow country roads.  After asking a local we realized we had driven right by the tiny paper sign which advertised the apple farm, and when we finally found it, they were all out of apples for the season! Zut!  Have to try again next year!

Sofie in her apple picking outfit, smiling despite having no apples!

Anyways, here are the things we DID manage to check off:

Chris' list: Visit Amsterdam April 2012

 Chris' List: Go in a helicopter, Grand Canyon July 2011

 Chris' List: Go to the Colloseum, Rome January 2012

 Chris' List: Visit the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City January 2012

Chris' List: Visit London, July 2012

Chris' List: Snowboard in the Alps, Zermatt December 2011

 Chris' List: Go to Ireland/Guinness Brewery
The two things that I checked off were being on House Hunters International and flying first class on an international flight which we did when we visited and moved to Belgium :)