Lactose Intolerance in Dairy Paradise

It is not uncommon for people of Chinese descent to have problems with lactose allergy (most common in babies and young children) or lactose intolerance (which comes on in childhood and persists through adulthood). JieJie has a mildly bad reaction when there's too much dairy making its way through her system. We used to handle that with soy milk until MeiMei came along and proved allergic to the protein in legumes. Our compromise, rather than having four kinds of milk in the house, was lactose free cow's milk, something readily available at home in Virgnia.

Here in Antwerp, and indeed in much of Europe, you can find many wonderful dairy products. The butter is wonderful, spreadable right from the fridge. The types of cheese we can try are nearly endless. So far my favorites are young Gouda and Leerdamer. And can we talk yogurt? There aren't yogurt sections here, there are yogurt AISLES. You can get drinkable yogurt, pourable plain yogurt, fruity yogurt, diet yogurt, tiny little shots of probiotic yogurt to promote digestive health, yogurt tiramisu, kids' yogurt, snack yogurt in a tube, Fristi yogurt and fruit drink in a juice box...and both girls LOVE yogurt.

JieJie would eat yogurt and cheese til the cows come home, and then she'd ask said cows for some milk. Poor thing, she loves the thing that causes some pretty bad lower digestive tract issues, not to get too graphic about it.

I thought well, at least we can get lactose free milk, but it was really hard to find initially. Most milk is not stored cold in a dairy case, but is sealed until needed--if you're familiar with Parmalat, or any of the vacuum sealed soy milk products, you get the picture. There's a whole milk aisle of different products, and I finally found in one little corner of the Super GB on the Groenplats a section of "lactosevrij" milk from Finland, so that's what we've been buying. It's actually pronounced like lactose-free, since the v is more of an f sound and the j is like a y.

Problem solved, and JieJie's little system seems to have settled down, as long as we don't go overboard with cheese and yogurt. Now if only the bean allergy weren't keeping us from getting cans of cassoulet...so tempting!

Our IKEA Adventure

So once the girls are home from school for the day, it's lunch, then quiet time, and then...??? It's easy to feel cooped up right now. The weather's cold and cloudy/rainy, the days are short, and the apartment, though well laid out, is still smaller than the upstairs of our house at home.

This afternoon I told the girls if they wanted to go to IKEA, I'd take them. They know from visits to Grandma and Grampa's near the Mall of America in Minnesota that IKEA has a very cool kids-only playground. They said "yippee" and got ready.

We walked to Franklijn Rooseveltplaats where all the buses arrive and depart, and found bus 502 which goes out to the 'burbs, specifically Wilrijk. It took about 45 minutes to get to IKEA (pronounced EE-KAY-uh here) and we went through a beautiful, ritzy neighborhood called Berchem which reminded me of nice areas around Capitol Hill in Washington DC--gorgeous townhouses.

The girls wanted to stay in the playground area, so I showed the attendants my passport and gave my cellphone number and the girls hopped in. How cool, I thought - they're in heaven and I get a whole hour to shop in a store I like. Just in case they balked after a half hour, I went straight for the kitchen accessories section and found what we needed for the apartment: soup spoons (we've been eating soup with espresso spoons) and a kitchen scissors (only one euro!). Didn't find the cheese knife (how can any apartment in this city not have a cheese knife???) but I've seen that at HEMA, which is such a nice store you really don't even need IKEA.

I went through checkout before learning that I should've bought a plastic bag for 10 cents, so went back to get that, then got the girls out of the play room where they were coloring and watching a Princess Jasmine movie in Dutch. I got the feeling they would've stayed much longer, but it was time to get back, already 5:30.

We went out to the bus stop and just missed the 5:39 back home, so had to wait til 6pm. Even a year ago, that would have meant certain disaster, but the girls are just old enough that they can start to go with the flow a little bit, lucky for me. It was my fault for not checking the return schedule.

At one point, as we whiled away 20 minutes at the bus stop, JieJie said "I wish we lived here Mommy." I said "really? what do you like about it?" thinking she meant Belgium, thinking how wonderful this experience could be for a kid, thinking the furthest I'd been from home at her age was Brainerd. She said "well, if we lived right here we wouldn't have to wait for a bus!" Oh....duh.

So the bus came, we headed back into town, then we caught a tram that went within a block or so of the apartment, and around the time they usually go to bed we sat down to dinner.

I learned that trips to IKEA are probably not a good fit between quiet time and dinner, but I would much rather have an adventure like that than stay in the apartment all afternoon, griping at each other about not jumping on the couch for the 23rd time! Let's hear it for De Lijn, bus and tram service of Flanders! Heck, I'd hop a tram just to see where it went if the weather gets yucky again.

Daytrip: Gent and Brugge

200 people viewed this blog last week! No Lauren, you're not the only one posting. All readers, please feel free to post comments.

What a fantastic day we had Saturday! It was our first daytrip with the whole group of 30 JMU students, our Director of Logistics Mr. K, John, JieJie, MeiMei and me. Our destinations: Gent (Ghent, if you're British) and Brugge (Bruges, if you're a French-speaking Belgian).

We met the tour bus promptly at 9am at the bus stop on the Paardenmarkt (Horse Market). The Stroller fit beautifully into the baggage compartment and the driver was so sweet to the girls. Right away, JieJie asked if she could sit with a college student, and in the next few minutes, I got a glimpse of her as a teenager. I called out to ask who would like a seatmate, and JieJie put her hands over her ears and hid, totally mortified. I'll have to be more subtle. Anyway, she and MeiMei each buddied up with a 20-something and we were off to our first stop, Gent, capital of East Flanders. It was about an hour on the bus. The countryside is flat, lots of farms with little towns here and there. You'd think it would be more built up with so many people in relatively little area, but it's quite bucolic not far from the city limits.

Gent is BEAUTIFUL, historic, pleasant, people were friendly, and I definitely want to go back when we have more time. To prepare for the trip, I got an itinerary about mid-week to see if there were any parts of the day that wouldn't suit preschoolers. Mr. K had forewarned me that the major tour of the morning, of the Gravensteen, or Count's Castle, was not a good place for an accident-prone 3 1/2 year old because it's a real medieval castle with precarious stairs, no railings, and some steep drops if you lose your step. Also at the top of the climb there's an exhibit of medieval torture devices (how in the world do you explain to a preschooler that people would go to so much trouble to hurt someone else so badly on purpose????).

Anyway, looked like we'd have an hour to use as we pleased, so I read up on the other things to see. Luckily, the city center of Gent is compact. It's easy to see lots of things without walking all over the place. When we parted from the students and John, we decided to get a snack and then see the beautiful canals, bridges, cathedrals and guildhalls of Gent.

We walked into a tiny bake shop and the girls saw what they wanted: eclairs and Bismarcks filled with custard. I chose an eclair. We went back to the unheated lounge area of the Vleeshuis (Meat House, which used to be like a meat market but now features regional food specialties) and sat there with our jackets on, getting our faces full of chocolate and powdered sugar. It was JieJie's first eclair, a momentous occasion indeed. It was so quiet in that building, JieJie asked if people came there to pray!

From there, I decided we should walk along one of the canals and cross by St. Michaels Bridge, which is supposed to give one of the best views in the city. It was really easy to find the way, and we were rewarded with a beautiful view in every direction. We could see the wide canals where boats used to tie up in front of guildhalls for hundreds of years when Gent was a major trading center. The weather was perfect too--we really lucked out.

Here's one shot I took, of a tour boat going down the canal. We didn't have time to take the 55-minute boat tour, but that's something that would be really fun to do another time. The area around the canal was a good place for the girls to stretch their legs without worrying about traffic, but I'm glad I strapped them in The Stroller as we went down toward the cathedral - there's a major bus/tram transfer point and the roads are very busy.

We met up with the group to reconnoiter, settled on a meeting place and time, and then went into Cafe Leffe for lunch, just our family and Mr. K. The girls shared a Croque Monsieur (that's hot ham and cheese) and the rest of us had omelets. Our coffees came with something sweet on the side (this is the norm - if you order coffee, you either get a little cookie or a chocolate with it) and we shared those with the girls.

After lunch, JieJie wanted to stay with her daddy and MeiMei wanted to come with me. We ducked into a chocolate shop and got a treat - mine was made to look like an acorn and it had hazelnut filling. Hers was a chocolate covered cherry. We got extras for John and JieJie. Since we were right by the big cathedral, we went in there to see it and it is truly magnificent. We lit a candle together (she said her usual dinnertime prayer) and then went around the nave. The sculpture around the pulpit was most impressive. Above the priest is a "roof" and above that is a depiction of the tree of knowledge from the garden of Eden with a voluptuous golden snake entwined in the branches, and a golden apple hanging from one spot (at least I think I remember the apple!). Seems a clear enough message. There's a famous tryptich in there by Jan van Eyck but there wasn't time to see it on this trip--another reason to go back. Mr. K says he prefers Gent to Brugge because it's a working city, not so much a tourist destination. I'm inclined to agree, though Brugge is enchanting.

We gathered everyone together to head for Brugge, another hour or so on the bus. I had prepared for the ride - you never know the girls' frame of mind that time of day, so I had some sticker books for them to play with and they each chose a college student to help them find the pages where each sticker was supposed to go. I had time to look out the window and daydream. What a lovely way to travel, and the girls were truly great--interested in things, willing to try all the different foods, and good about the time on the bus.

We arrived at the Brugge bus let-off and met our tour guides. With such a large group, we split into two smaller groups for the city tours, and John hit it off with our guide right away because this guide teaches American history as well! The walking tour of Brugge was great, though I missed about half of it because I needed to keep the stroller at the periphery of the group. No matter - the city speaks for itself much of the time. We walked down streets no wider than the hallway of our apartment, and strolled out into magnificant plazas with stunning architecture. Much of Flanders and The Netherlands has a style of roof called a "step gable" - I have a photo of a street in Brugge that shows it fairly clearly - you can see how the facade comes to a stepped point at the top in the row of buildings at the right.

After the formal tour concluded, John joined us for a walk to a museum called Choco-Story (www.choco-story.be) where we learned a little about the history of chocolate, how it grows, what people have made from it, even different types of beautiful serving and storing containers called bonbonnieres. And of course you get to sample some chocolate along the way. The girls got this little sticker game to play as we went through, so they'd have to watch for different important things in the different exhibits. It was a great way to keep them looking really carefully at things, rather than just heading straight for the samples!

We had time to kill, so we strolled around the compact historic center of the city and wound up at the Markt, a great big public square with spectacular buildings on all four sides dating from architectural eras spanning the last thousand years or so. Maybe that's what's so impressive about both Gent and Brugge (and Antwerp for that matter)--seeing so many different aesthetics and building materials/methods right up against one another, distinct yet harmonious.

Dinner filled me with trepidation. We had hoped the girls would nap during the walking tour but they didn't. This meant that they could be at the very end of their energy for the day right during dinner...yikes.

We took up most of the restaurant, the 35 of us, which helped a bit. The girls had some buttered bread to start, and then a tomato cream soup arrived in little turreens--it was absolutely delicious. The main course was salad, steak, a baked potato AND frites (french fries) with ketchup or mayo. Mayo is the Belgian way. The girls actually did pretty well, and when they wanted to get down and wander between courses, which we normally don't allow, it worked because they just wanted to go sit in college student laps. The students were really great with them.

Dessert was called Dame Blanche, but it's really vanilla ice cream and whipped cream with hot fudge sauce. Mind you, in this case it was the best chocolate sauce I've ever had. Mr. K says it won't be our last Dame Blanche, that it's a pretty common dessert here.

We walked to the bus, girls fell asleep in the stroller and we thought for sure they'd sleep all the way back but they woke up as soon as we got on the bus and stayed active the whole time. Luckily there were several students who were interested in showing the day's photos from their digital cameras, sharing music on ipods, or just playing patty-cake games.

We got home and fell into bed at 9pm - what a day! Sunday we did little to nothing - most things are closed anyway. We watched some cartoons, hung out in our pj's, and did a late afternoon walk around the deserted Meir shopping street, where the huge TOTALE UITVERKOOP (everything must go!) signs are now being replaced by a sales term I need not translate: NIEUW COLLECTION! The fashion for spring seems to be, in no particular order, ruffles and more of the layering, with dominant colors being white and khaki. Blah. I may have to sit this one out.

Les Waltons

We get some really interesting tv here, and I think I saw the show to end all shows on Wednesday. JieJie and I were channel surfing (given the weather and lack of playgrounds, we've been watching more tv here than at home). All of a sudden, I saw the familiar faces of Walton's Mountain, and Special Guest Star Ronny Howard seemed to be playing John-Boy's cousin.

I say seemed, because the episode of "The Waltons" was dubbed in FRENCH.

You have to understand, not only did I watch the show as a kid in the 70's (every Thursday, I still remember) but back home in Virginia, we live only about a half-hour from the REAL Walton's Mountain.

Watching John Sr. and Jim-Bob having a heart-to-heart in French as they drove their old pickup truck into town was just absurd...changed the whole feeling of it for me. All of a sudden they were spies working for the resistance. I wanted the dad to get a beret out of the glove compartment--oh, yeah, and they definitely needed to smoke.

And Grandpa Walton dispensing advice like Maurice Chevalier-Shifflett (it's a Valley thing) to little Elisabet...the children calling "allez! allez!" while they spun someone around to play Blindman's Bluff...

And of course, the final scene. I couldn't wait to hear everyone say "Bonne Nuit, Grandmama...Bonne Nuit Zheem-Bob...Bonne Nuit Jean-Homme!"

A little shopping

In the U.S., it seems that every store is always having a sale. Every week, circulars arrive in the newspaper announcing that the best prices and best selection are available NOW or THIS WEEKEND. The word sale really has no meaning at all at home.

There was a time when stores had sales only once or twice a year, to clear out inventory before the new season's selections were unveiled. Shoppers knew that when the end-of-season sale was over, regular prices would be back for quite a while. My mom remembers that time.

That time is now, in Antwerp anyway. By law, stores in Antwerp are only allowed to have sales in January and July. This week, the last full week of January, the 30% off banners have become 50% off, and the 50%s are now 70% off. I hate to buy something just to buy something, but then again there are a ton of great stores and boutiques here, it's a world fashion capital, and if I don't buy something this week, the rest of the time I'm here I'm afraid I'll be kicking myself for paying full price when I coulda shoulda woulda. You have to understand, I can talk myself out of buying pretty much anything.

Even today, when I had time to shop, for just a moment my inclination was to shop for the girls, or read in a cafe, but I finally looked in the mirror and told myself "you are going to shop for YOURSELF today."

I had salivated over any number of boutique windows as we got to know the city, yet when I started out to shop today, there were all kinds of reasons I found not to go in and look. Can't shop in a store called Noblesse. Can't go into Gucci or any of those name brand boutiques. Can't go into a store where there are 3 clothing racks hanging like art exhibits, and a perfectly coiffed mannequin of a saleslady waiting to pounce on my credit card before I have a chance to say whoa.

I finally ended up in a department store called P & C on the Meir shopping street. I had decided to try and find a suit or at least a really nice tailored blazer/jacket, and I am happy to say not only did I find it, I actually took it to the cash register (kassa) and BOUGHT IT--and two coordinating & very very soft turtleneck sweaters to wear with it. The jacket itself is all wool, a nice plaid with lots of different colors so I can wear it with lots of things, and it fits beautifully. I'm glad I bought it, and it was a good price too --a $200+ jacket for under $100.

Tomorrow morning while the girls are in school, I will likely head to another department store called Inno and get a couple of nice outfits for the girls. There are of course amazing boutiques for kids here too, and a number of them have luscious dresses in the windows...but at 200 euro and up for something they might wear twice...think of how many outfits that money would buy.

John has gotten himself a couple of things too, and may splurge on himself tomorrow if he sees anything worthwhile. His favorite purchase is a fleece-lined baseball type cap to keep the rain off his glasses and keep his head warm in this increasingly frigid weather--it was REALLY cold this afternoon!

Antwerp Bicycle Repair

Just wanted to post, if it is of help to anyone else, that a good place to get bicycles and/or stroller tires repaired is on the corner of Nationalestraat and Sint-Antoniusstraat (not far from fashion designer Dries Van Noten's Antwerp boutique!). I can't tell you what it's called, but the man who runs the shop has helped me twice now, first with the right kind of pump for The Stroller's tires, and today he put a new inner tube on the front left wheel for 15 euro and we are back in business. He is very nice, and between our broken English and Dutch and hand gestures, we understood one another just fine.

If you have time, take Sint-Antoniusstraat east, follow it as it becomes Oudaan, and then turn left/north on the pedestrian street Korte Gasthuisstraat. What a great little pedestrian district! People were waiting in a line out the door from one scrumptious looking bakery, and there were lots of other great boutiques, a tea house, snack shops, and at the center of this sort of starfish of streets, a sweet little plaza with a few of those riding toys for kids, animals on giant springs (what are they called??) which the girls of course had to try.

The tram, it should be noted, is not the greatest solution when we can't use The Stroller. Today and yesterday the girls were late to school though we left earlier than we would if we walked! The trams get caught in traffic and we waited at a transfer between the 7 and 8 lines this morning for a good 15 minutes before the 8 came. Still, it beats walking in the rain or snow.

Simple Pleasures

There are definite advantages to taking a 3.5 and almost-five year old on a semester abroad such as this one. We chose this semester precisely because it was post-diapers but pre-kindergarten, so we have more flexibility on both...ends...ok, I didn't intend to go down that road but it's there now.

Major advantage #1: They get up early. No teenagers moaning in bed at 10am when everyone else is ready to see the sights. JieJie and MeiMei are up at 7am every day. Right now it's still dark at 7, but we look forward to it getting lighter and lighter.

Major advantage #2: They have no sense of what's "supposed" to happen. These girls roll with whatever happens because they assume that's how it goes. Sometimes the other side of that coin can be troublesome...they assume we know about all this stuff and we find ourselves saying "hey, we've never done this before either!" Still, there's very little disappointment, because there are no real expectations, unless you count getting to have candy all the time.

Major advantage #3: They take pleasure in everyday things. What are their favorite things to do? They can move laundry from the washer to the dryer because these machines are front-loading and easy for them to deal with. They love to take out the garbage and recycling and they fight over who gets to put bottles down the collection pipes at the corner of our street. The bottles fall down the pipe and we hear a most satisfying crash as they break in the collection pit below. They LOVE escalators (JieJie calls them a pet name, "escalaties") and luckily those are plentiful here (we have none at home). They've been excited to learn to ride on trams, and JieJie even knows how to read the indicator lights at the tram stops that show how far away the next tram is.

Major advantage #4: They are easily enchanted. They loved the castle (Steen), the carillon that plays in the beautiful cathedral down by the river, and they remember that just below that cathedral's steeple, there is the statue/fountain of Brabo throwing the giant's hand into the Schelde River. MeiMei said "that's where the monster is!" and I said "Mommy made a mistake, it wasn't a monster, it was actually a giant." MeiMei said "you mean like a Fee Fo?" Took me a moment to realize we'd read Jack and the Beanstalk not long ago! We're still giggling over that one.

We have a great system (at least it's working so far) for the girls to help keep things picked up. With only a few rooms, we can't let messes pile up. There are three rules: keep voices down, keep bedroom picked up, and don't leave toys out in the living room. As long as all three rules are followed, they get to pick a small toy off the "treasure shelf" in our room. It has become a really big deal to pick a small doll or a coloring book, and a great heartache when that opportunity is lost, but it seems to be working. If I have to pick toys up, I put them on the treasure shelf and voila, it's restocked. It seems to be helping maintain a kind of equilibrium as far as how much they can keep up with.

Yesterday we went to a big toy store and they chose these little battery operated yapping dogs that work with a little remote control on a "leash" (cord) and can walk along the floor, wag their tails, etc. These are in addition to the little stuffed dogs they brought from home, Arfy and Woofy. Now we have Barky and Rolly. And they want a real dog when we get home from Belgium.

Money

First off, the dollar has strengthened slightly against the euro, which is good news. When we left, it was about $1.33 to the euro, and now it's $1.29. Let's hope it continues along that trend. We were so spoiled in China, where one dollar bought eight RMB!

One issue we've dealt with since settling in to Antwerp is how to handle money. Is it better to use traveler's checks (NO--we didn't even bring them...apologies to Dad who is an AmEx retiree) or cash or VISA or a VISA debit card?

Cash...where to get it? Fortis Bank, the main bank near us and one with many ATM's throughout Antwerp, does not accept foreign cards in its ATM's. Last week, we ran perilously low on cash. We wondered how our students would access their own accounts. For a while there, we thought we might have to take a train across the border into The Netherlands just to get cash from an ABN-AMRO or a Rabobank! Ultimately, we even considered opening an account at Fortis Bank, when we discovered a Citibank ATM near the Belgian National Bank on Frankrijklei. The flip-flip-flip of currency in the machine was music to our ears! Our credit union did charge a "foreign transaction fee" as well as $1 for using an out-of-network machine, so that's the downside. Best to make fewer, larger withdrawals.

The advantage of cash is, of course, it's universally accepted. If rates are good, you also lock in the exchange rate at the time you withdraw. If rates improve, well...tough luck.

On to the VISA network. Credit and VISA debit cards are treated equally here, so it's really your choice which to use. Upside? For me, if I have cash I'm too likely to spend it. At home I hardly ever carry cash. Downside? Too many stores, including some groceries, are not on the VISA system. Also, that foreign transaction fee shows up for every debit card purchase.

For the length of time we'll be here, a new bank account doesn't really make much sense. If we were going to be here any longer, though, it would be a really appealing option, and the JMU staff member who moved here last year said it's a piece of cake moving funds around between U.S. and Belgian accounts.

Restaurant Review

Samoerai Japans Restaurant
Willem Ogierplaats 2-3
2000 Antwerpen

What a great place to take the girls! Dinners in Antwerp can extend for three hours, far too long for most children to sit still and stay at the table. BUT, throw in a little theatre, with teppan-yaki cooking right at your table, and two little girls will sit up and take notice.

Samoerai is a nice walk from our neighborhood, past the Grote Markt and around a little corner to the riverfront, just short of the Steen castle. We walked in and immediately the wait staff started to fuss over our girls, asking if they were Chinese, if they were twins (several of the staff asked that...the girls are at least six inches apart in height, but oh well!), and one staff member asked JieJie "ni jiao shenme mingzi?" (what is your name?).

We have a place at home called Kyoto that does teppan-yaki and sushi, but Samoerai felt fancier. We were taken to a teppan-yaki table and given bright kimonos to wear. It seems the kimonos help the chefs know who is in what group, a clever touch. Our tempura appetizers came in little boats with the sauce at one end, and one of the pieces of tempura was crispy noodles arranged like a little fan. I'd never seen that before. We ordered shrimp and noodles for the girls, and theirs was cooked first (parents appreciate that stuff!). Our dinners had shrimp, salmon, a white trout-like fish, and beef tenderloin, plus noodles. It was all cooked perfectly, with nice sauces on top to provide the finishing touch.

A waitress brought the girls lollipops to enjoy while the adults had the last meat course, and JieJie and MeiMei also visited the koi pond near our table a few times. Just when I would worry about them getting squirmy, huge flames would burst forth from one of the nearby tables--nothing like fire to get one's attention!

The ultimate was dessert, especially the presentation. Dessert is an ice cream sundae with some fruit alongside (kiwi, melon, a spiced pear, etc) which is no big deal BUT it comes in a little dish that is resting in a larger goblet. In the goblet is a cube of dry ice, so when the ice cream arrives, cold fog is spurting out all around the dessert, and it's quite the effect! One boy at another table was having a birthday, and his dessert had the fog AND a couple of sparklers in it as well. JieJie declared that she wants to have her fifth birthday there in March.

Good thing they'd had a nap yesterday afternoon, because it was 10:30 by the time we got home! We praised them over and over for their excellent behavior at the restaurant. If we can limit the amount of 3-hour dinners they have to endure, and choose them wisely, I think they'll have good memories of dining out in this wonderful city.

Agenda for today: The Stroller has a flat front left tire, so it's off to the Meir to find a pump. Let's hope that it just went flat and there's no hole in the tire, otherwise we'll have to take it in to be repaired.

Sleepy Sunday

Last night, we had planned to go to dinner with the program director, but the girls didn't nap and as evening approached, their wiredness got to the point that I begged off and told the girls that the three of us would be staying home for a quiet dinner, a bath, and an early bedtime. They were pretty upset. John and I sat in the living room, on the other end of the hall from the girls' bedroom, and realized in a few minutes that it was really quiet in their direction. They had fallen asleep at 5pm. Oh no! Now what to do? Do we wake them at 5:45, spinning the roulette wheel of preschool moods? Or do we let them sleep, running the risk that non-napper JieJie would be up at 8:30, tucking us in at midnight?

We decided to wake them, and lucked out. The program director walked us to an Austrian rib joint of all things, called Amadeus. There is a menu, but generally people just order the ribs, which are coming out of the kitchen every few minutes or so. It's 13 euro for all you can eat ribs and baked potatoes, plus molasses for the ribs and garlic butter for the potatoes. This was the first time JieJie and MeiMei had ever tried ribs, and they each finished half a rack! They seemed to like the relaxed atmosphere (1920's/30's Hot Jazz playing...reminded me of Little Rascals) and the fact that they were supposed to eat with their hands, the protocol of putting empty bones in an old enamelware bowl. By the end of dinner, JieJie said "take me here again!"

We got back to the apartment and watched Disney's Cinderella in Dutch ("Assepoester") and they went to bed. JieJie woke up at 4am asking for kleenex for her "ruddy doze" and I thought oh no, not a cold!

But we all slept in til about 8am, then had breakfast and watched some cartoons. We get all kinds of kids' shows here, a mixture of English, Dutch, French, German, and dubbed American programs. The one that made us laugh this morning was a very Gothic French cartoon called, I kid you not, Le Petit Vampire. From the looks of it, this story is about a little vampire and his family, a mom like a combo of Morticia Addams and Marlene Dietrich and a dad who is constantly eating scarlet forkfuls of raw meat. His cat (also red) floats in the air somehow. It was tres French.

John took the girls to the Steen, a castle/fort on the River Schelde, and I had almost an hour to myself in the apartment, which was nice. JieJie's cold doesn't seem worse, though we all took that Airborne stuff just to be safe. The girls are napping now, the weather varies between teasing sun and pelting cold rain, and tonight we dine at Samoerai, a teppan-yaki place. The girls are sure to like the spectacle of dinner being cooked before their eyes.

Tomorrow is a school day, and Tuesday our students arrive, all 32 of them!

Weekend: Antwerp errands and sightseeing

We're staying put this weekend and doing some local exploring. The director of the JMU Study Abroad program arrived yesterday and will be here for a week, showing us the ropes.

Last evening (Friday) we went to a neat Scottish pub called The Highlander on Prinsesstraat. It's the meeting place of BATS, the British Amateur Theatre Society, and a fellow JMU staff member here in Antwerp says it has a "Cheers" atmosphere in terms of the regulars who get to know one another. The girls came along and tried the macaroni and cheese (makaroni-kaas) which is their favorite, while I had a nice plate of spaghetti bolognese. I was thankful for the boisterous atmosphere because it meant the girls didn't have to whisper their way through the meal. We're really trying to limit dining out so that they can relax when it's time to eat. It's only fair, when so much is expected of them.


Later last evening, John attended a meeting of the Antwerp American Club as a guest of Mr. K. It's the 2nd oldest such society of its type in Belgium, second only to the Brussels chapter. There used to be a substantial American community here, but the club has dwindled to eight members (perhaps today's American expats just don't have interest in joining). John spoke to one 88-year-old member who is a WW2 veteran who did the Mermansk run as a merchant mariner. He enjoyed the evening, being the sort who is genuinely interested in people and the stories of how they came to be where they are.

Me? I stayed in to watch "The Italian Job" on tv while the girls slept. It was nice just to chill and do nothing. And I love a good heist movie.


This morning we had some errands to run and marketing to do, so we split into separate teams and set off about 10am. John and JieJie went to the grocery store with the grocery caddy on wheels. MeiMei and I went to a store called Unif on the Quellinstraat, where we were able to locate gym shoes and tights that fit MeiMei. She's so tiny, the smallest gym shoe they sell is a size larger than she takes, but not by much. Yesterday we'd found JieJie's tights at a department store on the Meir called Inno, but they didn't have anything smaller.


On the way back from Unif, I had a Navigational Light Bulb Moment! Antwerp had really thrown me this week. Normally I have a fairly reliable sense of direction, but the streets have a way of curving and shifting that keeps messing with my internal compass. Finally this morning I looked down from the Teniers Plaats and saw the tail end of the Meir shopping street! MeiMei and I followed Leysstraat to the Meir and found our way home, stopping en route for a chocolate croissant of course.


When we got home, John and JieJie had returned from the Super GB with goodies for the week: new kinds of meat and cheese to try, some Muesli with chocolate and other treats.


Lunch, then quiet time + orientation meeting, and then John headed out on a program errand. The girls and I had a quick snack before making our way down the 51 steps to the street and making our way to the Grote Markt, a major stop for tourists.


On the way, we followed our noses into a beautiful church: The Carrolus Borromeuskerk, which overlooks a beautiful little cobblestone square called the Hendrik Conscienceplein. I found an exterior shot on flickr.com for your viewing pleasure. It is a beautiful church, built by Jesuits in the 1600's according to my Essential Antwerp guide (AAA Publishing, 2001). The inside was also pleasant and the girls hushed their voices almost instinctively as we walked in. Soft vocal music was playing as we made a donation and lit a candle. It occurred to me that we will be visiting no small number of houses of worship on our trip, so it's not too early to practice the proper way to do so. The painting above the altar was beautiful too, very dramatic with lots of Heavenly Light. Found a picture of this too on flickr!

After our visit to the church, we crossed the square to the Stadts Bibliotheek (City Library) which has a beautiful room filled with old books and busts of famous Antwerp citizens. Right now it has an exhibit of a contemporary book binding artist's work.

We headed back out through a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets that opened onto the Grote Markt. It's a beautiful square. Gilded guildhall buildings surround a large cobblestone square and in the center is the statue depicting the legend that supposedly gave Antwerp its name. The statue shows a man named Brabo getting ready to throw a giant's hand (Hant-Werpen would mean Hand Throwing, shorten it and you get Antwerpen) into the Schelde River, saving the city from the giant's wrath. JieJie wanted to see the monster's arm where the hand came from (of course) so we walked around til we saw the poor giant with the big owie.

On the way home we stopped for a piece of chocolate. I got white chocolate filled with butterscotch-caramel. MeiMei picked a chocolate bear filled with chocolate creme, and JieJie couldn't make up her mind--she is a discriminating shopper--so we helped her choose a chocolate rocking horse with chocolate nut filling.

We found our way home no problem (yay!) though JieJie's tantrum, which is still going on at this writing, began about three blocks from the apartment and had something to do with needing a Band-Aid but is really about being physically and mentally tired. Still, we can't get her to rest before a planned dinner out with the director at a local rib joint, so I'll be sitting this one out. I'd rather miss a restaurant dinner than spend the whole thing scolding two tired troupers who need a good night's sleep. Them's the breaks...it's easier to do the right thing knowing we have several more months to visit these places.

First Week of School

So the girls have finished their first week of school in Antwerp, and are looking forward to a weekend of sleeping in, choosing their own clothes and exploring the city.

MeiMei still says "hmmm...what shall I wear today?" and chafes when I remind her that the uniform is waiting in the closet, but already they know just how to cooperate when we are buttoning the top button, and they want to learn how to tie the tie and sash.

Their classrooms are just right for them. We are thinking that perhaps in a couple of weeks we might even have them stay for lunch and art/music a couple of afternoons away but that's a discussion for another time.

They've made some friends this week too. One little girl likes JieJie and waits for her at the coat rack in the morning. MeiMei was holding court at her little round table this morning too.

We have found the other parents to be very welcoming and friendly. Several people have asked us about our work here and made casual parent-to-parent conversation, and we were included in the invitation to a benefit dinner in February for the school. The invitation says "wear your dancing shoes" - aha, an excuse to take advantage of the January sales! Of course, who needs an excuse to buy a dress??

Watch your step! Pavement in Antwerp

In Antwerp, as in many large cities, there are many ways to be run over in the street. In addition to cars and trucks, buses and bicycles, here in Antwerp electric trams run on rails all through the city, and they are very quiet until they're all but on top of you. As a pedestrian, it helps to know the clues that will take you and your little children safely to your destination.

Unless you like playing real-life Frogger, take care to cross streets ONLY at crosswalks and ONLY when the light is green. Motorists are quite friendly to pedestrians who are waiting to cross at a crosswalk and we haven't had too many experiences with aggressive drivers. They will wait patiently for you to cross. If you choose a corner with no crosswalk, though, it's as though you're invisible. Nobody will stop for you...some people speed up just to make the point.

And red means stop, no matter your mode of transport. Even pedestrians wait until the light turns green. We don't see too many people making their own judgment that the coast is clear.

Watch for trams! Rails embedded in the cobblestones make it pretty obvious where the trams run. On some of the narrow streets, they come pretty close to the curbs, so keep your little ones between you and the buildings. These are not good streets for gutter-puddle splashing.

Finally, stay out of the bicycle paths! On the busier streets, bicycles have their own lanes up on the sidewalk. The bicycle paths are paved with red brick or stone or asphalt and the bicycles have separate crossings at lights. There are a lot of bicycle commuters in Antwerp. People are going to work, going shopping, taking two kids to school, one on the handlebars and one over the back wheel. They get going at a pretty fast clip, and you don't want to get in their way. At corners, leave room for cyclists to get back up on the path from the road. This may mean you have to wait a good distance back from the corner!

I find myself looking down as soon as traffic patterns are at all complicated. Between the cobblestones, tram tracks, and red bicycle pavement, there's plenty to watch for.

Don't despair: there are some great pedestrian-friendly places in Antwerp. On the Meir shopping street, you can relax a bit, though there are still tram crossings and the occasional car or delivery van. There are beautiful plazas where pedestrians have the upper hand. This morning we even discovered a lovely botanical garden we hope to get back to when it's not so muddy.

With so many different forms of transport using the same roads, it could be chaotic. But because everyone generally follows the rules of the road, with a civil attitude worthy of praise, it seems to work out ok.

Side note: you may have heard of the strong storms that swept through northern Europe yesterday, causing all kinds of chaos with the trains and planes. We were spared the worst of it though we certainly felt and heard the gale-force winds I saw a huge piece of metal roof flashing lying on the ground last night, and the wind (which had calmed significantly) was still strong enough to throw the pulley on a construction crane around like a yo-yo.

Blustery!

It is very windy today, and has been blustery since late yesterday afternoon about 4pm. I can pinpoint the time because I took JieJie out for a shopping excursion while MeiMei slept, and as we were making our way home from the Meir (pronounced like a female horse), a pedestrian shopping boulevard, all of a sudden we were almost swept off our feet! All around us, people's umbrellas were turning inside out and their hats were flying off and down the street. Simultaneously, cold rain started to fall horizontally. JieJie was in an intrepid mood so we laughed about how wet we were getting and arrived back at the apartment feeling like adventurers.

This morning, the walk to school was just as windy but not as rainy thank heavens. John and I relaxed this morning and then left early to get the girls because we are in pursuit of a few hard-to-find items. They don't seem like things that should be hard to find, but I'm telling you...wow. What we need: extra pairs of tights for school in plain red and blue. I've found tights but they're all really FUN patterns and the order of the day at school is Tradition. (Side note: I'd like to know more about the history of the school...for a school to open here in 1940 and have a name that suggests sanctuary from war...there's gotta be a story there).

Another thing we need: a book bag that conforms to the school rules. A plain, dark color. No velcro allowed. Small enough for the girls so it's not like a big briefcase. You can tell that some of the book bags have been handed down from parent to child, especially the leather ones.

While I'm on the school topic, a quick update there. MeiMei had been very weepy about school the past two days, which is not usual at all for her. Last night we talked to her about it, insofar as she's able to articulate what's going on (after all she's only 3 1/2). She said she didn't like school anymore, that she just wanted to be back at her old school. We asked if the kids in her class were too much bigger, and she nodded, then added that she didn't want JieJie to be in her class (JJ was asleep at this point so no feelings were hurt). The teachers had tried sending her to the littler kids' class yesterday, so John and I thought maybe a switch was in order. This morning I just took her straight there. She lit up when she saw the teacher (whose sister is the teacher in the other classroom) and immediately took her hand. I asked MeiMei if she wanted that to be her classroom and you would've thought I'd offered her a room full of her favorite toys! No tears today, and the report at the end of the day was good. JieJie also liked having a room and teacher all to herself. So for now, that's in good shape. We've learned from general parenting experience that no case is ever truly closed! But it seems settled for now.

Back to shopping, the big thing we're trying to track down is a rain cover for The Stroller. It's quite common to see these things that look like giant plastic bags covering strollers, and with the wind and rain and forecast for colder weather next week, we NEED it. One shop referred us to a different shop...we'll try again this afternoon. If all else fails, I'll get an adult poncho and attach it with clothespins.

With such weather as we're having, hot soup is a great lunch. Knorr canned soups are available here and they're great--"scrumpish," says MeiMei.

Well, they're ready for quiet time to be over...not likely we'll get outside with this weather, so maybe we'll try Cinderella in Dutch.

A typical day so far

Note: I left my camera's usb cable at home and can't get it for another few days...sorry for the lack of photos.

Here's a typical day so far, keeping in mind that the university students haven't arrived yet.

6:30am: alarm goes off and it's still dark out, hard to get up. We rouse the girls and wander around getting breakfast, showers, get the girls into their school uniforms and coats.

7:45am: John walks the girls down three flights of stairs to the lobby. I go to the place where we store the stroller and wrestle it into the elevator, then meet them in the lobby, where we strap all the buckles and put their school bags underneath.

8ish: We walk 2km to their school. It's dark when we set out, and by the time we get there, street lights are shutting off. On the way, we pass shops, the former home of the artist Rubens, the national bank building (that's the one I noticed the other day with the flags) and the Stadtspark, a big triangular park in the center of Antwerp.

8:25: We arrive at the school. John takes the girls to their classroom while I park the stroller in a little alcove in the playground courtyard (all the schoolyards are within the boundaries of buildings--it's funny to look into a row of shop windows and suddenly see kids playing behind the next row of windows. For a millisecond, "kids for sale?").

8:30: The school bell rings. At their former school in Virginia, there were never bells. There was a different sense of time. Also, the girls were free to choose their own activities and stay with them as long as they pleased. Although this school uses Montessori materials, there is much more of a sense of the group doing things together at certain times. They have an assigned seat at a table rather than sitting in a circle on the floor, things like that. MeiMei has been weepy the past two days saying goodbye in the morning but we are confident she'll be ok given time for adjustment...after all, it's only been 3 days!

8:35: We head back to the apartment, sans stroller. It's great to park it at the school so we have more mobility in the morning.

9am: We're back at the apartment, having walked 4km already! There's time for the paper (International Herald Tribune), coffee, a walk, or whatever.

11:15: Time to go get the girls! We've found a little place on the corner near their school where we can get a coffee (with a free piece of CHOCOLATE) and sit for a moment before going to the school. We go in a bit early so we can get the stroller out without getting in everyone's way.

11:58: This is my favorite part! A smaller bell is rung by hand, signaling to a boy from one of the older groups to come and ring the lunchtime bell at noon. You have to keep out of the way because he comes running like an Olympian down the hallway, wearing his smart uniform complete with short pants, and rings the bell with gusto before sprinting back whence he came. The traditional atmosphere of the school inspires one to use words like "whence"...

Noon: JieJie and MeiMei come out of their classroom calling Mommy! Daddy! and we all hug. It's back in the stroller and home we go. We keep passing this place called the Tuk-Tuk Shop that sells snacks and broodjes (sandwiches). One of these days we're going to stop in and see if it's as delicious as it looks from outside.

12:30: We're home, the girls change clothes and we have a bit of lunch.

1ish to 2ish: quiet time. That's now, as I'm writing. The girls have been playing with their LeapPads and looking at books during this time. We try to keep them from sleeping...they can't fall asleep at night if they take afternoon naps and then the whole next day is, well, crappy. Or should I say crabby?

mid-afternoon: time for a stroll outside, weather permitting. We're not far from some nice pedestrian areas and we found a playground nearby that might be nice on not-rainy days (which seem the exception).

pre-dinner: tv for the girls, a glass of wine for us, and we all hang out in the combined living room / dining room.

Dinner happens at about 5:30 or so, and then the usual evening routine, some play, maybe a bath, a tv show, a movie (I found Disney's Cinderella in Dutch, French and English--bonus!) or whatever. Yesterday we broke down and bought some books because I didn't bring any bedtime stories. We got a great version of Princess and the Pea by Lauren Child, who does the fun "Charlie and Lola" series, and we got a new retelling of the Aladdin story, and finally a book called "Kleine Museum" that has Dutch words next to closeups of famous paintings--it was a Gen-X indulgence to be sure, one of those purchases that is as much for me as for them. I am reminded of the SNL skit about the parents who were all showing off their exotic baby carriers, all from Europe of course, and competing over who chose the carrier that would make their baby the smartest...anyway, it's a beautiful book and will make a nice souvenir of our time here.

7:30: The girls are in bed, little duvets pulled up to their cute little chinny-chin-chins. They sleep hard after one of these busy days!

8:30: John and I get the sleepies but have learned not to go to bed that early - too hard to sleep through the night. We stay up til the BBC News is about halfway done and go to bed between 10 and 11, ready to start again too early in the morning!

The Antwerp Diet Plan

A note about diet and exercise...

Antwerp is a chocolate lover's paradise. As I mentioned before, even the healthy cereals have chocolate filling or chocolate flakes. We were presented with a lovely assortment of pralines, or filled chocolates, when we arrived at the apartment. We've had chocolate croissants and chocolate Special K.

We have also found a great selection of really affordable beer and wine (sadly, I'm not that into beer, though I will likely have the occasional Belgian white beer since it's such an institution...we even saw a man having a juice glass of beer with breakfast in a restaurant we passed this morning).

Finally, if you like specialty meats like salami, knockwurst, sausages, etc., and if you like cheese, Antwerp is for you.

Can we eat all this stuff? Well...yes, actually. And we don't have to worry too much about the consequences. Why? Well, without a car, we get everywhere on foot. Just getting the girls to school, coming home, and going to get them again at noon means 5 miles on weekdays, and that's not counting grocery shopping or sightseeing. Frankly, by mealtimes we are ravenous!

I really enjoyed a lot of the Dutch foods we had on our trip last weekend. Even the names are fun. There's a sandwich filling called kip-sate, which is basically like a chunky chicken satay in peanut sauce that you can put on bread. The girls enjoyed poffertjes (like pohffer'-chyes) which are cute little pancake puffs. Our friend R made a delicious pasta meal with spicy salami and tomato sauce. And we had stroopwaffelen, sweet flat waffle-like cookies with a yummy syrupy filling. M says on Thursdays you can get them fresh from the oven and they're still warm and gooey...mmm!

All continues to go well so far. Perhaps the novelty will wear off in a few weeks when the girls realize in a more concrete way that we are not just here on vacation, but at least once a day JieJie (the harder one to please) says "Mommy, I like living in this apartment!"

So do I. It's a great life and we are thankful every day for the opportunity to experience it. The university students arrive next week, so this is our last "quiet" week as far as program responsibilities go, but then again when the students get here, we'll have a ready supply of babysitters so we can try some of the great restaurants we keep walking past.

weekend in The Netherlands

We had a wonderful weekend in Mijdrecht, a suburb of Amsterdam, where we visited family friends. The girls got to play a lot, the grownups had a great visit, and I think we all are at the point where if we are tired, it's not jet lag anymore.

We know our Dutch friends through family connections. My uncle was in airline food service, and met M's dad years ago when M's dad worked for Martinair. My aunt and uncle got to be friends with M's parents, and then M stayed with them when she was 19 and I was 16 and we became pen pals. Who would have thought that 20 years later we'd have attended each others' weddings (in Virginia and Delft, respectively) and now our children are teaching each other new languages.

So we left from Antwerpen Centraal train station on Friday at 1:30ish. It took about 2 hours to go to Amsterdam-Schiphol station at the airport there (not all the way into town). We all enjoyed watching the scenery go by. The further we got into TheNetherlands, the flatter the landscape became. The farms are really neat, the way the perfectly rectangular fields are separated by drainage canals. Each field seems to have its own crop, but since it's winter, all we saw were sheep grazing (I take it they can't swim since they were all in one field usually).

There was no need for a club car on our intercity train (which by the way was 72 Euro for the four of us since MeiMei rides free and JieJie is still 4). Every so often someone came through with a snack cart. We liked the coffee they served, and the girls shared a "wafel-suiker" (waffle with sugar).

We arrived at Amsterdam-Schiphol and found M's husband R and went back to their lovely home, which they just built a few years ago. I will close the door on the details since we were enjoying time with friends, but suffice it to say a good time was had by all and the highlight for the girls was probably a trip to a huge indoor play-park with go-carts and a big climbing-sliding structure, as well as a bicycle/tricycle track with little working traffic lights. I won't soon forget the sight of my girls dutifully waiting for the light to turn green!

We got back Sunday late afternoon, cobbled together a quick dinner (smoked salmon and peas over noodles) and settled in for the evening.

This morning was the first full day of school for the girls. We're getting faster with the uniforms. JieJie is really ticklish, so buttoning her collar and tying her tie makes her reflexively put her shoulders up to her ears and giggle. MeiMei is pretty good about things once she agrees to the uniform itself ("noooooooooooo, I don't WANT it!").

We've learned the route to the school fairly well but we still don't leave the apartment without a map. After school, which the teacher said went very well (yay!) we stopped in a uniform shop to get a few extra shirts and a crest for JieJie's jumper. Then we had an awesome pizza lunch at 118 Lange Leemstraat, a place called Blauw Water pita en pizza. The girls had Pizza Margerita (tomato and cheese) and we had Zeefruchten (Sea-fruits) with calamari and shrimp. YUM. I would absolutely eat there again! Toward the end of our lunch, a lot of school students lined up to eat there, so you know it's good, affordable food.

That's all for now - bye bye!

Jet Lag 2 and First Day of School

Greetings from blustery Antwerp. It's a gray, rainy day and I can hear the wind howling past the windows that overlook our narrow street. The girls are napping, in hopes that they can catch up on sleep after last night.

JieJie had a particularly funky day yesterday and crashed hard at 7pm. MeiMei lasted til 8:30 and then went off to bed. John and I stayed up til maybe 10:30. The saga began at 12:30 when JieJie woke up, and I mean wide awake and ready for a new day. She was in with us for a while, then went back to her room but was singing...I was afraid she'd wake her sister so I gave her this little flashlight toy that our friend V gave us (thanks for the bag of goodies - what a life saver!). She amused herself with that for quite a while but didn't fall asleep. Finally at 1:30 she came in and complained that she still couldn't sleep, so I got up with her and we talked in the dark living room about Dora the Explorer in Dutch, which she'd slept through that morning.

Dora in Dutch is FANTASTIC--what a great way to get started learning the language! There are certain things that each character says, so there's a basis for immediate understanding. At home, Tico is the character who always speaks Spanish, but here he speaks English--it was so funny to hear a different voice as Tico say "Yes! I'm happy to do it!" instead of "Si, es un placer!" JieJie wanted to know what Swiper (Sveeper) says instead of "Oh MAN" when his nefarious plots are foiled, and she thought it was funny that he says "oh nee!" (oh, no!) For those of you who don't watch Dora, each show is a quest to reach a goal, and they chant the landmarks along the way. This time the goal was one I recognized as the Gooey Geyser, but in Dutch it's Droppige Geyser (sp?) and the g's are like the ch in the German "Ach."

So by 2:30, JieJie was ready to try sleeping again. Just as we were headed down the hallway, MeiMei woke up but after I sat with her a few minutes, they were both back to sleep so I went to lay down. I could feel myself surrendering to sleep when MeiMei cried again and wouldn't stop til I laid in her twin bed. She fell asleep about 4. I went back to my room when the alarm went off at 7 to get up and get the girls ready for school, but we turned it off and slept til 8:30 when Mr. K called. I'm glad he did, too, because we would've slept through our appointment at the school otherwise. I called the head of their school and moved the appointment to 11am.

After breakfast (various things with chocolate in them: chocolate croissants, Nestle cereal--even their All Bran is chocolate-filled!), we bundled the girls in their coats, hats and gloves (thanks, Aunt K in Wisconsin!) and set off for the school, which was supposed to be about a 30-minute walk. It was windy and brisk, but the girls seemed happy to see the sights, and every street is more picturesque than the last. John pushed the stroller (yay for the stroller) and I read the map directions we found on mappy.com's pedestrian map finder (like mapquest for European cities). It was tough navigating at times because the street names are listed on plaques on the sides of buildings, and not every corner lists all the streets, though most do. The other fly in the ointment is that street names seem to change at random. A street name might only be the name of one block of a road that continues on under another name. Just when we feared we were lost, we saw a map on the street and found the school, no problem. Still, we've learned our lesson - we never leave the house without a real map.

The school is going to be great. They've decided to put both girls in the same class (they're 3 1/2 and almost-5) for now, and if there's a need to separate them after they get comfortable, we would likely move MeiMei into the younger class since she is a bit more intrepid. The head of the school, Mrs. O, was so kind and attentive to the girls. It put me at ease right away. We went to the classroom, which has great big windows all along one wall and the familiar Montessori materials on one wall. The children were all making King's crowns for epiphany (it's also a Catholic school). What a great coincidence - the girls just did the same thing in Sunday School at home. MeiMei went right to a little "play house" area and picked up a doll, while JieJie hid in my coattails, peeking out every so often. She didn't seem to want me reassuring her or explaining anything to her in front of the other children--typical of an older child, from what I've learned. "Let me do it!" is often the underlying message when she gets upset. Her teacher Ms. K is a warm, friendly woman and she speaks excellent English--JieJie's face lit up when she realized her teacher could understand her and vice versa. They will learn some Flemish of course, but it won't be sink-or-swim.

We left feeling excited for the girls, and they seem enthusiastic too. How great it will be for them to make some friends, continue preschool (which they loved at home) and have time to run around and play even when the weather is awful (there is gym class even for the little ones). We think, at first anyway, school will be followed by lunch at home and then afternoon naps, just because of the energy it will require for them to get used to new surroundings.

We got lost on the way home but found our way eventually, though it took an extra 1/2 hour than it should have. Again, yay for the stroller. We are also thankful that people are pretty friendly and helpful when we asked for directions. When we studied the map at home, we had the same thought we often have about Mapquest...best to study the map and choose the simplest route, not necessarily the shortest. Tomorrow, instead of 20 instructions, we'll need to follow about 5 to make it there. As John said, "there's a MUCH easier way to get there...and when you see how easy it is, you'll cry."

I didn't cry, but he's absolutely right. Anyway, I'm looking forward to being able to find our way by landmarks rather than street names. There's a really cool street on the way that goes right past a Belgian government building, very grand and formal. Size-wise, it reminds me of the New York City Central Post Office near Penn Station. I can't wait to see what all these interesting buildings are.

We've arrived--and the stroller did too!

Ta-da! Through the miracle of airline travel and internet communications, I am writing to you from the desk in the Antwerp apartment. Lots to tell, so I'll begin at the beginning.

Monday 1/8/07 was departure day, but we weren't leaving until 4:30pm so we had a full day to finish cleaning our house, pack the last few odds and ends, and tire the girls out so they'd be likely to sleep on the flight.

I tried one last time to email the ebay seller of the BeBeLove stroller we bought. He had become strangely uncommunicative ever since my PayPal payment went through, and did not provide me with a UPS tracking number. About 10am, a beautiful brown truck pulled up to the front of our house and the driver brought a package to our door and rang the doorbell. I ran down to the door, wanting to thank him for the speedy delivery, but he was down the street before I could stop him. I looked on the porch floor and saw...JieJie's LeapPad backpack box. Argh again!

The rest of the day passed uneventfully and then at 3:24 pm, a FEDEX truck pulled up (hunh??) and finally, there was our beautiful stroller, packed flat in a box. I practically kissed the delivery man (I think I told him I loved him) and I noticed that the seller paid the difference to have it shipped 2-Day. He's going to get good ebay feedback for that! The stroller was easy to assemble, just pop the wheels on and snap the canopy on, then I had to pump up the tires and voila, The School Bus.

The JMU van driver came at 4:30pm and took us to Dulles Airport, British Airways desk. I had already checked in online at home and printed out boarding passes so we went to the FastBag check-in. I had printed out a sheet of address labels with our Antwerp address on them, so when it came time to tag the six suitcases and two car seats, instead of having to write it all down, we just stuck labels on the tags and we were finished in no time. Top that, Heloise.

Flight was delayed to 11pm, so good thing we'd brought some toys for the girls. We also took lots of long walks/runs up and down the long corridor of our departure hallway. We had dinner, a few snacks, and I gave the girls some Airborne Jr. in disposable toddler cups we brought. They liked the taste. Ruby was messing with the cup, biting the spout, and the top came off, spilling about half of the grape-flavored stuff all over her. SUPER MOM MOMENT: I'd thought ahead to bring a change of clothes for them both--AND a band-aid for the small boo-boo JieJie got on her finger. You have to understand, I'm not usually this prepared. Perhaps the knowledge that this would end up in the blogosphere motivated me...

Anyway, then it was time to get on the plane. The girls were SO good (had no idea what to expect, was prepared for the worst). They liked the personal video screens at each seat, though they didn't really watch anything. They also liked the meals. We requested kids' meals and they were kid-friendly but not unhealthy. After eating, the girls and John fell asleep for several hours. I can't sleep on airplanes because I need to be able to curl up, but I watched a couple of movies instead, Little Miss Sunshine (hilarious, I want to see it again because I missed the end) and The Queen with Helen Mirren (she was good but the material itself was the quality of script more often associated with Lifetime Movie Network).

JET LAG BEGINS...Got into Heathrow late morning London time, which was barely dawn as far as our bodies were concerned. The girls slept through breakfast, but we took it with us into the terminal and they ate it in a cafe overlooking the runways. They were good about walking - I wasn't sure whether the stroller was checked through or not since we gate-checked it at Dulles.

NOTE TO AIRLINES: Come up with some kind of precise terminology to clarify the word "destination" for multi-leg flights. Perhaps "immediate" and "ultimate"? It's confusing to say something will be ready for you at your "destination"...which one?

Flight from Heathrow was delayed due to scary straight-line winds that pushed the plane sideways as we taxied for takeoff. Inside I'm thinking, one wing-tip touches the ground and I'm toast. Meanwhile MeiMei is sitting next to me cheering "Wheeeee!" and laughing. JieJie had her first window seat and was really interested in seeing all there is to see. She said "are we still on our planet?" so we talked about the atmosphere and all that.

Landed in Brussels/Bruxelles an hour later--the flight was so short, they practically threw the snack to us as though it were feeding time at the zoo...why bother? Not complaining, mind you.

Claimed our luggage, and all six suitcases arrived intact. I figured the stroller and car seats would come through a separate door or something, but no such luck. We inquired at British Airways lost luggage--thank goodness we kept the receipts with the numbers on them--and they were able to tell us that those three items were sent on a later flight. It suddenly occurred to me that if the stroller got lost, it would've been in our possession for a total of eight hours. John filled out the forms so BA could deliver our things directly to Antwerp (pre-printed labels came in handy again) and we put the girls on top of suitcases on the luggage carts. They rode out through customs (I swear, smugglers should just travel with cute kids...we were waved through with no questions) and we all met Mr. K, an efficient, amiable man with twinkly eyes who assists with the university's Antwerp program. He's American but has also lived for a long time in London before coming here.

Mr. K drove us to the apartment and it's really great--small but well laid-out and very cozy. John and Mr. K went to dinner and I stayed with the girls, unpacking and waiting for takeout. At that point, the thought of asking them to behave in a restaurant seemed downright inhumane. The takeout was great - a wonderful Greek salad for me and macaroni and cheese in a cream-of-chicken type cheese sauce with little bits of ham mixed in. They ate dinner and we all fell asleep by 9pm.

JET LAG CONTINUED: MeiMei was the only one who slept thru the night, so she's already on local time. The rest of us were up from 1-3am and then slept til 9:30ish. I think we're caught up now, more or less, but I still have momentary dizzy spells here and there.

Today, Mr. K came with the truck to take us on a big grocery shop at Match, a nice store in walking distance. It was good to have access to a truck for the first grocery trip. From now on we will be limited to what we can carry in a rolling cart, and we don't have all that much storage space for much more anyway. It's good - we'll eat things that are fresher. Stroller and car seats arrived mid-afternoon and, despite the rain, we went out for a late afternoon walk. It was such a tease...I want to explore every nook and cranny of what I saw today. and the stroller was worth the angst--it handles the cobblestones so well, the girls were singing and their voices didn't even shake!

Dinner was salmon, broccoli and potatoes and we scarfed it down. JieJie had been bouncing off the walls (not good in an apartment building) so we knew she was tired and she fell asleep right after dinner in about a minute. MeiMei stayed up a bit but not for long.

So now you're caught up.

bye bye!

Time to pack up the computer, and they're going to disconnect the phone and DSL any moment. I just scanned copies of important documents onto a USB drive to avoid carrying so much paper. Noticed that the girls' passports weren't signed, so a quick trip to the passport.gov site answered that question (parent prints child's name, signs next to it and then writes (mother) or (father) after the signature.

Church this morning was happy-sad. We feel so lucky that we feel so much a part of a big family there, and it was sad to say goodbye. But then again, it means it will be so joyous to say hello again in a few months, with so many stories to tell.

Well, here goes nothing...British Airways here we come!

two days to go...

...and no stroller. UPS 3-day shipping does not include Saturday delivery. It's supposed to be here by the end of the day Monday, which is approximately when we're leaving. Guess you'll have to wait til our first post from Antwerp to find out how this mini-saga ends. I'm packing up the computer Monday morning, so no entries til Tuesday at the earliest. Worst case scenario, we'd have to have it shipped to us in Antwerp, but I think we'd still come out ahead.

Otherwise, we're pretty much packed and ready to go. Tomorrow will be just cleaning and taking care of odds and ends, and Monday we have the whole day. John's going to go to work just to rub it in that he's not concerned with syllabi, overrides, and the whole beginning-of-the-semester frenzy. As for me...perhaps I'll take a long walk and maybe even get a cheapo manicure. Something to give a moment of peace before the crowds and disorientation. I can't sleep on airplanes, so I'm about to be awake for about 30 hours straight from Monday morning til what's going to feel like Tuesday mid-afternoon when I can finally go to sleep in our Antwerp apartment. Wish I enjoyed knitting.

3 days to go!

Still no stroller--and ebay seller provided no UPS tracking number--but I hope it arrives tomorrow. If not...well, I hope it arrives tomorrow.

Final shop today for the carry-on, a bit of lotion, hand sanitizer, wipes in case of girls' digestive upset, and we'll try Airborne fizzy immune boosting stuff to see if it works. I tried "No Jet Lag" tablets on the China trip and honestly don't think they did a thing, but I have a friend who swears by Airborne so we'll see.

Also bought my walking shoes. I went to the Sole Source (http://www.thesolesource.net) and tried on some Merrells but finally decided on Earth shoes which I have never tried. They're GREAT - my arches always fall when I walk a lot but these feel very firm in the support. I'll let you know how they work out. I got red, figuring they'll go with black or brown, and also as a nod to my mom, who always has a pair of red shoes in her arsenal.

That's all...we're spending a quiet weekend at home, resting up for the big trip. SO EXCITED.

Packing has begun + ebay suspense

The girls and I packed for them today. I had them choose the shirts, pants, pj's etc that they wanted and put them in a laundry basket. That way I can divvy things up among the several suitcases we're bringing, so if any one piece gets lost, we all have some things in other suitcases until the lost piece arrives. I also got a new hard-sided suitcase to keep more fragile things from getting busted. Still, I was clear with the girls that they shouldn't pack anything they wouldn't want lost or broken!

The ebay plot thickens with the stroller - fixed the payment situation and left for dinner at church, then returned to find a message "did you want red or grey?" ARGH! I swear I put red when I ordered the thing, but anyway thank goodness he's in California. Let's hope he made the UPS deadline so we can receive it Saturday. Otherwise we're looking at MONDAY (yes the day we are leaving).

slogging through details

The last-minute to-do list is on the fridge. I borrowed some of JieJie's PostIt paper and I think she has forgiven me. "Is that my paper from my pad, mommy?" "Yes...next time I'll ask, ok?" "Ok..."

So we now have someone to mow the lawn, shovel the snow (if we ever get any), rent our house, we've suspended magazine and newspaper subscriptions, had dentist appointments ("I was so BWAVE!"), and we're slowly eating up the food at the back of the pantry. I sometimes wonder what garbanzo beans and crushed tomatoes and vegetable soup mix and pasta would taste like, with the leftover pickle relish, bacon and sundried tomatoes languishing in the fridge. The girls turn their noses up at the things that show up on their plates. "I not wike dis mommy!"

And there's a snag in the stroller solution. The suspense is building. Apparently I have my PayPal account set to default to an e-check, which takes several days to clear. Seller is in California and (understandably) reluctant to ship without payment clearing. I ended up sending a redundant payment with a credit card and asking for a refund of the e-check. As I type this, the UPS deadline for the west coast is fast approaching. Will he email that he has shipped it, so we get it Saturday? Or will he email that my payment came too late...in which case I'll either be paying hefty shipping to get it Saturday or biting my nails hoping it gets here Monday before we leave for the airport?!

Well, there's always something I suppose. And I actually feel better knowing that this is probably what it is.

Meanwhile, all laundry has been diverted from the usual dryer-fold-drawers flow. All folded laundry is waiting in baskets for Packing Day, because the girls' favorite outfits are in those baskets and I'm Not Washing Them Again!

The Stroller Decision

After realizing that waiting til we get to Europe to buy a stroller may cost us significant bucks (the kind I like is over 500 Euro and the exchange rate takes that up to $660) I found an almost identical stroller on ebay for $279+shipping. It's a BeBeLove Dual Shock Z all-terrain stroller and it looks great. Unlike a jogging stroller, with one fixed front wheel that can make it hard to steer, this one has a pivoting double front wheel. And who knows, we could sell it before we leave Europe and make a profit...bonus! British Airways will allow us to gate-check it. It's got room for groceries underneath, it folds down for storage and has a huge canopy for sun and rain. Behold...the school bus!

One week til departure

We are getting excited because in about a week, it's time to go to Antwerp. I just looked at information about British Airways' baggage and check-in policies and found some really promising information. Because we are traveling with children under age 11, we will be able to find out our seat assignments three days in advance. I hope we get a bulkhead row so I don't have to keep nagging the girls not to kick the seats in front of us. Yeah, I know this is partly done so BA can isolate the screamers in one area of the airplane, but I still appreciate it.

The other thing I liked is that we can request kid-friendly airline meals that come with little amusements for the girls. We do have high hopes that they will of course sleep the whole way over, but I've been around enough to know that hoping is nice and all but not nearly as valuable as having a plan B and C and D. And not looking at people who are staring at you while your four year old has a fit. Not that she will. (please!)

We had an unanticipated dry run yesterday because our ex-cat Morty, whose personal hygiene declined along with his overall health, left us with some lovely fleas when he departed this life, may he rest in peace. So we decided to "bug bomb" the house and head to friends' in Williamsburg. The girls traveled very well in the car both ways. This morning we strolled around Colonial Williamsburg looking at the lovely holiday decorations. The girls did a lot of walking with very little complaining and their big fascinations were the crushed oyster shells that covered the paths, as well as the horse poop on the roads. On the way back to the car, though, JieJie reminded me of the importance of being prepared at all times with a little something to eat, drink, and do. She started complaining of hunger, and was soon chanting a mantra as we walked down Duke of Gloucester Street: "HUNGRY THIRSTY TIRED! HUNGRY THIRSTY TIRED! HUNGRY THIRSTY TIIIIIIIIIIIRED!"

Note to self: snack, small bottle of water, stroller!

The Question of Car Seats

One of the practical considerations when traveling with small children is, what the heck do we do about car safety seats? What are the laws in Europe? Granted, most of the time we'll be traveling by train or bus, but we are planning to rent a car at the Malaga airport, so for that we'll definitely need them. The last time we trusted a car rental company to provide suitable car seats (Alamo rental at the Tucson, AZ airport) we learned an important lesson: take care of this detail yourself if you want any control over the quality of the seat!

Anyway, back to the law. I asked my friend M from The Netherlands what the law is. She said in The Netherlands, both of my girls would need to be in car seats, at least a booster for JieJie (almost 5) and a full-fledged restraint for MeiMei, who is still wearing size 2T at age 3 1/2. But, she said, who knows about other countries as there is no EU-wide law as of yet.

I did a little scouting around and found http://www.childcarseats.org.uk which has a handy compilation of the car seat laws all over Europe. Basically we need to have car seats for the girls unless we are in a taxi.

Usually I like to travel as light as possible, but we're really going to need their seats with us...to get to the airport, to get from the Brussels airport to Antwerp by van, and in the Costa del Sol definitely. Looks like we're checking two car seats. M offered to find some second-hand, but we'll need them before we see her, so best to bring ours.

Preparing the Girls p.1

If you have (or have had) the pleasure of living day-to-day with preschool children, you know that the routine is crucial. Disrupt it at your peril. Of course, that's exactly what we're about to do, over and over again, for the next five months. Still, there are ways to soften the jolt. Here's what we've done so far:

1. Talk about living in Belgium in very concrete ways. JieJie loves cheese, and MeiMei loves chocolate. We talk about how many delicious things they will be able to taste in Belgium. We talk about the different languages that we will hear. Antwerp is a Flemish-speaking area; JieJie calls it "Belgium language." "How do you say hello in Belgium language?"--"Hallo." Sometimes when we are driving to school we talk about how we will take them to school in Belgium: by bicycle, by bus, or walking, as we will not have a car. Who knows how much of this they're taking in, but we make the effort. Maybe it helps us too.

We have also talked about the things that they may at times find uncomfortable. What it means to live in an apartment instead of a house; the fact that restaurants in Antwerp are not as likely to welcome children so their table manners need to be tip-top; that we will not be able to bring everything with us that we might miss (certain toys, etc).

2. Use visual aids. We have had an Amsterdam calendar in our kitchen for the past year and occasionally we point out the buildings, cars, and different things that we will see when we visit our friends in Mijdrecht, The Netherlands. We have a few Belgium / Low Countries guides with photos that we've left around the house (one that's reachable while on the potty, even!) for perusing. The university has also provided us with a guide to the program that includes many pictures of our apartment. They were very interested to see their bedroom. Since they are used to sharing a room here, it should be comforting to do the same in Antwerp.

3. Find a new routine. The more we thought about the implications of staying in a 750 square foot apartment on cold, dim, rainy days (Antwerp is about the same latitude as Nova Scotia, after all), the more it made sense to try to find a preschool that might take the girls during the week, since we will mostly be in Antwerp with only a couple of side trips out of town. At first we worried that our request for enrollment might be denied, or worse, that it would be accepted but that our schedule would be disruptive to the school and we might seem like "those kind of Americans." Luckily, through the amazing internet, I was able to find a fantastic preschool which is also a Montessori school. JieJie and MeiMei are both in a Montessori school here. It's perfect, because no matter where you go, all Montessori classrooms are set up in basically the same way with the same materials and methods. JieJie's teacher said she has seen children come from another country and language into her Montessori classroom and just breathe a sigh of relief when they see the familiar things around them, like "oh! I can DO this!" The hours are the same, just morning thru lunch, and the people at the school have been very welcoming. The students there wear uniforms, which I'm a fan of (wish they'd do it here) and we made a big deal of getting new black school shoes with some Christmas money. We are going to go visit a few days after arriving in Antwerp just to say hi and show the girls around, then we'll try having them stay maybe an hour the next day, and then we'll try to jump in for a whole morning the next week (I'm prepared to stay in the office reading a book for several days, if needed, until they adjust).

Other than that, who knows what we will do? And for that matter,

who knows if ANY of this will even work?

But it's all worth a try.

wiring deposits overseas

So you might be wondering: if Louise is in the USA, how does she pay to rent a townhouse in Spain, owned by someone in the UK? I couldn't use a credit card or PayPal because the owner prefers a wire transfer. I have done wire transfers before with our China adoptions, as our adoption agency preferred to prepay some of the fees in China that way, so I knew it wasn't a big deal.

I corresponded with the owner, David, for about a week, clarifying dates, cost, how to get the key, which airport he recommends (Malaga, not Gibraltar b/c of the customs hassles) etc. Somewhere during this conversation my parents decided to come along too, which changed our dates slightly. So David and I agreed upon a deposit amount (he took a significant amount off the price since we're staying two weeks--thanks!) and exhanged the information necessary for me to do an international wire transfer from my bank account to his, taking into consideration the current exchange rate from dollars to pounds. I sort of expected to use Euros, but he preferred pounds, so that's how it went.

The wire transfer went through without a hitch, was received on his end, and an information packet is on its way to me as I type this. I've decided to get the key and other information once we're in Antwerp. One less thing to worry about forgetting when we pack.

I continue to marvel at the internet's ability to turn the globe into one great big small town.

You may be wondering why I'm not stressed about packing for a family of four. That's because I'm stressing about grading 62 final exams first! Better stop procrastinating. Argh.

ownersdirect.co.uk ROCKS MY WORLD

OMG - the most amazing opportunity just came our way via the miraculous internet. We never would have found this place otherwise. I was looking on AAA Travel at their villas, many of which are certainly great-looking, but I just had this feeling that if I looked a bit deeper into the web, I'd find a much more personal, perhaps more cost-effective way to book a place for two weeks on the Costa del Sol in May.

And there it was: I Googled "costa del sol villa rental" and up came a GREAT site, www.ownersdirect.co.uk which has properties all over Europe that you can rent directly from the owners, as the site's title suggests. I have never been to the Costa del Sol before but looked around at some different properties. Then, there it was: a lovely, white-stucco rowhouse in Estepona, Spain, with flowers in the windowboxes, grillwork around the windows, and what looked to be a roof terrace for enjoying the sunshine. I read further...4 minutes' walk from Mediterranean beaches, in a neighborhood where we can stroll old Andalucian streets, troll for goodies in markets, and enjoy the shade and aroma of the orange trees planted along the avenues. As for the house itself: totally updated, 2BR's, and yes, it was a roof terrace I saw--WITH ITS OWN KITCHEN UP THERE. I have visions of plates of olives, bottles of wine, a lovely loaf of local bread, fresh fish sizzling on the grill. What an amazing place to enjoy sunrises, sunsets, and siesta with a good book.

And book I did--the villa, that is. A few quick email exchanges with the owner and I'm preparing to wire the deposit tomorrow. That's it! I'm still pinching myself. And since my parents hadn't settled on their plans yet, they've decided to join us too. My dad will love the marina, my mom will love the shopping, and my girls will love having Grampa and Gramma along.

Estepona is supposed to be a more typically Spanish town, closer to Gibraltar than Malaga, a "year-round" town as opposed to an in-season tourist trap. We can see The Alhambra from there as it's day-trippable, and hubby has plans to try going to Morocco via Gibraltar if time permits. Who knows what other adventures await us in beautiful Estepona?

All this for WAY less than we'd spend for a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Un
Be
Lievable.

Airline Tickets are Booked

We're a little over a month away from our Antwerp Adventure. Our tickets have been booked, so it's official: we leave January 8th from Dulles on British Airways and will have a brief layover at London-Heathrow before continuing on to Brussels. Once we arrive there, no doubt dragging and cranky (and I'm not just talking about the kids...hope they sleep all the way over) we will be picked up by Jim, who is going to be helping facilitate a great deal of the Antwerp program for us and for our university students.

Jim will ferry us in a van to our Antwerp apartment, and we'll settle in for a few days, take the girls to their new school for a quick "happy visit" and then spend the weekend in Amsterdam with friends before going back to Antwerp for our first full week.

The program ends April 27th, but our return flight to Dulles isn't til May 12th. We are researching various options for the intervening time, but it's looking like we'll spend a few days in Amsterdam for the big tulip festival and May Day, then depart for the Mediterranean on May 2nd. We are debating whether to go to the Costa del Sol in Spain, the French Riviera, Sardinia, or perhaps one of the Greek islands. If you have any suggestions, we're all ears!

Thanks for reading - more later.
Louise Globetrekker

Hallo Antwerp

So the Antwerp story begins. We leave about two months from today!

John and I both work at James Madison University. He's in the Department of History and I'm in the School of Theatre and Dance. John applied to be the FMIR (Faculty Member in Residence) at JMU's Semester in Antwerp program for spring 2007 and we were accepted. We leave sometime this January for our 750 square foot apartment near the University of Antwerp, where we will spend the next four months with 30 JMU students in our College of Business, there to study European Business. The semester will include side trips to France, England, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. After the program ends, we plan to go to the Costa del Sol or somewhere warm and Mediterranean. I'm sure the time will fly.

The girls will go to a preschool in Antwerp...wonder how quickly they'll be correcting our Flemish. JieJie will turn 5 while we're over there and we have already picked out the party location, a place called Pirateneiland (Pirate Island). Should be a blast. We have traveled a lot with them in anticipation of this semester, and of course the first thing we ever did with each of them was to travel all over China, so we're quite comfortable handling child care on the road. I still remember mixing formula, combining piping hot thermos water and cool bottled water, with the Avent bottle balanced between my knees as our coach bus rattled down the road, parents passing Cheerios and toys from seat to seat as needed.

We've had two meetings with the students so far and will have one more before we see them overseas. Hard to tell much from first impressions. Definitely no bad first impressions at all. As an avid people watcher I have hypotheses about one or two of them...I wonder if the young woman whose brow was furrowed through the entire second meeting is chronically anxious, or if her brow just likes to furrow. I wonder if the young man who asked a question that had just been answered a moment before will be high maintenance. Other than those two fleeting thoughts, I got nothin'. Based on how much I enjoyed the dozen students we spent the summer in Florence program with ten years ago, I anticipate a very pleasant experience with the obligatory Ugly American in the mix (like the guy in our Florence group who compared everything to "the way they do it in New York" to the point that several of us said not so quietly that perhaps he would like to take the next flight...). The students do have to compete to make it into the program. I like that.

Tonight we went to dinner with a couple who've been to Antwerp twice with this program, and they were very helpful about some of the questions we had. At this point I can't wait to get there, settle into our little apartment, get to know the neighborhood, get the girls settled into their school and just fall in love with a new city. We've been to Belgium before: Brussels and Brugge, though, not Antwerp. Antwerp is in the Flemish (as in Dutch) speaking part of the country, though I've been told we will have few opportunities to practice Flemish since so many people there are fluent in English and just switch to that if you seem to be having any difficulty.

Having the girls along may mean that whoever's not chaperoning the group of JMU students will be on a parallel excursion that is more kid-friendly. I plan to get a few guides to traveling in Europe with kids to get some ideas, since I've never been any of the places we're going on my own, much less with preschoolers in tow.

So I'm going to list my imaginings about Antwerp. When I think of it, I picture (in no particular order) cobblestones, chocolate, cheese, rain, stone buildings, small cars, reserved but helpful people, speculaas cookies (YUM), narrow streets, adorable kids' clothing, electric trams, traveling by train, trying new foods, a small refrigerator in our kitchen and daily trips to quaint markets, JieJie and MeiMei complaining about all the walking (which they do here too but they can still walk a fair piece considering their ages).

And I picture romantic mornings over coffee and pastries with my husband after we drop the girls off at preschool. We have been so caught up in the day-to-day at home, our work schedules, the girls' schedules...I picture this time as a time together set apart from the routine, a second honeymoon, a chance to reacquaint ourselves with one another's dreams and desires. I love being parents together, but I miss those quiet mornings with coffee and the newspaper and just being quiet together.

This is going to be a lovely trip.