Paris Ctd

Just got back from a week at the beach...more on that later but that's the reason for the blackout.

Back to Paris: Thursday was very much a tag-along with the tour day. Friday I declared independence from the itinerary. Saturday the itinerary declared independence from me. Intrigued? Read on.

Thursday we had a full day of touring planned, beginning with the obligatory trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Since it's impossible to get a double stroller anywhere near the Metro without significant assistance (tips on this later), John took JieJie with him and the students (she loves riding trains and trams and had studied the Paris Metro map for days before we went) and I took MeiMei and the stroller to get a cab.

Who says Parisians aren't friendly? Certainly not I. A woman actually gave up her cab so we could get in. My French is good enough to know that she said "I will give it to you, madame, since you have une enfant." Then the cabbie was so nice, he suggested she get in anyway since we were going right past where she needed to go. 25 Euro later (ouch!) we were at Tour Eiffel and we met up with our group. It was hazy and chilly, very hard to see much. I told John the main reason I'm glad to have been up in the Eiffel Tower is that I won't ever have to do it again. I guess I've never been one for going up in tall buildings Just Because. But come on, you have to do it if you visit Paris, right?

Then we caught one of the non-Metro trains that serve the Paris area, en route to Sante-Chappelle, home of the World's Most Beautiful Stained Glass. The girls were starting to melt down a bit and I was sensing that they needed a break, but ultimately a nice guard (see? see? another nice person!) waved us through and we went in. The girls were definitely in awe and appreciated the beautiful colors. I have never been quite that dazzled by a stained glass display as I was by this one. Definitely worth a visit. John bought the girls some coloring books in the gift shop downstairs, one of famous stained glass windows and one of different sights in Paris.

The books came in handy at lunch. We ate in a pleasant, modern pizza/pasta place near a beautiful fountain and plaza. The girls colored while we waited for our food, and John, Mr. K and I talked about various things. Eyeballing the map, I thought it a good bet that I could walk the girls to the Musee D'Orsay for the afternoon tour. The group was going to take the Metro, obviously not an option for us. The inconvenience of the double stroller in Paris led us to the decision to sell it earlier than we'd planned - we may be saying goodbye to LaStroller as early as this Tuesday or Wednesday!

Turns out I guessed right, and the girls and I had a GREAT walk from the restaurant to the Musee D'Orsay, which contains a fantastic collection of Impressionist art including works by Monet, Degas, Gauguin, L'Autrec and my new favorite, Caillebotte (sp?). He did this amazing work of three men refinishing a wood floor that is really mesmerizing. Or maybe it's just that we had all our wood floors done last summer and I have an increased respect for the work...naw, it's really a great painting.

So we walked along the Seine and I quickly realized that with so many bridges going back and forth, I could go across and come back where the museum was. It was a great idea to have the program go on the Bateaux Mouches ride our first night in town because immediately I had a sense of where things were and could recognize the giant clock towers in the Musee D'Orsay, which used to be a train station.

We crossed the Seine at the Louvre and passed by three serious looking guards with automatic weapons. Wow. To my right I saw the famous museum with its new I.M. Pei pyramid of glass. To my left: The Tuileries Gardens. Yay--something I'd wanted to see, and I got a chance to walk through it with the girls. JieJie had fallen asleep (bless the stroller) but MeiMei ran through the entire Tuileries, chasing pigeons the whole way through. She's so cute the way she runs, still stiff-armed and kind of bouncy with her sweet little short hair swishing from side to side as she goes. Hard to believe she's only a few months from turning four, but I can tell by the fit of the clothes we packed in January that time is passing.

We came out of the Tuileries and I saw the bridge to the Musee D'Orsay. And I saw the many steps that led to and over the bridge. DRAT! If I went down and doubled back, I'd be late. Only thing to do was look vaguely meek and helpless and say "s'il vous plait, m'aidez vous?"

And again, Many Nice Parisians. Several people saw my predicament and lent a hand without my even having to ask. One woman said "bon chance!" after she and her husband helped me part of the way. But she was smiling.

We rolled into the museum's waiting area at the same time as the students, and Mr. K offered to walk the girls around so I could go on the tour! I was so grateful. Turned out to be brilliant timing too, because MeiMei fell asleep so all he had to do was take a walk with two sleeping girls on a nice day.

The museum's collection was truly spectacular. Our guide was one of the best we've had. It was a GREAT opportunity, one I'm so grateful for. We came out of the museum just as the girls were waking up, got them some cocoa and figured out how to get the double stroller back to Saint-Mande (don't try this at home and don't tell the Paris police until I'm back in the USA). We waited until someone pushed open the glass exit door coming from the Metro, held it open, and sent John in the exit with the stroller to meet us at the platform. Mr. K and I took the girls through, and it was clear sailing from there. Getting the stroller on the train itself was a piece of cake, but unless you have a really small collapsible stroller, leave it in the hotel room. The entrance turnstiles have a three-prong design but right after it is a double door you have to push your way through (like a saloon entrance) and THAT is the problem.

So. Dinner at La Tourelle again since it was so good. This time I had entrecote with frites (rib steak) and it was the best steak I'd had in a long time. The girls had desserts called Charlottes, sort of a lady fingers / berries / custard sort of affair. I noticed that Strawberry Shortcake is called Framboise Charlotte on French tv--cute!

Took the girls back to the Etap and tucked them in for a well-deserved rest. I had decided that I would not be going on Friday's excursion to the Louvre, no way. The girls deserved a day for them, and being in Paris doesn't mean as much to them now as it may later. They needed something with intrinsic appeal and I found a great recommendation in my Take the Kids to Paris book: Cite des Sciences, at the northeast corner of the city.

After a nice breakfast of rolls and croissants from the boulanger near the Metro (thanks to John who ran out to get them--love that man!) we said au revoir to the group and found our way to the bus, sans stroller. It was shaping up to be a crappy day weather-wise, cold and rainy, so an indoor destination was just what the doctor ordered. In no time we were at our stop. We were a bit late for the 11:30 time in Cite des Enfants, the very popular interactive exhibits for little ones, so we bought a 1pm ticket and got another ticket for the Light and Shadows exhibit.

The Light and Shadows exhibit was so well done! The design of the exhibit rooms was analogous to a house. so there was a parlor, a kitchen, a basement work room, a back patio, a back yard...all very easy for kids to put things in context. And somehow they went from looking at your own shadow to understanding a lunar eclipse. Brilliant work by the designers.

We had a quick lunch downstairs in the fast-food cafe. Again (how many times do I have to learn this?) one kids' meal would've fed both girls, each of whom ate exactly half of her sandwich, fries and drink. Oh well. I was getting text messages on my phone from John and Mr. K who were en route to meet us, their Louvre visit having concluded. I was able to guide them to where we were just before running out of minutes on my pay-as-you-go phone. Dumb me, I hadn't bought an extra scratch card before leaving Antwerp.

Cite des Enfants was SO AWESOME!!!! I can see why my guide book called this museum the most popular attraction for families after Disneyland Paris. We went in the age 3-5 area after assuring JieJie that, although she wanted to go in the 5-12 area, she hadn't actually "learned everything in MeiMei's area." So intense, that one.

I liked that only a certain number of slots are available for each 1.5 hour slot in the exhibits. We had plenty of chances to explore interactive exhibits about weather, the behavior of water, the way grain is grown, processed and turned into bread, the design of machines, and the piece de resistance: a little construction site! Kids don hard hats and vests and go into a kids-only area where they can load foam building blocks onto cranes, conveyor belts, rail carts, and hoppers. They can climb up to a second story to receive shipments of blocks from the crane. They can build walls, staff a checkpoint for rail cars, and move blocks in a wheelbarrow. I watched with the same fascination I feel when realizing that the seemingly random movements in a beehive all have a purpose. It's wild to see kids gravitating toward particular tasks and roles. Some of the blocks are too heavy to move alone, so kids need to cooperate to get things done. JieJie immediately appointed herself Foreman, her too-big hard hat falling over her eyes occasionally as she called orders in English to anyone who would listen. MeiMei tried her best to please the boss, and soon the two of them ended up filling in the walls of a skeleton house.

All too soon our time in Cite des Enfants was over and it was time to meet Daddy and Mr. K, who agreed that we had found a great place. And we didn't even see the IMAX 3D theatre! If you are taking your kids to Paris, do yourself a favor and block out most of a day for this museum and its surrounding park. If you are lucky enough to have nice weather you can even take a canal boat ride from the park down to the Seine.

We capped off the kid-focused day with dinner at the most popular kid-friendly restaurant in Paris, Hippopotamus. It's a chain, and we chose the one at Bastille. Kids get coloring books, balloons, fancy swizzle sticks and a smile from the staff. The food was great too! Mr. K was glad to have a new dining option in Paris. Only sour moment was a grinch sitting next to us who growled at me "atten-DEZ, madame!" when JieJie's arm entered the woman's aura. I can hear her now, planning dinner with her friend: "I abhor children. Let's go to dinner at Hippopotamus!" I mean come on, get real. Not as if there aren't a few other restaurants to choose from IN PARIS. Anyway.

We'd had such a great day, and Saturday promised to be the best of all. The itinerary was BLANK. Free time til the 1pm bus departure meant that we could do anything we wanted. We decided to get breakfast somewhere on the Left Bank and wander our morning away. I couldn't wait for a family day.

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of John outside in the hall on the phone with Mr. K explaining that one of our students was in police custody for alcohol-related reasons. WHAT?! The student was okay, thank goodness, but our morning together was not to be. I ended up taking the girls to a playground in our neighborhood (Paris has a ton of playgrounds, thank goodness) and then to a mall, shopping. We tried to meet up with John but missed each other and my phone wasn't working. He and Mr. K signed the student out of police custody around 10am. He couldn't find us, so he ended up going to the Arc de Triomphe, buying a few postcards, and coming back to the hotel.

I felt like such a selfish baby for doing it, but I have to admit I looked out the window and cried as the bus left Paris. I was mad that I'd let my phone run dry, mad that I'd been unable to meet up with John, mad that he got to see more of Paris, mad at myself for not being happy for him getting to see at least something, and just mad at the circumstances that took our morning away. I just have to remember: I'm in Europe, touring with my family. Everything else is gravy. We can come back, and we have a foundation now, a sense of what we'd want to see. And the student had a really scary experience. My inconvenience was not much compared with what she confronted. We're glad that things turned out ok for her and everyone involved.

Not the best way to end the visit, but we know we would like to go back to Paris again someday. I think it would be good to do when the girls are maybe 10 and 11, when they are better able to grasp what it Means to be in Paris. Still, they had a pretty good time and we continue to be amazed at their ability to go with the flow.

Strasbourg ctd

So...where was I? Ah yes, the Alsace Wine Road. Just a moment while I get my map, where I made some notes. As I said, we began by going quickly to the south, to Colmar, and then worked our way back north toward Strasbourg on the "Wine Route." We wound our way through beautiful rolling countryside dotted with villages new and old (mostly old) before the bus rolled into the town of Riquewehr. Here's what the map says about Riquewehr: Admirably well-preserved medieval and Renaissance city. Foritifications, houses and courtyards from 13th, 15th, and 17th centuries. Dolder belfry tower (1291) and Thieves' tower (with torture chamber). ...Grand Cru Schoenenbourg and Sporen vineyard trail, Grand Cru wines.

We disembarked and walked up a cobblestone street to the entrance of a vineyard tasting room where we sampled some Reisling, Pinot Gris and Gewurtztraminer. The wine steward poured the girls a couple of Coca Colas and they played with the pebbles that covered the floor of the wine cellar for a bit. I left earlier than everyone else so we could wander the narrow old streets and find them a treat. They wanted to by some candy (natuurlijk!) so we went back to a sweet shop we'd passed earlier. MeiMei picked jelly "Smurts" (smurfs) and JieJie chose an assortment but hovered over the Smurts begging for a handout as soon as she had eaten the items in the assortment that she liked best.

I picked up a book for a few euro called Alsatian Cuisine (in English, though you can click on the link and find your way to the yummy index) and I have a recipe to share with you. It's something our bus tour narrator described that I absolutely had to try--it was on the menu of a place we went later that evening with the girls and Mr. K.

CHOUCROUTE AVEC TROIS POISSONS (sauerkraut w/3 kinds of fish)
500 each of pike, perch, and carp (my restaurant meal had salmon)
1 kg sauerkraut, Alsatian style if possible (very thin cut)
1 clove garlic
1 onion
100 g. goose fat
1 bay leaf
5 juniper berries
25 cl Alsatian white wine
25 cl stock
50 g butter
1 teaspoon cognac
salt, pepper

Scale, gut and clean the fish. Wash, drain, cut into portions. Keep in a cool place. Wash the sauerkraut in cold water and drain. Brown the chopped garlic and onion in the goose fat in a deep saucepan with a thick base. Add the sauerkraut. Add the bay leaf and juniper berries. Season with salt and pepper. Fill to mid-height with the wine and stock. Leave to simmer gently for 2 hours, stirring from time to time. Brown the fish pieces in butter in a frying pan. Add them to the sauerkraut and leave to cook for another 30 minutes, adding a little water. Before serving, add the rest of the butter, heated until it turns to a warm brown, and the cognac.

Mine was served piping hot with a cream sauce on the plate, a skewer of fish alongside a haystack of delicate, delicious choucroute. A meal I shall always treasure! You can use any kind of fish, though I would stay away from anything as strong as tuna or swordfish. A nice white fish takes on the flavors very well.

And the restaurant we went to! There are canals in the Petite France section of Strasbourg, and built right over the canals are beautiful old timber frame buildings. The room where we ate this delicious meal was a glassed-in deck right on the water with views across the canals to the lovely illuminated old places all around, and the bridge just past the restaurant. I was going to remember the name to write down for you...but just go to Strasbourg and wanter the Petite France area. If you find our place, you'll know. If you don't, you still won't be disappointed!

The next day we had a walking tour of Strasbourg and a bus ride around some of the EU administration buildings that are keeping Strasbourg's economy stable these days--especially the hotel proprietors! The EU meets in Strasbourg every so often when they're not in Brussels, even though it's a logistical nightmare. Imagine if everyone involved with governing and lobbying in Washington DC suddenly relocated to Chicago every few months just to be "fair." Ok, it's an oversimplification but still.

After our tearful goodbye to Strasbourg we headed out to the highway en route to The City of Lights, Gay Paree. The girls slept a good chunk of the way--perfect, because we were scheduled to go on a boat tour that night and I really didn't want them to miss it. Better that they nap and then stay up a bit late.

We checked into the Etap Hotel in the suburb of Saint-Mande, just outside of the Paris city line but very much part of the metro area. The Etap is the entry-level of the chain that Ibis is also part of. It's...well, how to describe it? If Ray Kroc from McDonalds and the dude from Ikea got together and designed an ultra-ultra budget hotel, basically a hostel where you are at least guaranteed a safe clean experience, they would've come up with the Etap. And I'm not even complaining. Everything's so well designed and they are so acutely aware of their target market, it's just ingenious, the whole thing.

Each room has a double bed under a bunk bed, max 3 persons per room (so again we had 2 rooms but at least this time it was easier to get one of the girls to stay "not with me" by offering the tantalizing Bunk Bed Option.) Each room has a sink, a desk and chair, a small tv, a small digital alarm clock permanently affixed to the wall by the double bed, a toilet with no seat (no breakage!) a shower in a waterproof closet (no curtain!) three towels, no shampoo, no bath mat, two slivers of soap, and two disposable cups. You want toiletries? Buy them from the vending machine in the lobby.

Breakfast at the Etap is perfunctory. You can have bread, bread, or bread, or cereal. You can have butter, honey, or jam. Milk, coffee, orange juice. You want yogurt? Fruit salad? Buy them from the vending machine in the lobby. Or better yet, ask your wonderful husband to walk to the AMAZING pastry shop across from the Saint-Mande Metro station and come home with mouthwatering croissants, apple turnovers, chocolate-almond croissants...wow.

Though I would probably go one step above the Ibis for our family if we were booking the rooms, simply to avoid having to be in two separate rooms, I have to say that if all you're looking for is a place to keep your stuff, sleep and wash up, Etap/Ibis more than fit the bill. It was comfortable and quiet, the two most important criteria.

We ate a quick dinner at a lovely cafe called La Tourelle (we returned the following night since it was so good and so welcoming), unpacked our stuff and headed to the metro for the trip to the Seine for our Bateau Mouches river boat trip.

I wish you could have seen JieJie's whole face light up--I swear you could see her heart swell with joy, and that doesn't happen for just anything--when we came up out of the Metro and she saw the Eiffel Tower sparkling like a giant diamond in the night. She and MeiMei and I decided that fairies were making all the twinkly lights. It was even more beautiful than I expected!

JieJie has this LeapPad book called Anna's First Ballet that has a section about Paris and the Eiffel Tower, so even though she's just turned 5, she knows the name and shape and a few trivia facts about the tower, for instance that it is taller in the summer due to the expansion of the metal. I really saw it hit her, the connection between what she had heard so many times and the fact that this is a REAL place and a REAL thing. I can't know for sure, but I think that was part of her excitement. For me it was really a Magical Moment.

To be continued with: Tour of the Eiffel Tower, visit to Sainte-Chappelle, our visit off the Grand Tour list to Cite des Enfants, and The Morning That Was Not To Be.

Speaking of Strasbourg...

Click on the title of this post for an article from today's International Herald Tribune back page. How timely!

We're off to dinner at City Palace in Chinatown with a letter--in Chinese, thanks to a friend--explaining that we don't want Chinese food translated for the European palate...we want real Chinese food! We'll see if the letter does anything. Wish us luck, and thanks to P.W.!!

Our Week in France

Wow, what a whirlwind! I had never been to France before, but now that I've dipped my toe in the pool, I know I'll be back, maybe soon. John feels the same way, and JieJie bought herself a scrapbook with her own money and has filled it with stick-people smiling, arms wide, atop the Eippel [sic] Tower.

Monday: Bus trip thru Luxembourg City on the way to Strasbourg, France. I wish I had more to say about Luxembourg, but it just didn't ring my bell. We had a nice pizza lunch off one of the public squares that was surrounded with chain restaurants from "Old MacDonalds" as JieJie calls it to ChiChi's and beyond. Then we had a 45-minute bus tour across beautiful gorges with views down to the old villages along the river far below. Our guide explained that the fencing on the bridges is for "suiciders" as he put it, since there are houses down below and the potential for grisly interruptions to family dinners is certainly there. The bus drove us past building after building associated with the European Union administration and -- perhaps most significantly for Luxembourg--finance. Luxembourg's EU specialty has earned it the nickname "the treasury of Europe." Something I didn't know, definitely.

Then we got the stroller out to follow along the walking tour of Luxembourg City. It's very pretty, very quaint, quiet, and our guide (not a native) said he decided to retire there because it's just so nice and quiet and boring in all the best ways. If someone told me I had to live the rest of my life there, I'm sure I'd grow fond of it, but it just didn't capture me the way other places have (including my home state of Virginia, which still takes my breath away regularly!)

On to Strasbourg. To be honest, I had been so focused on Tackling Paris with the girls, I didn't put any time at all into reading about Strasbourg and what it's known for. Just as well--it had the chance to spring all of its charms on me at once. John and I fell in love with this amazing city almost from the moment we looked out of our hotel room to see 21st century trams gliding past 17th century apartment buildings - and that's not even the old city!

We stayed at the Ibis hotel. Ibis is part of a chain of hotels with ever-ascending levels of service. In the same way that an Applebees is above a McDonalds, the Ibis is slightly above the bottom of the barrel. We had a nice couple of rooms (rooms are for 3 people max, so a family of 4 like ours needs two rooms). Sometimes I think in terms of toiletries when I think of the grade of hotels. The White Swan in Guangzhou, China--without question the most posh I've ever stayed in--not only had shampoo AND conditioner AND body lotion, but the turndown service included a chocolate on the pillow and everything. At the Ibis, no conditioner, but no matter. NICE breakfast. Croissants and bread with nice fresh butter, some fruit, some cereal, yogurt, that kind of thing. I pocketed an apple and an orange both days we ate breakfast there, which came in very handy for the girls' midmorning snack.

The first night in Strasbourg we ate at a microbrewery that makes a local Alsatian specialty (Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace), Tarte Flambee. Mr. K called it "Alsatian Pizza" and the nickname is certainly apt, but it was a subtler sort of taste. Some are plain with onion, some are topped with sauerkraut, also a trademark Alsatian ingredient.

When the girls got tired and the students got rowdy (a student in another group mooned our students, all in good fun, and JieJie said, shocked, "that was NOT PROPER!") it's a testament to Stasbourg's accessibility that I was able to find my way back to the hotel so easily, just by keeping the river to my right. The Ill River winds its way through Strasbourg past palaces and cathedrals and taverns, under bridges new and old, and it's part of what I found so enchanting about the city. Martin Luther studied there long ago. I wonder if he ever wrote about what it was like there.

The next morning we got to see Strasbourg's main attraction, its spectacular pink sandstone Gothic cathedral. Of course we've seen many cathedrals since coming here, but this one was up there among the most impressive we've visited. My favorite thing about it was the elaborate clock in one of the side chapels. It's a union of Christianity, humanist philosophy, astronomy, astrology, and mechanical arts. At the top is Jesus. The next level down is a series of images depicting a baby, youth, man, and old man, which turn as the day goes along. There are cycles depicting the phases of the moon, what day it is, which saint's day it is, the rotation of the earth, astrological signs, and of course the current time (which almost seems beside the point when confronted with one's minute place in the grand scheme).

It made me realize how far the church must have come by that point. Ten years ago we visited the church in Pisa, Italy where Galileo worshiped before he was excommunicated for daring to suggest that the earth revolved around the sun. Here we were with a timepiece accurately representing the movements of the universe contained within the walls of the very church that had condemned such thinking a few centuries earlier. Pretty amazing.

After the cathedral, it was time to board the bus for the main tour of the day, a lovely ride through the famous winemaking region of Alsace. Absolutely beautiful. At first it even reminded me of the Shenandoah Valley as far as the topography, but the villages nestled in the folds of the green hills were so picturesque, each with its church spire surrounded by homes and farms and occasionally a castle or fortress.

We made our way to the smaller city of Colmar, south of Strasbourg. I'd never heard of it, sad to say. What a charming spot! And the flowers weren't even in bloom. Mr. K, who accompanies so many tours to this region, said that in summer, every window has a flower box with blooms and vines cascading down toward the canals that run through the picturesque little town. We had lunch (quiches all around--the girls LOVE quiche!) and went on a nice walking tour of Colmar. Among the pieces of trivia we learned: the chef at New York's very posh restaurant Lutece is from Colmar and has a restaurant back home too--put that one on the "to-do" list, eh? Can you imagine the combination of culinary genius and the best local ingredients? The possibilities are mouthwatering.

By the end of the day, John and I were wondering how much summer rentals cost, either in Alsace or in Strasbourg itself. It's really a fantastic place, I can't say it enough! And is it any wonder that this town, with its red, pink, and yellow sandstone buildings giving it such a warm and cozy feel, is also a university town? Makes sense that we would like it I guess. There are three universities there, about 48,000 students in all. Our 30 students seemed right at home there as well.

Tomorrow: Our tour of the Wine Road and a great dinner in Strasbourg--recipe for Choucroute avec Trois Poissons included! Thursday's entry: The City of Lights, Paris...aaaah.

Au Revoir until next Sunday

No new entries will be posted til April Fools' Day. Tomorrow morning we leave on our longest university trip of the semester, and it's a doozy. It looks like this:

Monday: bus to Luxembourg City, tour the city, continue on to our hotel in Strasbourg, France
Tuesday: tour Strasbourg and the wineries of Alsace, stay in Strasbourg that night
Wednesday: Leave Strasbourg for Paris!
Thu-Fri-Sat: Tour Paris, arrive home late Saturday night.

Best news of all: the weather is supposed to be absolutely ideal. Partly sunny to mostly sunny skies, highs in the 60's. We can't believe our luck, especially since this past week saw a return to the raw winter weather that Lonely Planet described as "wretched." Mid-week, JieJie and MeiMei actually had to put hats, mittens and scarves on after we were certain they were gone for good.

I've been reading Take the Kids to Paris, a handy guide for our situation. The plan is to go on as many excursions with the JMU students as possible, but to have some alternates in mind in case it gets to be too much. The Tuileries gardens look like a definitely possibility, especially since they're right there at the Louvre, one of the stops on our tour. Only bummer is, a lot of things don't open til April 1, including the little amusement park area at the Tuileries and also at the Bois de Boulogne. But we will certainly find plenty of great things to do. JieJie and MeiMei have gotten to be experts at going with the flow, so I look forward to this trip knowing we will all have a great time, not that there won't be the Meltdown du Jour, but they're growing out of a lot of that too, especially since our usual response is kind of a blase "are you done yet?"

It's so strange to feel as though our time in Antwerp is coming to an end, but in a way it already has. We have no more truly open space in our itinerary. We know what we're doing with almost every day until we leave Belgium for Spain. That's a real mental shift. When there are entire weeks on the calendar with nothing specific planned, it's like the unopened presents under the Christmas tree--they could be anything, sitting there in their pretty wrapping. Now, though, we know what's under the tree, though we haven't actually unwrapped it.

So what's on tap after Paris? Well, here's the long and short of it: JieJie and MeiMei have no school again until April 16th because of a two-week Easter break, or paasvakantie (kind of funny when you think about the easter egg coloring kits that Paas makes! There's the name, and I never knew that's why the company was called Paas!). We have decided to use the first week to rest from Paris and do day-trips, maybe rent bicycles in good weather, go to Mechelen one day either to the zoo (if weather is good) or the Speelgoedmuseum (toy museum). Then on Good Friday, I hope to see the Bach St. John Passion at the Carrolus Borromeuskerk--what a thrill that will be. If one of the students is in town, John will come with me and we'll make an evening of it. Then comes Easter Sunday. We're going to see what our options are for Easter services. On the one hand it would be nice to go to the giant Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Our Dear Lady's Church), but on the other hand, a service in English would be nice too, and there is certainly an impressive cathedral somewhere here with a service in English.

Initially we had thought a trip out of town over Easter weekend might be fun, and I had done some research into biking the flat trails in Germany's STUNNING Moselle Valley, which follows a tributary of the Rhine River through the heart of the Riesling country (my goodness you must think all we do is drink wine and plan to drink wine). Ultimately though we decided to shelve that trip for another time, maybe a Germany/Czech Republic trip. Staying in Antwerp for Easter means that the girls can have their Easter baskets, we can make a nice dinner, and all that jazz.

Easter Monday we are heading out of town, however. The prospect of two weeks with no school sent me researching options for getting away with the girls, preferably to the sea, and I found a great deal for that second week. John will be able to join us for one, maybe two nights, but will have to spend much of that week in Antwerp because our students are still in the midst of their classes and he has logistical responsibilities.

I have decided to rent a studio apartment in DePanne at the Belgian coast. We'll have a sunny balcony and a view of one of the most beautiful beaches in Belgium, very wide, unspoiled, with beautiful dunes. JieJie and MeiMei LOVE the beach. Even if it ends up being cold, we can always play in the sand, rent bikes and explore, and near DePanne is the kiddie amusement park called (you gotta say it out loud) Plopsaland! And if it's rainy and we're cooped up inside...well, at least we'll be cooped up somewhere new. Because it's still the low/off season, four nights in DePanne at the place I found (to be revealed after we are safely home of course) only costs about 300 euro. We'll bring breakfast stuff, cook lunches at the apartment and find affordable dinner places, and ta-da, instant beach vacation. Yay. Also, the rail system is offering half-price fares to the coast during the first two weeks of April so my ticket will be 50% off.

And the day we get back from that, we got tickets to the K3 show "De Drie Biggetjes" (the three little pigs)!!!!!! The two shows they had scheduled sold out, so they added shows on April 13th and we snagged four seats in the 16th row. It should be so much fun. The girls were on their absolutely best behavior all week trying to earn the tickets, and they succeeded.

I'm excited that we were able to use JieJie and MeiMei's paasvakantie time for them, since they've been so great on this trip. They'll have two weeks where it doesn't matter what time they wake up, they don't have to wear a uniform, cram down breakfast, rush to the tram, etc and they can just hang out.

Movies

Since arriving in Antwerp, we've all seen a lot more movies than we would have at home. John's and my work hours are more flexible, and the girls are in school several days til 3:30, which allows for the occasional 11am matinee. Just a 10-minute walk from the apartment (like everything else) is UGC Cinemas, a multiplex with a great selection of films.

Only thing that's a bit of a bummer is, we can't see foreign films (even Letters from Iwo Jima) because the on-screen language is not English and the subtitles aren't either. Other than that though, there are all kinds of good movies out right now and we've gotten to see a few.

John and I have seen two together: The Illusionist and Blood Diamond. Illusionist was GREAT, love Edward Norton, loved the story and soundtrack. It's my kind of movie, and John thought it was one of the best he'd ever seen. A bit of love story, a bit of mystery and magic, a bit of Hapsburg-era royal glamour...very cool.

Blood Diamond was interesting to see since Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, and UGC cinemas is just a few blocks from the very sorting tables mentioned in the film, which is a first-rate presentation of some of the issues surrounding "conflict diamonds," diamonds sold to finance weapons purchases by corrupt governments and revolutionary insurgent groups in Africa. I'm interested in the claims of some diamond merchants that they can "certify" their diamonds, when the fundamental point the movie makes is that once the diamonds hit the sorting tables in Antwerp, the stones with a tainted past can be tossed in with the others and who in the world would ever know? After seeing the movie, I became much less interested in the thought of taking home a diamond as a souvenir of our time here.

By myself, I went to see The Painted Veil, again with Edward Norton, which I guess I liked...I had read a critical review that took the movie to task for using the Chinese actors/characters almost like scenery, that the supporting characters were not as three-dimensional. While I absolutely agree with that criticism, the book itself is not about China at all. It's about two people from England whose experience traveling in a third-world country in the 1920's transforms their relationship and perspective. The setting could have been any locale in the world experiencing political turmoil and a cholera epidemic at that time. Take your pick. The story itself is good, but the locale, and thus the people who inhabit it, are a device, fundamentally.

Finally JieJie and MeiMei and I saw Happy Feet but I didn't know to look at the schedule to find the magic letters "OV" for "Original Version. We ended up seeing the movie in Flemish, which is no big deal for a kids' movie, and they understood some of it, having been in a Flemish-speaking school for two months now. The movie was cute, fun, had a nice message, but after a while lost a bit of its spunk. Anyway, if there are other kids' movies to see before we go, I'll know to look for "OV" on the schedule.

D & D are probably wondering whether we've gone to Metropolis yet, the gigantic Lollapallooza of movie palaces in Antwerp. No, not yet, but we'll get there.

Brussels, With & Without Sprouts

Ok, so I couldn't resist. And actually, they're just called "spruiten," or sprouts, this close to the source. You don't need to specify the Brussels part.

A couple of weekends ago, we had a Saturday free and decided to use it to go to Brussels just to wander around and see what there was to see. It's only 45 minutes by train, no big deal at all.

Having learned from experience, I packed some juice boxes and cereal bars and we headed to the train station with the girls in the Stroller. Once we got to Brussels, we found the Grand Place quickly enough. I hadn't been there since John and I went on a trip together in 2003 when we were still dating. The Grand Place seemed immense then, and I remembered so many shop windows filled with huge speculaas cookies and lots of chocolates. Fourteen years later, it seemed smaller somehow, and I never did see a single giant speculaas in any of the shop windows, on or off the Grand Place. I guess cookies don't pay the rent like they used to.

We sat at an outdoor table of one of the many eateries on the Grand Place that cater to the tourist who throng the area. We were expecting high prices and an ok, not fantastic, lunch but the girls were antsy to sit down somewhere. The place we chose, whose name I've forgotten already, was short-staffed at best, either that or our waiter saw the kids and decided to frustrate us into leaving. I packed the girls back into the stroller and we started looking for another place. We found one on a street of Greek and Turkish sidewalk dining places, and had a very nice lunch of calamari, salads, pita slices, tsatziki sauce, some sausages, that sort of thing. I packed the girls' uneaten pita slices in a napkin in my purse for later.

We walked all over Brussels, a really nice walking city. The signage is great too - every so often there's a map for tourists to orient themselves, and lots of signposts at street corners direct you tot he major landmarks. We walked through the Galeries St. Hubert, the world's first indoor shopping area, and the girls loved looking at the displays in the windows of the chocolatiers and curiosity shops. We saw some Chinese characters on signs down one street and the girls demanded to see Brussels' Chinatown, so we did that, then found our way past an ongoing archeological dig one can view through windows, then back to the Grand Place area.

The girls wanted to run and play. Luckily there's a big huge park (Parc Royal) in Brussels, up behind the art museum and cathedral. It has a wonderful playground in it, with see-saws, swings, spring-rockers, play structures and slides. We parked the stroller and just let them run for a good hour or so until the sun started to dip a bit lower in the sky and it was time to head back to the train station.

That's the nice thing about getting to live here for an extended period of time. We can just say "let's go to Brussels today" and wander around once we get there. We don't have to Accomplish Something.

The following Tuesday, we decided to go back to Brussels to the art museum while the girls were in school. We hopped a train on the way back from dropping them off and were in Brussels just as the museum opened for the day. It's an extensive museum, with both traditional and modern wings, far too much to see in one visit. We chose the old works, specifically the 16th and 17th century exhibit. The collection contains works by Memling, Brueghel, Bosch and others, and an extensive collection of tryptichs and diptychs that were originally painted for use in private family worship. It's funny--the tryptichs so often are a scene of the Annunciation or the Passion in the center, flanked by portraits of a wealthy man and woman on either side, their hands piously folded. "Look at us," they seem to say, "we're rich!...AND we pray regularly."

The other thing that really struck me were the paintings depicting the martyrdom of various female saints. One in particular depicts Mary, her mother, and Mary Magdalene flanked by eight female martyrs who died in the most horrific ways. One ripped out her own eyeballs so she could escape from the experience of being raped to death. One was shot with arrows for refusing a marriage proposal. One had her breast cut off for refusing a marriage proposal but her breast was magically restored through prayer, and so on and so on. Not that St. Bartholomew had it any easier or anything. As someone who grew up in the Lutheran church, where the focus seems far more on God the Loving Father and a plain, symbolic cross, I was surprised at how jarring it was to confront the difference in emphasis, on suffering rather than redemption, on the crucifix rather than the stone rolled away. Was this emphasis in part because life was so much more difficult and uncertain back then? Or have we just decided that we'd rather hear the happy ending?

The exhibits were really fantastic though--certainly plenty of food for thought--and the audio guide was definitely worth the couple of euro surcharge. After two hours of Contemplating Art, it was time for a bite to eat. We decided on the museum cafe, which has been recently refurbished. It's very high-style, as most museum cafes are, and the food lived up to the designers' promise. I had a lovely tomato soup with balletjes, little meatballs, and a glass of wine. John had a sandwich and a Hoegaarden beer. The terrace was open, the weather was nice, and we enjoyed this little lunchtime tete a tete overlooking the courtyards of Brussels.

We hopped on the train and in no time were back in Antwerpen-Centraal. I'll miss having a train station close by that can take us to so many great destinations.

Birthdays Abroad

The first week of March was a festive week indeed! Our friends T&K were here, and their visit coincided with JieJie's much-anticipated fifth birthday, which she has been talking about since the day after she turned four.

Partway through the week, K and I boarded the 32 bus which goes out to the 'burbs and stops in the Oosterveld neighborhood near Grare, the American food store. We were there in search of some of JieJie's favorite food from home as a special treat for her birthday. It was so funny to see all of the familiar packages, and realize that most of what we can't get here we shouldn't be eating anyway. Partially hydrogenated high fructose reconstituted crap--admit it, you eat it too. We got three boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, a box of Life Cereal which I wrapped and put on the table for her to open the morning of her birthday, and a Funfetti cake mix, which I planned to make and bring to her class. We also got a little package of Hershey's Kissables candy-coated kisses, some Jelly Bellies for Easter, and I think that's it. The store also has lots of Tex-Mex stuff, and things like beef jerky, microwave popcorn, instant oatmeal, etc. Honestly I don't miss anything enough to bother going back to Grare and paying exorbitant prices for it, but it's nice to know that the option is there for special occasions.

On the way home, K & I sat across from a man on the bus who asked if we were British. I said "no, American." He smirked and said "I don't like Americans. They always like everything to be so big." I said "well, I suppose..." or something noncommittal (you never know who you're talking to, best not to get into a silly argument). He said again "I don't like America." I smiled a bit and said "well, I guess I'm stuck then." He asked why I was here and I explained that my family and I were living here through a university affiliation and that we very much liked Belgium, and living in Antwerp (and I wondered if the man had ever been to the U.S.--after all, at least I can speak about Belgium from some experience!). I pointed out a beautiful Art Nouveau townhouse to K and she and I chatted quietly to one another about the lovely houses we were passing on the bus. Before the man got off the bus, he must've realized he was being a jerk because he actually said "well, I hope you enjoy your time in Antwerp" before he got off the bus. Hunh? K and I just looked at one another and shook our heads. What is one to do? The guy struck me as just grumpy in general and it certainly has not been our experience that people here are aggressively anti-American at all. You hear it over and over, people in other countries distinguish between our government and our people. They may hate the former but they don't mind the latter so much. Having said that, we try as much as possible to fit in and keep our American-accented voices down in public. For me it's not so much about avoiding trouble as about not disturbing what's going on around me so I can really be a part of it.

So we got back to the apartment (yes somehow I went from groceries to anti-Americanism, but there you are) and I put the cake mix together. The girls helped and got all excited about cracking the eggs, mixing the batter, and of course licking the bowl. I baked the cake until it was pulling away from the pan, browned around the edges. Perfect.

We all went to dinner and when I came home I started cutting the cake into small pieces to bring for JieJie's class (teacher asked that I not frost it because of the mess & the kids' uniforms) and to my horror, the cake was not done in the center AT ALL. I tried unsuccessfully to bake it a bit longer but the whole middle was just like pudding. Barf. Now what to do?! I ended up taking JieJie to school and then running back to Goossens Bakkerij to ask if they had any of their famous apple cakes, which are shaped like a loaf (pound cake-like). They had two of them, and also an orange cake, so I bought all three, raced back to the school, borrowed a knife from the teachers' lounge, cut the cakes into 8 pieces each, and I somehow managed to catch JieJie's teacher's eye without JJ herself noticing that I was there so I could give her the cakes. She gave me a knowing smile - she's a mom too. She also said the book we gave the class in honor of JJ's birthday was perfect (it was a book of craft projects for kids to do) and that they had already planned to make one of the Father's Day crafts. Yesterday was Vaderdag in Belgium, by the way, so Gelukkige Vaderdag to all the dads.

The evening of JieJie's birthday, we had a nice dinner in our apartment with special guests T&K and a lovely chocolate cake from Bastin Chocolatier (www.g-bastin.com), plus Macaroni & Cheese and fruit salad for the girls, and scallops for the adults. She got some Ramona books from T&K (we've already finished Beezus and Ramona and are halfway through Ramona the Pest) and we gave her a custom made princess outfit from www.princessenjurken.nl, the company my friend's friend started in her home which is destined to become a big business if the proprietor so desires. The dresses are GREAT, very "foofy" as we say. MeiMei got a dress too...after all, what fun is it to play dress-up all by yourself?! She also had presents to open from grandparents and aunts and uncles, and family friends who made sure to send things in time for the big day (M, the makeup kit is a huge hit!). She got several phone calls too--she seemed so excited that everyone was thinking of her on her birthday. What a beautiful, radiant smile she has when she is genuinely happy.

So it may not have been the kind of birthday party JieJie envisioned, with school friends all around a big cake in some party-themed room somewhere in the Harrisonburg area, but I think she had a nice birthday just the same.

Time for a Brain Dump

I finally realized this morning that even when John has to use the computer in our apartment (which he has been doing a whole lot more than usual due to some book editing projects) I can still use the computer downstairs in the extra apartment. The heat's not on since nobody's using it these days, but I brought my jacket, no big deal. The speakers are connected to this computer, so I get to listen to my favorite internet radio show, The Morning Show from Minnesota Public Radio via mpr.org's The Current. I grew up in the Twin Cities, and worked for a time in public radio, and I still think of all the stations I've heard or heard about in the entire good ole U.S. of A., Minnesota Public Radio's offerings are the best, bar none.

It's time to get you all caught up. We had some company, we had JieJie's birthday, and then I got bumped from the computer, hence the relative silence on the FTJ.

M and R and their boys visited from Mijdrecht the first weekend in March, and we were able to do a lot of the things we hoped to do together here in Antwerp. They stayed at the Holiday Inn Express up by the port area and said it was nice, affordable, and that the boys liked the breakfast. It's also not too far a walk from our neighborhood. The first night we ate a light supper at 't Injaske, where the food is always reliably good, always a great price for what you get, and they have coloring books and stuff for kids to do while they wait for dinner. The next morning we went to Aquatopia. The kids all liked the different exhibits, especially the shark tank where you can walk under the tank through a tunnel and look up to see sharks and rays swimming right over your head. We had lunch, came back to the apartment for a bit of rest, and the boys watched an Asterix movie that we happened to have while MeiMei took a mini-nap.

One other thing we'd hoped to do together was go through the Sint-Annatunnel under the River Schelde, and indeed we found the entrance. It's a bit hidden on the Antwerp side. It was easy to identify once we were nearby, since the ventilation tower matches the one on the other side. It's got a huge elevator, big enough for people with bicycles to use. The tunnel itself is pretty amazing - straight as a particle accelerator all the way to the other side, but you can't see the end from the beginning. Something about the straightness and the length inspired the kids (and the parents as well) to take off running and laughing as we raced toward the other end. We spent some time playing in the park on the other side of the river, then John and R headed to the Holiday Inn to check them out and get their car, while M and I took the kids back to the apartment. It's just so great to be able to spend time together over several months like this, rather than our usual every-five-years cramming all our catching up into a week or so. We hope to visit Amsterdam one more time before we have to head back, and I would also like to meet M in Delft for a daytrip at some point. Phrases like "at some point" scare me though--those are always the things that end up not happening, aren't they?

We hugged M&R goodbye and stayed in that night with the girls, chilling out before the next round of company arrived the next day, our friends T&K from Harrisonburg. They were to arrive Sunday around lunchtime, so Sunday morning was free to do whatever. We decided to head out to Fort Merksem, which at one time was a working fort (not so long ago actually!) which has become a community park with soccer fields, playgrounds, trails and even some peacocks and deer in a little enclosure. It's at the end of one of the tram lines (the 3, I think) and then just a short walk to the park. The girls really liked seeing the peacocks display those amazing tailfeathers, and the park was nice, though muddy.

T&K arrived from the train station by taxi and we settled them into the apartment downstairs. T just had foot surgery and K was coming down with the Flemish Gack (bad congestion--we've all had bouts with it since coming here) so we didn't do a whole lot the first few days, though we got to spend lots of time together, which was the point. We ate out at a few restaurants, one great, one not so fantastic. Dock's Cafe down by the waterfront had been recommended by a chef whose daughter is in JieJie's class, and it definitely lived up to its recommendation. Fantastic seafood, an oyster bar, great decor/ambience, good service, and an enormous wine list, perhaps the most comprehensive I've ever seen - they even had a wine from China! We had a Gewurtztraminer and some kind of red I can't remember. Then later in the week we ate at Persepolis, an Iranian restaurant, where the food was good but not out of this world. Grilled fish, rice, grilled vegetables, bread and dipping sauces, that sort of thing. I had to leave early with two tired girls, and my stomach was bothering me, so I'm sure that tainted my experience.

Coming up: Brain Dump Part II, The Birthday Extravaganza...(gotta go pick up the girls!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Whew! What a party! Last night John and I went to Celtic Ireland, a huge Irish pub on the Groenplats, to meet a couple I first met at the PTA Rave Party in February. He's of Irish descent, she's Belgian, they're both a lot of fun.

The pub was crowded by 7pm when we got there and only got more crowded from then til we left about 11:30. The musical selections ranged from BeeGees to U2 to The Police and random party tunes ("God is a DJ"). John had Guinness and I had something called Adam's Apple Cider, but forgot to alternate ciders with bottled water so I'm moving a little slowly this morning.

The bar food was good--fantastic wings and sauce, and we also got a mixed warm platter that had meat skewers, cheese croquettes, and some other things to dip in the two tangy sauces.

Every so often the music changed to an Irish jig and some step dancers would do their thing on a raised area of the pub, and there was much cheering and toasting.

We walked home (nice that everything's so close to our apartment, eh?) and the babysitter got a fistful of euros to use wherever she spent last night. The college students' night is only beginning at 11:30...those days are gone for this thirtysomething mom. And good riddance! Waking up to cartoons and cereal with my husband and two lovely girlies is heaven.

2,000 Hits and Counting!

I just checked my site meter and the magic number 2,000 has been accomplished. How cool!

So a fitting topic for this entry might be an ode to JieJie and MeiMei's new favorite singing group, K3, otherwise known as "kah-dree" in Flemish (and flip the "r" if you want true authenticity). Our friends M & R (or more correctly their sons, S & V, who had suddenly become aware that boys aren't supposed to like a girl group) gave us the cd "The Wereld Round" and we hear it several times a day.

At a recent trip to the public library, JieJie spotted the DVD of the Wereld Round concert so now we hear the cd AND we see the concert version several times a week. The concert version has some seriously second-rate choreography...I've taken step aerobics classes that were more aesthetically complicated, but the girls really like it, and I have to admit the show is very wholesome. Kind of like Dutch ABBA, as far as the music goes. John really likes it and dances around the apartment to their songs, though he's pretending to make fun of it (after all he has to be Mr. Cool Guy). I like their belly dancing song "Ik Van Je Hou."

So now you can help your preschool girl graduate from The Wiggles to Kah-DREE...I'm actually contemplating taking the girls to the Sportpaleis in April for their concert "The 3 Piggetjes" (the Three Little Pigs, if you haven't guessed).

Thanks for reading! There's plenty more to come.

Tagging along to Leuven

wow--almost 2,000 hits on this blog...thanks for spreading the word!--a

JieJie and MeiMei are getting to be great travelers, and genuinely seem to enjoy getting out and seeing things. They have half-days of school on Wednesdays, so when the university group's trip to Leuven was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon, I told Mr. K (Director of Logistics) that the LL's (Little Ladies, as he calls them) and I would be along for the ride.

We would need to find our own things to do because the students, who are studying business-related subjects during their time in Antwerp, were going to Leuven to visit InBev, the world's largest brewery, maker of Stella Artois and Jupiler among other brands. No little kids allowed in the brewery.

No matter. Our Michelin Green Guide to Belgium indicated that Leuven is known for its extravagantly decorated town hall and its cathedral, and the map showed a walkable city with plenty to keep us occupied for a little while. We loaded La Stroller on the bus and settled in for the ride, a little over an hour.

When we got to InBev, Mr. K pointed the way to the center of Leuven, we arranged a rendezvous time for the return trip, and we were off. We walked past a big bus depot, the train station, and turned down Bondgenotenlaan for the stroll to the town square.

The girls wanted to look in a few stores along the way, and finally we arrived at the town square, which is small enough that it wasn't possible for me to capture the whole of the impressive Stadhuis (Town Hall) facade all in one photo frame. Today the Stadhuis is the seat of the provincial government of Flanders (Vlaanderen), the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. We didn't go in the Town Hall but we did go in the 15th-century St. Pieterskerk right across the square. It was (as is usual with these great European cathedrals) beautiful, lofty, full of wondrous things to see. JieJie and MeiMei wanted to light a candle. As I lit the one JieJie chose, she sang a prayer in Flemish, one she had learned at school. Pretty neat. I like that they get the connection and we have never had to admonish them about being respectful in these amazing buildings, either. They seem to understand.

One of the things I've enjoyed are the elaborately carved wooden pulpits in the cathedrals. I've never paid much attention to them before but I'm tempted to look for a book on the topic. The thing I find almost funny is the reason behind the elaborate decoration, or one reason anyway: the inevitability that some congregants will daydream during the sermon/homily. And when their attention wanders from the person in the pulpit, what do they see? The tree of knowledge with a snake coiled in the branches, the dove of peace, a crucifixion scene, palm trees symbolising Paradise, or perhaps their glance travels to the base of the pulpit where (in Leuven anyway) they see a vision of a horse and its rider being sucked down into Hell. I took some photos of the pulpit in Leuven, which the Michelin guide says is a scene of St. Norbert struck down at the foot of a rock, but they are a bit too dark to post.

We popped into a toy store called Krokodil just off the square--great store!!! We ended up getting two additions to our growing collection of Groovy Girls, which are great little rubbery plastic dolls with names like Oki and Vanessa and O'Ryan...very cute, ethnically diverse, not at all like the Junior Sluts dolls (Bratz) I can't stand. So we came home with Jenna and Bretta and their dune buggy and bicycle.

John sent a text message that things were wrapping up, so we headed back to InBev, stopping along the way for a Croque Monsiour to go for each of the girls. It was a bit raw and windy, so we ducked into the train station waiting room to eat. We ran back to InBev, which we needn't have done because the students spent almost an hour in the gift shop wasting their money (IMHO) on Stella Artois t-shirts and beer mugs. We hung out with the InBev security guard for a while and then were allowed in the secure area to go get on the warm bus for the trip home.

The rest of Leuven, from what I could tell, looks like a nice place, though it's similar enough to other places we've been in Flanders that I wouldn't go out of my way to go there again before we leave.

Boullion in the Semois Valley

We left Bastogne on our whirlwind overnight and headed southwest to Boullion, a beautiful town in the Semois Valley. So far, Boullion has been my favorite place of all the stops on our semester-long itinerary. This photo manages to capture all of the things we did in Boullion. You see the Semois River winding through the photo. The light tan building across the river is the Archeoscope which tells the story of Godfrey of Boullion. In the foreground you see the center courtyards of Godfrey's castle (I took the photo from the uppermost parapet), and in the courtyard you also see the blue bleachers where we sat to view a falconry demonstration. A most useful picture indeed.

So: the Archeoscope. It's really a great place to take kids before you visit Godfrey's castle. It was especially helpful for our group too because in 24 hours we had skipped around historical eras with alarming suddenness. Charlemagne...19th and 20th century coal miners...WW2 battlefields and now The Crusades?! A little orientation was most appreciated. Godefroid de Boullion was born in the 11th century and was a Crusader who sold his castle to pay for his crusade to the Holy Land, where he took the title Defender of Jerusalem (or something to that effect).

The Archeoscope experience is part film, part multimedia, part diorama. We walked through a dark room where a booming voice told us about (love it in French) Godefroid de Boullion (you've gotta say it out loud, gohd-FWAH duh bool-YOHN...French is fun). Then we went into the next room and got front row seats thanks to Mr. K's insider tip on where the exit from part I was located. We sat down and put on headphones, selected English and chose our volume level, and then a great little show unfolded on a stagelike area in front of us, with moving models and different projections showing the story of Godfrey and the castle. MeiMei noted that Godfrey and his wife "fell into love." I asked her last night what that means and she said "when you fall into love, you really want to hug each other."

JieJie listened pretty intently to the narration. MeiMei's head is a bit small and the headphones kept slipping off, but she did ok. We came out into a gift shop and John bought a great book of puzzles that depict life in a castle. It's in French, but he can read it to them so no matter.

We boarded the bus in the increasingly heavy rain and rode to the castle itself, then found a place to sit for a demonstration of the art of falconry. The falconer had owls, vultures and hawks that are trained to hunt smaller birds and other types of animals. Dogs are not allowed in the castle for this reason. One stubborn dog owner disregarded the rule and the owls apparently got both of his small dogs. The falconer said these were American owls and their names are Bill and Monica. Lovely. Anyway.

The rain picked up considerably and I dreaded another 2 hours in the bus with the girls, who obviously wouldn't be up for a tour through the cold wet castle. Mr. K generously offered to take them back to the bus and hang out with them and Rene the bus driver so I could tour the castle. It is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me as a mom, and I almost wept with gratitude. The girls trotted happily off holding Mr. K's hands and we heard later that he bought them a candy bar, they played hide and seek in the bus, and just generally had a great time. Thanks Mr. K!!

John and I enjoyed the tour of the castle and the spectacular views from the parapets. I couldn't help thinking what a great trip it would be to tour the Semois Valley, by car, by boat, by bicycle, or even on foot, and stay at a little inn along the way. If you are looking for a quiet, idyllic, not-too-touristy place for a long weekend while you're in Belgium, allow me to recommend quaint, picturesque Boullion.

Bastogne & Hotel Melba

That's MeiMei, dwarfed by the enormous Battle of the Bulge Monument in Bastogne, Belgium.

We arrived in Bastogne hungry and tired from our busy day of touring (see Aachen and Blegny) and luckily we were staying at the lovely Hotel Melba, which is part of a chain (Best Western I think) but only for reservation purposes. Everything else about the hotel is one-of-a-kind, and the room was one of the nicest we've ever had.

We had the chance to choose two connecting rooms or a suite, and we decided on the suite--I'm so glad! Turns out the only suite in the hotel is under a peaked roof instead of a flat roof. Each room in our suite had double skylights right over the beds, so we literally slept under the stars, though we pulled the shades over the girls' beds so they wouldn't wake up too quickly.

The girls napped a bit more and played in the room until it was time for a group dinner in the hotel dining room. I wasn't expecting much, but we were so pleasantly surprised. Dinner began with Quiche Ardennes, named for the delicious Ardennes ham that was the main ingredient. The girls wolfed theirs down and were full, so I got them some little activity books to do over by a fireplace/lounge area in the dining room. One of the JMU students voluntarily kept them company while we ate our turkey dinners--I could have kissed her. The girls have to do a lot more keeping themselves occupied on these group trips, so it means a great deal to me that the students go out of their way to help--they certainly wouldn't have to!

After dinner I went up to tuck JieJie and MeiMei in, and by then it was absolutely pouring rain. I didn't realize til then how totally spent I was from all the touring...I sat and stared out the window at rainy Bastogne for a solid ten minutes, I think! John and Mr. K talked down in the lounge for a while longer and then we all went to sleep. I think some of the students actually went out looking for a good pub, despite the rain and their exhaustion, but if they did, I didn't hear them go out or return...I was dead to the world.

Saturday morning dawned rainy and raw. We had breakfast in the hotel, a lovely selection of meats, cheeses, and croissants, and we met Henri, the man who would be our guide for the day. Henri was 8 years old when the Allies defeated the German army in WWII's famous Battle of the Bulge, and he still remembers things like American GI's giving him chocolate. I have a bit of interest in WWII as both of my grandfathers served in the U.S. military, one in the Navy and one in the Army. My Grampa Defries, the Army guy, actually met General Patton, who was involved in the Battle of the Bulge. So I was excited for the tour, though not expecting to hear and/or see as much because I am Parachute Lady with the girls ("Tantrum! Tantrum! Eject! Eject!")

Our group boarded the bus and began the bus tour of Bastogne, where we saw more American flags than I remember seeing at home. There's a church that plays the first six notes of the U.S. National Anthem on its carillon bells, and whose stained glass displays an American Flag.

We arrived at the Bastogne Historical Center, watched an orientation movie (thankfully not too graphic) which the girls paid attention to enough that I could get the gist of it, and then went out into the exhibit areas, which I only wish I could have seen with Grampa. He fixed Jeeps, and there in the exhibit diorama were two full-size Jeeps and depictions of soldiers in uniform carrying out various tasks. I wonder what he would have been able to remember if he could see all of the artifacts collected in this impressive tribute to the Battle of the Bulge.

The girls got squirrely enough that I took them away from the group and we just looked at different tools, uniforms, canteens, and things having to do with soldiers' daily lives. Then we went back to the bus and hung out with Rene, the driver, who is a very nice grandfatherly sort of man. He let the girls sit in his seat and have their pictures taken "driving" the bus, I gave the girls some snacks, and read them "Rumpelstiltskin" which Rene said is called "Rempestentje" in Dutch.

We briefly tried to walk to the outdoor memorial with its view of the beautiful Ardennes landscape, but it was just too raw and rainy so the picture of MeiMei is about all that came of our attempts. When either of my daughters is tired of walking, it's no use trying to go another step (hence the invaluable STROLLER!) and once JieJie just whined "Coold! Tiiiired!" over and over, I knew it was pointless to argue.

John, Mr. K, Henri and the students returned to the bus, we drove out through the forest battle areas and looked at a "foxhole"--John says they can't be authentic because they had freshly broken tree roots as though they had been created or at the very least maintained much more recently than 1944. Still, it was moving to drive through the area and realize how cold it must have been, how hard it was to see through the dense pine forests. If you've seen "Band of Brothers" you know the terrain.

We said goodbye to Henri at the center of town, grabbed a Croque Monsieur (our standby for the girls - they will always wolf down a hot ham and cheese!) and got back on the bus for the trip to our final destination in this whirlwind overnight: Boullion, Belgium.

You might notice that it's taken me a couple of weeks to write about these two densely packed days of touring. I can't wait to finish with Boullion, which must be mentioned since it is so gorgeous. Still, this "assignment" has brought out my inner rebel, the part of me that drags my feet when I know I have something big to finish. I want to get caught up! I want to tell you about JieJie's birthday, about our little trip to Leuven, and today's daytrip wandering around Brussels. I'll get to it, and soon--I have to, because we've got five solid days of touring coming up later this month (including our first ever trip to Paris), and The Decks Must Be Clear!

The Halfway Point

Well, this Friday is JieJie's fifth birthday, and next week is the halfway point of our time here in Antwerp.

I still say I wouldn't live here long-term, as much as I am enjoying the day-to-day. People are nice here, it's easy to get around, the food is great, there's always something fun to see and do, but city life can be constraining. I miss my big back yard, our house, our neighbors and friends, and I am looking forward to getting all of that back. I realized the other day that I hadn't driven a car in two months, and have only been in a car three times since getting here...weird.

What's going to stay with me from our time here? A deep appreciation of the nuances of truly great chocolate making and eating...a love of beatiful wrought iron work...the plan we have to see how long we can get by with only one car and the bus system back home...wanting to try a gorgeous crystal chandelier in an otherwise casual room...being reminded how good a fresh loaf of bread can be...loving train travel.

What I'd like to leave here: JieJie's mad days, MeiMei's whining, my inability to listen to more than one person at a time when three people are all trying to tell me Something Really Important and my head feels like it's going to implode. It's so odd, but this small apartment has made the girls' clinginess (justified of course by the fact that so much is unfamiliar) seem so much more ludicrous. They want me (daddy's no good, apparently) right on their beds with them to fall asleep, and fight over whose bed I'm sitting on. They want me to sit next to them at meals, they want my lap on the tram, they want me to dress them, feed them like a baby...it's hard on them sometimes, which makes it hard on me and on John, who does his best to insist that Mommy Can't Do Everything, or (my favorite) "Mommy delegated this job to Daddy."

Still worth it? Ultimately, yes (who knows what the girls will say?). But there is about a half-hour of every day when I just want to run around like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.

Blegny-Trembleur

After our visit to Aachen / Aix-la-Chapelle, we went to Blegny-Trembleur, Belgium to visit the last working coal mine in Wallonia (French-speaking Belgium) which shut down a couple of decades ago.

I was fairly sure the girls and I would skip the mine tour, because I wasn't sure how we would be able to get out if MeiMei decided she was "SKAWED!" all of a sudden. I'd heard that there were lots of playgrounds at ground level. I made sure we had a couple of snacks handy and we waved goodbye to John and the university students as they headed into the tour orientation area.

There were indeed playgrounds! One was for toddlers and one was for bigger kids. I have to say (again) that the playground equipment here is so fun, due in part to the novelty value for us Americans, but also due to the fact that the liability insurance issue is not as major here. There were things on that playground that no American playground planner would touch with a ten-foot pole. Long multi-person swings that basically look like seats on a swinging battering ram...the merry-go-round things that U.S. playgrounds did away with when I was still a kid...really really tall slides that have no guardrails on the top and seem greased for the ride down. Needless to say, the girls had a blast!

After about an hour of that, they started to wander from thing to thing and I thought okay, enough of this. I told them it was my turn to pick what we did, and we headed off down a tour path toward who-knows-what. Turned out to be an exhibit of the different types of coal cars and miner transportation vehicles, digging machines, etc., all connected to each other and displayed on rails. The girls seemed interested in all the little cars (short of course so they could fit through the narrow passages). And then: ANOTHER playground! And a little zoo with birds and farm animals!

Finally I saw a path that led up this enormous slag heap. It was so amazing to me that just the waste from the mining operation could create a mountain which now sustains a whole ecosystem of birch trees, moss, various animals, birds, etc., but which still smells faintly of coal. We climbed the mountain together, the girls and I, and I was impressed with their ability to make it to the top with a minimum of whining. The view from the top was reward enough (see photo). We had such great weather that day. It was a really fun time, just following our noses to see what we could see.

We headed back down and the tour was just ending, so we met John and the students and went back to the bus. They said the mine tour was really interesting, and the guide (b. 1943) had actually worked for the mine (mining and then managing) from age 16 til his retirement when the mine closed. They told some pretty horrific stories about the conditions the miners worked in, and how awful the lives of the horses were that had been used to pull loads of coal down in the mine before machines were available. The horses were sometimes kept down in the mine for years at a time, never seeing the sun and often going blind down there.

You might wonder, what's the value of this tour for a group of American university students? But coal was a major industry in Wallonia. The students no doubt learned the association between an industry, the local economy, the culture and identity of a place. Perhaps in the future they will think to inquire about the major industries and "economic heritage" of the places they visit and work.

Next: Bastogne and a great little hotel

Whirlwind Overnight Part I: Aachen, Germany

FINALLY catching up! Okay. Where was I? A week ago today, we put two sleepy little girls in the Stroller and walked a few blocks to the Paardenmarkt (Horse Market) bus stop of our private tour bus. We were prepared with juice boxes and cereal bars for the girls, so all they'd have to put up with at 6:30 in the morning was getting dressed.

We met the bus at 7:15 and settled in for a quiet ride east from Antwerp to Aachen, Germany. The French call this town Aix-La-Chapelle (pronounced like EX-la-sha-PELL). The college students were sleeping off whatever they'd done the night before, and the girls snoozed since there was nobody to play with but Boring Old Mom and Dad and Mr. K, who was busy talking to Daddy.

Aachen is a neat city, one I would like to return to and which definitely whetted my apetite to see more of Germany. John's paternal heritage goes back to Kiel, in northern Germany, and his Oma used to work at a German bakery in Point Pleasant, NJ where John is from.

After getting off the bus and giving the group a sense of where they were to meet up, we were given 15 minutes to grab a quick roll and coffee. John said many of the items in the bakery/cafe we found reminded him of things his grandmother helped make at Mueller's in NJ. Mr. K said he loved getting the German pastries, and I admit they were really tempting! I just wanted some coffee. The girls wanted to get something---luckily there was a fruit stand a few meters from the cafe seating so we got them some grapes and a banana. I switched languages from "een banaan, alsdublieft" to "eine banana,____" and (rats!) the fruit seller answered in English. My goal with shopping while here is not to have the person I'm buying from switch to English, though I certainly don't expect them to think I'm a native speaker of Nederlands (Dutch/Flemish).

We then went to our tour of the Aachen Cathedral. This building is significant for a couple of reasons. First, it is where many German coronations have been held. Second, it is where Charlemagne was crowned and where his remains...well, remain, I guess.

Before seeing the sanctuary itself, we went through a great museum called the "treasury" where some important treasures including significant paintings, crowns, jewels and reliquaries are displayed. The girls were still pretty tired and not all that interested (I wasn't expecting them to take notes or anything. Really this was their first museum visit). I spent much of that tour taking the girls to the potty. Ah well. JieJie seemed interested in a tryptich depicting major events in Christ's life, especially the part where he disappears into the clouds at the "end" (reading the tryptich from left to right, heaven is in the upper right hand corner).

Before we went into the cathedral, our guide Bernadette showed us something about the cathedral's architecture using a little bronze model. That's the picture at the top. She explained which parts of the cathedral are original and based on an octagon (sorry, can't remember why!). Then she showed us the door, which has a legend attached to it. It's called the "wolf's door." Legend has it that when the building was finished, the devil planned to take the soul of the first being to enter the cathedral. Nobody wanted to go in. Someone came up with the idea of sending a wolf through the door first. Bernadette showed us a crack in the bronze door, and said when the devil found out that he'd been tricked, he slammed the door so hard it cracked.

We went in the very impressive sanctuary. I notice that they're hosting a performance of Bach's St. John Passion there on March 25th, but there's no way I can go because we have travel again the next day and if I got stranded there...bad news! Still, I can't imagine how breathtakingly beautiful that performance will be, with the acoustics in there and the stunning art and mosaics.

We saw Charlemagne's throne. Not what you'd expect! It's made of marble, not all gilded and bejeweled. Bernadette told us that because Charlemagne wanted an empire based on Christianity, he wanted a throne made from marble from Jerusalem. Experts have noticed that the marble appears to have been salvaged, since some surfaces are unfinished or rounded (the stairs up to the throne look like a column cut into quarters) or otherwise irregular. Also they've found some carving on one side that looks like a sidewalk game (like marbles), suggesting that at least one of the pieces was made from a paving stone. The throne faces Jerusalem and is on the second floor, overlooking the larger congregation area.

JieJie and MeiMei were interested in the throne--again, all this fairy tale stuff and Princess stuff...they at least know the word, and there's a concrete association to make. We also called their attention to the stained glass windows, so colorful and intricate. JieJie tried to find a depiction of Noah's Ark with animals.

Because of damage in WW2, the stained glass windows are not original (there are pock marks in the outside too if you look closely) but they are beautiful nonetheless. After our tour of the cathedral, it was back to the bus and time to head back over the border for a our of the Blegny Mine in Belgium's French-speaking region, Wallonia. to be continued

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You:

Yes indeedy! Sorry for the lapse. I've been recovering from last weekend. Tomorrow, I promise narrative and pictures from our whirlwind overnight bus trip with a great guide, two intrepid preschoolers, an amazing husband, and thirty impressive university students, plus a very nice bus driver.

John is reading page proofs for two books due to come out later this year, so he gets first dibs on the computer. Tomorrow morning I plan to catch up, but just to whet your appetite, you will get to read about:

Aachen, Germany, where Charlemagne's tomb and throne are located;

Blegny-Trembleur, Belgium, where the last working mine in Wallonia (French-speaking Belgium) has been turned into a museum about mining;

Bastogne, Belgium, site of the WW2 Battle of the Bulge, where we toured battlefields and museums with a Bastongnian man who got chocolates from American GI's as an 8-year-old; and

(talk about historical whiplash!) beautiful Boullion, in Belgium's Semois River Valley, where we visited the castle of Godfrey, a crusader born in 1060 who became the first King of Jerusalem. Here's a taste of Boullion's storybook charm (can you tell it was my favorite?), taken from the castle rooftop:

Also coming up over the next few days (possibly):

"I've gained too much weight!"--cheese and chocolate revisited

and

"Behavior modification charts: Who are they Really For?"

A Real Olympic Pool, Now Public

Click on the title of this post and you can read (albeit in Flemish) about the Zwembad Wezenberg, or Wezenberg Pool, which the girls and I splashed around in on Wednesday.

It was time for a kid-focused day, and we had a great one on Wednesday. The weather was dreary and rainy, limiting us to indoor options. Knowing how much JieJie and MeiMei love swimming pools, I asked the assistant program director, here in Antwerp for the week, how to get to the pool he'd mentioned. He gave me great, detailed directions, we packed our suits and towels and were on our way.

I might remind you that we have those wonderful DeLijn passes, so we never have to worry about finding pocket money for bus or tram fare. We just go! We took the tram to the Centraal Station where the #17 bus stops, but didn't see any signs indicating a #17 stop. Luckily I'd peeked at the map and had a hunch that if we went down a road called DeKeyserlei, we might find something. It wasn't there, but we caught sight of a #17 turning a corner up ahead and found the stop on the Quellinstraat, where the school uniform store is also located.

We waited at the stop, the girls asking about the different buses, and a woman asked if we wanted the #17. I said yes, and she advised us to go a bit further up the block. There's a lot of construction around the train station right now, so things are a bit out of usual. She asked where we were from and I said Virginia. She smiled and said she was from North Carolina and that her daughter was at a military base in Virginia right now. Her accent was not North Carolinian in the least, so I asked her what brought her to Antwerp. She said she married a Belgian man 30 years ago and had been here ever since.

We caught the bus and got off at the perfect stop, walked only a block and saw the swimming pool complex. Antwerp hosted the Olympics in the 20's, and this pool complex was built for those games. The whole facility was renovated in 2002 and it's really beautiful and clean and bright.

It was only 2 euro to get in, kids under 6 free (yay!). We paid and got a card that made the entry turnstile work. I was looking for the women's locker room entrance but there was only one door. I wasn't sure whether to go in because I saw men inside...but then I saw women too. Okay, be cool, co-ed locker rooms. Jeez, I keep coming up against how Puritannical we Americans are about these things...ironic when we export the likes of Madonna and Britney Spears (who I hear has checked herself into rehab...are we surprised?!). Anyway. We rented a locker for a refundable 2 euro coin and closed the doors of our little changing room. JieJie and MeiMei were SO EXCITED to be going to a swimming pool!!! We joined one a few summers ago and spend half the summer splashing around, so it's a familiar and fun place for them to be.

After getting our suits on and running through a quick shower, we found the kids' pool and it was perfect. MeiMei is only a yard high but the pool was up to her shoulders for most of it. For a good hour, we splashed, chased, laughed and talked about how great it will be to go to our pool with its mountain views this summer. It was such a great escape from all the unusual situations the girls have adjusted so well to. They deserved a fun day just for them.

After swimming,, we rinsed off (co-ed showers too, swimsuits on...everyone is just so NORMAL about this--why does nudity always equal lust in our culture?! It's really sick.) and went to our changing room. A nice grandfatherly man in his suit and towel stopped to ask the girls how their swim was and they eagerly told him that they aren't scared to go under water and that they take swimming lessons. Again, my American Mom habit of mind was "who is this man and what kind of a perv is he?" and again I realized, here was a nice man who just wanted to be friendly.

We got dressed and headed across the parking lot to a restaurant that I think must have been a cafeteria for the athletes during the Olympics. It's called Colmar and it's part of a chain. The kids menu was 6 euro and included a dessert bar. They both chose meatballs and fries, and for dessert JieJie had rice pudding with berry topping, and MeiMei had a pancake with chocolate mousse and whipped cream on top. They both got a toy to take home and there was a coloring page menu. It was kid-friendly, definitely, but what I had was nice too: Norwegian salmon en croute with Bearnaise sauce and a salad bar with a wonderful selection of toppings. I'd go back, definitely, but only with the kids as a treat for them. It's not a date restaurant, at least on par with the places that are on John's and my list for the nights when we can get away.

We had a wonderful rest-of-the-day at the apartment, just hanging out, coloring, watching tv, whatever, and the girls fell asleep just after 7. Perfect timing, as we had a sitter over so we could take a student group to City Palace Restaurant in Chinatown. Best Chinese food I've had outside of China--AMAZING dim sum!

G. Bastin Chocolate Factory Tour

Click on the title of this post and you will see the website of a 100 year old Belgian chocolate maker named G. Bastin, which is a few blocks from the University of Antwerp neighborhood where we live.

On Tuesday morning, our family accompanied a group of 15 JMU students as we toured their factory, and it was a delicious morning! We went through the showroom to a back room where we watched a preliminary video about the cocoa bean growers in Ghana whose beans are processed and shipped all over the world. Our tour guide, Raymond, told us that different companies' chocolates have a distinctive taste because they select from over 1200 possible varieties, depending on type of bean, how it's roasted and processed, and combinations of beans that give a unique flavor. They have been using the same combination of flavors in their chocolate for fifty years, and don't plan to change. They feel that their market chooses them, and they want to remain faithful to the niche they've created.

Next, we got into an elevator that smelled strongly of chocolate. We went down to the chocolate dungeon, ha ha ha, and got a two-hour demonstration of chocolate making. There was a vat of melted chocolate being constantly stirred, there was a conveyor belt that could carry fillings under a chocolate spout to be covered in delicious dark, milk, or white chocolate. There was a machine that automatically filled shell molds to make the filled chocolates that Belgium is famous for. On racks by the wall were empty chocolate eggs the size of honeydew melons, waiting to be filled and decorated for Easter.

We watched as one of the founder's grandsons made "Antwerp hands" (see references to the Brabo Fountain earlier in the blog) with a filling flavored with a secret recipe liqueur called Elixir d'Anvers (Elixir of Antwerp). We got to try writing with warm dark chocolate, and the college students even helped JieJie and MeiMei try their hand at writing their names in chocolate. JieJie can actually write her name, so when she finished, she got a round of applause that put a twinkle in her eyes.

Then we got a marzipan lesson. We had already been told by the Chateau Blanc chocolate guy that what most Americans think is marzipan is either partly or sometimes entirely coconut, not almonds at all. What we learned at G. Bastin is that there are different grades of marzipan. They use a 50/50 marzipan, meaning half almond paste, half sugar. They said the sugar content can go up to 70% (ew!). I have to admit, the marzipan decorations on our Valentines' Day cake from Goossens were much more flavorful than I was expecting. You really can taste the difference.

After these demonstrations, Raymond stopped talkign chocolate and started talking business (our students are all business majors). He made a crucial point: if you mechanize your business, insist that the machine work with the product, and not vice versa. Apparently, they had ordered some machines custom made some years ago, and the machines didn't make chocolates of the quality the company expected. The machine company suggested a recipe change. The Bastins suggested a machine change, and the new equipment arrived a few months later. 'Nuff said!

After the business lesson, it was time to eat! We got to try the Antwerp hands, the chocolate covered marzipan, and the chocolate writing, which had set by that time. Finally we got to have something to drink--you know how chocolate makes you thirsty--and there was more chocolate to have with the water or milk or orange juice. It was all so good, and we ate so much!

On the way out, we each got a pretty box of 20 or so pralines (the word for Belgian filled chocolates) to take home. We are slowly working our way through our two boxes, savoring every nibble.