Meganisms

After Megan sneezes and coughs..."Megan, do you have a cold?"
"No I have a warm."
"You mean you have a cold."
"No I have a warm. I'm not cold, feel my forehead."

Part of a discussion about bad boo-boos...
Megan, "Will you have to go to the hostibal?"
Alyssa giggling, "She said hostibal not hospital."
Megan, "Hostibal is how you say it in Flemish!"
note to readers: its not

Castle Hunt - Luxembourg

We were very successful in our quest to see a castle in Luxembourg. We spent two nights in Luxembourg City, where we explored the old fortifications rising up from the rivers Petrusse and Alzette. We also took a day trip out to Vianden to see the castle there that sits perched high above the village.

Although Luxembourg is smaller than Rhode Island it has three official languages: French, German and Luxembourgish. There was a significant language barrier for us because we didn't know which language to speak at any given time. But we tried anyway with a little bit of French, German, English and even Dutch when all else failed! Sometimes we were understood and sometimes we weren't, like when we ordered cheese pizza for Drew and ended up with a ham and bacon one. Or when we ordered three vanilla ice creams and ended up with one chocolate one.

The pictures below are from our adventures. It was very difficult to choose just a few pictures to show. It is a beautiful country and both towns were very charming. A funny note: Alyssa, Drew and Megan became the subject of many photos when a bus of Japanese tourists came by. I'm sure you can imagine how well that went over - a group of "strangers" trying to pose with our very "outgoing" children.

From the Petrusse Casemates looking toward the suburb of Clausen in the valley. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg 

The Bock dating to 963 and the subsequent fortification built in the 17th century on the left. Saint Jean the Baptiste church in the Grund on the right. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg 

The Alzette River in Grund in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg 

In the Casemates de la Petrusse - Luxembourg City, Luxemburg. These chamber were dug in the 1640s by the Spainards as artillery chambers. 

Tiny Alyssa - The castle Vianden, Luxembourg 

My handsome princes - The castle Vianden, Luxembourg 

Inside the castle - Vianden, Luxembourg  

Vianden Castle, Luxembourg 

Dinner Debacle

As some of you know food, as in food shopping and preparation, is my worst enemy here. I spend a ridiculous number of hours in the grocery store compared to the amount of items I purchase. Most of the time in the store is spent staring at the items hoping that it will suddenly become clear what it is I'm looking at. Take today for example, I'm trying to buy a simple item like flour to make pizza dough. First all the bags of what I'm pretty sure are flour are about the size of a 5 lb bag of sugar. Second there are at least 10 different kinds! After a good 5 minutes of standing there puzzled I asked some woman who happened by for help. Off she sent me to a different store where again I stood and stared at the bags which were at least bigger and more like I expected. Again I ask some woman who happens by. She suggests wheat flour for white bread. Alright, what the hell, I've now invested 45 minutes I've got to buy something!

So I manage to find all the ingredients to put together my dough. An hour later I'm thrilled to find it has risen out of the bowl. I chop, cut, shred and spread everything out on my pizza pan that just arrived yesterday in our shipment. I'm rejoicing in the fact that for this whole meal I managed to avoid having to deal with the dreaded package preparation directions which are all in Dutch.

The oven is preheated and the pizza is ready to go in. Have I mentioned the miniature appliances in this country (and most European countries so I am told)? Our frig/freezer, for five people mind you, is the size of about half of just my frig alone in the states. So you guessed it the pizza pan is too big for the damn oven! Just barely too big. You can't really transfer an uncooked, not frozen, fully prepared pizza. Believe me I tried. Ok so back into the oven. If I leaned on the oven door I could keep it almost closed. But what to do for 14 minutes while the pizza cooked? Luckily an open bottle of red wine and the glasses were within reach:)

Exciting Daze

We have had a few very exciting last couple of days. First Alyssa and Megan started "ballet" class on Tuesday. They actually let me leave them in the studio with a new teacher pretty easily. It was much harder getting them out when the class was over. They really loved it! Plus they look so adorable.

Yesterday was the big day...YES our stuff arrived!! Halleluiah! The long wait is over (August 26th was the original date it was to be delivered.). It was a good thing too because the kids were getting a little too pathetic with their limited toy selection. Just that morning Alyssa got all upset to find her "special toy", a tattered green ribbon, in the garbage. Drew empathized by saying he would be very upset too if he found his "special toy", a long white twist tie, in the garbage.

Also yesterday Rick picked up his car that he bought two weekends ago. These last two items close the book on significant things we had to get/do to be settled.

And last but certainly not least Drew read a story to us!! When I unpacked his books from our shipment I showed him the beginner reading books for when he starts reading. He picked one up and started sounding out the words and reading it! I was a little too excited so he stopped after a page but later read the book to Rick!

Train play - I was almost as excited as the kids to get the train set:) 

A day in the life... 9/17-18

Friday night we went out to dinner with another family of 5 to yet another restaurant that has a playground in the back. This is the best idea! It was a nice restaurant with great food and all the adults could sit and chat while the kids played. The food here is really awesome. Both Rick and I have yet to have a bad meal. Of course the Belgian beer is really good too which usually comes before the meal.

Drew had his first T-ball game Saturday morning. Although a bit overwhelmed at first he did great, ending up with two doubles and a single. They only play three innings with no outs. Every player gets to hit each inning. You run the bases until the catcher has the ball and tags home plate. I think it is a great way to introduce the kids to a team game and build self-confidence. They all have a ball at least.

In the afternoon we went to a traveling one ring circus. The only thing I'll say is the kids really enjoyed it.

Sat night Rick and I had date night! Kimberley, the landlord's daughter, baby-sat for us. She's a 20 year old college student. She only charges the equivalent of 6 bucks an hour! The kids happily let us go so off we went into Antwerp for dinner and a stroll. We already booked her for next time:)

Bugs again!

I came within centimeters (notice I'm using metric) of sticking my head into the spider and web pictured below. Thank God I didn't because I think I would still be screaming. This spider is about the size of a quarter and they are EVERYWHERE!

Travels - Bruges

On Sunday we took the train to Bruges. It is about an hour and a half west of Antwerp. We had a wonderful time indulging in chocolates and waffles as we took in the sites. What a beautiful city! There is a sampling of pictures below. Drew really cracked us up looking at the paintings and sculptures. He really studied them and enjoyed them. Although in keeping with being a five year old boy he also pointed and snickered at the naked women.

Canal - Bruges 

The Belfort - Bruges 

Main Square - Bruges 

art appreciation 

Angels watching over us 

BIG spiders 

Banking

A major obstacle I had to overcome was figuring out how to pay bills. I thought since I do all my banking on-line in the states that I could use the same account to pay bills here - electronic world right? Silly me. Electronic banking has borders. It would cost a wiring charge of $35 everytime I paid a bill here using my online account from the States. Not a good plan obviously. So I call the utility companies to see if I can put the bills on a credit card. No way. Can I use my checks from my american bank account? No way - they don't accept checks. Huh? All the utility companies are paid through electronic transactions that you can do at the ATM like machines or on-line. Ok, so now I know what those other machines are that won't take my ATM card. But wait Rick and I have a savings account with ING. There are tons of those banks here. I thought I would open a checking account with them and link it to our savings account. No, no, no! our account is an american account. It really is the same bank, sort of. Ok, so I still need a checking account to pay my bills here so I opened the account and had money wired into it. Now to pay the first bill. I was given software to load on my computer to do on-line banking and it is in English. Great! I load the software, no problem, try to pay the bill, problem. All the info on the bill is in Dutch. All the requested info is in english. There aren't really that many boxes of info to match up so I eventually figured it out. At least I think so. Anyway, somebody will be receiving 121 euros in a couple of days. I hope it is the electric company.

Belgian Rainbow

Two nights ago we saw the most beautiful rainbow. It was the kind that goes across the whole sky, end to end and it was really vibrant. Everyone was all excited. We took pictures and talked about how special rainbows are because you don't see them that often. Then the very next night we saw exactly the same thing. But of course, this is Belgium! It rains almost everyday for a few minutes and then the sun comes out. We did have about 10-11 days in a row with no rain at all during the day. THAT was news. A big, beautiful rainbow in the sky is just another Belgian day:)

Belgian Rainbow 

Story time

We just discovered that parents can take books out of the school library! (Drew gets to take out two books a week.) This is very exciting because all of the books are in english unlike the Brasschaat library in which the vast majority of the books are in Dutch, of course.

Story time 

Travels?

So I'm sure people are wondering when and where are they going to travel? Well, the second weekend I wanted to hop on a train and go to Paris. (I love Paris and can't wait to go back.) Then reality hit me in the face. The kids are exhausted from arriving in a new place, starting new schools, and moving to a new house. There was a birthday party to go to that was all Drew could talk about. For Mom and Dad there was shopping to be done to get us settled. So we stayed close to our new home and explored our new environs and met our new friends.

On Saturday Rick bought a car which was the last major item we needed to get done to feel settled ( of course our shipment still hasn't arrived but again we're not talking about that). It will still probably take weeks before Rick can drive the car home but at least the need for car shopping is done. So now we have turned our attention to where do we travel first.

Making sightseeing for three small children interesting is a bit challenging. Our first day exploring Antwerp did not go that great. This time we figured we go for castles. So our first big adventure (we think) will take us to Luxembourg. Neither Rick nor I have ever been there and we haven't decided if that is a good thing or bad thing. I've read that there are some good castles and varied landscapes so keep your fingers crossed for us. We plan to go the last weekend of September as Drew's school has a four day weekend.

Weekend Adventures

We had a great time at a parade today in Loenhout. The parade had a few marching bands but mostly floats as shown in the pictures below. The floats were decorated with real flowers and were very impressive and beautiful.

The pictures below the floats were taken of the front of the house. All the bedrooms upstairs have those big windows. (The kids are in Drew's window.) It is not as scary as it looks as there is a ledge a couple of feet wide in front of the window. Still we don't have them open without us right there in the room. I personally don't like to have the windows open at all because then the bugs come in. And as a mentioned earlier it doesn't matter the size of the bug or whether it flies or crawls it is still a bug as far as the girls are concerned and creates a screaming fit. I'm not really sure why people don't have screens because there are plenty of flying bugs. Plus a bird had a tough time navigating the big window downstairs this morning. Imagine if the window was open and the fit that would have caused!

Blomencorso parade - Drew's favorite 

Blomencorso parade - Alyssa's favorite 

Blomencorso parade - Megan's favorite 

"Hi!" from Drew, Alyssa and Megan 

Hello from our Belgian house! (Don't worry, Mom, Rick is in the room with them.) 

Weekend exploring

Tonight we went to the coolest restaurant I've ever been to for families. AND it is walking distance from our house! The restaurant has a large patio with outdoor seating that is adjacent to an "enormous" (as Drew says) playground. The playground is really, really cool. It is like Winbrook school times 2 meets skyline park and then some. The kids love it needless to say. And so do Rick and I . We can sit on the patio and let the kids play while we enjoy a beer and actually talk uninterrupted. The restaurant has great food too; real meals for the adults and a great kids menu. The service is really slow though but with the playground entertaining the kids and beer entertaining the adults its not that big of a deal.

The Good, Bad and the Ugly volume 1

I just wanted to comment on a few culture shock items; some good, some not so good.

First the good. If you ask for help, Belgians 99% of the time will practically take you by the hand and show you what, where or how depending on the question. It is really, really great. The funny thing is when you pass someone walking you get no smile or acknowlegement of your existance. But ask for help and they come to life.

Next the bad. At intersections of roads about the same size, the car to the right has the right away. This can be an actual crossing of roads or a T. So picture driving down a road that another road Ts into and all of a sudden a car flies out in front of you turning right from the road that would T into your road. The exception to this rule and all other driving rules is if you hesitate for even a split second all bets are off as to who has the right away. I'll be shocked if we don't get into a fender bender.

Lastly the ugly and this is the most disgusting thing ever - the city bin. This is where you put all your food scraps. It is a plastic bin with a cover and is picked up once a week. Imagine food sitting out rotting for a week. It smells awful and is a breeding ground for little tiny flying bugs among other things. Which, by the way, doesn't make a bit of difference to Megan and Alyssa how small the bug is, it is still a bug and worth screaming about. Week two the city did not empty our bin (not sure why). By the next week it was worse than disgusting! It was eventually emptied and we stopped using it after we cleaned out the maggots that remained in the bottom. I'm really for the environment and recyling and all but there definitely has got to be a better way.

Baseball Drew! He joined the "Peanuts" t-ball. His first game is next Saturday. 

Arts and krafts in the kitchen (some things never change) 

Daddy and Drew acting scary on the patio.