Chocolate, beer and waffles. And a little boy who pees.

Yikes! This is what happens when you are having fun. You don’t write any blog posts. But I have to say. The times are getting good. Brussels was a wild and wacky experience. We arrived midday to stay with a couchsurfer who had agreed to host us for 3 nights. He was having a party with a bunch of other people, mostly couch surfers and we had a wicked Moroccan meal then it was off to French class. I know, random right? Well this guy is really active within couchsurfing and he hosts these French conversation practice classes. Everyone just meets at a bar and the only rule is that you must speak French. It was awesome! I was totally in my element, and they considered me in the expert category… awesome. Plus I learned a great sentence to annoy my mother with: “Ca ne ma rien de la foutre.”

That night we were just hanging out at homebase and in pops another surfer! Now there were four of us. We ended up talking till 2 am with a Belgian guy, a Bosnian girl and a German girl.

Day one in Brussels found us getting a tour with our host, we saw the beautiful Gothic town hall and Grand Place, the Arc de Triomph ( I know…. I thought it was in Paris too, turns out, there are a few.) The Mannequin Pis. Did you know they dress him in little costumes? I tried my first Belgian waffle. Oh My God. I now know why they are famous. North American waffles do NOT compare. We saw the European union headquarters, the palace of justice, all the famous museums. It was all pretty excellent. I must say, Brussels is pretty dirty. Especially the central station. And there are a lot of homeless people. There was one guy in the underground system who I saw a bunch of times with three dogs and a rabbit. No seriously, a rabbit. Sheesh. On our tour we ended up picking up ANOTHER surfer from central station. She was an American girl who is working in Turkey. Later that night as we were all sitting around reading, chatting, planning the next stages of our travel, yet ANOTHER surfer arrived. One girl had left earlier that day so now we had 5 surfers. The whole heard of us went out for a beer late in the evening and it was seriously like a bunch of sheep following the sheppard.

Day two we went walking around some more. We ended up at the Magritte museum. I’m not especially versed in art but the surrealist style this guy used was pretty exciting. They also had a bunch of quotes of his on the walls. Ma favourite read:

“Tout ce que je sais de l’espoir que je met dans l’amour, c’est qu’il n’appartient qu’a une femme de lui donner une realite.”

We bid adieu to Brussels quite early day 3 and spent an afternoon in Ghent. A quaint medieval town that had a castle called the Gravensteen (the count’s castle). It was excellent exploring the building, the views of the city were gorgeous, and the information regarding the history of the town, dating back to the 12th century. It of course had other purposes since, a prison, a courthouse, apparently even a cotton factory. Now it’s an awesome museum with a lot of history of torture, complete with guillotine.

That night it was off ot Elseghem. A tiny village in the Belgian countryside where we met some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever encountered. We were some of the first Canadians to meet Ken’s distant Belgian relatives. They served us a beautiful meal, we got along really well, learning about life in Belgium. The conversation was often quite funny because they speak Flemish (a dialect of Dutch) and we know very little. Dank u well. We spent a perfect day walking around farm country (yay sheep!), meeting 2nd cousins twice removed, eating waffles and cheese, and drinking beer made by monks. We also took a trip to Ypres and saw Tyne Cott cemetery, the largest commonwealth cemetery in the world. It commemorates the soldiers who fought during the first world war, notably the battle of Passchedale. I found this absolutely breathtaking. 12, 000 gravestones. 35, 000 names of men missing in action. New Zealand seeing it’s greatest loss in the history of the country, nearly 1/6 of the population. My great grandfather fought in this battle and survived and I must say, Flanders Fields is probably the most powerful place I’ve ever visited. In the town of Ypres there is an arch that leads into the city centre that has many more names of fallen soldiers and every day at 8pm they do the Last Post. They have performed this ritual every single day since 1928. I shivered throughout the trumpet playing and looked around at over 200 people gathered. This apparently is a wonderfully normal occurrence. I felt down to my very core the truth of the words: “Never Forget”

Early the next morning it was travel time again this time GERMANY! We took a wonderfully long train from Elseghem to Brussels, Brussels to Cologne and the Cologne to Berlin. I think for most this would see annoying and long. It was long, but traveling is something we are really enjoying. It offers us time to sit, view the countryside, sleep, read, listen to music. Little things that we used to take for granted but are now quite special. Plus, first class all the way baby! Plus, on this day Ken and I celebrated 4 years together. Happy Anniversary!