Santa Claus vs. Sinterklaas

Instead of Santa Claus, Belgians have Sinterklaas. Said out loud the two sound very similar but from what I have learned from others here in Belgium they are actually quite different. From what I can put together Sinterklaas drinks a lot more, is a bit more fit and maybe a little racist:

Santa Claus: Comes on Christmas Eve
Sinterklaas: Comes on December 5th

Santa Claus: Is a fat jolly man in a red suit
Sinterklaas: Looks like a holy man (a bishop I believe) and doesn't look too fat. He wears a robe

Santa Claus:Comes on a sleigh with eight little reindeer
Sinterklaas: Comes on a white horse with two black servants* (You can't make this stuff up)

*Now I must say that they are now trying to change the story a little. Instead of black servants, they are becoming helpers, and they aren't really black, they are just dirty from going down the chimney to open the front door for Santa.

Santa Claus: Delivers presents into your stocking
Sinterklaas: Puts presents in your shoes

Santa Claus: Children leave Santa Cookies and milk (hence the fat part)
Sinterklaas: Children leave Sinterklaas something to drink. From the Belgians that I've talked to parents encourage their kids to leave him beer (so he's not fat from cookies, but is drunk from all the beer the kids leave him). Kids also leave carrots for the horse, the servants apparently don't get anything.

This is the best one.

Santa Claus: If you are bad, you don't get presents
Sinterklaas: If you are bad, the servants kidnap you by putting you in a bag and taking you to Spain

I think this is hilarious, I'm not sure what kids would be more afraid of, not getting presents or being taken to Spain.  I'm not sure where Spain came from, I wonder if its like how my parents told me they would send me to China if I didn't eat all my food at dinner. Merry Christmas everybody, we'll be in Austria this year instead of Minnesota, missing all our family and friends.

Finally starting to feel like Christmas

It has taken me awhile to get in the Christmas spirit here in Brussels.  I think we all have our ideas on what Christmas should be like or look like and I am no different. Being from Minnesota I expect to see snow outside, Christmas lights and wreaths in the malls in my home and around the neighborhood. As expected this Christmas season has been a little different, but the last week has certainly made it feel more like the holidays. We finally started seeing some snow in the last week. Not the white fluffy kind that makes everything pretty, but more of the wet rainy kind that sticks around for a night and is gone by the morning (if it even makes it till the morning). I'll take what I can get, it just doesn't feel like winter without snow.

I've also started to see Christmas lights around the city and the shopping areas. I've noticed a couple things about retail here. There is maybe one or two malls in Brussels, generally there are big shopping streets and of course the Christmas markets. The other thing about retail around here is that the Christmas push doesn't start until much later than in the States. In the States it starts right after Halloween, even more so the day after Thanksgiving. There is no Black Friday, Cyber Monday etc, I've only started seeing big pushes this past week. Even though the timing is a little late the amount of the Christmas lights in the streets and shopping area more than make up for it. There are Christmas trees and decorations everywhere.

Christmas Tree in Grand Place

Light show at the Grand Place

Grand Place

 We of course went to the Christmas markets here in Brussels as well. They had this huge ferris wheel that we had to go on. It had great views of the market, you could see all off the shops and the ice skating rink. It started to snow/rain while we were on it so our photos aren't great but it was still a lot of fun.

The view from the Ferris wheel

It started snowing/raining as we were on the Ferris Wheel

The Christmas market also had two of the best merry-go-rounds I have ever seen. These weren't your typical horses going round and round type of merry-go-round, they instead had a Pegasus, airplanes, lizards and one had a space ship that went through the roof of the carousel. If I were a kid I would have been out of my mind excited.

You can actually sit inside of this

You sit inside the spaceship and it goes through the top of the carousel

To end this post I'm going to share the holiday lesson that Steve and I learned this past weekend. Most of us have been to these holiday parties that include ugly sweaters or white elephant gifts. We all know that both of these traditions are ridiculous and just for fun. The uglier the sweater or the more ridiculous the gift the better. We were invited to a "white elephant gift" party this weekend. It was a lots of fun and we met some great people, however I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get invited back. When we heard that we were suppose to bring a white elephant gift we went to the market and found ridiculous kind of tacky items. Steve's gift was a bear key holder with the peg in the most inappropriate spot, mine was a small wooden tray with little cats on it. These items were the wrong choice.

Everybody drew numbers and opened wrapped gifts in order. As people started opening gifts we realized that many (most) people didn't quite understand the White Elephant gift idea and had actually brought really nice gifts. We sat a little bit mortified as we watched people were opening nice boxes of chocolates, beer and jams. We felt ridiculous, and when one of the guests opened Steve's gift you could tell she was thinking WTH? Oh,  it was embarrassing. Luckily we didn't share who brought what, but I'm sure they knew it was us. So lesson learned some traditions just don't translate.

Survival French

Every Monday and Thursday morning I spend four hours in French class. I am in the beginner class, also know as "survival French." There are six of us in the class, two people from Finland, one from Russia, one from Italy, one from Lithuania and then me.

I very quickly learned that I am the only person that does not speak more than one language. Most everybody speaks their own language and then also English. There are some that speak even more than two. I of course felt the judgment of only speaking one language but I am very grateful that the one language in English. Knowing English is very helpful in getting around Brussels and in class as well. Generally the professor speaks only in French, however for more complicated subjects she speaks in English. I often wonder how the brain works when a person is learning a foreign language taught in another foreign language. Does the Russian women translate the French word into English and then to Russian? I can't even imagine.

I also wonder how difficult it is to learn French compared to English or any other language. I've found that the French language has all sorts of rules to it. Verbs change based on who you are talking about. There are masculine and feminine words, formal and informal words, one person or two people words. One verb can be written six different ways.  The other challenge in the French language is reading. In French the way you read a word is much different that how you say it. There are all sorts of silent letters, for example "parlent" (those men speak) "parles" (you speak) and "parle" (I speak) are all pronounced parl and "parlons" (we speak) is parlon. There is so much to remember, I wonder if other languages are this hard.

Way back when when I was in high school I did take some French classes. I have pretty much forgotten all of it, but it does seem easier to learn it the second time around.  I think I'm picking it up a little bit quicker. Just being immersed in the language has helped with my understanding. In high school, I would probably just spend as hour in class and then it would be over. Once my four hour class is over I still hear French on the streets or in the shops etc. Additionally to help me with my homework,  I've got this fabulous Google translate tool on my iPad. When I'm doing my homework and  I don't know a French word, I put it into my tool and it translates it into English for me and vice versa. I love it. I'm not sure how I ever got by without it.

I will say learning French sometimes makes me feel like a small child. The smallest accomplishment makes me so happy and proud of myself. The other day I was able to tell somebody what my hotel room number was in French and I was so proud of myself. It was three numbers, but you would have thought I just delivered a graduation speech. I also am amazed when I understand what somebody is saying in French. I imagine this is what it is like for children when they finally understand what their parents are saying to them. My professor also speaks to us more slowly like when you speak to children. I often leave class thinking "that's not so bad" but then when I'm out in the real world, I can't figure out what anybody is saying. I also think its funny that they call it "survival French" because there is no way I could actually survive with just knowing how to count and tell you what color my sweater is.

A Dog's Life

This is taken from outside, but the dog is in the restaurant sitting by his owner

This dog was particularly stylish in a red fuzzy sweater

If I were a dog I think I would want to live in Brussels. From what I can tell people tend to treat their dogs like their children. On top of that it seems like the culture accepts that concept. Dogs are everywhere and are allowed almost allowed everywhere children are. I have seen dogs in the train station, on the actual  the train (and this was not a little toy dog, it was a black lab). They are even in the grocery stores and restaurants. The funny thing about dogs in the restaurants, is that they aren't just sitting outside by somebodies foot, but on the chair next to their owner. Its just so different to see dogs in the restaurants right were people eat. I also see the best outfits on dogs here and even better I see dogs in baby strollers. It's hilarious.

What i wish people did is put diapers on their dogs. There is dog poop all over, not just in the grass but smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk.  People don't really seem to know how to clean up after their dogs around here, I suppose doggie bags don't really go with the cute doggie outfits...

Turkey to brats: Germany

The day after Thanksgiving Steve and I headed to Cologne, Germany. By train Cologne is just shy of two hours from Brussels and we had heard that they have fabulous Christmas markets. We did not leave disappointed.

Within reasonable walking distance from our hotel there were about six Christmas markets. We ended up going to five of them. Each market had a little bit of its own personality. They are all different sizes, the booths are all different in each market and sometimes the market will have a specific theme. The first one Steve and I went to was right on the river and had a little bit of a maritime feel.  The vendors were all wearing captains hats and sometimes outfits. Some of the markets we went to had merry-go-rounds or Ferris wheels. One even had a pretty big ice skating rink.  Each market had a variety of vendors selling things like ornaments, candles, lace, jewelry, toys, candy etc.

What all the markets had were the traditional Christmas market foods like brats, pretzels, cheese and baked goods. They also all had beer and hot wine.  We of course took in more than our share of brats and hot wine. Each of the different markets have different vendors that are selling the hot wine. Beer and wine at the markets are served in plastic mugs or cups, instead they use proper glasses and mugs. Each market/vendor has its own unique glass or mug. They come in different shapes and sizes.  When you buy wine or beer, you also put a deposit on the mug. You can either choose to keep the mug or return it to get your deposit back. As you stroll through the markets, you see everybody walking around with these steaming mugs full of wine. It was fun to see all of the different mugs and beer glasses. We spent hours eating, drinking and taking in the sights of the Christmas markets.

Brats on the grill, the smell was intoxicating

It was a fun way to kick off the holiday season. Everybody seemed to be in great moods (I'm sure the wine had a lot to do with that) and everything was so festive. There were lights everywhere and you could almost always hear Christmas music (although in German). The only thing we were missing was a little bit of snow.

Happy Thanksgiving

At first we thought we'd be at home just the two of us eating a turkey breast or something completely unrelated to Thanksgiving, but we ended up having a wonderful thanksgiving. It was still a weird day, instead of being of being at the farm and having everything closed,  everything was open and nobody was planning for the big meal. Steve still went to work and I did my normal daily stuff.

Since we've been here we have made some new friends from the States so we decided to pull together a Thanksgiving of our own. I will have to give most of the credit to our friend Sarah, her Belgian  friend offered to host (which is key since the rest of us live in little apartments) and she took on the task of finding and making a turkey. Making the traditional Thanksgiving meal is a little trickier here just because some of the food isn't as easily available. Steve and I were suppose to bring a dessert and green bean casserole. At first for dessert I was going to attempt a pumpkin pie, I couldn't find condensed milk or a pre- made pie crust( of course I wasn't going to make a crust from scratch), so then I found a recipe for an apple type dessert. All I'm going to say is that it came out terribly. It might have been because I put it in the oven during dinner, but then didn't hear the timer go off for several minutes after it went off. Need less to say we didn't eat any of that dessert, and instead spent several minutes making fun of it and listing all the people who wouldn't eat it like stray cats, dogs etc.

To make the green bean casserole, I had to go to two different grocery stores to find cream of mushroom soup and only by luck (and three grocery stores later) Steve able to find crispy onions. The funny thing is he found them in the Asian section. I've had a lot of Asian food in my life and I'm pretty sure I've never had crispy onions on anything.

The group was a lot of fun. Overall there were 11 of us. Nine of us from the States, six of the nine from Minnesota(what a small world). Missed our family and friends of course, but loved celebrating Thanksgiving and making new friends.

Watch were you walk

The other day I was walking to the grocery store and saw a shadow over me. I of course looked up assuming it was a bird that was going to poop on me and saw that I was actually standing under the arm of a crane carrying a plank. I looked around to see if I missed a cautionary sign, but there was none. If I remember correctly, in the States any construction is blocked off completely but here you can just hang out around it apparently. I guess Brussels is more on the laxed side. I'm sure the crane had a good hold on the plank, but its like walking under a ladder, its just better to walk around it.

The yellow and black thing is the hook of the crane, its picking up the big green dumpster thing, look at all the cars and people around it. If it was windy I swear the thing would smack you in the head.

Paris

The very best thing about living in Brussels is how close it is to other parts of Europe. From Brussels we can get to Paris, London and parts of Germany in less than two hours by train. Its amazing since back home, the only place I can get in about two hours is Rochester(sorry that is not as interesting as London). So, since last Friday was Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) here in Brussels and Steve had Friday off, we took the long weekend as an opportunity to jump on the train to Paris. In about an hour and a half we were walking the streets of Paris enjoying the sites and food. These would be my tips for visiting Paris: be prepared for people to judge you, follow your map at Louvre very closely, very closely, eat as many pastries as you can, but skip the steak.

We saw the typical sites like the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and Champs Elysees. I'm sure I would get a big eye roll from the Parisians for saying this, but my favorite was seeing the Eiffel tower at night. The tower was bigger than I expected it, and at night its all lit up. On the hour, the lights twinkle, it reminds me of a gigantic Christmas tree with the blinking lights. During the day its still very impressive, but it didn't give me the same experience.

Steve at the Arc

 The Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame have such great detail and engraving. When you get to the the top of the Arc you can get a 360 degree veiw of Paris. Notre Dame is a beautiful church with fantastic stained glass windows and candles everywhere.

The Louvre is HUGE. I'm not a big art person, so I'm not sure I appreciated it as much as others, but the amount of artwork is incredible. BTW-the Mona Lisa is much smaller than you would expect and there is some is definitely some artwork I just don't understand. For example, there was marble sculpture of the kid with its arms around a gooses neck, what's that all about? Also, because it is so big we did get a lost for a little while, if you ever go to the Louvre look at your map very closely. Otherwise, before you know it, you start saying to yourself, "didn't we already walk by this painting?"

Steve and the Mona Lisa

I call this, wrestling for dinner

In addition to seeing the sites, we of course had some good food. The pastries are as good as you would think they are, that's all we had for breakfast were pastries. The French bread and the croissants were the best I've had. I would not however recommend eating steak in Paris. Its fine, but I'd rather go to the Capital Grill or Manny's in Minnesota any day. As far as the great Belgium fries vs. French fries debate, I hate to say this, but I think the French fries win.

A place to burn off those frites

I love having the gym right around the corner from our apartment. The place is called World Gym, and is very similar to a gym from back home. There's a cardio section, a weight room and then cardio classes. I'm especially liking the cardio classes, they are all taught in English and have been a fun way to burn all the calories from my frequent snack of frites. I've been taking zumba, body pump and step. Steve's been spinning as well.

I've noticed a couple of things about going to the gym. One thing is the decor. Back home advertisements and imagines in the gym or of the gym are all pictures of smiling 20 something year olds with super tight and toned bodies. Its the same in this gym except they don't have any clothes on and have no faces. You only see the body. Now these are not the same type of pictures that came up in my Google search for a massage in Brussels(those were a lot more scandalous), but it was still a little surprising when I got on the elliptical and noticed I was working out next to a man's butt. From what I can tell Belgians are more comfortable with nudity, it just part of normal culture.

I also very quickly realized that if I wanted to blend in, I could no longer wear my big bright yellow "I survived the Inca trail" t-shirt. All of the women wear "proper" work out gear. Tight spandex pants and tank tops,   coordinating outfits that even go with their shoes sometimes. A lot of the men wear spandex as well although not as much as the women.

A big part of the motivation during these classes are the instructors. Each has a different personality and body shape that seems to match the class they teach. For Zumba my instructor reminds me of Beyonce. She's curvy with big hair, she makes you want a bigger butt so you can shake it more. My body pump instructor makes you feel like you are working out with Arnold Sschwarzenegger. He's one of those men who also wears spandex. He's really muscular, body builder type muscular. He also has a strong Dutch or German accent and yells during class. Lastly there is another guy with a nice French accent who teaches the a different cardio class. All I know is when a guy with a french accent tells you to feel the music and roll your hips, you get motivated to keep rolling your hips.

Where we live

I've had people ask about where we live, so I thought I would share more about our place and the area that we live in. Our place is a one bedroom apartment with one and a half baths. The building is also a hotel, so we've got some of the perks of a hotel like a person who cleans our place on Fridays, and also a front desk person during business hours. Its nice but simple. It reminds me of an Ikea showroom.

The Dining room with our "office" against the wall

Our kitchen

The Living room

One of the things that I really like about our place is that we have a small balcony that looks out over the street. It gives us some good people watching, and also some great natural light into the apartment.

This is the view from our balcony on the left hand side, the building closest to us is the Radisson, the further one is a Parliament building

The view on the right hand side of our balcony

I'm really happy with our location, its a busier area with a lot of activity. At the end of the street is an area called Place Jordan.  In Place Jordan are the Parliament buildings, a couple of restaurants/bars  and a market. When I walk down to Place Jordan, I pass by other restaurants, a market, my favorite coffee shop and one of the train stations. If I ever decide to go riding around Brussels just down the street there is one of those bike rental/sharing places like they have in downtown Minneapolis. You can pick up a bike at one of these locations and then return the bike to any of the additional locations around the city. Of course I don't expect that I'll ride a bike here as I know I will most definitely get hit by a car.

Always thirsty

Since we've moved to Brussels, I have found that I am always thirsty (and no, this is not an excuse to drink more Belgium beer).

There are a couple of reasons for me always being thirsty. First, regardless of where you are nobody will give you tap water, they will only sell you bottled water, even in restaurants. Second, I am stubborn and can't quite bring myself to buy bottled water when the tap water is clean and equally delicious.

My fork is bigger than my Coke, that's not right...

Since I refuse to pay for bottled water when we go out to eat I'll order a pop/soda instead. I am still getting used to the idea that everything in the States is super sized, because I am still disappointed every time my drink comes to the table. There are no free refills (of course) and the pop comes in a bottle...a very small bottle with a very small glass.  I've also taken  a cut in my coffee intake, I have to order a large here to match up to what a small was at the Starbucks or Caribou back home.

There is a benefit to not drinking as much, and that is not having to go to the bathroom as much either. There is no such thing as a public bathroom here. If you're eating at a restaurant, they may or may not have a bathroom. If they do its in the basement. For some reason that freaks me out. Every time I walk down the stairs I feel like I'm either a) in the wrong place b)going to get yelled at, or c) walk into a cult meeting.

Otherwise, you have to pay to use the bathroom. I've had to pay to use the bathroom at the train station, a concert that we went to, even the McDonalds(don't judge me, I wanted some fries) asks you to pay to use the bathroom. Its about 0.40 to 0.50 euros each time, so about $0.60 to $0.75. I'm going to have to add a line item to my budget labeled "Pee money"

A touristy weekend

This weekend Steve and I did what the tourists would do in Belgium. The two attractions here are the Grand Place and the Mannequin Pis. The Grand Place is the old historical city center of Brussels. What you see in the square now are the historical buildings and different shops and pubs/restaurants. From my understanding the buildings were part of indoor markets, and also different guilds such as the brewer's (which is now the brewer's museum).
























After the Grand Place we went and saw the Mannequin Pis. Essentially this is a small little statue of a boy peeing. Yep, a boy peeing. It sprays water and everything. I don't really get the whole excitement around the statue, but it's big here. The Belgians' dress it up for different holidays and events. If you Google it, you'll see all sorts of photos of the mannequin dressed up like Santa, Elvis, Cupid, etc. When we went to find it, the boy was dressed up for the paralympics. It had a little jersey on and was sitting in a wheelchair. I'm not sure who dresses it up each day, but they do get creative.

It's a big tourist attraction, walking around the shops you see t-shirts, water fountains and mugs with a peeing boy them. I can only imagine what my parents would say if I brought them t-shirts with the Mannequin Pis on them. 

A look into the working world...Steve's world

Hello all readers, this is Steve, the authoresses’ husband.  As Mary has so graciously allowed I wanted to submit a “contributing editor” piece to this wonderful blog.  As Mary has done such a wonderful job of blogging on life in Belgium I’ll focus on a few items from the workplace.  Here we go…

Free Coffee:  Coffee is automatic here, no standard coffee machines.  Not sure if you have seen the automatic machines or the ones where you pick a “pod” and then put it in the machine and Voila’ a hot cup of what you wanted comes out or the ones where you key in what you want and then BAM hot cup of deliciousness.  This seems to be the standard here.  In my now 5-6 weeks in total here I have yet to see one standard coffee pot.

Abbreviations = Am I am 16 again?  In Belgium people like to abbreviate  the word assessment or assistant with ass. on whiteboards, flipcharts and emails.  Now I recall one time when a substitute teacher of mine did this by accident in high school and we had a field day with it.  Thankfully I managed to keep my chuckles under wraps in the meeting where a sr. manager I work with did it in front of a group of 20.  At first I thought uh excuse me you just wrote ass on the board, but then when I saw no chuckles I though ahh cultural difference.

Office Attire:  For the most part is exactly the same, business casual.  What is odd though is that I will often see the big shots wearing suits both men and women and then some of the other people around my office the “common folk” just throw in some random jeans from time to time.  A 3 year employee traveled to Belgium for meetings last week an wore jeans the entire week.  He also wore a blazer with them so it looked OK but he still had jeans on,  not sure what the rules are there.

Office Hours:  to Beat the traffic out of Brussels and because I don’t really sleep in on the week days I get to work at 8am.  At 8am the office is a ghost town.  People usually roll in here around 8:30 or 9:00 and leave about 4:00, 5:00 or 6:00.

No Cubes:  There is no cubes in our office at all!  It’s strange coming from cube land and now being in an office.  Thankfully for my transition I share an office with another HR team member so it’s better but just odd not being able to stand up and shout questions down the row.  Might get some odd looks if I tried that here.

Dutch Speaking, Flipping the Switch:  For those of you that thought, what the heck is Steve doing he can’t speak either Dutch or French, rest easy…our office is an English speaking office.  It is odd because due to the divide in Belgium there is a clear language split.   We live in Brussels 20-30 minutes south of my office where the main language is French and then I work in Mechelen where the main language is “Flemish” which is a dialect of Dutch.  I guess the historical reason for the language divide I am not fully in tune to yet but from what understand Brussels is actually in the northern Flemish speaking region however over time it seems to have adopted French as the mainly spoken language.  I guess way back when the “fancy” people that migrated to the city they wanted to show their “class” and speaking French was one way to do that.  People in the office are relatively friendly but due to the fact that most people here are from the region near the office here they will greet each other in Flemish, have lunch conversation in Flemish and then look at me and then just switch right over to English.  Pretty fascinating really that they can within the course of 1 second just flip the switch and they are speaking another language fluently.  Makes me feel super inferior!!

Radio on the commute no censorship:  On my drive to and from work I listen to Q-Music a radio station that has to be based somewhere in the north of the country.  All of the commentary is in Dutch so really all I can understand somewhat is the traffic report in the evenings as the Dutch numbers like “the E19” or “the A40” I can understand as they sound a lot like English numbers, but then when they give the report about what is going on , on these said highways I get lost.  Anyway the radio station was playing an Alanis Morrisette song the other day which I am very used to listening to the edited version of from radio stations at home.  Then as I continue to listen awaiting a cut out or a badly dubbed in word, there it was, a clean crisp F-Bomb dropped right on the public radio at 6:00pm on a Wednesday.  At first somewhat surprised I then thought to myself… if they played a Dutch song in the US would the Dutch curse words be edited out?  Now of course it’s somewhat different with most of the people I meet speaking English here and of course the first words you learn when you speak a new language are hello, thank you, good bye and then all the nasty ones!  Anyway an interesting observation to leave you with.

Hope you are all enjoying Mary’s blog and thanks for letting me contribute… Steve

One of those moments

Today I had a "moment." One of those moments, when you think to yourself, what the $%# is going on? I had expected to have these types of moments when I got lost in a train station, or couldn't read a menu or a street sign. I didn't expect to have one of these moments doing typical household stuff like laundry or heating up leftovers in the microwave. The funny thing is that in general I've handled the "big" stuff alright, it was trying to figure out the washing machine that threw me over the edge a bit. Looking back its kind of funny that I couldn't figure it out, but at the time I just stood there thinking what is this?

I went to do a couple loads of laundry and I had figured I would find maybe some dials with chaud (hot) froid (cold) but instead I found three different temperatures. I had no idea what temperature to use, and then there were multiple temps under three different sections. I tried to figure out what the different sections were using my limited French skills, but I'm pretty sure I washed colors in hot water and whites in cold water. I also learned that opening the washing machine is a little different here. I've always had washing machines where there is a little handle for you to just pull the door open. Here there is a release button that springs the door open. I of course spent too much time looking for the handle and then tried to place my fingers into the grooves to pull the door open. That did not work.

I eventually sent Steve pictures of the machine at work and one of his co-workers helped write a detailed description of what all of the settings meant. She must think I'm an idiot.

The first weekend

Steve and I had a great first weekend together in Brussels. We wondered the city and checked out a couple of different neighborhoods. We also enjoyed some of the great food and drinks that Brussels is known for.  One of the neighborhoods that we went to is called Sablon. Like most of Brussels the buildings were tall and narrow and had a lot of character. The sidewalks are mostly cobblestone, which is why I invested in flats shoes before coming here. Between the cobblestone and the hills, heels were out of the question.

The train saga continues....

Of course Steve would not accept the blame for my night of wandering around random cities, so we went to the train station the next day to figure it out. To start out with, in Belgium many street/ city/store signs are both in French and Dutch. So the city of Leuven is Dutch and in French it is Louvain. The second thing to know is that there are Dutch parts of Belgium and French parts of Belgium, and when the Dutch  part has something like a university or a city, the other part wants it to. So when the Dutch part created a city named Louvain, the French part created a city called the new Louvain. I had gone to the French speaking region instead of the Dutch speaking because neither one of us knew about the two regions and there need to copy each other. Now here's a test for anybody reading, from the picture below to the right which train would you have taken to meet Steve for his meeting?