Belgium in a night

Let me just make a general statement of our schedule in Belgium so that I don't repeat myself.

Every day we woke up between 6:30 and 7:30, went down for the continental breakfast, drove to some important EU or NATO location, 3 hours of "breifings" by important EU or NATO officials, enjoyed a ridiculously large gourmet lunch with as much wine as we could drink, 3 more hours of briefings, return to the hotel around 6 or 7pm, time on our own to explore and get dinner.

So our first free night in Brussels we decided to just do everything that 'is' Belgium in one night. Why not? Started with a walk from the hotel to the "Grand Square".

This is the view as we turned the corner from out hotel. Typical peek down the average alley in Brussels... Kind of stuck out... One of the main open squares... Bikes by the hour...good idea! We were told there were a lot of chocolate shops. What an understatement! It seemed like every other shop we passed was a chocolate shop, love it! We got very good at playing the roles of the interested tourists and we got a lot of free samples : ) Then we stumbled upon this beautiful establishment! This is what happy tourists look like... This was our dinner menu for that night:

Appitizer- Assorment of chocolates from 2 or 3 different shops Main course- Large serving of signiture Belgian fries complete with the ketchup/mayo combo Dessert- Belgian waffels with cream and powder sugar Then we took a little "walk-it-off" break and strolled around the city. Here is one of the "Arcades" that are so well known in this area. A very elegant, enclosed tunnel of sorts with very high ceilings lined with merchants. Some simple chocolate shops, some clothing stores, some cute cafes... Or you could stop in this place for a nice glass of champagne. Bottles range from just 50-800 Euros! At the other end of the Arcade we stepped out to find this bar which was reccommended to us by our guide for the week. A la Mort Subire means Sudden Death in French. After dinner drinks- A couple of home brewed Belgian beers. Just a cute little bunny outside the bar??? On our walk home we took the 'restaurant row' route. As people walk down this very long aisle of restaurants there are people standing outside each door beckoning you to come in. I have never experienced such encouragement to eat somewhere. A few shots of the Grand Square. Really beautiful, I wish we had a better camera, sorry. Many attempts to get a good pic of the two of us with the scenery... Then someone offered to help us, she was a German! It felt strangly welcoming to speak Deutsch! Couldn't pass this without taking a picture... Yet another lovely chocolate shop. "Gourmande" is one of Sam's GRE vocab words! A building across the main street from our Hotel... Enough pictures for one a blog I think! That was our first night in Brussels. Probably the worst possible nutritional experience one could have. Except maybe the MN State Fair : )

We heard Luxembourg was pretty...

I am very saddened to report that we have no pictures to share with you of Luxembourg. Our schedule was so packed that we had not a moment to pause and take a picture of the city we heard was so beautiful.

We arrived in Luxembourg around 3pm to discover a language we never knew existed, LUXEMBOURGISH! Our quick glance of the old city flew by as we took the bus from the train station to the hotel. We were able to see some amazing views through the window but I was gaurding the luggage, and Sam was doing his best to get direction from the driver (who's great Luxembourgish, French and Dutch did nothing for Sam's English and German). This is what we saw (thank you, Google Images).




We did arrive at the hotel with just enough time to shower and get ready for our big evening plans. Just a simple night at the U.S. Embassy to Luxembourg. It started with a briefing on the Embassy and what it does. Our time there ended by mingling with the Ambassador in her personal residence with her and her collegues sipping wine and sampling hors D' oeuvres while networking with some very important people.

After our visit to the Embassay we returned to our hotel for the first of many amazingly delicious (and FREE) traditional Belgian style meals. All of which included wine, bread, a main course and dessert. Our one picture we do have from Luxembourg is Sam and I outside the restaurant.

The next morning we got up bright and early to visit the European Institutions in Luxembourg. We had briefings and tours at the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors- separated of course by a large lunch. The court of Justice was very impressive. We even got to go inside the enormous and beautiful court rooms where the European Union holds trials.

At the end of the day we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Brussels. We traveled by tour bus the whole week, personal transportation for the Fulbrighters (and wife).

Thus began our week in Belgium. Plenty of pictures and stories to come...

Glucklich Geburtstag Hannah Faith!!!

We are back in Germany! The week was packed with cultural, educational, political, lingual and cuisinal (yes, i made that word up) experiences. I can't wait to post pictures and share stories but it is a little intimidating to have 8 days and 2 different countries worth of pictures so my plan is to do multiple short posts. Just keep checkin!

For now...all I want to say is Happy Birthday to our sweet, beautiful little niece- Hannah Faith! We missed it while we were traveling but we were thinking of you! One whole year!!! LOVE YOU!

Helau, Helau, Helau!!!

Hallo Leute!!! That means 'hello people'. I'm sorry I have been absent for so long. We have been busy, busy people! The last couple of weeks seemed like we had some social event almost every night!

Between Fastnacht parties (at work, church and the institute), having friends in town, dinner invitations, game nights and church events we have been all over the place. Another factor that has kept me from blog time is the fact that my computer hasn't turned on in over a week! Well, actually it is technically "on" but the screen stays black, it wont go to the start up page and if I press any keys it makes a loud, high pitch beeping noise, as if to yell at me for pressing it. So Sam and I have been sharing screen time.

The city outside our window was in a state of full blown Fastnacht happenings from Thursday the 11th at 11:11am until Tuesday the 16th at 11:11pm (there's this thing with the number 11, I'm not really sure). There was a 3 story DJ booth below our window blasting German and sometimes American music from dawn till dusk, the streets were overflowing with singing and dancing people in crazy costumes with beer in their hands, fair-type food and beer stands lining the streets and a parade marching down the street seemingly at all times. Oh yeah, a constant background track of "HELAU, HELAU, HELAU". This is the traditional greeting that everyone uses repeatedly only during Fastnacht.

For me, the whole thing was kicked off with a party at the kindergarten. The kids were so cute and we just sang and danced and ate goodies all day long both Thursday and Friday.

Just a nice big bowl of mini hot dogs for a late morning snack...

Well hey Mr. Bear!
This is the group of kids who were choosing to eat while watching the other kids participate in crazy song and dance traditions...
Just a few cuties enjoying some treats
This little guy was more interested in the popcorn than the camera
They could get their pictures taken...so sweet

More singing...
He needed a little break from the madness
Too cool to smile : )
Elephant friends
He was being a scary dragon

We were clowns together!!

The rest of my pictures from the kindergarten look basically the same so I'll transition to some Fastnacht images from around the city...

Waiting for the kids parade to come through. The kids from the kindergarten were in it!
Here they come...
Waving and yelling, "Helau" and they pass by of course.


After "my" kids passed, we watched the rest from our window, it was real cold that day!

See that ride in the back? We watched that ride whip people around in a spinning, speeding circle for 4 days before we decided to give it a whirl. Boy I wish I could take that decision back!!! It was awful. I cried. Not just a little bit. A lot. I couldn't stop crying for 5 minutes after getting off the ride. I have never felt so close to death in my life. I'll stick to ferris wheels from now on.

Here is the 3 story DJ booth I mentioned, right outside our window. There was a man standing on top of that big thing playing music (unnecessarily loud if you ask me) and yelling "Helau" through the giant speakers. Standing in our room you would have thought we forgot to close the windows. No such luck.

So that's the best I can do to try and share our Fastnacht experience with you. We do have some videos on our camera but we can't figure out how to get them on the blog. We'll keep trying.

Moving on from Fastnacht...

Yesterday was my last day of work for 2 weeks. We leave this Wednesday for Luxembourg and then Belgium! We are very excited for the sights, the hotels, the wining and dining with EU/NATO officials and of course, the chocolate!!! I bought myself a few nice outfits for our conferences and Sam made some extra GRE notecards to study for the train ride. We're all ready to go on our first trip outside of Germany! I don't know if we will have any internet access so, if not, the blog will be out of commission for a couple weeks.

When I go back to work, I will be moving to the "Maxi" Kindergarten to work with the 4-6 year olds. I can't decide if I will like this better or not. I'll let ya know.

Bis Dann ('Till then)

Aufwiedersehen!

Ich kann nicht erklären

"Ich kann nicht erklären" means I cannot explain.

I cannot explain just exactly what it was that I experienced last night, but I will try to summarize.

They call it Fastnacht, literally, "fasting eve". It is part of Karneval. It is a period of celebration. How long it lasts and what exactly are we celebrating? ...I am still confused. I have heard multiple explanations:

Seasonal: the saying goodbye to Winter and welcoming of Spring
Political: the one week of the year when citizens can go "crazy" and the government turns a blind eye (or eyes?)
Religious: the week of indulgence prior to Ash Wednesday and the begining of fasting until Easter.

Take your pick. I don't think anyone here cares what others believe about it as long as everyone celebrates.

I was invited to a Fastnacht party at the kindergarten. Everyone was really excited about it so I decided I should step out of my one room comfort zone and give it a shot. I had no idea what I was in for!

Well, here I am after the party! A sweet co-worker of mine gave me this hat and nose as well as some facepaint so that I would fit in with the others. I was not informed that this was a full costume party!






All I will say is that there was a lot of singing, dancing, chanting, laughing, eating, drinking and music (The children were not there by the way). At one point I did in fact participate in a group performance of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way". Our team won and there was an encore and our prize was a mini bottle of Kräuter Likor. I think I will just save it for memoribilia of my once in a lifetime experience.

In a million years I never would have imagined myself enjoying German cuisine with a group of German women singing and chanting in German while dressed in ridiculous costumes and having a ball. If only I understood half of what was said/sung/recited/yelled/celebrated last night : )

HELAU! HELAU! HELAU!