Belgium-A Girl’s Best Friend

While my brother, David, was visiting, we wanted to take him somewhere fun. We had thrown around ideas of driving to Germany but just couldn’t seem to make it work. After much delay, we decided on a quick trip to Belgium.We drove down on a Tuesday morning and arrived in Antwerp in time for a late lunch. I have to keep reminding myself that service in Europe is just not as fast as it is in the States. After our ninety-minute lunch, we quickly headed to the diamond museum. Unfortunately they did not allow photographs inside the museum. What I didn’t know before moving here is that ninety percent of the world’s diamonds pass through the streets of Belgium, mostly Brussels, Antwerp, and Bruges, and they have been for hundreds of years. The streets of Antwerp leading up to the Diamond Museum were sprinkled with diamond stores. I can only image the kind of security systems in those streets and streets of shops. We managed to get a quick picture of Antwerp Central Station before heading off to Bruges for the night. I'm anxious to go back as I've heard inside Antwerp's train station is beautiful.It was a wonderful drive between Antwerp and Bruges, mostly countryside. We stayed at a delightful little hotel in central Bruges.
The hotel staff was quite friendly and everything was within walking distance, which is convenient since parking in Europe is a nuisance! The next morning we headed to the grote markt. Nearly every major European city has a central market place called a grote markt. This area is used for special events, Kerst markts (Christmas markets), and general market booths set up during the week with fruits and vegetables stands, antiques, fabrics… Of the few that we have been in, I can without exception say they are beautiful and charming. Bruges was no different. The Bruges town hall (stadhuis) is located on the grote markt along with its clock tower and many picturesque shops and restaurants.Bruges even has horse-drawn carriage tours.
On warmer days, the streets are lined with tables outside the eateries (unless, of course, you're at one with a darling little girl inside a tree decoration somewhat resembling the Eiffel Tower).
While on the subject of food, let’s talk fries. It’s been hard to find good fries since leaving the States. However, Belgium apparently has great fries, which would only be appropriate since they were the ones who invented the fries, not the French. The theory on this side of the pond is that American soldiers during World War 1 loved to eat the fried potatoes their French-speaking Belgian comrades were eating, and since they spoke French, they must be French, thus the fries must be French as well. Here they mostly refer to them as pommes frites. They serve them in this cone-shaped cup and even have French fry cup holders at your table.
So near and yet so very far...
Waffles. Mmmmm. Oh how our family loves waffles. Nearly the last week we were in Saudi our trusty waffle iron died a sudden death. It was, after all, my great grandmother’s. However, after a sad memorial and tribute, we realized we were moving the the waffle capital of the world! Of course we’d be able to find a replacement and one that was even 220. Wrong. That search has not been as easy as I thought. Luckily my friend, Camilla, has loaned us theirs on a (very) long-term basis until we find one (that does not also double as a sandwich maker). Is there anything wrong with wanting one that is simply for the purpose of making great waffles?! When we made our last minute plans to head south, our mouths began to water at the prospect of having an authentic Belgian waffle. After perusing Bruges for a good part of the morning we found a nice place that could fit all eight of us and ordered our waffles. Keeping in mind Europeans do not eat waffles or pancakes (pannenkoeks) with maple syrup, we ordered ours with Belgian chocolate sauce. Can I just say, YUM! Dano and David had theirs with strawberries and powdered sugar. Someone else was playing photographer so we didn’t get enough great shots…maybe we’ll just have to go back for more.
Then there’s the chocolate. Not only is Belgium known for their diamonds, they are perhaps better known for their chocolate, which is why I think it could very well be a girl’s best friend. Diamonds and chocolates. And while I don't fall into the cliched category, I can definitely appreciate the beauty of the diamonds and the sweetness of the chocolate. There was chocolate everywhere we turned! Since you can’t smell it or taste it, the pictures will just have to suffice until you come visit.
My brother patiently waits in a chocolate shop surrounded by the good stuff.

After satisfying our waffle craving and checking out of our hotel, we headed out to the last exhibit we wanted to see in Bruges. Along the way, we realized that Belgium has windmills, too, and had to stop to see them and climb one.
Each year Bruges holds an annual Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival. This year the theme was Disneyland Paris. For four weeks, ice artists and sculpters from China, Canada, the United States, Sweden, Netherlands, and Belgium come to Bruges and carve out amazing works of art out of snow and ice. These are a few of the pictures we took of the absolutely amazing display. Unfortunately, the camera cannot quite catch all the intricacies of the human hand. We could not think of a major Disney picture that was not represented at this festival. After walking around in a chilly 24 degree tent, the kids took part in a thrilling ice slide carved into Cinderella’s castle, followed by hot chocolate for everyone. I think that did the trick to warm us all up again.



It was a fast, fun get-away. We barely scratched the surface on these two charming cities, which only ensures a subsequent visit.

To Market, To Market

If you’re ever at a loss for something to do during the holiday season in Europe, chances are you can find a Christmas market (Kerst Markt) to visit nearby. There are eight around The Netherlands. They are bright, fun, and crowded. We decided to visit one in Holland first.
We met up with our friends, the Bendis Family, at the Valkenburg Cave Markets.
The Valkenburg Caves are situated in southern Holland. They are the result of mining efforts of the Romans in the 11th century. They were mining for marl to build a castle, as seen on the hill behind us.
The secret passageways were also used by US troops when they came to liberate The Netherlands in WW2. I’ll write more about that when we go back to tour the caves. This visit was for the Christmas market and the tours were closed. It was quite a unique setting to have booths set up inside the caves. One could definitely get lost through the five kilometers of secret passageways. We were a little disappointed with the selection of crafts as most things were ‘Made in China’. I loved this booth, but I really doubted the purses were locally produced.
However, there was one wonderful booth where a lady was carving clay and molding it right there. She let the children try their hand at it, too. She was from Lithuania and we loved her work. It was the one thing we bought at the Valkenburg Kerst Markt. We chose a rendition of Helpoort which is, as we’ve been told, the oldest standing structure in The Netherlands. Though we didn’t get a picture, one could see it in person when he/she comes to visit. Really wonderful artisanship.
The kids loved seeing Santa walking through the caves as well as seeing his sleeping quarters and room for the elves, triple bunks included.The painted murals were intriguing and I’m excited to come back and learn more about them. We knew we wanted to visit a Christmas market in Germany also, the pride of Christmas markets. Germany boasts nearly 120 Kerst Markts! We had heard Cologne had the best. There are eight just in Cologne. We waited until my brother and his friend, Laurie, were both here then we zipped over to Cologne for the day. The part we all enjoyed best was Cologne’s cathedral. From start to finish, the building process took just over 632 years. It was amazing to walk through this beautiful cathedral.We couldn’t help but think of all the history that had taken place within these walls over the past centuries. The relics of the Magi are said to be enshrined behind the altar.The stained glass was stunning, but that seems to always be one of my favorite parts of a church or cathedral.There are also multiple sarcophagi throughout the cathedral, also dating back hundreds of years. It would have been most helpful to read German to know what was written on the descriptions. Some of our children thought it was a little creepy. I thought it was fascinating, but maybe that's the Indiana Jones-lover in me. Unfortunately the camera, as always, doesn’t quite do the setting justice. If it wasn’t so chilly (and we if didn’t have shopping to do!) I could have sat on a pew for a long time just enjoying the expansiveness of the chapel and the peacefulness of the cathedral.

We managed to make it to two of the markets. They were very cute and more crafty than the previous markets. As always, Emily rode around like the Queen of Sheba.
What better way to entice the kids to shop than to let them enjoy the rides?
The highlight of the Cologne market was adding a nativity to our collection. I love it and was so captivated by the display that (once again) I didn't even get the camera out. I am already deciding on one for next year. Perhaps next year we’ll make it to the floating Christmas market –one that’s actually on a ship.

Christmas in The Netherlands

It would be ridiculous now for me to write a blog entitled “Novemblur” or “Decemblur” so I am just going to write as though it has not been TWO WHOLE MONTHS since I’ve written. Then, hopefully, the guilt will slowly begin to wane…We enjoyed spending the holiday season here this year. I love seeing how different cultures celebrate holidays and The Netherlands was no exception.

Their celebration of Christmas begins with St. Martin’s Day on November 11. Abby celebrated this with her class. Regrettably, I don’t think I got a picture of her with her lantern. They sing a very cute song and receive either oranges or candy. The Dutch children do this in a similar fashion to Halloween. We saw a few children out on November 11th with their lanterns. They then take their “snoop” and share it with others.

The Saturday following St. Martin’s is the day Sinterklaas arrives. This is a huge day! As tradition goes, Sinterklaas was a bishop (St. Nicholas) born in Myra, Turkey several centuries ago. He supposedly saved some young girls by tossing gold coins into their bedroom one night to pay their father’s debt. Like Santa Claus, Sinterklaas lives forever. Sint (as he is often referred to) arrives by boat from Spain, where he keeps his residence (sounds nicer than the North Pole, doesn’t it?) With him he brings his zwarte Pieten (black Petes) and his white horses. The Petes are his helpers, akin to elves. One may be taken aback at first glance and the Dutch are often accused of being racist. However, once you actually listen to an explanation you realize the Petes are black because they are covered in soot from climbing down chimneys whilst helping Sinterklaas. They also may have darker skin because of their Moorish heritage. They are the jovial, jolly ones who give out candy and especially pepernoten, yummy, tiny gingersnap-like cookies. Again, I failed to get a picture of these…next year. Sinterklaas, on the other hand, is serene and revered as he is a bishop. One Dutch teacher explained to us she was quite offended upon her first Christmas visit to the U.S. and our comfort with hugging Santa and his ho-ho-hoing about and Mrs. Claus?... Sacrilege! Honestly, the more I’ve read, I think we’ve just adapted our traditions, and our St. Nick is the same as their Sinterklaas. I wonder how much of that is dependent upon the Dutch colonization of New Amsterdam, which later became New York. Did they bring this tradition with them to our part of the world?

Because of a soccer tournament, we didn’t get to attend the grandest of entrances into The Netherlands where he arrived in a steamboat followed by a huge parade. We did, however, go the next week when Sint arrived here in Wassenaar. We gathered with the rest of the town at the end of the canal and waited. The Petes arrived first and danced and gave the children candy and the pepernoten.


We loved seeing the Dutch children dressed up like Zwarte Pete and Sint.
They were selling balloons and had a live DJ.We finally caught sight of Sinterklaas coming but were not able to stay for the big parade. And to think, this was all a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving!After Sinterklaas arrives, the celebration continues until December 5 (his birthday), when Sinterklaas leaves a mass of gifts for good little children. They are left hidden somewhere in or near the house in a burlap sack. Children also are to put out their wooden shoes to be filled and perhaps an apple or a carrot for Sint’s horses. Here are ours in line from Emily's to Kennedy's with their treats for the horses.
Many Dutch children receive a gift each day until December 5. We decided we would honor a portion of the Dutch tradition. Abigail and Erin decorated shoes at school, too, where Sinterklaas happened to find them. Sint found our house and left some ever-popular gold coins and a chocolate initial for each child. I can’t remember the significance of the initials, but they, too are everywhere!

It was so much fun to learn about this wonderful and unique way the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas. It was nice to have it separate from Christmas. They still celebrate Christmas, (if they’re Christian, of course!), but Sinterklaas and gifts are completely distinguishable from celebrating the birth of Christ. We hope each of you had a joyful holiday celebration.

Octoblur

How did this month pass so quickly? To me it seems a little like a blur. Thanks to my calendar and iPhoto, though, I know we were at least on the radar.

Our month began with a weekend of conferences from our church. We listened to eight hours, delayed of course, of talks from our church leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as music from The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We loved being able to watch again. After moving overseas, it really resonates with me when “those participating around the world” are welcomed. I loved that our children enjoyed listening to every session. I loved that we had my grandmother’s famous cottage cheese pancakes. I hate cottage cheese, but these are sublime!!!

I love that Emily had her first taste of them and wanted more, more, MORE!
I love that Abby loved raspberries with hers (even if she had to play with them first).
I love that Erin loved hers with my first-ever batch of homemade apple butter. It’s fun to live here and get produce from places I’d never expect. Our grapes often come from Greece, our oranges from Egypt, and these raspberries were from Portugal, though the sources change all the time. It’s the fruit imported from USA that is expensive. In Saudi, we could buy a 5 oz box of blueberries for $8 or a pound of cherries for around $30! But that’s another story…

The next day on our way to school we saw some men working on a dirt strip near a field. The previous week we had seen a tractor tilling the ground. They now had several stacks of pallets. As I drove a little slower, I realized each pallet was full of bulbs. They were planting tulips! As seen in the picture, there were so many bulbs!! I think they planted three rows here. Abigail, Emily, and I stopped on the way home from preschool to catch a shot. They gave us a hearty wave and kept on planting. They had to. Look at all those bulbs! (You might have to click on the picture to enlarge it.)They were covered up with dirt the next morning appearing undisturbed as though nothing had happened. We can't wait to see the tulips come up in the spring.
This church is behind the tulip-planters. It is an old church in Wassenaar. We love hearing the bells. I can’t, though, tell what the abundant, red flowers are…maybe poppies. They supply such a vibrant border for the field.

This month Emily attempted to learn to dress herself. She still needs help selecting matching outfits and proper fitting ones, (these are really for the dolls), and finding just the right shoes, but she's showing great fashion initiative!
Kennedy and Ethan participated in the Terry Fox Run at school, a fundraiser for cancer research. The middle school students ran for ninety minutes for a total of 2,988 km and raised 9,654 Euros. Kennedy enjoyed running and walking (and talking) with her friends. Ethan was very pleased (and surprised...as were we!) by his 13 km run. We found an apple orchard here and went with a few people from the school to find some apples. It was a great little orchard, not quite like our favorite back in Ohio, but it was fun to be out picking apples. Ethan was at soccer practice so missed our fun outing. We picked Elstar apples, a sweet offspring of the Golden Delicious. After one bite, it is decisive…she likes it! We decided this year we’d make caramel apples for the kids’ teachers. Between the four of them they have twenty-eight teachers! I had fun learning how to make them and I think the kids enjoyed giving them to their teachers.
Finally it was Halloween. Halloween. Whew! What a circus it is here! Because we live in an expat community with a traditionally strong American influence, Halloween has become a much-anticipated and celebrated holiday. Here is how it works in Wassenaar. The school basically runs Halloween for the community. You register your child through the Halloween committee’s website. You also register your home if you want it to be placed on the trick-or-treat route. For every child you register to trick-or-treat, you much donate 1200 grams of candy to the Halloween committee. The committee has a theorem for redistributing the candy based on where you live (and how many potential trick-or-treaters you may have).

This year, we only registered three of our children (sorry, Kennedy and Emily!) For those three we had to donate 3600 grams of candy…that’s eight pounds!! (I think Kennedy enjoyed her girls’ movie night with her friend anyway.) One hundred houses were signed up for trick-or-treating, ours being one of them. Thursday night I looked at the map and realized we were the lone house in our neighborhood signed up. I had no idea why!! Not only that, no way would any kids venture over to our neighborhood to trick-or-treat one house. I went to the collection table Friday to pick up my candy and talked to the committee member there. Everyone here is so cheerful and helpful! They told us to take our names off the list and go out and trick-or-treat with our kids! Although, we did have to give back the garbage bag half-full of candy they were going to supplement us with. Frankly, I was shocked their system deemed us worthy of any supplement.

Saturday night came and we took our ladybug, our pioneer, and our Nutty Professor out trick-or-treating.
There were over 1100 kids registered to trick-or-treat in Wassenaar this year! That didn’t include kids from neighboring communities who decided to come join the fun, not knowing you should register (who would think?!). If you didn’t have a map that outlined the addresses of registered homes, you just followed the clumps of costumes to houses with jack-o-lanterns and porch lights. I guess the Dutch who don’t want to participate make sure to keep their porch lights out on Halloween night. Some of our friends on one street had over three hundred kids. Another friend on the reputably busiest street had over seven hundred! Can you imagine? They were supplemented with two garbage bags full of candy to pass out (in addition to what they already bought).

It was a crowded, wonderful community event with perfect weather as well. Our kids have been introduced to some new types of candies and a new style of trick-or-treating.

We have now been here for three months and it has gone quickly! If it doesn’t slow down a little, our next blog may very well be “Novemblur!”

Abbyism

Lately Abby has been, out of the blue, making remarks such as, “I love Jesus” or “I want to see Jesus” and “I wonder when Jesus is coming again. I think He’s coming soon.” They’ve been very sweet and have ensued some brief but sweet conversations.

On Sunday as we were having our weekly family council she decided to bring this up again, I guess in case He was coming this week. Here is how the conversation went:

Me: Does anyone else have anything they need to discuss?
Abby: I miss Jesus.
Me: Ohhh. Me, too. (polite snickering from other participants who had never heard these interactions)
Abby: I love Jesus. I hope He comes again soon. Do you think He’s coming soon?
Me: I hope not.
Abby: (shock) Why?
Me: (shamefully) Because I’m not ready
Abby: Well, maybe I can just call him. (more snickering)
Me: How would you do that?
Abby: On the phone.
Other participant: You can’t call Jesus on the phone!
Abby: Oh…(pause)…well, I guess I’ll just Skype with Him.