Lonnie Visit

A whirlwind of European fun is probably the only way to describe our visit with Keith's mom. She and I rode the train back from the airport last Thursday and just took it easy until Keith got home from work. Since Keith's vacation days are numbered he wasn't able to join in the festivities on Friday so his mom, Jen (another consultants wife), and I went to the Parc Paradisio to stroll around and check out the gardens and the animals. Because it was a week day the park was fairly deserted, and the rain held off just long enough for us to see everything we wanted to. I still can't get over how close you can get to the little monkeys!

Saturday the three of us headed for Koln (Cologne) Germany. Yes, it's where cologne comes from. The fourth largest city in Germany is only about two and a half hours from us. Not the most spectacular city I have ever been too, but still pretty neat. Most of the city was devasted durning the war so they have done a lot to rebuild. The main draws are the church, which was pretty spectacular and it's location on the Rhine. We strolled through the city and had a lovely lunch with German beer. Have to say, so far, I prefer the Belgian stuff.

On Sunday we took it easy, we watched Bailey play with some new toys that Lonnie brought from home and then headed up to Brussels to catch a movie. The Kinepolis theater in Brussels is a sight to see. It's three stores tall with over 20 theaters. There was watched Wall-E, complete with French and Dutch subtitles, an intermission, and sugar popcorn instead of salt. Very strange...

Monday we headed to Paris, this time by car. Keith braved the rush hour city driving - probably the worst I've ever seen, but he got us there and back safely. It's a longer trip by car than by the high speed train but we still managed to squeeze a lot in. We managed to see the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower, a boat ride on the Seine, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc du Triumph, and have lunch. Obviously there is so much more to do in Paris, but to see it all you really have to stay there for several days. We finished the night off with a nice dinner in the Grand Place back here in Mons.

Tuesday, Keith was back to work and Lonnie and I headed out for a leisurly day in Brugge. All along Keith and I have been knocking the little town of Mons that we are in, it's a fairly poor city, that has lost it's life and spirit, and Lonnie thought we were being a bit hard on it until she saw Brugge. I don't know how to explain Brugge other than it is exactly what you think of when you think of a cute european town. It's upbeat, picturesque, clean, charming, or as my mom would say it has "pizzaz". Both Keith and I wish that SHAPE could be located in Brugge instead, but I guess if it were we might not ever leave Belgium. Once Lonnie saw Brugge she understood why we are so down on Mons. It just isn't the same. We walked through the busy city streets, checking out the chocolate and lace shops. We walked along the canals and Lonnie got her first chocolate waffle, a fitting end to her trip to Belgium.

Tanks in Town

The last weekend in August we headed down into Mons for a special event, "Tanks in Town", and frankly the title is pretty self explanatory. Every year the locals dress up in authentic WWII clothing and ride through the streets on tanks and other military vehicles up to the Grand Place. The event is held every year to celebrate the liberation of Mons by the Americans during WWII.

We found a spot on the sidewalk right on the route the tanks were taking to where we could literally reach out and touch them. We watched as the tanks drove by and roughed up the cobble stone streets; we just couldn't believe the number of original tanks they had for the parade. At the end they parked all the vehicles in the Grand Place so that people could take a closer look and even sit in some of them. Keith told me later that many of these types of parades are subsidized by the Belgian government to help keep them running and maintain the cultural heritage in the local communities. Pretty cool. The funniest part was seeing all these guys dressed in U.S. WWII uniforms only to hear them speaking French, Belgian impersonating Americans, who would have thought?

Fancy a day in Paris?

Two years ago we spent our honeymoon in Paris, so for our anniversary we thought we would go back for the day to celebrate. We took the high speed train, the Thalys, from the train station about ten minutes from our house. We were in Paris an hour and fifteen minutes later. The entire day was a super chill trip, we did zero planning, didn't take a guide book or a map, and figured we'd just figure it out as we went along.

From the train station we took the metro to the Louvre. We didn't go in, did that last time, but took in the views. We walked through the parks just in front, watching the kids play with little sail boats in the ponds and riding pony's. We walked our way out to the Seine and walked along the river up to the Eiffel tower. Since it was a gorgeous day, it was no surprise that the lines were crazy long but we had no intention of going up anyway. We grabbed a quick sandwich before taking a boat ride down the Seine. Unfortunately without a cloud in the sky the trip was pretty hot and not quite as relaxing as we would have hoped, but still a great way to see the city. We both preferred the trip at night, getting to see the city all lit up. We got off the boat and walked up the Champs Eleyses toward the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped a couple of times along the way to sit in a park and at a cafe for a break from the heat.

After checking out the Arc we took the metro over to the Trocadero and found one our favorite cafe's from our honeymoon. We got a table right in front with a great view of the Eiffel tower. Sure two beers were 12 Euro, about $20, and our dinner was silly expensive but it didn't matter we had a great time just people watching. The fashion, the personal interactions, the cars, are all so fantastic that you can spend ours just observing. Sitting there we talked about how blessed we feel. It was just two years ago that we talked about how cool it would be if we could live abroad, never did we believe that it would actually happen. We are so excited to have been given this awesome opportunity. We made our way back to the train station and were back home by 10:00pm. Pretty cool that Paris is an easy day trip!