Belgium!

Hi everyone!

So, last weekend my sister came to London for her fall break. She arrived Friday morning and that afternoon we boarded the Eurorail and headed for Belgium; home of beer, chocolate and waffles.
On arriving in Brussels, Stefi and I explored the Grand P'lace area full of beautiful old buildings, surrounded by bars and featuring, only a few blocks away, Mannekin Pis. This is the symbol of Brussels (EU? what?) and is a very small statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. There are 2 stories for how this came to be: 1 is that a nobleman lost his son during some festivities and when he found him 2 days later he was doing this act in a corner. The nobleman was so relieved to have found his son he made a replica statue exactly as he found him. The other story says that there was a fire and a boy put the fire out by peeing on it, thus saving the town. Pick your favorite :o)
Shane met us later that evening and after a delicious dinner of hearty Belgium food and beer we headed to bed.
Brussels is a fun town but can definitely be done in a day. We started off heading north of town to the Atonium - an enormous replica of an iron atom from the 1958 World's Fair. It is so completely random that it is now a tourist attraction. After the atonium we headed back to town for the Museum of Chocolate and Cacao. This small but delicious museum told the history of chocolate being brought into Belgium (which unfortunately began with King Leopold causing mass genocide in the Congo, which allowed the Belgiums access to the Gold coast and cacao) and how it is now made. Belgium chocolate is considered the best because they still use cacao butter and palm oil when they make it, instead of easier and cheaper substitutes that most other chocolate producers use. The museum gave several samples which were delicious!
After the museum we headed to lunch where we had "mussels in Brussels." Restaurants in the area cook muscles every which way but the Provencal style cooked in a vegetable broth at our lunch place were quite delicious.
After lunch we headed for the Museo Horta. This is Victor Horta's old house, now converted into a museum, and is the best demonstration of art nouveaux architecture, which Horta and Belgium is famous for. After getting our fill of the arts we headed to one of the only remaining fully functioning brewery's in Brussels; The Musee Bruxellois De la Gueuze - Cantillon Brewery. This brewery brews Lambics, which are a beer specific to Belgium. They are brewed using hops, wheat and malted barley, stored in old wine barrels and have a taste somewhat between beer and wine. There were 2 tastings at the end; 1 Gueueze which is a mix of a 1, 2, and 3 year old Lambic and 1 with either raspberries or cherries. All 3 were delicious.
After the beer we meandered our way back to the EU district. All the buildings were closed but we did see the EU headquarters - an unfortunately ugly, star shaped building. Afterwards we headed back to Brussels, did a little souvenir shopping (chocolate!), grabbed dinner and headed for bed.
The next morning, since we had seen enough of Brussels, we hopped on a train and took the hour trip to Brugge. Brugge used to be the economic powerhouse of Belgium and was the base for all types of trading, and the making of lace. However, the canals that surround the city filled in and left the town mostly dependent on tourism. The town is beautiful, a Medieval town surrounded by canals and filled with horse and buggies and 8 million tourists.
We hit the highlights of Brugge. Climbed the Belfry's 366 steps to get a great view of the city, visited Heilig- bloedbasiliek cathedral (a church claiming to have a vial of Jesus's blood brought back from Jerusalem during the crusades), saw Michelangelo's Madonna and child at the Cathedral of Our Lady, and visited the last remaining functioning brewery in Brugge. This time we only sampled the product and skipped the tour :o)
It was nearing the end of our time in Belgium but we had one more task to conquer before we could leave content and that was to sample the best Belgium waffle in the world. The Etablissment Max, in Ghent (which happened to be a stop on our train from Brugge to Brussels) is owned by the family who claims to have invented the Brussel's waffle. The Van Maldeghem's family has been making waffles for 6 generations (120 years). The key, according to the family, is that they must be crisp on the outside with a dark color, almost like a tree, and soft on the inside. They must be made with gas, not electricity, and for a pure experience, you eat them only with powdered sugar on top. They were an absolute mess to eat, but they were delicious and I strongly recommend them to anyone passing through Ghent!
After Belgium we headed back to London where Stefi spent 1 day with us, touring the sights of London before heading back to the USA. We don't have any big trips planned for the next few weeks. We are planning to try and settle into London before continuing our European adventure, so there may not be an update for at least a week or so.
We miss you all and hope you are doing well!!

Love, Sarah and Shane

The following images may be disturbing...

If you are a neat freak, hate clutter, or prefer to live in homes where you can actually walk. I never knew I was any of these things but after living in chaos for a week, I discovered that minimalist decorators do have a point!

We moved into our house a week ago. The day the movers came we discovered that none of our bedroom furniture (read: dresser, wardrobe and box springs) could fit up our spiral staircase! So, all of our clothes were stuffed on the bed or on the floor of the guest bedroom - total chaos! Then, to make matters worse, our media center, table and chairs, bookshelves and leather chair, didn't fit downstairs. (see pictures).

However, after a few trips to IKEA, a man from craigslist who needed to furnish an entire apartment and took all of our stuff, Shane taking a part time job as a handyman and hanging all of our new shelves and pictures in the concrete walls, a good cleaning and a few coats of paint...our place is not only liveable but downright cute! (see pictures on facebook).

Miss you all!
Love, Sarah

Norway

Hi all! I apologize for the long absence but we finally have internet so I am back to blogging.
One of the perks of living overseas is that when your husband travels for work he travels in Europe! Which is why, 2 weeks ago, Shane and I set off for Oslo, Norway for the weekend. Shane only had to work on Monday which gave us all day Saturday and Sunday to explore!
After arriving a bit later than anticipated (turns out Ryan Air lands in a city an hour outside of Oslo!) we began our touring. Oslo is a beautiful city, situated right on the water and surrounded by contryside. It is mainly divided into 3 main areas, Central Oslo West, Central Oslo East and Bygdoy. Our hotel was in Holmenkollen, where the ski jump competitions take place, so we took a train to get to central Oslo. Once there we were able to see Aker Brygge - the main shopping district/eating area by the harbor. On Saturday morning, when we were there, there was a huge street fair and we helped ourselves to some delicous Hungarian inspired goulash made by a local chef. Near Aker Brygge is the Nobel Peace Center, where the Nobel Peace prize winner is decided on and the award given, as well as Radhuset - home of the Norwegian parliment. The building was opened in 1950 to commemorate the city's 900th anniversary! We also saw Akershus Slott - a 700 year old fortress built in 1299 by King Hakon V. It became the administrative center for the Norwegian government in the 19th century and was taken over by Germany during WWII. The fortress was beautiful and there was a wonderful restaurant nearby that served smorgsbords - traditional open faced Norwegian sandwiches (we had these Sunday - don't worry, we didn't have 2 lunches!). We walked down Karl Johans Gate, the main thoroughfare of the city that leads from the Oslo train station to the Royal Palace (Slottet). We also checked out the Opera House - a huge complex, completed in 2008, that houses the Den Norske Opera. You can actually climb on top of it and hundreds of people were sunbathing, eating and hanging out on the roof when we were there! We were not able to hear the famous Opera group, but there was a Norwegian band performing on the roof. They were, I believe, Norwegian punk rock, and the crowd LOVED them! For dinner we ate at a wonderful seafood restaurant on the water.
The next day we explored Vigelandsparken, Oslo's largest park which houses a collection of 212 sculputures made by Gustav Vigeland. All of the sculputures are of humans with the largest being a huge monolith in the center of the part composed of 121 human forms spiraling their way towards the sky. After the park, we headed for najonalgalleriet, the national gallery that houses hundreds of works by Norwegian artists, as well as a small but excellent impressionist section. The most famous work displayed is, of course, Edvard Munch's "The Scream." The painting was actually stollen in 2004 but found again in 2006. Shane's favorite Norwegian artist was Christian Krohg who also had several paintings on display.
After the museum we headed for Bygdoy. This used to be an island in the Oslofjorden until the sound was filled in during the 19th century. It is now a residential area but is still primarily covered with farmland and forest. We took a bus through the beautiful scenery until we reached Vikingskipshuset, the Viking ship museum. It holds the remains of 3 Viking funeral ships, as well as a lot of artifacts from the age of the Vikings. The ships were in incredibly good shape and were very cool. After Bygdoy we headed to the highest point in Oslo, Frognerseteren. There is a great restaurant up there that serves traditional Norwegian food including elk and reindeer - which we tried. They were delicious!
The following day Shane went to work and I wandered around Oslo doing some shopping and taking a few more pictures before we headed back to London. Please check out our pictures on facebook! The pictures above from left to right are Aker Brygge, Akershus Slott and the Royal Palace with statue of Karl Johan.

Love, Sarah and Shane