day 037

we took a train from brussels to frankfurt and hung out for the day



// duck, duck, goose! ... eggs at kleinmarkthalle: easter, goose, duck, turkey, quail and chicken



// being silly in front of super pretty doors



// being stinky during a break from exploring



// proper dinner at zum gemalten haus

day 036

// feeling better, we headed out to a cute cafe for breakfast



// breakfast ... look at that little milk bottle!



// being tourists ... more here: a quick stop for fries and beer

day 035

// two breakfast sandwiches at the san seb airport. i did not partake as i was still running to the bathroom every ten minutes. let me tell you, i was very worried about taking a long flight on a small plane.



// checked in to our hotel room in brussels as quickly as possible, where i slept the whole day (we arrived in the early afternoon), while aj went out to explore



// he brought back treats!



// and jook for me. my first solids. and we watched gumball rally on tv.

and then ...

and then there was copenhagen. i'm not really going to try to summarize all of copenhagen into one post right now. that'd be silly. i've been writing about copenhagen over on my other blog, so you might want to check that out. i'll definitely come back to talking about copenhagen later though.

so after copenhagen, we went to dranouter, a small village in the municipality of heuvelland in west flanders, belgium. we were there for two weeks. it actually went by relatively quickly.

here's the town center, which was basically just one block, with the church in the middle.





across the street from the church was this butcher shop. this is where i bought my eggs and salami and cheese for breakfast/lunch.



and just around the corner from there was a general store where we bought pastries, bread and some junk food. these two stores would prove invaluable to me over the two weeks.



and here's where we actually lived. it may not look like much, but it's deceptively massive. we stayed upstairs in a semi en-suite, meaning we had a shower and sink in our room, but the toilet was downstairs. our two housemates had full apartments though, with little kitchens and bathrooms. and that was just the upper level.



anyway, here's the backyard. the owner of the house is a gardener by trade, so it was pretty lush with all kinds of plants and flowers, including a cherry tree, a little currant bush, some wild strawberries and a whole bunch of other plants i couldn't name.



he also kept two chickens in the back, who provided us with delicious eggs. if only i had known sooner, i wouldn't have had to buy eggs!



and an old dog, who i called doggie. i tried to take her for a walk into town one day, but she ended up hobbling one-third of the way in.



and that was just the backyard. this was the view from our room, looking just across the street out front.



it was a huge field of pea plants.



and i may have mentioned before how close we were to the border of france, but let me illustrate just how close. the house on the left was ours. the house on the right, just across the street, that's our french neighbor.



and here again, with me standing at the front door. france to the left, belgian pea field to the right. crazy!



and here, this was us on our very first day in town. we hadn't found internet yet, so we had no idea where we were and how close anything was. we chose a direction and walked towards a church in the distance. notice how narrow the road is. because there's not enough traffic to warrant a two-lane road.



on another day, i decided to take a walk around the surrounding area. made some friends along the way, like black beauty and chestnut.





and bob's belgian cousins.



and some lambs. i didn't catch their names, since i don't speak flemish.



there's aj off in the distance, working away. can't spot him? well of course not. our camera didn't come with a telescopic x-ray lens. we aren't that fancy.



some fun flowers.



and a strawberry vending machine?? crazy. and i mean crazy good. these were the best strawberries we've ever tasted. like natural candy, but better.



so good, in fact, that the restaurant served them as-is as a pre-dessert.



ah, yes. i did spend one night at the restaurant as a guest. and got excellent service.



the end.



have an excellent weekend!

a quick stop for fries and beer

[ this week, we'll be traveling through paris, southern france and london. i've pre-written and scheduled these posts for your reading pleasure. ]

after san seb, we headed to brussels for a couple days. this was mainly because there aren't too many decent flights out of san seb to get you to frankfurt. (looking back, it's probably designed that way, why would anyone want to leave the resort town of san seb and go to the misery of frankfurt?) brussels was the closest we could get, so we figured we'd spend a couple days there, then train it over to frankfurt where our next flight would be.

even though we had two days, it was more like just one. the first day, i spent it resting, trying to let the travel bug run its course. so i pretty much slept all day. aj was nice enough to find me some jook (my favorite meal when sick) so i had that for dinner and then went straight back to bed. you'll have to check with aj on what he did, because i slept through all of it.



the next day, we set out to explore and take silly pictures.





and lucky us, we stumbled across a little parade.



we had no idea what it was for, but we followed the crowd anyway. and it turns out, they were all headed to manneken pis to unveil his new outfit. manneken pis is one of brussel's famous landmarks, a bronze statue of a little naked boy peeing into a fountain. the city has a tradition of giving him different outfits throughout the year, and this early april day appeared to be about celebrating recent graduates.



we stood through a really long 3-minute speech (3 minutes is a long time to be listening to a language you don't understand) before the unveiling. but at last, the manneken pis!



then we continued to walk through old town a little more. (why do all european cities have an old town area? is europe like a historical place or something?) and did a little shopping.







and then took a break for some belgian beer. here's the beer with some toasted malt. so avant-garde, malt two-ways.



we also picked up a little selection of belgian chocolates to enjoy.



and had some frites.



so we covered belgian beer, belgian chocolate, belgian fries ... what's left? belgian waffles!



and then we were done.