Vacation in Belgium

Bonjour bonjour!!!

So its been awhile since we've blogged, to tell you the truth its not always easy to take the time. Maybe Facebook would be a better option but hey, here we are.

So after Napoleon sadly left us, we went on a trip to visit my parents in Arlon, Belgium. The plan was to see my parents, meet up with Laura's parents, and then Laura & Eva would leave for Canada to deliver baby #2 while I would go back to Ghana for another month and half.

The trip was great, it was good to see my parents again and Eva was ecstatic and spoiled. Claire made her a special bedroom in the computer room with a big princess bed. That, and my dad's new electric train and wooden train sets were some of the highlights for Eva. The irony is that as soon as we arrived in Belgium, I got some sort of mild food poisoning. This either came from the food I ate at the airport in Ghana or the rich food in Belgium (my first meal was a bunch of fries with some sort of spicy mayonaise 'aioli'). Personnally, we thinks its from the airport in Ghana; I doubt my stomach had changed so much as to not be able to eat rich food anymore.

The first week was great, while i was home sick, they visited a Zoo in Belgium. It was the first time Eva was able to see so many African animals. Ghana has unfortunately decimated its animal population to almost nothing. There are possibilities to see some Elephants and other great african beasts, however they are at least 20 hours drive away from our home in Accra, which makes them almost impossible to see with a young toddler and new baby.

BAck to Belgium, we had great food, the restaurants are great and it was amazing to have nice food again. One of our favorite things to experience again was shopping, to shop without the feeling of 'being had' is absolutely fantastic. So we went to Germany, to see Trier, about an hour drive from Arlon. Trier is a small german city that has a very nice shopping center filled with boutiques and high end malls. It is a popular shop spot for many europeans in the area. As with all german towns in the area, the place was absolutely beautiful, very clean, a very big contrast to our day to day lives in Ghana where there is littter everywhere you go.

Our next little trip was to go see our good friend Henry and his Fiancée, Hélène, in Frankfurt. A short drive from Arlon to Frankfurt, only two hours. However, it is beautiful, the crossing between Germany and Luxembourg is a bridge overtop a deep valley of green farms and white wine vineyards. We rented a car and headed off with my dad's GPS. On the way there, we got lost in a small village. The GPS told us to turn right at an intersection, however it was not updated. We turned and went down to country road, we got lost for a little bit and managed to find our way back to the main road. The funny thing is that on the way back we almost did the same mistake again, ahhh GPS, sometimes its pretty funny what technology will do to you if you follow it blindly!

We finally arrived in Frankfurt, a small city of 600,000 individuals, they have a metro, something Ottawa with 1 million people can't even do. Sometimes I wonder why is it that we are so afraid to get into big projects in cities like Ottawa. We met up with Hélène at her place, toured Frankfurt, and later had a very nice dinner at an italian place with Henry. It seems the german food was not up to par for the night, my search for the famous German Sausage was to continue... that story to come :)

Laura's parents arrived in Belgium shortly after, my father and I went to pick them up at the airport. It was John's (Laura's father) birthday. My parents organised a nice dinner and bought a nice cake at the bakery. Although not quite as good as the French in the bread making domain, the Belges excel at anything that is chocolate, which includes excellent cakes!! We spend the first weekend touring Arlon and Luxembourg, Laura's parents had to adapt to the new time zone and we were very happy to just take it easy. That weekend, we visited a very special brewery: La Chouffe. If you are not familiar with the beer, I would suggest you try it out sometime. This beer is one of the first foreign beers I drank when I was 18, it has a very special taste and is promoted by a magical gnome that lives in the forest. It was fun, we experienced a tour of the brewery machines, got a few free drinks and ate there afterwards, food was excellent and the ambiance really made you think you we're in some kind of establishment run by gnomes. Eva made a friend at the pub!

Oh, did I say it was grey and rainy almost the whole time... it was glorious! After 9 months in the sun of Africa, a bit of rain and gray is a welcome change, refreshing too.

So, it was in the rain that we headed out for Bruges. This is a fantastic city, well worth the tour. No longer a coastal city, but still has a great many canals and medieval buildings, hence its name "Venice of the North" is well deserved. It used to be the commercial center of continental western Europe from the 12th to the 15th century. Bruges ceased to be a commercial hub once the city's oceanfront access points slowly started to degrade, to the point that the many connecting canals, became impossible to access by commercial boats and freightlines.

We suggest you watch a great gangster movie that was filmed in the city called In Bruges, before going. We went there by train TGV, which Eva loved, stayed the night in this great little hotel "Le Gozeput" and, did a day and a half of touring the picturesque little town. Bruges is a romantic getaway and is filled with historic buildings, I had never heard of it before, but frankly if you are touring Europe, this is a must place to stop, at least for a couple of days.

My parents and I walked around the town at night, something on our list of things TO DO when in Bruges, and it was quite beautiful. The OLD building facades are illuminated at night and the sights are impressive to see.

We left to return to Arlon the next day. The WEATHER had turned chillier anyways so it was time for us to go. When we got back to our home away from home, we hung out a bit more and took it easy. Ate out for dinner and enjoyed the fine foods. Laura and I took another last trip/romantic getaway to Brussels to meet up with some good friends of ours who came from Europe to our wedding in September, Julie & Julien, as well as our Canadian friends who were there on vacation, Louis & Isabelle. It was a nice time, we experienced drinking good belgium beer in the streets during a Gay Pride Parade and went out for dinner again, all while staying in a nice hotel. Pretty cool overall!

As for my search for the best sausage.. I finally found it in Belgium, luckily before leaving for Ghana again!

Well, take care folks and until next blog!

Charles & Laura