We Arrive!

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The beginning of it all.
We touched down in Brussels at about 10:30am. Abigail and Eliza were still sleeping! It was a great flight for them. We easily made our way through immigration and customs with our luggage in tow and met Jonathan on the other side. What an adventure!

We took the train (which departs from the basement of the airport) to Leuven where Jonathan’s friend Christian (who is sponsoring Jonathan’s sabbatical at KU Leuven) met us. He transported us, and, more importantly, all of our luggage to the Groot Begijnhof where we would now be living.

Jonathan was right. The pictures just don’t do it justice. It feels as though we are living in a walled medieval village within the bigger town of Leuven. The apartment is great, much bigger than I had thought, but with those “quaint” European quirks (no oven, no sofa, etc). We put Emma and Abigail in the big bedroom where there is tons of storage for all of our clothes and luggage. We thought this would work for them because then they would have room to play. We put Eliza’s bed in our room to make bedtime a little smoother all around.

I unpacked all of the suitcases and we all changed into clean clothes. Jonathan had a great European lunch ready for us - fantastic bread, cheeses, meats, and yoghurt drink for the girls and super yummy Belgian beer for us! Then we decided to head out and see some sights.
As we are about to leave to explore the city a little Emma turns to me and says, “Mom when you were unpacking my suitcase you unpacked my walking legs. I left my old legs at home because I knew I would need to walk a lot here.” How cute!

We walked through the streets to the Oude Markt which is the big, huge square with hundred of tables in front of all of the cafes. Then we went to the Grote Markt where we saw the impressive St. Peter’s Church and the unbelievable Town Hall. Wow!

For dinner Jonathan went out to our local Frituur and purchased Belgian frites and chicken for everyone. We were all up late but slept well for our first night in our new home.

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Photos

Apartment
Living room looking towards our bedroom

Apartment 2
Our room we share with Eliza

Apartment 3
Emma & Abigail's room

Apartment 4
Looking up at the girls through their second floor window. Note the individual window panes which are hand blown glass and, we have been warned, very expensive to replace! All windows have wooden shutters on the inside that are very hard to resist playing with.

Groot Begijnhof
This is the view to the left outside of our door towards "our church". This differentiates it from the multitude of other churches in town. It is a landmark on the skyline to help us see how close we are to home. And Abigail most fondly thinks of it where "Maria" is buried (they have large gravestones in the floor right when you walk in and one of them in for a woman named Maria, but, as she will point out, not the Maria from the Sound of Music).

Comments

[Laramees]

K,J,E,A,E, This is fantastic. Kara you've done wonders. Keep it up. We really miss you guys but enjoy all your stories over this past week. Live it up and enjoy. Looking forward to more!