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Waffles
Eating waffles on the steps of the town hall watching the world go by... Eliza was up at 9am this morning. So early! I went for a run for about 25 minutes. Still didn’t feel great and can’t seem to get back into my usual routine. At least I am walking a lot during the day. Jonathan went to work around 10:30 and the girls and I had a slow morning around the apartment. A little before noon we took off for the Grote Markt by the town hall. We found some postcards to mail to their friends and sat on a bench to write them out. Then we went and got a warm waffle and sat on the steps of the town hall. It was almost 1 o’clock and the girls wanted to watch the golden statue hit the bell on top of St. Peter’s Church when the clock struck one. It was a nice way to spend some time.
Then we took off down some back streets, one of which was pedestrian only and served more for table space for all the restaurants than a thoroughfare for pedestrians. It smelled great however. We walked down Tiensestraat past an outdoor market which we planned to go back to another day. I was on the hunt for a post office and the girls were great walking for almost an hour with minimal complaint. We never found the post office. We came back to the apartment for the afternoon. I caught up on email and the girls played “cats” in the living room while Eliza napped. And I finally started my travelblog.
The girls and I sat on our front steps and read a few chapters of Charlotte’s Web, which they are enjoying immensely. Emma has seen the movie so I think that helped. When Jonathan got home we went to the other side of the Begijnhof to meet Christian and Zoe and their 2 year old son Henry and catch a ride with them to Paula’s house. She is the director of the lab Jonathan is associated with at KUL.
They live about 20 minutes outside of Leuven in a very rural and very beautiful area. They have a lovely home, complete, to the kids excitement, with a swingset. They overtook it and didn’t get off until we sat down to eat. She made us kebabs, several kids of sausages, and chicken drumsticks, along side quartered tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots sticks and lettuce. The kids ate like mad. I was so excited. They are usually good eaters, but you never know when you are in a strange place. They played and laughed and ran through the hedge mazes in the garden. After dinner they hunted for snails (Schnecken in German and slak in Dutch) with Henry.
When we got home I remarked to Jonathan after the girls were in bed that it was an awesome evening to witness. Here were our three girls, not five days in a new country, sitting at a dinner where three different languages were being spoken. The only other child there spoke only German and the foods were all a little different in preparation than they are used to. And yet! They were amazing. Jonathan remarked back, of course they were, isn’t this the exact thing you have been training them for since birth. And I suppose it is.
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