Blogs from Leuven, Flemish Brabant, Belgium, Europe - page 4

Ok - despite Teresa previously mentioning 'Peter Gabriel' this is a particularly strong edition of the Brag Site. (Peter Gabriel sucked! I can't stress how much he was the suckiest suck that ever sucked! Couldn't hold a crowd with 80,000 revelers in front of him - his unnecessary mic headset and vest didn't help matters...) Headed over there in a group of about 20 - the first beer was cracked at about 8am Thursday morning... the last one about 2am Monday Morning... Luckily we have plenty of snaps to tell the story - as it was sponsored by Stella Artois... (surprised Teresa didn't wake up battered and bruised) Some rock n roll moments - Kings of Leon singin with Eddie Vedder; Pearl Jam singin with Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age); Beastie Boys packin ... read more

Abigail and Eliza napped while Emma did email and played computer games (we often have to fight each other to see who gets on). When the girls woke we all played Uno and then I made dinner (chicken, onion, pepper & broccoli stir fry with rice). We then walked up to Abdij van Park behind the Phillips Site. It was really cool. I had discovered it a few days earlier while I was out for a walk after the kids went to bed. The abbey and grounds are being restored, but it was still huge and impressive. It reminded me of something you would find in the countryside in (the republic of) Georgia. The graveyard was very cool, and of course all of this led to further discussions about Jesus, God and those fairies (angels). ... read more

WOW! This is the most amazing park I have been to. It is very reminiscent of Look Park in Northampton, MA, but much bigger and with the best play structures around. Zoe and Henry picked us up at about 3 and we smooshed into their car and drove about 15 minutes to get there. The first play area we went to have all sorts of mechanical "diggers" to lift sand into steel buckets that could be pushed around the area on a series of metal bars. There were structures to climb in that also had mechanical pulleys etc to lift and move the sand. Jonathan would love it here! The next area we went to had a few large wooden climbing structures with really long, windy slides. There were a few extra large spider's webs ... read more

We got up around 9am and scrambled to catch the bus at 10:18 to the train station. Everyone had a quick bite to eat and we made it. We bought our train tickets to Gent (11 euros roundtrip for Jonathan and I and the kids were free). We caught the 10:35 train and were on our way. We read a few chapters of Charlotte’s Web on our way and shared some fruit we had packed. The girls had a good time on the train and Eliza made friends with a little Belgian boy her age that shared his ball with her. We got off the train a little over an hour after we started our trip at St. Peter’s Station in Gent. We decided to save the kids legs and catch a tram to the ... read more

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 ... read more