Tongeren, Belgium July 7, 8 Leaving Corfu was sad. We had such a wonderful time in the warm weather, by the ocean. We were a bit surprised to land in Amsterdam where it was over 20 degrees Celsius cooler! We were picked up by Alexander…a great guy who is studying piano and percussion (and whose father was the head of one of the two festivals hosting us, and the organist for Jeff’s concert the next evening). It was a 3 ½ hour drive to Tongeren, Belgium. I should mention that the reason we came to Belgium before the rest of the [View Full Entry]

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Belgium…again! So, back to Belgium we headed! Somehow…we ended up in a town on the border of Holland and Belgium where we couldn’t get another train to Tongeren…so we called the Belgian Brass guys, and they brought a couple of cars to pick us up. It was a gorgeous day…so we all sat down at an outdoor café and enjoyed some coffee. Yes…there is a trend. Canadian Brass likes their coffee!! ;) We had a good time watching Willis, Jeroen, and Jeff be kids, and do magic with cards, coins, and lighters. Even our waiter came over and got into the [View Full Entry]

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Here we are in the great city of Antwerp. I ADORE architecture ;) [View Full Entry]

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I highly recommend the champagne bar in the Stadzaal :D Appropriately shaped as a GIANT champagne glass. [View Full Entry]

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Finally we have an opportunity to sit down for a few moments to let everyone know how our trip is going...things have been a bit crazy because we have only been staying in each new location for 2 or 3 days and therefore we spend most of our time siteseeing rather than sitting in a cafe. However, we just arrived in Amsterdam yesterday and already you can smell the weed all around town...we haven't been to the red light district yet here but we did see the red light district in Brussels while we were in Belgium. Belgium was really beautiful [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour tout le monde, J'ai pas donné de nouvelles depuis longtemps, car je suis pas mal occupée au travail. La ville de Gand était très belle. Maintenant, je suis à Vellereille, à l'abbaye de Bonne-Espérance. La première période du camp est finie. Les jeunes sont partis hier et les nouveaux arrivent demain. J'ai beaucoup aimé la première période. J'avais une classe de niveau 2B (12 élèves semi-débutants): mes élèves étaient chouettes! L'équipe aussi était super, mais presque tout le monde est parti (peu de gens font 2 périodes, car c'est trop fatiguant). Vous pouvez aller voir les phot [View Full Entry]

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Ok, now that I'm in Munich I have some time to get this entry done finally. I'm kinda falling behind here a bit because I've been on the move pretty much constantly for the past week or so. Promise I'll get the Amsterdam and Berlin entries done soon. As for Bruges, it's a beautiful city that is stuck in the middle ages as far as appearances. Pretty much all of the buildings in the city are very old or have been rebuilt to the same original specs. It is also a very small city as it only takes about 15 minutes [View Full Entry]

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Back to Belgium Still under the rain, I just love summers, don t you??? :) Doing my last things here (preparing the trip, writing mails...) and can t wait to leave D - 3 [View Full Entry]

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BRUSSELS & BRUGES I far-welled Paris good bye and boarded a train for the hour and half journey to Brussels, where nine years earlier I was fascinated by it's magnificent central square, GRAND PLACE. It was a passing visit en route to some place else, and I wanted to experience and feel the same buzzing atmosphere this square had offered back then. This imposing 15th century market square of superb art Nouveal and Gothic architectural buildings flanked on all four sides lived up to my expectations again, as i remembered it back then, it felt like I had not left. Diners [View Full Entry]

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July 10, 2008 We had a long day today. arived in heathrow at 6:30. we made our way to st pancras, checked our bags and then had to wait for a eurostar train at a decent price. unfortunately, we all slept our way through the chunnel journey... oh well, we'll catch it on the return. We eurostared to brussels and then caught the local train to amsterdam. got in around 10:00 and slept well. Probably should have flown this leg, but we wanted to do the train thing. July 11, 2008 Today we did Anne Fr [View Full Entry]

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