Theater Hotel Antwerp

... to the hostel). Bruges was just absolutely incredible all the way through.

At the train station, we had one final waffle at Haagen Daz, then boarded the TGV high-speed train to get back to Paris. Our trip had a bit of a rocky start, but our tour of the VanAcker homeland was definitely a rousing success. A strange thing that I noticed was how much I've already started to think of France as a comfortable home base. After dealing with the craziness that ...

... proceeded to mime the "I'll slit your throat" symbol at me. Next, a little boy decided to throw candies and cuss at us. I know this is all probably harmless, but we feeling a little like prisoners in our own home. It's kind of sad. But we've gone a few days without incident, so hopefully these were isolated events and the harassing will stop.

Beach

Irina and I are ...

... their shopping. Closer than Paris, and better shopping than home. I wasn't really that excited about this, but popped my head into two or three stores. I did end up with a cute little top from a designer outlet store, so that was good. And saw so many random appliances at another store! Crock pots gone wild - they had a tandori crock pot here! And a skillet for making crepes for kids! How many kids do you know that are excited about crepes for ...

... has officially started and so far so good. She has kids from a handful of different countries and is currently training them in the rules and ways of the world of kindergarten. She'll post more about her first weeks sometime in the near future... I'm enjoying life as a freelance writer. There's no shortage of work and let me tell you, working in your pajamas is much more comfortable ...

One of the nice things about staying in Brussels is that it's so centrally-located, meaning that most of the country is easily accessible within an hour's train ride or so. Today, we took advantage with another daytrip, this time to the northern city of Antwerp. The largest city in Flanders and a major shipping hub, Antwerp has more in common with, say, Amsterdam, than it does with Brussels, in terms of feel and style. Marie and I arrived at ...

So today was my first day at the rowing club, lets just say these rowers are not the most punctual bunch, but once they get there and get rowing they go FULL TILT! Living in Brussels and the rowing club being in a city north of Brussels, it is quite the hike getting there. In total, one-way, I must walk, take one tram, one metro (subway), one train, one bus, then walk some more to finally arrive there 1hr 30 minutes later. Needless to say it is harder to get ...

... high-energy. - Went to the Holland Casino looking for a poker game, but ended up scoring a free drink instead and watched some World Cup action. - We were warned and urged several times to avoid/see the Red Light District, so we decided to join the mob of other tourists and see what it was all about. Basically exactly what everyone had said. Just weird. My friend Ray mentioned that Amsterdam has one of the lowest crime rates in ...

... around. Antwerp is well known for Peter Paul Rubens having lived and worked here about 500 years ago. We went to buy tickets for his house. The lady told us that there was no charge- great we thought, due to some of the rooms being closed off for renovations!! It was quite an impressive house. His studio was huge. St Jacob's was next, this is where he is buried in his family's chapel. Also so some of his work here. Mozart also played at this church in 1765. We continued ...

... next morning we headed for breakfast, which was the typical spread with some really great hard rolls and Nutella...yummy! From there we grabbed the car and drove 2 minutes into town. It was as cute in the light as it looked under the cover of night. Just outside the parking lot was a tank left from the Battle of the Bulge (see Pic 2). We stopped into the tourist office to see what some of the attractions of the region are but didn't get much help. Most of the local attractions ...

... to but Miki didn't want to include a visit to a Brussels hospital in our itinerary!). We had lunch at one of the restaurants on the Grand Place and Miki thoroughly enjoyed their mussels l'escargots. After lunch, we visited the City Museum (also on the Grand Place) and said hello to Mannekin-Pis (Brussels' peeing mascot). Shortly after 3pm, it was time to head out to Brussels Charleroi Airport (a little less than an hour from ...