Going bonkers for Belgium

I may have gotten a little ahead of myself last time, boasting about the return of spring and sunshine, because as we all know nothing is ever predictable when it comes to weather. Winter returned in force last Monday which happened to be Max’s Birthday. We’d picked up 11 boys from his class and taken them up into the Taunus Mountains (more like large hills if you ask me) to a sort of lodge to do rock climbing. When it was time to come home, and the boys had all conquered their fears it had begun to snow. I then woke up the next day (or the one after, all my days seem to blur into one lately) to a blanket of white. I was naturally thrilled, as I’ve been dreaming of running around in snow ever since I got here, and I thought it had all been in vain. Of course it had all disappeared by lunchtime and I didn’t really think about it again – until on Friday when everything went downhill and the chaos began.

This was just for breakfast, he had three cakes in total. One made by Frau Doerr (i.e. the one above), one made by me to take to school, and one by a proper cake maker for his party.

I had been meaning to get to Belgium before my sister left for a while, but as she was off jet setting around Europe every weekend, and I had my fair share of things planned, and expenses to pay, the dates just kept getting pushed back further and further, and as she is leaving Belgium this week, we got to crunch time. As I’m not exactly rolling in money, I decided to take Nicole’s advice and look in to using a German website called Mitfahrzentrale, which is sort of like a hitchhiker/driver match making site. I’d never used it before, because I liked the freedom of being able to stop whenever I want, but having people share the costs of petrol was mighty tempting. So I managed to organise people to come along in various stages of the trip and to help with costs. I’d even arranged to bring back an Antique chair that someone had brought off eBay. I’d navigated the whole site, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself as its all in German and everything was set to go. But on Friday morning, Nicole told me I couldn’t take the car, because the whole Western border of Germany was covered in snow, the roads were chaos, and because we’d already taken the winter tyres off the car, it was too big an insurance risk.

I raced down to the Auto repairers to see if they could put the winter tyres that I’d stored there, back on, but got promptly told there was absolutely no way that they could get them out of a storage facility in Frankfurt before Monday. Absolutely gutted I decided I just wouldn’t go, as I couldn’t afford to take the train. I had to ring everyone and let them know, that I couldn’t take them. Then Nicole suggested we contact the train company and see if I could bring the antique chair (that I’d promised someone I would bring back for them) on the train on the way home. The guy was willing to pay me €150 to deliver it to him, and would there for be able to pay for the cost of the return train. No one would give me any answers so I just took a risk, found a ride from Cologne to Belgium using Mitfahrzentrale and then jumped on the high speed train.

I spent about three hours in Cologne, just strolling around, checked out the Dom and walked along the Rhine before I got picked up by Juan, a Colombian student, now living in Cologne who was travelling through to Paris to visit his girlfriend. We picked up Mathieu, a French rugby playing (which is pretty rare around this soccer mad part of the world) friend of his, along the way and they drove me the rest of the way to Belgium. Both were really nice and easy going guys and even posed for a photo for me – thanks guys.

So I eventually made it after all, to the land of Waffles, Chocolate, Beer, Lace, Frites, Mussels, Tintin and Jean Claude Van Damme. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long before Ana picked me up from my drop off point at the Airport, and then we spent a while shopping and checking out the large Belgian supermarket. Both exhausted, we crashed out on the couch and watched ‘Instinct’. Next morning we drove to a town called Ghent, about an hour west of Brussels. I absolutely loved Ghent, and would love to go back there in the summer, of course when we were there it was cold and miserable. The buildings are really spectacular, and the Graslei along the water canal is particularly picturesque.

It had one of the most impressive Cathedrals I’ve ever been in, and since being in Europe I’ve been in a fair few. There are lots of things to look at, and it had a really lived in feel, and not like just a big museum (the city that is, not the church). We found a sweet stall in a market there, and brought some Cuberdons, which are an old Belgian speciality particular to the Ghent/Flemish region. Cuberdons are dark red, raspberry cone shapes (the outside is hard, while the inside stays liquid) and are absolutely delicious. As their shelf life is only about 4 weeks, they can’t really be exported, so you’re going to have to travel to Belgium to try them! We also stumbled upon a random hall with lots of treats and samples to try, best of all were the mouth-watering truffles. It wasn’t until after I got back to Germany that I found out that Ghent is actually the sistercity of Wiesbaden, but what does being sister cities really mean anyway?

That afternoon, we carried on exploring and drove to a small city just south of Brussels called Namur, which is the capital of Wallonia (or the French speaking part of Belgium). A pleasant enough city, with lots of pedestrian streets but the most impressive part of it is the Citadel, which is a fortress built on a hill overlooking the city, and the site has been used defensively for more than two millennia and has tunnels, riddled throughout the limestone hill. We didn’t really get to explore much of it, as the sun was going down and it was getting more than a little chilly. That night we decided to check out the movies, and went to the Kinopolis in the Brupack which has an impressive 29 theatres. What we hadn’t realised is that there was a major free concert in the park called the ‘Stars of Europe’, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the EU. The Atomium (built 1958), a massive icon of Brussels with nine large steel spheres measuring around 18 metres in diameter, was all lit up, and lasers pointing everywhere, and was a pretty impressive sight. So we checked that out for a while, before heading back to watch a movie.

The next morning, sun shining thank goodness, we jumped on a bus into the city centre and checked out all the famous Brussels sights, including the Grand place, its impressive guild houses and the lucky statue of Everard’t Serclaes. The Manneken Pis seemed more like a joke, than a reason to be a major icon. We did the touristy thing and got a double decker ride around the rest of the city and saw the palace, Jubel park and the EU buildings. I thought Brussels was a pretty nice city, wouldn’t mind going back but not sure you could spend a lot of time there - as a tourist that is.

So after a really pleasant weekend, that afternoon Kriztina, a really lovely Hungary woman picked me up, and dropped me at the train station, complete with a 300 year old Antique Spanish chair. Always one to be a little random, this took the cake. I had to lug the thing on to an extremely busy train full of long distance travellers and all their giant bags, and try and not freak out when ever anyone got too close, or looked like they were going to sit on the very fragile leather seat. I got to Frankfurt Airport without having a heart attack, and even carried it through the airport, up and down 4 escalators, (all because you have to change over to the regional trains) without damaging it. Got a raised eyebrow from a few puzzled onlookers more than once, but that’s the nice thing about not being a local, there’s not much chance of people who know you actually spotting you. So job done, €150 richer, thank you very much and now looking forward to my next little adventure next week where I’m off to the south of Germany, Austria and Switzerland – wish me luck.