Groovin' in Leuven

Yesterday we all (me, Naomi, Jenee, and the girls) went to Leuven, roughly 15 miles east of Brussels. We unintentionally took the slow local train out, which was about 40 minutes with numerous stops, but we got it right on the return trip with the 20-minute express back to Brussels. Central Leuven is basically a circle of diameter 2 km or so. The train station was on the east side of this circle, and we walked to the center. Essentially at the exact center of the circle was the beautiful, baroque city hall, which in style could have held its own in Brussels' Grand Place (where Brussels own city hall is located). There was a wedding party having pictures taken on the front steps of the city hall, and we wandered around the pretty blocks and squares until we found a nice place for an outdoor lunch. After lunch, we wandered some more. There were several outdoor markets, variously selling antiques, bandes dessinées (comic books), and foods. We got ice cream cones, and the girls left a trail of melted ice cream in case we needed to find the ice cream store again. The other end of our ice cream trail was a plaza by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven). The plaza had the largest threading needle I've ever seen, probably 50 feet or more, standing up like a flagpole with a giant beetle skewered near the top.

Leuven seemed like a very nice town, with beautiful squares and architecture. Frankly I'm not exactly sure what to do there besides just wander around—and this is not meant to imply there's nothing to do there—but wander around we did, and we enjoyed it.

Grève danger (is there any other kind?)

Today I enjoyed that quintessential European experience, the grève, or strike. The strike in question was a train strike (more specifically, train controllers), and I learned of it when I got to the train station and saw that almost every scheduled train appeared to be cancelled, including mine. (Actually, most trains appeared to be expunged, with no trace on the board; normally, a cancelled train is on the board and labelled as cancelled.)

I ended up sharing a cab to work. At the taxi stand I overheard the guy in front of me saying he was going to Diegem, which is where I was going too. It was a funny coincidence, less than 1% chance that I'd be going to the same neighborhood, and when you add that I happened to overhear where he was heading, the odds were probably 1 in 1000 or more. But it saved me half my cab fare!

Brussels: Loving City

So today I was walking home from work, when I see another loving couple. I was walking through a popular park near Gare Centrale, and saw a couple ahead, standing in an embrace. But as I drew near—just to continue on the path, not to give closer inspection—it became clear that a lot more was going on than just embracing! I swear I mind my own business, so these couples are obviously trying to find me. Or maybe Brussels is just the nastiest city since Caligula's Rome!

L'Hitraot, Yisrael

See you later, Israel!

So I thought I'd say how the rest of the trip went, and also share a few random observations about our Israel trip.

We spent the last weekend in Ramat Yishay again with Ofer and Tal's family, starting with Shabbat dinner. Ironically, Ofer was called suddenly to his second-ever business trip to the US during the week, and didn't get back until Saturday night. Naomi and the girls went to a Haifa beach on Saturday, but I stayed home to take it easy during my recovery from food poisoning. While I read most of a novel, the large beach-going group—comprising Tal's family (minus Ofer), mother, and brother's family, in addition to my own family—took in the rays, with (I think) the only damage being some minor sunburns on Amelia.

Ofer returned Saturday evening, early enough to do some chatting. Sunday we had to head to the airport early enough that there wasn't time for much, although Ofer was able to take us to a patisserie for some tasty baked goods—arguably not as good as what we can get in Brussels, but still quite good, and probably better than what can generally be found in the States. Then we made a late (but fortunately not too late) departure for the airport: an official at our first security point told us bluntly we were late, and by the time we got to the gate boarding was mostly completed. The girls' behavior on the plane left room for improvement, shall we way, but we (mostly Naomi) managed ok.

In summary, it was a lovely trip, busy, but not overly so. I expected more bonding with Israel, but instead got more bonding with relatives; this in in contrast to my first and only other visit to Israel, in '97, in which my bonding was in the opposite order. But I think both kinds of bonding are good, and I hope my kids bonded in both ways.

Now before the observations, a small vignette: Our checked baggage allowance was 20 kg per person, and although we had 4 people we only had 2 checked bags, so I did my best, without a scale, to keep each bag under 20 kg. At check-in in Brussels, the weights of the bags were 19.2 kg, and 19.8 kg. Incredible! you say. Yup, I was pretty proud of myself. But, once in Israel, Ofer convinced me that the total is the key (i.e. less than 4 × 20 kg = 80 kg for us), and not 20 kg per bag. His theory was born out when, on our return check-in, a bag tipped the scales at 24 kg, with nary a consequence.

Observations:

• Israeli drivers were as bad as advertised. Very aggressive, and apparently very blind! In addition, motorcyclists loved riding the dividing lines between highway lanes, and I always thought how easy it would be for one of these blind Israeli car drivers to switch lanes without warning just as a motorcyclist tried to pass by.


• The traffic light cycle was very involved. Instead of green / yellow / red, it was green / flashing green / (short) yellow / red / red & yellow together. So there are two warning phases before stop, and one warning phase before go.


• We were advised a GPS was unnecessary, and at 55 NIS ($14) per day it was certainly expensive. Our experience partly bore this out, but there are two caveats: (1) you want maps or advance online route planning, and (2) a GPS sure is helpful in the big cities (Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv at least).


• Dog poo was overly present on sidewalks and in playgrounds, even more so than what we've seen in Belgium and elsewhere around Europe. This is a little surprising because, in some cities in Israel, you can apparently be fined for walking a dog if you don't obviously have the wherewithal to dispatch your dog's dispatches, let alone if you don't clean up after your dog. Oh, well, at least it dries quickly in Israel!


• Much of the northern half of the country seemed green, but a green reclaimed from the desert, as opposed to a green natural to the land. While in Israel, I was impressed at how green it was; but on the plane home, I was sitting next to two Germans, and as we flew over Germany and Belgium, seeing vast green spaces out the windows, they remarked to each other how they were happy to be heading back to the rich flora of home. It suddenly struck me how the vegetation in Israel—impressive in its own right: agriculture is huge there—was no match for the lushness of Europe.


• For breakfast we sometimes ate the Israeli version of Cocoa Puffs, called Cocomon Kedorim, which on the box was translated into English as Cocoman Balls. I think this translation may have unintentionally picked up a little extra connotation—and hilariously so!

Jerusalem trip

Yesterday we wrapped up our visit to Jerusalem, and now we're back in Ramat Yishay at Ofer and Tal's. On Wednesday we visited the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. It was comparatively large, and the exhibits were not jammed together. JoJo used the map of the zoo to guide us. I think we ended up seeing less than half of the zoo, but it was a nice place to be. In addition to the exhibits, there was a very nice playground, with very interesting mosaicked animal sculptures, in addition to the more typical swings and climbing structures. We saw elephants putting dirt on their backs to try to beat the heat. We also went in an aviary that had a variety of large birds—eagles, vultures, hawks—that weren't really separated from us. I think we were safe enough (except possibly from bird excrement), but Naomi and I shared the unsettling vision of a bird swooping down and carrying off one of our kids. Did I mention these birds were large?

Thursday we went to the Western Wall. We proceeded to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and had lunch in the Christian Quarter (I think). We saw many beautiful items of art and judaica, but our main purchases were sandals for JoJo and a crappy camel plushie for Amelia. The Wall was my favorite part of this excursion. It was a hot day, but the wall was in the shade and felt cool to the touch. The stones are smooth from millenia of weather, but they are also bumpy, and I can imagine the deep history the Wall has seen is stored in these smooth bumps.

I wasn't feeling great wandering the Old City, and the next day (yesterday) we found out why: food poisoning! Yesterday morning was sufficiently grim that I saw a doctor, an Australian expat who was a little odd, but quite confident in his diagnosis and quite specific in his treatment. He said that after a day under his treatment regimen (which puts us at about this moment that I write this) I would be saying a prayer for him, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet.

It was very nice visiting with Jeff and Adele, and they looked after the girls for Naomi and me when we went to the doctor, and also sometimes after the girls were asleep. Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), which commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967, took place during our stay in Jerusalem, but we didn't really join the celebration. Adele went out Thursday night with 50,000 of her closest friends, but the rest of us were simply serenaded by a choir across the street from the apartment.

A focal point of the visit to Jerusalem was the playground near the apartment. It was uncommonly nice, devoid of dog poo (unfortunately this cannot be assumed in Europe or Israel), and very well utilized. The girls loved it, and went at least once a day. And for whatever reason (maybe all the time running around the park?), we were able to get the girls to bed at a reasonable hour in Jerusalem—something we haven't been able to achieve in Ramat Yishay.

Israel Trip, north by northwest

Friday the 15th we flew to Israel, and this blog comes to you from Jerusalem. Our planning and preparations for the trip were mostly pretty last minute, or "just-in-time" as they might say in the biz world. We flew direct non-stop from Brussels to Ben Gurion on a Brussels Airline flight that was operated by El Al. Flight crew specifically sought us out for early boarding, since we were a family with small children, and it was nice to be taken care of by the smiling crew. The food was all kosher, and it was decent to boot.

After landing, we rented an Israeli phone, and then got our car rental. There's an apparently mandatory $12/day charge for third-party accident issues, and it was annoying that I hadn't been informed about it in advance (supposedly it was in the fine print on the web site), but what can you do?

We next headed directly to the home of my cousin Ofer, in Ramat Yishay about 30 minutes from Haifa. We had shabbat dinner with Ofer's family, including wife Tal, four boys, parents, and sister Tamy's family. It was kind of crazy, but not as crazy as you might expect given all the people and kids: Ofer and Tal preside over an easy-going household. It was a very nice, warm welcome.

The next day, Saturday, a more extended family came for a potluck lunch. The lunch wasn't exactly in our honor, but we were the excuse for it. Descendants of two of my mother's mother's brothers were there, including five of my mother's first cousins (plus spouses). Most but not all of these people I had met on my only previous visit to Israel, in 1997, not including the entirely new generation that didn't even exist then.

Sunday Ofer and one of his boys took us to Rosh haNikra, the northern most Israeli town on the Mediterranean. It is home to cliffs and caves ("grottoes"), and we took a cable car down to see them. Ofer's mother Edna had taken me there in 1997, but it was good to see again, and in any case Naomi and the girls hadn't seen it before. Then we lunched in Nariya, and visited cousin Gila at Kibbutz Cabri, close to the Lebanese border. In addition to visiting a playground there, Gila gave us a tour of Cabiran, a kibbutz factory for precision aluminum casting. The girls got little squares of wax as souvenirs, and we'll see if we can't turn them into candles.

Monday we spent the first half of the day in Haifa. Edna was our chauffeur, and she took us to the beautiful Bahá'í World Centre buildings and gardens, located on the side of Mt. Carmel. We then met up with Hadas and her parents for lunch at her apartment. The food was falafel, which is of course very Middle Eastern; whereas the apartment really felt like New York to me. For the second half of the day, we headed to Tel Aviv to meet our MIT friend Adee and her two sons (her husband was regrettably indisposed). It was a long day, but fun.

Yesterday we arrived in Jerusalem, but we first stopped at Tamy's at the moshav Beqoa. She and her one-month-old son took us to a nice restaurant that served delicious food made from very local ingredients. Tamy said the restaurant was famous in the area, but it was off the beaten path to say the least—you really had to know where you were going to find it, literally traveling unpaved roads through farmlands. We were hoping to do more in her neighborhood (see Mini-Israel or Stalactite Cave), but we were late for getting to Jerusalem as it was.

Our destination in Jerusalem was the German Colony, not far from the Old City. Uncle Jeff and aunt Adele are fortuitously renting a 3-bedroom apartment here for a few weeks, so for a few days we will occupy two-thirds of their place (that's not too big an imposition, is it?). Navigating to Jerusalem was trivial, but navigation within Jerusalem is another matter entirely, especially since on counsel we did not rent a GPS. There is currently construction related to a new trolley system, and that's not helping, but fundamentally the issue is this is Jerusalem, where the insane layout of the streets is presumably meant to serve as a deterrence to invasion or something like that. Last night we visited a nearby playground with the girls, today we went to the zoo (more on that later), and we'll see what other sights we taken in in the next day and a half.

Mike's visit redux

Now that we're in Israel, it seems like a perfect time to recap Mike's visit with us in Brussels! He came to Belgium from Norway, and left Belgium for England. While in Belgium, he visited Mini-Europe with us, and he also wandered around town on his own, all the while snapping pictures. Mike is a serious amateur photographer, and he took a very cool picture of the Atomium in particular—actually, as he explained, it was 3 pictures taken in quick succession, each concentrating on a different level of brightness, and then digitally combined into a single photograph with a large range of contrast.

He also showed us pictures of his friend's house in Norway where he stayed, with the snowy fjords in the background. It was somewhat reminiscent to me of the views from the Sikirjdi's house in France; while the fjords in Norway have a very different flavor than those in the French Alps, they are both beautiful, snow-capped mountains, apparently viewable from the comfort of people's homes.

Back to Mike: He and I were roommates for a number of years in Cambridge, but it had been a while since we'd spent much time together. It was good to see him!

Mini-Europe

Yesterday, we (Naomi and I, the girls, and my visiting friend Mike) went to Mini-Europe. This tourist attraction is outdoors, with the Atomium looming nearby in the background, and it comprises 1:25 scale models of numerous famous European buildings and sites. I only knew a few of the models, but I imagine a better-traveled person would know a lot of them. Most of the models were much shorter than a person, a bunch were around the height of a person, and a single one was much taller than a person: the Eiffel Tower. A lot of the scenes had a button to press, which played music, or moved boats or planes, or circled a bull to move around a bullfighting ring (with the crowd shouting "¡Olé!"), or made a nude Scandinavian jump into cold water or run into a sauna. There was also a crank that turned Dutch windmills, and there were trains that continuously ran on their tracks, and Mt. Vesuvius regularly rumbled (although no lava flowed). Somewhat dramatically, fireboats put out a burning offshore oil tank. Mini-Europe was one part entertainment, one part cultural, and one part cheese.

Mini-Europe is part of Brupark, which also includes a movie theater, a water park, and a bunch of restaurants situated around a nice playground and carousel. After touring Mini-Europe, we had a nice lunch. JoJo rode the carousel, and Amelia whined about wanting to ride the carousel (but we know from experience that that is not a scenario that ends well—maybe when she's older).

Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Yesterday Naomi and I took time off in the morning to tour the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, the Belgium royalty's greenhouses on the residential palace property in Brussels. It's something of a big deal, in part because the greenhouses are big, extensive, and beautiful, and in part because they're only open to the public a few weeks out of the year.

The line of people waiting to get in was nontrivial, but it moved along ok. Once inside, you had the option of moving with the masses at their glacially slow pace, or separating yourself and moving even slower. Unlike a typical museum, for example, there was no way you could cruise through the greenhouses; once you were in, you were committed to about two hours of slowly walking. The path through the greenhouses was linear (although not straight). There were a few large round or rectangular greenhouses, and there were smaller, longer and straight greenhouses ("greenhallways" would be more apt). One stretch of the circuit was actually outdoors; the grounds were nice, and some of the grounds were very nice. The grounds and greenhouses were essentially devoid of insects, Naomi observed, which was especially odd given all the flowers.

The plants weren't generally labelled, and I don't know whether many of them were rare. Plenty of the plants were garden variety (rim shot, please), such as African violet, and others that I recognized but don't know by name. But plenty were otherwise unknown to me. In any case, the greenhouses were quite beautiful with well-designed gardens, and the large greenhouse buildings themselves were beautiful. And collectively the greenhouses were very large, even larger than they looked from the exterior.

Ironically, I'm not sure I would have been jonesing to go to the greenhouses if they were open all year 'round—not that I wouldn't want to go, but maybe other destinations would be more attractive—but the scant availability to tourists somehow sweetened the deal, and I'm glad we went.

Joan & Mark visit redux

Mark and Joan (Naomi's parents) visited from Wednesday April 22 to Tuesday May 5. The first few days they stayed at a nearby hotel to ease their transition to Brussels, they took an excursion to London and Cambridge from the 27th to the 30th, and then they spent the rest of their visit with us (well, ignoring the fact that Naomi and I were absent from their last weekend here). They spent their first night with us too, because the hotel botched their reservations.

While in town, Mark and Joan visited the girls' school, and also saw the Toy Museum and visited local castles, and acquired chocolate provisions at the Neuhaus outlet store. There were trips to parks, and there was hanging out. There was some tourist activity, obviously, but not tons of it. Mom had a variety of comestible objectives while in Brussels (chocolate, gaufre—waffle, crepe, frites—french fries, moules—mussels, etc.), which she met with mixed success. The girls got a bunch of presents, and I hope they didn't act too entitled about it! ("When do I get a present?" etc., etc.)

Spa weekend

Last weekend Naomi and I were afforded a romantic getaway weekend by Naomi's parents and Jenee. Naomi made all the arrangements for us to go overnight to Spa, somewhat over 2 hours by train from Brussels, including a switch in Verviers. It is the namesake town of the word spa, and also home to the world's oldest casino.

We stayed at a hotel about 2 kilometers away from the center of Spa, and up the same hill as their world-famous thermal spa. On Saturday we each had a 1-hour massage (pleasant enough, not deep) at the hotel. While one of us was getting massaged, the other hung out in the nearby pool area or sunning yard. There were signs everywhere to be quiet so as to promote everyone's relaxation and well-being. For dinner, we went down to the town center, for a very nice 3-hour dinner at Le Grand Maur (The Great Moor). After dinner we wandered around the town, which seemed very nice, then walked back to the hotel.

Sunday we had a better-than-most breakfast at the hotel, and then walked to Les Thermes de Spa, the local natural thermal spa. There was an interesting changing room and locker system where we left our bags and showered. On the main floor there was a big pool with areas with water jets. This pool was connected to another outdoor pool that was similar, but outside. The water temperature was simply tepid, very comfortable, but not hot. The water didn't have much smell and it didn't sting my eyes, which was nice, but I wondered what could be in this water to make it so special.

Upstairs were the saunas and steam rooms and baths. The saunas were an insane 80°C (175°F), but with low relative humidity (variously 10% to 30%). I didn't think this kind of temperature was compatible with human life, but it wasn't bad, as long as all you did was sit. I started out with my silver necklace on, but in the heat of the sauna it started to burn my skin, so I had to take it off. (The heat transfer from the metal to my skin was much greater than from the hot air to my skin.) I couldn't deal with the steam room—I felt like I could barely breathe the thick air, but Naomi liked it a lot. The baths came in 3 flavors: 20°C (68°F) and calm, 30°C (86°F) and bubbling, and 38°C (100°F) and calm. So there was no really hot water in the building, but the thermal spa was still a very nice experience; I don't know what health benefits there were, but it was relaxing. We paid 14€ ($19) each for 3 hours, and it was pretty reasonable. There was food and massage available, but the only thing we got beyond entrance was a towel for me (3€—$4) and a bathrobe for Naomi (7€—$9).

At the end of the 3 hours we changed and headed back to the Spa train station. The region was pretty in a general way, with green rolling hills everywhere, and quaint towns nestled in. It was a nice way and place to spend the weekend.

The Girls' May Day

Like Naomi, the Girls didn't get any flowers for May Day either but they were able to get their faces painted at a flea market that was happening in a neighborhood south of the apartment. A street that was several blocks long had been shut down for the purpose and it was filled with vendors selling things like books, random household items, music, videos, clothes, crafts, toys...typical flea market really! After Naomi, Mark, Jojo and I (pushing a sleeping Amelia in the stroller) walked through the crowds and taking in the wares, we had a nice lunch on a bit of green space and Jojo somehow spotted a woman doing face painting. Naomi and Jojo headed over and I soon followed with Amelia who had just woken up from her impromptu nap. Jojo had already started her transformation into a butterfly and snapped some photos as well as took a somewhat long video of the transformation. FYI: My camera doesn't do sound so it is just a visual--don't adjust your speakers!



Of course Amelia had awoken enough at that point to request that her face also be painted but all the adults were worried that a full treatment would quickly smeared! As such, she was quickly turned into a princess. We enjoyed a dessert of ice cream (the girls), waffle (Mark), and mixed candied nuts (Jenee). Naomi managed to leave the market with only having purchased a pair of Dora socks and a pink squishy toy that stretches and lights up (which we didn't know about until later)!

Jojo's Art Open House

On this Thursday past, (the last day of April), Dan and I (as well as Amelia) were able to attend an art open house that Jojo's class at school was having in the morning. The theme of the past month has been Australia...one of Jojo's classmate's and his family recently left Belgium for Australia but we aren't sure whether or not this inspired the theme or if this is something that they study each year. No matter what the inspiration, the artwork was all Australian oriented as well as quite numerous and I was impressed with the variety of projects and media used! I have to say though that for Jojo it was a typical amount of artwork considering her passion for art but I'm sure she loved having the opportunity to do more than draw! She was definitely very proud to point out which one was hers in each grouping of projects and tell us what it was.

Anyway, I'll let the artwork speak for itself!

Toy Museum

I've been getting some mild ribbing for letting Dan do all the posting on this blog (with a very recent and some past posts by Jenee) but I've also been getting lots of compliments on the quality blog in general. Well, that's all about to change because here's a post from me!

Today is May 1st, which, as we were informed by the Fulbright folks "brings with it two traditions in Belgium and Luxembourg. The first, far older, one is the offering of muguets or meiklokjes to a loved one. Not too long ago children sold huge bouquets for next to nothing and women sometimes received them anonymously, like mysterious Valentines!" Hey! No one bought me any flowers! But, this is quite true. Nearly every other person on my trains yesterday or that I saw about and about today had single flowers, elegantly wrapped.

The second May Day tradition, La Fête du Travail or Arbeidsfeest, "actually had its origin in the United States, where an intensive campaign in favor of the 8‑hour working day was launched on May 1, 1886. The holiday is still celebrated in many countries but has been replaced in America by Labor Day in September." So, it's an official day off. I asked my colleagues in Ghent if BBQ-ing was traditional and they said no, the main thing is to do no work. :-) I couldn't even get into the University today to show my parents around (who are visiting). It's all locked up.

So that explains why I'm blogging today. What am I blogging about? Well, there was one outing last week that Dan did not join in on, so he can't blog on it and that was our visit to the Brussels Toy Museum. You really have to see it to beleive it! (see slideshow, right and maybe up). Jenee was off with her friend Heather so my parents and I took the girls on the bus -> metro -> walking to this hole-in-the-wall museum that was listed as "good for kids" in the Fodors. The exterior was extremely unremarkable. I saw the address but couldn't imagine there was a museum inside.

Turns out it's a very non-American type museum. First, you can touch nearly everything: old plastic things, balls with shoots, riding donkeys (electric and not), toy soldier sets, castles, puppets, play kitchen, etc. etc. While that may sound pretty cool, it also means nearly everything is broken and/or filthy. Even the platform that some of these things were displayed on had nails sticking out, cracks, or were just thin plexiglass. For example, the old-style foosball table was sitting on top of a plexi display case. As a consequence, kids were sitting on the case to play the game. Crazy!

You won't be surprised to learn that the girls had a great time. They rode the donkey, played in the kitchen, and fought with other kids about the ball-and-chute sets (Josephine's French is really improving!). As a parting gift, I bought Josephine a lion-handle jump rope (she's been wanting one) and bought Amelia a lion that, well, how do I describe this? You push a button on the bottom and the thing kind of collapses. Let it go and it stands up again. Remember those? Anyway, very popular gifts courtesy of Mom (i.e., me, not my mom)!

Also, by the time we left I realized we only had to take one tram to get nearly home so that was a bonus.