Beer, Chocolate and Coffins

Saturday November 24, 2007

We got up fairly early (although not as early as on Friday), got to take a nice long, hot shower (which we can't do at our flat nowadays.... trying to work with our landlord to get that fixed) and went downstairs to have a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a really nice buffet filled with waffles, tons of pastries and breads, cereals, yogurts, hot foods (the mushrooms were excellent), fruit and other stuff. After that, we checked out of the hotel and headed to pick up a Sightseeing bus.

We didn't have to wait too long, and rode the bus out to the Atomium. That is a huge replica of a metal molecule that was built for the 1958 Universal Exposition. It was much larger than we imagined, but still small when you compare it to something like the Eiffel Tower.

Greg with the Atomium in the background:


While we were there, we went to Mini Europe. It sounds really cheesy, and to some degree it is, but not as much as we expected. They have tons of models of famous landmarks from all over Europe. It was interesting and gave us a chance to map out things we'd like to see in other countries.

No, we didn't jet over to Paris, this is the miniature Eiffel Tower:


The most impressive model there was this one of Sacre Couer from Paris:


After we finished with Mini Europe, we hopped the sightseeing bus back into town until we made it back to Grand Place. Our first stop was to Leonidas, a chocolate shop that's supposed to be pretty good. We bought a few pieces of candy to bring back and went into a store called 250 Beers. I wish we could have spent more time there, but it was getting late and we wanted to grab some lunch. We ended up eating at 't Kelderke which was in the cellar of another restaurant. It was fairly small, but the food and service both were excellent. I had the Flemish beef and onion stew, which is braised in beer, and frites (french fries). Tami had cheese croquettes and a bowl of frites.

The interior of 't Kelderke. This is the entire restaurant.


After lunch, we went to a pub that Tami had read about while doing research on the web for our trip. It was called Le Cercueil bar, which translates into "The Morgue". It was a tiny theme bar decorated with coffins and lots of black. It was really dark when you walk in and they have black lights so everything white glows. The table we sat at was a coffin with a glass top. We both had a beer and it and it came in a ceramic skull mug. It was a pretty interesting place.

After we finished our beer, we walked over to the Sablon region and looked around the antique shops and market that was setup there. We didn't really find anything we couldn't live without, but Sablon has a lot of chocolate shops as well, so we went to Whittamers to get some tea and chocolate. Whittamers is a pretty popular chocolate shop in the area, and they have a restaurant. We both got tea and split a selection of chocolate cakes which was delicious. Now, fully stuffed with food, we walked to the nearest Metro station and rode it back to the train station to head back to London.

Our chocolate cakes:

In Brussels, but no sprouts in sight

Friday, November 23, 2007

We haven't traveled anywhere in awhile and decided it was time, we don't have another trip for three weeks, so we found a great deal online to go to Brussels, so we decided to go. We got up early this morning for an 8 am train to Belgium. When we arrived it was almost 11 am Brussels time, we decided to find our hotel to drop off bags before doing any sight-seeing. It was cold and a little rainy but still worth it.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel, a 5 star hotel that we got a great deal on, it was only 59 Euros a night. When we checked in we noticed the board on the wall that said the cheapest rooms were 499 Euros per night, woo hoo! After dropping off the bags we headed to the concierge desk to get a recommendation for lunch. The concierge pointed us to The Staff, a french restaurant. We were a little hesitant because the entire menu was in French, we had to try to figure out words from our translation book. The waitress came over and was extremely friendly to us, she helped us decipher the menu for the most part. We ended up eating penne pasta with ham, tomatoes and parmesan cheese and a curry chicken stir-fry with vegetables and sharing a half bottle of wine. It was actually very good, it was our best meal that we had while in Brussels.

Finally, we were off to see some sites. We took the bus out to Manneken Pis, the fountain of the peeing boy. This is probably the most famous thing in Brussels. He has over 600 costumes that they can put on him, and when he is wearing a costume he pees beer instead of water, oh well, no costume this time. He was actually much smaller than I had thought he would be.

Here is Manneken Pis, isn't he cute.



Next it was over to Grand Place, the big square in Brussels. We walked around here for a bit and then through the Galeries Royales de Saint-Hubert, a very upscale shopping arcade built in 1847. We did buy some chocolate but that was it.

This is the Maison du Roi (a Medieval style "kings house" set in Grand Place, though no king ever actually lived there). The crane is them putting up decorations for Christmas.



This is the Statue of Everard 't Serclaes (the myth is that you stroke the limbs for good luck, which we did, we are keeping our fingers crossed as well)



Next, we were off to the chocolate museum, yummy! We got a few samples and the lady who did the demonstration was fabulous to watch and listen to. She had such a great personality and knew her stuff.

Here is our chocolate lady with a 5 kilo block of chocolate:



The next stop was made at the Costume museum, I did enjoy it better than the one in Bath. All of the dresses were made by the same designer between 1989 and 2004, while some seemed to be from the early 80's. The drawings of the designs were neat to look at as well.

We ventured on to The Comic Strip Museum (Centre Belga de la Banda Dessinee) after a few wrong turns. I was so happy to find a Smurf statue in the lobby, I had hopes that I would see some comics of them. Most of the strips there were Dutch strips, so we couldn't read them but we finally got to a section of Jonah Et Pirlouit by Peyo in which the Smurfs were originally introduced in the 50's, I had no idea. They even had their own spin off comic book series before becoming so popular in the states as a cartoon. We really enjoyed going there.

Tami with the Baby Smurf statue:




It was time to rest and have a drink so we went to A La Mort Subite, a pub that I had read about that is supposed to be one of the best "fruit" beer bars. We each had 2 beers and split a plate of fromagge (cheese). Greg had 2 Trappist beers while I had a Cherry beer and a Faro (beer with candy sugar), they were all good. Next, we decided to walk to La Bella Maraichere, an upscale French/Belgium restaurant. We got there but really were not that hungry to pay that much for food, plus it was mainly fancy seafood, we were in the mood for something a little more low key. So, we decided to go back to Chi-Chi's, a Tex-Mex chain from the States, that we had passed a few blocks back. It was not Frontera but I guess it will do.

Time to go relax at the hotel, they have an indoor heated pool and hot tub, yes! We swam some laps, relaxed in the hot tub, swam some more laps, and relaxed a little more. We then decided to go have a drink in the hotel bar. They just so happened to have had a jazz band playing, so it was super relaxing, have a drink and listening to some jazz. At this time it was nearly 11 pm, we were ready to go to bed and get rested for day two.

Happy Turkey Day!

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we went to Bodeans, an American BBQ place, to have a Turkey dinner. While it was pretty good, it was definitely not an American style Thanksgiving and we were left craving real Thanksgiving food. However, there was pumpkin pie that was pretty good, so that made it worthwhile.


The pumpkin pie that made the meal complete.


We also found a place in town that sells some American food and bought a few things to remind us of home (most notably, Pop Tarts and grape Jelly,) although we plan to make a journey back to buy more stuff when we have more time.


Our American foods bounty... we even got Cranberry Sauce for later since Bodeans didn't include it in the Thanksgiving meal.

October Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Greg.Ware/October2007?authkey=kFNFaMWE6o8

Look Kids.... Big Ben.... Parliament

On Wednesday we started out seeing some sights from Harry Potter. We went to the Australia House, which was used for Gringott's bank in the first movie. We then went to Somerset House which was used in Sleepy Hollow as turn of the centry New York. It was being set up for ice skating for Christmas which seemed cool. We went to have lunch with some of our relatives from New Zealand, Dan and Rebecca. It was great meeting them. We had lunch at Pizza Express, which had really good pizza.

Tami and me with one of the lions at Leicester Square


We tthen went to Victoria's Station to see the place we stayed the last time we were in London. We then went to see Big Ben, Parliment, and Westminster Abbey. The abbey was very cool. There are quite a few important people buried there, including Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. My favorite part was poet's Corner, which had several poet's buried there and tributes to many others. We then took a river cruise up and down the Thames at night. It was very pretty with all of the lights. Then Greg, Tami, and I rode the London Eye. As many of you know I am terrified of heights, but I did fine with riding the eye, I did sit down most of the time, but I did enjoy the views at night. By the way, they were one of the few places that were doing something to celebrate Halloween. They got a kick out of Tami's flashing devil horns and my cat ears.

The London Eye


London Bridge from the Thames cruise



Tami, Greg and me ready for Halloween


Big Ben.... Parliament. From the London Eye


We then ate at a place called Slug and Lettuce, where I had my first taste of Fruli. It is a wonderful strawberry flavored beer. I loved it!!!! Then we headed home and packed for our trip home. We had a great time in London and seeing Greg, Tami, Chewy, Willow, and Daisy. We can't wait to see them again!!

Paris, the city of Wares

We got up really early Tuesday morning and rode the train to Paris. Paris was absolutely amazing. I never thought I would get to see Paris in person, and it was more amazing than I could have imagined. We started at La Madeline, which was a really beautiful old church. We rode on a hop on hop off bus to get around and it was open to the sky. Even though it was a little cold, we braved the top to take in the spectacular views.

We rode the bus over to the Louvre first. The Louvre was closed on Tuesdays, but we had not planned to go in anyway because it takes several days to see anything. The outside was very cool. The palace part was beautiful and the pyramids looked really neat. We had lunch at a cafe on Ponte Neuf. I got a croquet monsieur, which is a ham and cheese sandwich covered with melted cheese, very safe but very good.

We then went to Notre Dame, which was Huge!!! It took quite a while to go through, but was worth the trip. The stain glass was amazing. We bought some really good crepes off of a street vendor.
Stained Glass window from Notre Dame (a puzzle Mom and Kaye did)


The family at the back of Notre Dame


We then walked up part of the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. It was a lot bigger than I imagined. The detail was great and we really enjoyed it. We rode around to the Trocadero, which gave us a great view of the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing.

My brother and me at the Trocadero with the view of the Eiffel Tower


Eating candy floss with Tami in front of the Eiffel Tower


We were a little short on time, so we headed back to the train. Our day in Paris was wonderful!!

Mom and Dad on the Open Top bus going through the streets of Paris