Arrial in Leuven

'Twas a long, rather uneventful journey - SFO to Atlanta, Atlanta to Brussels, short train ride from Brussels to Leuven. I can't think of a single interesting anecdote about the journey here, so I'll just put a photo Lo took of me in my window seat and we'll move on, shall we?

Leuven is a university town of about 90,000 people, and the Hansen family lives on the grounds of the seminary where Bruce teaches. Lo and I are staying in a little dorm room in a building right next to the Hansens, and walking down the hall to shower brings back fond-ish memories of freshman year in college, as does the room itself, actually. Although JJ bought us fresh tulips for the windowsill, and I'm certain I never had that in college, so that's different. The flowers here are abundant and inexpensive, and beautiful.

We visited Bruce in the hospital - a 20 minute walk from their flat - and took advantage of the nice day to go outside on the grounds and chat. It was so good to see him and hear his voice.

Afterward, we hopped on the bus to the center of town for a little shopping, walking, and a snack, in that order.

So many folks were out enjoying the unseasonable weather.

Chocolate croissant and a cappucino were a much-needed pick me up in the afternoon right when I was starting to have that delirious, sleepwalking jet lag feeling.

Today the weather was back to normal, sadly - cloudy, overcast, and tons of rain in the early hours of this morning. We did cozy and homey things together, including baking cookies (my peanut butter mini pb cup ones), playing card games (successfully taught Anna to play cribbage), and watching My Fair Lady (man do they sing a lot in that movie).

Kate, Stasia and I headed into town for a little mini-TSM, Euro edition dinner together. Belgian beef stew and beer for me. Yum. Tomorrow there are plans for a day trip to Gent, and Lo's making homemade enchiladas for dinner. It's been very low key so far, not touristy, almost like being at home, if several of my close friends all stopped work for several days and we gathered at someone's house to cook together and play games all the time. Good stuff.