Lots of Stair Climbing Means We Deserve Lots of Delicious Food, Right?

Street flower shop, Ile St. Louis

Because today we climbed around 1000 stairs, and we also ate some pretty yummy stuff.

We set out to do a walking tour a la Rick Steves, but were quickly side-tracked by our decision to climb to the top of the Notre Dame tour for some amazing views of the city. It was worth the 405 steps (Anna counted), for sure.

Kate, on the walk to Notre Dame, listening (and singing softly along to), Les Mis. Something she and I have been doing together for about 12 years or so.

It was super awkward when we ran into these two lovebirds near the top of the tower. Get a room, geez.

After climbing down and walking around the little park near Notre Dame, we momentarily skipped lunch in order to partake of Berthillon ice cream cones, a locally made, exceptionally delicious treat. Everyone declared their particular choice the best they'd ever had.

Then, real lunch. Crepes taken back to the park, and little free public wi-fi, with the shouts of schoolchildren in the air and the wind blowing flower petals on us in little gusts. We visited the Crypt of Notre Dame after lunch, which is actually not creepy at all but rather a visual lesson in the city's thousands of years of history. Kate and I have a new plan of attack at these types of major attractions: she gets a brochure/guide in Spanish and I get one in English. Then, we take turns, the person with the Spanish guide reading out loud their best attempt at translating on the spot. As Kate said at one point, "We're having fun and learning too!" A girl after my own heart, for sure.

We split up after that, and Loretta, Kate and I stopped to see Sainte Chappelle. I hardly feel like posting photos, since they are so poor compared to the jaw-dropping effect of being in a room with all that 13th century stained glass.

Here's another notable quote from today, this time from Lo, who is pictured below seated while waiting for the security line at Ste. Chappelle. She's a very seasoned traveler with tired feet, and she takes every opportunity to rest them. Pretty smart, I guess.

Anyway there was a sign posted warning us that we must leave behind any sharp objects before entering. To which Loretta said, "I hope they don't make me leave behind my wit!"

After a rest, dinner was at one of the best, if not the best, falafel places in Paris, L'As du Falafel.

Perfect. A lounge in the park and then a trip up to Montmartre to see the sun go down and the city light up for the night capped off a pretty lovely day.

One small p.s. - not one, but two Parisians complemented my French today. I was, um, pretty happy about that.

Nous sommes ici, en Paris!

Loretta, Anna, Kate and I arrived on the fast train from Brussels around mid-morning yesterday. Wes and Bora met us outside their apartment, and after we all stumbled up the 98 stairs to their top-floor digs, we collapsed in a heap. Then, we rallied, especially since they had prepared a picnic for us, so we headed out to enjoy bread, camembert, roast chicken, and some leftover Belgian chocolate we'd brought along. We couldn't believe the excellent weather, and neither could a lot of other folks who were picnicking and laying about in the gardens in front of the Louvre. Bora and Anna, with La Tour Eiffel in the background.

The little neighborhood park just steps from our apartment. I took another picture of a group of nannies gathered with their charges since it reminded me so much of Berkeley.

Next, we headed to buy our 6 day museum passes and then to the Louvre. I know many of you have been there, but some haven't, and I think really the sheer hugeness of the place just can't be captured in pictures. It is truly an amazing place.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Anna looking at one of the biggest paintings in the whole place, The Coronation of Napoleon.

Amazed by Michelangelo

Imitating Michelangelo's Dying Slave

Leaving the Louvre, for now...we'll be back.

A little street shot from our walk home.

Brussels, Chocolate, Belgian TV

Lo and I headed in to Brussels today for a little excursion. If I had to summarize, I'd say the following about Brussels, at least the touristy, old town bits:
-It's a charming city, and doesn't feel that big and overwhelming.
-As the ubiquitous Starbucks is to SF, NYC, and many other cities, so are chocolate shops to Brussels. Each major chain seemed to have an outlet every few blocks.
-Its art museum was a pretty big disappointment, though I did see a few highlights that I'm glad I had the chance to see. I really like Breugel's Landscape With the Fall of Icarus.
-The peeing-boy statue is tiny, and it is baffling to me why it's such a big hit.

That said, here's a video of the Grand Place (weather was chilly and windy today), and a few photo highlights of the day:

Flowers for sale right on the Grand Place.

Lo being a dork in Neuhas, one of the top chocolate shops. Every shop was completely decked out for Easter.

Lo joined the joggers at the main city park for a few moments. Kudos to this gentleman for posing so nicely.

I don't even know the price, but so fancy! Little mini macarons all around. I hope it tastes as good as whatever it costs.

The obligatory photo with the Mannekin Pis.

We stopped in at the 4 top chocolate shops and bought the same type of chocolate at each one. We had plans for a blind taste test tonight.

Prepping for the test.

Something about feeding someone things while their eyes are closed struck us all as very funny and, soon after this picture was taken, Kate laughed so hard she, um, lost some of what she was testing. On my hand.

Stasia's turn.

In the end, we all picked the two most expensive chocolates, Godiva and Neuhaus, as our top two picks. In this case, quality really did seem to match slightly increased prices. The hazelnut milk chocolate from Godiva was so delicious. Good thing I can just buy it at Bay St. when I get home. :)

And I'll sign off with this little gem, brought to you by Anna, Kayla, and Belgian television:

"Wait, where is this bus going?"

I'll start the blog post where we started our day - on the train. Today the Reeds, Lo, and I headed about an hour away from Leuven to visit Ghent. From our extremely cursory research, it seemed that Ghent was famous, touristically at least, for a church, a castle, pretty canals, and a cone-shaped raspberry jelly-filled snack. We had loose plans to experience 4 of 4.

But first, the train. Between playing my new game Fluxx, old games like BS and gin rummy, and electronic devices, we were quite entertained. And though we tried to be appropriately hushed in the proper European train manner, at one point we looked up and realized that we were the only ones left in the whole car. We told ourselves that this was simply because all the commuters had disembarked in Brussels. Then we told ourselves that again for extra reinforcement.


We even broke out snacks on the train. Anna volunteered to try the vegetable leather my mom sent along with me. It wasn't (too) bad.
Once we hopped off in Ghent we realized it was quite a walk to the center of town. It was a pleasant enough, but nonetheless we made plans to figure out how to take public transit back later that day. We lunched and headed for the castle, but on the way we stopped to try the special raspberry Ghent "noses". (that's what the guy who sold them to us called them.) Loretta didn't like them so much. Neither did most of our group, though Wes, Kate, and I gamely ate two.

Kate and I stopped to pose for pictures at the canal, and I was trying to get the perfect shot with just her and the peaceful background. I didn't succeed, but I kind of like this picture better anyway:
As castles go, it was remarkably well-reconstructed, if a bit short on informational history signs along the way. Instead, it had a rather dark emphasis on the history of torture in the castle. Kate and Bora took a moment to ponder this:

In keeping with the torture theme, we soon found a model guillotine, complete with original blade, and Anna of course pretended to be its victim. (Note sticking out tongue).

We finished the castle tour with a stroll around the ramparts, watched some Belgian school children dressed like knights on a field trip, and headed out to sit by the sunny canal and have some chocolate.


While sitting, we saw boats loading up for tours, and on a whim decided to hop in. The price was good, the scenery was great.

Also, the guide's voice and the thrumming engine were peaceful and relaxing enough that Bora and I both did this for at least a little while:


Since we'd added in the boat tour, we had to skip the church in order to hop a tram for the train station and make it to our 2:24 pm train back to Leuven. That all went without a hitch, and in an hour, we were right back at the Leuven bus station where we'd started. We rushed over the number 8 bus which we knew would take us back to the Hansens'.

But it was strange. At first things seemed familiar, then they didn't so much. Then they REALLY didn't, but we kept hoping that the bus was just taking a slightly different route to the stop we were expecting. Then I saw the road sign with "Leuven" and a red slash through the name, meaning we were officially out of town. A kind young woman in front of us couldn't help but overhear our increasingly confused conversation about where we might be and where we'd end up, and so we told her and asked for help. She made an "oh dear, you're wanting to be where?" face, and told us we needed to just hop off, wait by the other side of the road for the next bus, and ride all they way back to the station and start again. Mind you, we were in a very rural-feeling village by now, so we sheepishly (ha!) thanked her and hopped off. Bora called JJ to let her know we'd be very late, everyone tried to look on the bright side (it's beautiful out here! what a nice ride we had!), and I took a picture of the group:

Yep, those are fields out there behind us.

Finally we made our way back, Bora and I stopped off for a nice visit at the hospital with Bruce, and Lo made her enchiladas, and all was well. We've learned from our mistake, and next time we promise to listen to what JJ told us and wait at the correct platform, no matter how much of a rush we're in.

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.