For The Journey Not just the destination…

When we were touring Belgium this Summer, my cousins, who also live in Europe, joined us for a couple days.  Thomas and I had a great time photographing their cute kids as we toured around, but I’m guessing that unless you’re family, you really don’t want to sit through a post of just those shots.  If you want to see them, they’re on my Flickr.  They’re really cute.

• Belgium Preview Trip – Part 2 (39 photos)

This is what we looked like most of the time.  Unfortunately, in this shot, we were riding on the elevator to check out my cousins’ car which had been broken into early in the day.  They were parked just on a regular street, next to a children’s playground, even.  It really makes me not too eager about getting a car if we live in Brussels.

We spent a lot of time walking around the city, checking out average everyday streets, looking in grocery stores, looking for neighborhood parks and pubs, etc. The grocery stores were much smaller than ours here, but they had the main staples we shop for.  We were very excited about all of the parks in Brussels – lots of green space.  We also stopped by some of the major sights in the city – the Atomium, Grand Place, and then over to Brugge.

Brugge was a bit touristy, but it was a fun town to visit. We took an hour-long train ride each way, and spent the afternoon there. There were a ton of stores on the main drag, so I got the chance to see what clothing stores look like. They have normal department stores, even H&M which we have here in Atlanta. The big difference I noticed in clothing there was that there aren’t a lot of t-shirts.  This may just be a difference from living in the suburbs than a city, but people seemed to dress a little nicer when they went out.

Overall, Belgium wasn’t looking that terrifying and didn’t look that different to live in. I think the main difference was more of living in a city rather than the suburbs. It will be interesting to live without a car, a Target, and my regular grocery store, but I’m looking forward to it.

This is another of the photos from our trip to Belgium this past Summer. I think this is one of my favorite shots – a boy with a baguette in a bag bicycles by.

Et en francais…
Un garçon avec un baguette dans un sac monte une bicyclette.

When we went to Belgium this past Summer, we took a ton of photos; however, we never posted them.  I think we were overwhelmed, not knowing if our photos were our next home, or if we’d ever be back to get better shots.  But now that we’re going to be living there in just over a month, I was finally able to weed through our collection.  I will be posting them over this week.

Thomas went to Belgium for 3 weeks in July, and I joined him for one.  I arrived the day before National Day (July 21), the Belgian equivalent to the Fourth of July.  We got up early that morning to go watch the parade – there was the Queen, a few fancy folks on horses, and bunch of cars with different flags.  Honestly, it wasn’t that impressive.  After a short walk, and an encounter with the Embassy and the police, we found the main square.

There was all kinds of things going on – booths for free samples, food, animal exhibits, tours of modern and vintage police and firetrucks, military bands, etc. My favorite part was the children’s activities. I was really amazed that rather than the stupid fair games we see in the US, their children’s games were simple thinking games. There weren’t any flashing neon lights, or prizes, and they were all free. My favorite was a balance game – stack different wooden blocks on the suspended plane without it tipping.

There was also a neat exhibit by the Customs group where they showed off items that had been illegally brought into the country and confiscated. The most interesting were the animals that had been smuggled in – some alive, and some dead – such as these seahorses.

Later in the day, we met up with one of Thomas’ coworkers and his wife and wandered around a bit. We found another children’s area where the kids could participate in physical activities. After they completed them, they won a bag of healthy snacks. We wandered around the city a bit more, watched the air show, ate dinner, and headed back to the hotel before the fireworks even went off. It was exhausting, but it was a really fun day and a great intro to the country.

You can see all of my photos from this first part of the trip on Flickr:

• Belgium Preview Trip – National Day (31 photos)