2009 Review – Transition and Travel

  • December 31, 2009 8:00 AM

We’ve had a really full year, and even though I said earlier that 2009′s theme was Transition, by the end of it all, I think the real theme was Travel.  Here’s our 2009, complete with blog links. :)

January

We arrived in Belgium…to snow. We spent most of the month getting our bearings and figuring out what area we wanted to live in, while doing a couple day trips to Waterloo and Tervuren. I was very excited to see my first real protest.

February

We moved into our apartment and started getting settled.  We celebrated Valentine’s Day in Rome, and even saw the Pope (photos/post still to come). I went on some great day trips to Amsterdam, and Aalst and Binche for Carnivale.  I also discovered one of my favorite Brussels sites, the Basilica.

March

Our apartment was starting to feel like a home with a decorated bedroom and living room. We discovered the A-club and went on our first of many trips, hiking in Asse, with them. We also took the train to Germany and spent a wonderful weekend in Koln.

April

Georgy, our only house guest of the year, encouraged us to explore more of Belgium – Dinant (a fav), Brugge, and Knokke.  Thomas and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary at Het Zwin Bird Reserve.  Spring enchanted me with the beautiful bluebell forests in Hallerbos.

May

Again, more travel…while Thomas attended a company retreat in Spain, I pampered myself in Baden-Baden.  We also did a lot of exploring in The Netherlands - Queen’s Day in Amsterdam, windmills in Kinderdijk, and flowers at Keukenhof.

June

The blogging this month was seriously slacking.  We visited Geneva, Switzerland and Mont Blanc, France (photos/post coming). Then Thomas headed to the US for work, and I visited his family in Sweden.  I learned better quilting techniques and danced around the Maypole with Thomas’ mom (photos/post coming).

July

We started out with a quick camping trip in the north of France, and then headed out on a monumental 3-week motorcycle tour of Western Europe.  We stopped in Frankfurt, Berlin, Northern Bohemia, Prague, Central Bohemia, and Budapest.

August

We continued on our mototour – to Austria (a fav), Munich, Bavaria, the Romantic Road, and Ramstein where we visited my cousins.  Hmm, it looks like I never finished posting the photos for some of those.  I also had a great Girl’s Weekend in the cute little towns of Volendam and Markem.

September

Hurray!  I finally received my Belgian permanent resident card.  We celebrated by searching for storks.  After no luck on our trip to Champagne, we tried the easier route at Parc Paradisio, outside of Mons. We also went camping with the A-club in the ancient Roman city of Trier.

October

I celebrated my 31st birthday with a trip to Morocco – my first time in Africa.  We flew into Fez, drove through the Middle Atlas Mountains, through the desert and gorges, and on to Marrakesh where we flew back home.  It was a wonderful trip full of new cultures, beautiful scenery, and tasty food.

November

I finally got to return to the US to fill up on friends, family, food, Clover snuggles, and shopping.  We spent a couple days in Atlanta, Thanksgiving week in the NC mountains with my family, and then made a quick stop in Raleigh to see our niece and nephew.

December

We continued our US tour for a week each in Oregon and California.  We got to do some skiing, explore the Oregon coast, and visit San Francisco and Monteray Bay.  We headed back to a snowy Brussels for a quick change of clothes and then up to Sweden for Christmas.

It has been a wonderful and fun-packed year full of lots of travel and adventures.  I hope yours was too.  Happy New Year!

Christmas in Sweden

  • December 30, 2009 12:12 PM

Last time I visited Sweden for Christmas (before Thomas and I were married), I felt a little overwhelmed…with the cold, the dark, the different traditions, and without my family for the holiday. This time though, at least in afterthought, I’m seeing winter-Sweden in a little different light.  Literally too — we had daylight only from 9:30AM – 3:30PM, but a couple feet of snow really helped reflect the light.

The days before Christmas, Thomas and his brother took me to downtown Stockholm where I was amazed by the great shopping. Stores were open late and I found several shops where I could have looked for much longer. I’m starting to appreciate Swedish design – clean lines, natural fibers, traditional prints. It does go beyond Ikea. :)

Downtown Stockholm

I also found some appreciation in the different holiday traditions. There were a couple dishes that Thomas’ mom made that I hope to try my hand at – bulla (saffron buns), rotmos (mashed parsnip and carrots), and rice pudding. We didn’t do it this year, but Thomas’ family used to have a tradition of making gingerbread houses  – sounds fun to me!

Fresh-baked Bulla

Along with most of Sweden, we watched the Kalle Anka (Donald Duck) Christmas Special on Christmas Eve. The mix of Disney short clips has been showing every year since the ’60s – same channel, same time.  It’s the most watched show of the year there. I was surprised to hear even a 70-year old say he was going to watch it.

Snowy Neighborhood

The other tradition I enjoyed seems to be a dying tradition, probably due to people traveling more and moving further out.  On Christmas Eve morning, we delivered small gifts to nearby friends and family. Thomas jokes that this is a chore, but I did enjoy it. And it was a great opportunity to peek inside some Swedish homes. I think it’s a really nice gesture to spend time delivering gifts to loved ones before Kalle Anka, Christmas dinner, and unwrapping presents.

Dallas and Thomas

Thomas and I haven’t had a Christmas by ourselves yet, but especially when we have kids, we’re going to need to be sure to incorporate traditions from both sides of our families. We already have some conflicts – his side opens presents on Christmas Eve, and mine on Christmas Day – but the other traditions I mentioned could easily be included.

If you’d like to see more of the photos (and a video) from our holiday in Sweden, I’ve posted them online:

P.S. I guess now that I’ve posted my Christmas in Sweden photos, I’m way overdue for my May Day in Sweden post. I will have to get right on that… :)

It Really Does Snow in Brussels

  • December 28, 2009 12:30 PM

Between our US and Sweden trips, we had a few days to wash clothes and repack in Belgium, and to our surprise, it snowed!  Despite the stories I’ve been told that it never snows in Brussels, we got a few inches.  Thanks to public transportation, Thomas and I ventured around town.

Thomas and Dallas in the snowy park

We headed downtown for the Brussels Christmas Market.  Many cities in Europe hold handcraft markets throughout December – Brussels’ seemed to focus on knit hats, jewelry, and food items.  We enjoyed the food, trying boudin blanc (white sausage), waffles, frites with mayonnaise, croustillions (doughnut holes), apple cider, hot chocolate, and Christmas beer.  Our favorite part was along Brussels’ Chinatown, where there were Himalayan throat singers and yurts selling traditional Tibetian crafts.

Dallas has traditional Belgian frites - with mayonnaise, in a paper cone, with a fork

We also decided to head to our local Sunday market at Weiner Place.  Many of the booths were closed, but we found a few that were using the snow to  keep their produce chilled.  We grabbed some lunch at a nearby pizza place, and then went for a walk through a couple nearby parks.  It was fun to see all the people out enjoying the snow – we even saw some trying out cross-country skis and snowshoes.

Snowy Produce for sale

I just have to share this photo because this is the most popular Christmas decoration outside Brussels apartments.  They’re little Santa dolls that are set up to look like they’re crawling in the windows.  In Belgium, children leave their shoes out on December 5th for Sinterklaas, and his assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), to fill with candy.  The kids leave carrots for Sinterklaas’ horse, and Zwarte Piet climbs down the chimney (hence the black face) to leave the gifts, or if they’ve been bad, leave them sticks, or kidnap them and take them to Spain.

Brussels' main apartment Christmas decoration

Anyway, if you’d like to see more of our photos, they’re on PicasaWeb:

A Week in the Bay Area, California

  • December 26, 2009 11:44 AM

The final destination of our US Tour was in California. We spent a week in Mountain View where Thomas worked at his company’s mothership. On the weekend, we toured San Francisco and Monterey where we saw the major sights and visited a couple friends.

Thomas jumps in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

Mountain View seems like a decent town for some, but not my first choice in where I would want to live. Especially after living in Belgium where life seems very focused on family, Mountain View felt very focused on “the career.” That’s not such a bad thing if you love your career, and in Thomas’ case, he does… I’m not confident that my current life of being a stay-at-home wife would be able to hold it’s own there. It felt like a place where there is a lot of pressure to strive for excellence, and not a lot of time to let your hair down.

San Francisco Trolly

During the week, I was without a car so I entertained myself on the Mountain View main drag, Castro Street, where there was a tram to San Francisco, free public Wi-fi, and more Asian restaurants than I’ve ever seen in one place.  I particularly enjoyed the bubble tea shop – one of my favorite treats that you can’t find in Belgium.

Rocks at Point Lobos State Reserve

On the day we went to San Francisco, it rained all day. We checked out the Golden Gate Bridge and the beautiful hills in the nearby Marin Headlands. We had a delicious seafood lunch at the Fisherman’s Wharf. Unfortunately, the sea lions were hiding from the rain. We also drove through Chinatown, Haight-Asbury, and ended up at Golden Gate Park where we visited the Bizarre Bazaar Craft Show. I would really love to come back to San Fran sometime when I have a few days to just explore the different areas of the city.

Bixby Creek Arch Bridge in Big Sur

The next day, we headed to Monterey, a trendy town on the coast. We visited our past minister’s new church and one of Thomas’ longtime friends gave us a photographic tour of the best sights – Point Lobos State Reserve, Bixby Bridge in Big Sur, and the Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey. This area was beautiful and I really look forward to visiting again when I have more time to let it all soak in.

Seals and Birds at the Monterey Fisherman's Wharf

At the end of the week, we caught a double red-eye back to Belgium, and boy did the jetlag get the better of us…

I’ve posted the rest of the photos from this part of our trip online. I’m trying out Picasa, Google’s photo site, so if you’re a regular viewer of my “more photos”, please let me know how you like it.

Searching for Goonies

  • December 14, 2009 8:59 PM

One of the first blogs I ever read, and still read, is Running Stitch.  She was a crafty mama of a toddler living in a fern and tree-covered area in Washington.  I loved reading about her creative activities and close-knit family life.  She said she started reading my blog then too – I was in grad school in Indiana and had just started learning to sew.  While we were in Oregon two weekends ago, we met up.

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Cannon Beach

Stitch (she uses nicknames on her blog) and her family (her toddler is now 5 and she has a 3 year old too) met us out on the Oregon coast for a little hiking at Ecola State Park.  We thought about doing a geocache, but unfortunately ended up in a geocache-less park.  We did, however, stumble upon a letterbox (similar to a geocache but without coordinates).

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Stitch, The Man, Moo and Wah

The park was beautiful.  There were huge trees, big enough for Peter Pan-playing little boys to hide in, and a gorgeous view of Cannon Beach, where parts of the Goonies Movie was filmed.  Remember the shape of the key and where the pirate ship came out? That’s the Haystack Rock.  We hiked for a while and had a great time – Stitch and her husband are just as interesting as they sound on their blog, and their boys are tons of fun.

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Haystack Rock

After we parted ways, Thomas and I headed off to the beach to get a closer look at the Haystack Rock – and find a geocache.  We found the rock, the cache, and a really awesome quilt shop too!  The sunset was gorgeous and we had a lot of fun doing gymnastics and making silly silhouette photos on the beach, all the while, calling out, Hey you guys….

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Thomas jumps!

It was a wonderful day and I truly hope I get to meet up with Stitch and her family again someday.  I’ve posted more photos online, and Stitch posted on her blog about our meeting too.