Sometimes We All Judge a Book by the Cover...

...just like sometimes we judge a drink by the glass. You know martini night with the girls wouldn't be nearly as much fun if those festive, bright-colored drinks came in boring tumblers.

Belgian beer makers are snobs about their glasses, too. And rightfully so, it's not like they are serving Miller Lite over here. Sometimes when I go into a bar I want to tell the bartender I will have whatever comes in "that glass". But that would be so un-beer-sophisticated of me.

So instead I spent hours pouring over Belgian beers and glasses on the internet to find out the name of the beer that has a monopoly on "that glass". You know "that glass"; it the one with the bulbous bottom that needs its own wooden stand to stay upright. The all too collectible glass that sometimes requires your shoe as a deposit, that is "that glass". And I wanted a beer served in "that glass".

Kwak

Kwak is the beer that comes in "that glass". And the Beerhuis on the Water served it in "that glass". It was a definite on our list of sites to see in Gent.
The beer was nothing special, but it came in "that glass". Maybe next time they will give a Duvel served in "that glass".

Soups On!

When we find a restaurant we like, we keep going back. And that was definitely the case for the gem we found in Gent this weekend - the Souplounge.For €3.50 you got a huge bowl of just-made, homemade soup with rolls and an apple! To start you get a choice between four bases; our choices were tomato, mushroom, broccoli, and a word I couldn't translate. Then you either ask for all the toppings or choose between chicken sausage, fresh parsley, fresh chopped veggies, grated cheese, and croutons. We picked broccoli and mushroom and took it with the works.

Nothing could have been more delicious! Perfect for a cold day spent walking around the old town center!

Anticipating Antwerp

We left Leuven Sunday morning with plans to hop off the train in Antwerp and spend the day there before continuing home. Our list was long and I was ready for a more exciting day. Unfortunately, Antwerp was a little colder than we had bargained for, but we were here and we were going to see it.

We started our day with a walk through the general and live animal markets. I had thoughts of buying a lamb to bring back to our apartment to snuggle with when it is cold, but all we found were live birds and bunnies. And while I am now okay with fresh from the farm, don't need be refrigerated eggs, I think I will pass on the fresh from the farm chicken that still needs to be killed and defeathered.
There were also tons of beautiful birds needing new homes and they were tempting. But then I remembered that we have enough trouble sleeping between the wind and the fireworks and don't need to add a squawking bird to that orchestra.
Next we were off to the Mode Museum; Antwerp claims to be the fashion capital of Europe and this was their fashion museum. I think Matt only agreed to go in to escape the howling wind. The current exhibit features Maison Martin Margiela, a fashion company created by a Belgian stylist in Paris. The exhibit was wonderfully done and the clothes, for the most part, were beautiful and original. My favorite concept was how they would make a shoe and then cover it in another color. As you wore the shoe the second layer of paint would wear off and the under color would show through. This ensured no two pairs were alike, since the paint would wear off based on how often you wore them, how you walked, and what you did in the shoes.

Since we were in an art mode, we decided to see the local art. And by local art, I mean graffiti. Antwerp has something going on. There is a park where graffiti is legal and encouraged - hopefully this saves the rest of their 300 year-old buildings from spray paint.
I don't really understand Europe and the graffiti. You are lucky enough to have dozens of buildings in every town that would make the historical register in any US city and, yet, you allow them to become covered in graffiti. And it isn't even good graffiti - not even graffiti good enough to grace the 34th Street wall in Gainesville. I wonder if what Antwerp is doing is working. Now if they could just do something about the dog poop on the sidewalks!
By now our hands were frozen and our cheeks were pink from wind burn, so we headed into the warm oasis of a Portuguese restaurant. Lunch was lovely and dessert was divine. I don't know what it was, but it was a lot of chocolate, banana, whip creme, pastry goodness. We were warm, full, and not ready to go back outside. And upon leaving the restaurant to re-enter the frigid city, we decided Antwerp was only an hour and half away by train and we would finish our list on a warmer day.

Lovely Leuven...Seriously

In a country known for chocolate, that has over 300 micro-brews, and considers waffles acceptable food for three meals a day plus snacks, it is impossible to have a bad visit. We made sure we experienced all three during our visit:

Chocolate

We snuck Galler's chocolate bars into the movie theater - way better than over-priced M&Ms. The dark chocolate with Grand Marnier filling is to die for and the milk chocolate with sweet coffee filling is absolutely delish! (Sorry about the lack of chocolate photos, but we didn't think it was wise to call attention to the fact we were sneaking food into the movie theater.)

Beer
We visited the Domus Restaurant and Brewery, where we sampled all three of their brews: Con Domus, Nostra Domus, and their special winter brew - Engel. My favorite was the Nostra Domus - a dark beer with a light flavor; the Con Domus was too bitter for me.

Waffles
Forget a sandwich for lunch, I enjoyed a Belgian waffle with warm cherries and a side of whip cream. My pants are thankful we aren't living the land of endless waffles.

Lovely Leuven

I did my homework. I bought Benelux weekend return tickets on sale, picked out a lovely hostel, and researched the "must-see" sites - all five of them. I was not deterred; every weekend does not need to be jammed-packed and we were due a relaxing one.

Unfortunately, the big "must-see" site was soon crossed off the list, as I learned the weekend we were visiting Leuven, the Stella Artois brewery was only giving tours in Dutch. No big deal, we still had one brewery, a church, a town hall, and a garden to peruse. Plus, it meant we could sleep in until 7am, hop on the train, and still be in the Leuven by 10am when the town would start to come to life.

After arriving in Leuven, we made our way to the tourist office to get a map and find out where the movie theaters were in town (our fail-safe cold night activity). We were greeted by a lovely lady, who was eager to show us all the wonderful things Leuven had to offer. She offered us a set of maps for a mere Euro that had two walking tours, a bonus detour, and 76 sites of interest. 76 sites! I had only found 5.

I happily handed over my Euro and we walked out the door to discover Leuven.

We started at #10, so we wouldn't have to back track and with 76 sites I was sure we could skip a few. We were promptly greeted with a wall of construction and no #10 (College of Liege) in sight. It's okay, we could walk right around the corner and visit #11-15. Except we walked right into another wall of construction. However, someone had kindly cut holes in the barriers to allow us to see through - to more construction.
Hey - wait. What's that? It that a bug stuck on an upside down needle? Why? More importantly, why isn't that on my tour?

We passed some "friendship" statues (#20-22) the men of a town erect on their 40th birthdays when they join the Jaartal, but before they are an Abraham, and came upon "the beautiful parks". Well, I am sure they are beautiful in the spring, summer, and fall when there might be a tinge of green somewhere on the hectare , but right now the most interesting thing was the levels of broken ice on the ponds.

I was starting to feel like I should have spent my Euro on a waffle.

After passing countless old building that in other towns would definitely have not made the walking tour, we reached a chapel for women with crying babies. Ummm...don't all babies cry?
More old buildings, more statues.

And then finally, the star of the show: The Great Beguiage. It seems every Flemish town has one of these - an old courtyard surrounded by buildings and a church that were reserved for the use of women of faith. This one happens to be the largest we have seen yet and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I wonder if that stops the rambunctious activities of today's inhabitants - the university students.












Having seen enough of the sites of Leuven, we abandoned the tour and went off in search of dinner.

Happy Sinterklaas!

In recent weeks, Albert Heijn (our grocery store) began decorating their cash registers with cardboard cut-outs that a reasonable but uniformed foreigner might easily mistake for Somali pirates. But they weren't Somali pirates - though that would be exciting - they were Zwarte Pieten ("Black Petes").

A pirate, a Somali pirate, and Black Pete

Black Pete(s) is(are) the sidekick(s) of Sinterklaas, which as a reasonable but uniformed American I might declare the Dutch version of Santa Claus. In reality the opposite is true. Since Sinterklaas is dropping off presents this evening, now is as good a time as any to compare the legends of Santa Claus and Sinterklaas.

Santa Claus	Sinterklaas
Brings children presents on the eve of December 25th	Brings children presents on the eve of December 5th
Leaves the presents in children's stockings	Leaves the presents in children's [wooden] shoes
Has a white beard and dresses in a red suit	Has a white beard and dresses in a red bishop's dress
Has a belly that shakes like a bowl fully of jelly	Not so much
Arrives in America via a flying sled from the North Pole	Arrives in The Netherlands/Belgium via a boat from Spain
Is assisted by an army of elves	Is assisted by an army of Zwarte Pieten
Gives naughty children a lump of coal	Takes naughty children back with him to Spain
Who wins the Google Fight?

You might think that it sounds silly for a jolly old man bearing presents to come from Spain, but does it really make more sense for him to come from the North Pole?

Watch Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Pieten arrive and stock the local Albert Heijn with delicious pepernoten.

(And finally, because I know you're wondering: Yes, the roles of the Zwarte Pieten are always played by white people in black face. If this bothers you, then you are probably not Dutch.)

The Manneken Pis

The Manneken Pis, or the perpetually peeing infant, is a tourist landmark in Brussels if there ever was one. Originally designed to provide drinking water to the neighborhood, the statue has become an icon of the city. Even visiting dignitaries get into the fun by bringing the statue costumes that represent their culture, customs, and causes. The little guy even has an Elvis Presley costume! On the day we visited, the Manneken was wearing a white ribbon to commemorate the death of Puccini.

2000+ Beers

We finished Saturday night at Delirium Cafe, which boasts a stock of over 2000 beers. It was a warm friendly bar, located right off "restaurant row". Rush past the high pressure sales pitches of waiters hawking mussels and fries, and step into a bar anyone could appreciate in their home town.

Matt started off with a Kenyan inspired, African-Belgium beer, Mongozo Banana and finished with a Hercule Stout. I kept with the season and sampled the Gouden Carollus Christmas beer and the Delirium Christmas beer. At the rate of two beers a night, it would take use over 3 years to sample all the beers available in the bar.

It was the perfect end to the perfect day.

Brussels Christmas Market

Lights on buildings, Christmas trees, warm Kriek beer, ice skating in the square, Ferris wheels, Merry-Go-Rounds, carolers singing, mulled Christmas wine, crafts, snow...

It's time for Christmas Markets!

We planned our trip to Brussels to coincide with the Christmas Markets and it was definitely the highlight of my trip!












Warm Kriek Beer & the view from the top of the Ferris Wheel.













Ice Skating in the square.

Art Nouveau & Comics

Brussels is home to two often forgotten arts: Art Nouveau and comics.

Brussels is the capital of Art Nouveau, with the first two Art Nouveau buildings being built here in 1893 by Victor Horta and Paul Hanker. The movement of Art Nouveau, the merging of applied art and fine art, sought to combine function and art into every part of life: architecture, furniture, textiles, household appliances, art, etc. It is recognizable by the curved lines, stained-glass windows, flora motifs, and metal & glass structures. My favorite characteristic of Art Nouveau are the Tiffany like stained-glass windows, made famous by Louis Comfort Tiffany, in so many of the buildings in Brussels.
We visited the Old England building- a classic example of Art Nouveau architecture- which houses the Musical Instrument Museum. Even though there are over 1200 Art Nouveau building in Brussels very few of them offer the public an opportunity to see the interiors and the Old England building provides one of these rare glimpses into the inside of the unique buildings - making a visit to museum worthwhile just to see the inside. While there was very little information provided in the museum in English, the music on display speaks internationally. I particularly enjoyed the room where you could play and experiment with different musical instruments.












One of the most famous Art Nouveau buildings is the Waucquez Textile Shop, designed by Victor Horta and part of a four building group that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today the building is the home of the Belgian Comic Strip Center. Don't let the English website fool you - all the comics and almost all of the commentary is in French or Dutch. Do as Rick Steves recommends - visit the lobby, take photos with the comic book characters, and save your €5 entry fee to buy a beer later.
















Brussels' love affair with comics doesn't end with the museum, or even the countless comic book shops around the city. They took it to a whole new level. There are 35 + sites throughout city where you can find larger than life comic character statues and murals - and more are added every year. We visited as many of them as made sense with our other site seeing - hopefully we will be back in Brussels before this adventure is over the see the rest, or at least add to our list.

Grand Place

We started our visit to Brussels with a trip to the Grand Place - the historical and cultural center of the Belgium capital city and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The square is dominated by the town hall building and surrounded by guild houses built in the 17th century.The guild house on the left was the brewer's house and houses The Museum of the Belgium Brewers today. The museum shows an uninteresting 10 minute English film about beer brewing and has a room full of beer brewing equipment. Perhaps the museum might have been more interesting if the room with the equipment and explanation was not constantly dark due to the film showing in continual repeat. Oh well, the museum was included with the purchase of the Brussels Welcome Card and came with a free beer at the end. It gave us a chance to sample Belgium Paradise beer; we both had the dark and it was quite good.

The Swan house on the left is the former home of the Butchers' Guild. This also the place Karl Marx and Frederick Engels lived when they wrote the Communist Manifesto. Today it is an expensive restaurant.

We overheard a conversation among the statues atop the guild houses.

*based on the Rick Steves Guide Book to Amsterdam, Bruges, & Brussels.

We couldn't leave the square without checking out all the chocolate shops and the Brussels invented pralines (filled chocolates). Our first stop was to window shop at the original Godiva store. We checked out the displays at Nuehaus and Galler along the way, but we chose to buy our chocolates from Leonidas. They may not be handmade but we got a lot more chocolate for our Euro!
We enjoyed munching on the chocolates for the rest of our visit in Brussels.

Brussels in Wordle

We visited Brussels, Belgium this past weekend. Since my project for the weekend's photos and post is taking longer than I thought, I created a Wordle for our visit. Enjoy.



Or click here.

Wordles are lovely little word clouds. The cloud is created based on the entered text, in this case a combination of wikipedia, Rick Steves travel information, the Brussels tourism website, and other bits and pieces. The size of the word is determined by the number of times it appears in the text. The font, shape, colors, and word inclusion can all be edited by user to create a picture that represents the text entered. I can't wait to use this in the classroom in a poetry unit!

A Low Country Blog

Since I have started my Educational Technology Ed.S. degree, I have been reading a lot of blogs. For me it seems to be one of the best sources of information on what is going on with technology and the classroom and gives me countless ideas and resources for that day when I FINALLY get my own classroom.

My travels through blogs as has led me to an interesting one on art and society in the low country. As I am sure most of you do, when I hear the term "Low County" I immediately think of the coastal region of South Carolina. However, here the "Low County" refers to the Netherlands and the Flemish region of Belgium.

I think The Low Countries is a wonderful blog to find out what is new and going on in the art world. For example, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is hosting Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night with the MoMA that will bring Starry Night to the museum in February. Don't worry, I have already bought my ticket...

Where was the border?

With promises of "a whiff of the countryside, passing windmills, and a historic church" from Rick Steves, we rented bicycles on our first morning to explore Damme, and the Flemish countryside. We rode along the Nepoleoncanal, built by Spanish POWs during Napoleon's occupation of Belgium.

The windmill welcomed us into Damme, Belgium.

A sculpture in the courtyard of the Our Lady of Damme Church by Charles Delporte, a local artist.

Me in the courtyard of the church.

A view of the streets of Damme.

Our original plan was just to visit Damme and then go back to Bruges, but with such beautiful weather we couldn't resist going on the Dutch town of Sluis. We passed the Belgium-Netherlands border at some point but there wasn't even a sign to announce the new country.

Matt climbing the Ramparts and City Gates.

Following in the footsteps of Napoleon, Matt has conquered the city.

The Sluis Molen, built in 1739, was the first windmill to be built of stone.

It was also our first windmill to explore. The inside of a windmill looks, not surprisingly, similar to the inside of a gris mill. However, the views out the windows and from the decks are much more spectacular.

The geese rule the roads here. And the canals. And the parks. And possibly the town.

Matt crossing the Napoleoncanal.

After our 40km bike ride, we stop back in Damme to grab a bite to eat. In true Belgium fashion, we dined on a ham, grease, and mustard sandwich, chocolate waffles, and Belgium beer - Pater Van Damme Blonde and Bruin.

The Damme molen in the sunlight.

What a wonderful ride in the Flemish countryside.