April showers bring wet bikers

A friend kindly reminded me today that part of Spring is April and that month has the saying, "April showers bring May flowers." She reminded me of all this because I was so excited for the great weather today that I decided to take a 25 minute bike ride over to my friend Rachel's for coffee. As I was biking over there I was caught in a light shower. Nothing too bad, but enough for me to feel like I was musty and sweaty smelling the whole time we were visiting. On the way back I was hopeful that the gray clouds would hold out until I got home. How wrong I was. Even though it started raining, I decided that I would just continue to bike since I was already wet. When the wind got so bad that a Coke can almost blew in my face I decided that I needed to seek shelter. Luckily my friend Emily lived close by, so I stopped at her house for a cup of tea to let the rainstorm pass. When it was finally sunny enough again, I made my second attempt for home. About half way there it started to rain yet again. This time the wind wasn't as bad, so I sucked it up and just got wet for the rest of the ride home. Between dodging crazy drivers, buses, delivery men, parallel parkers, pedestrians and three rain storms I have decided that I am only biking in parks in the summer from now on!

Spring has Sprung

It is a great day in Brussels because Spring is finally here! It is sunny and 60 degrees outside and I couldn't be happier. To give you a comparison, apparently Brussels had only 19 hours of direct sunlight for the entire month of February (which equals 4.75 hours each week). I have a book club, a coffee, a dinner and an antiquing excursion planned for this week, so life is looking good!

Slip sliding away

I can't belive it, but I am starting to experience memory loss at the age of 26. Just the other day I met someone that was raised just a few streets away from where my parents still live and I have lived and listed as my permanent address for the last 10 years. He asked what street that was and I could not remember! I was too embarassed to admit that I couldn't remember my own street name, so I just mentioned the general area. I have also had trouble remembering American items like Kraft and things. I am not going to get too worried about this yet, because I think I am forgetting American things because my brain is filling up with Belgian things and French words. However, it is still quite un-nerving. Hopefully next time I go back to the States all of these things will come flooding back to me and my mind will be put to ease...hopefully.

Chocolat

The Women's Club is great about organizing tours of places throughout Belgium, and I made sure to sign up for the chocolate tour they recently had. There are four big chocolate shops in Belgium -- Neuhaus, Wittamer, Godiva, and Marcolini. We got to tour the kitchen of Wittamer and talk to their chief stylist. It was so much fun to see how he works with the chocolate to create a variety of designs and colors. Click here to see my photos!

Luck o' the Irish

Kyle and I have been in Ireland with our friends Amy and Nate for the last four days -- what a great way to spend St. Patrick's Day!!! I am busy catching up on e-mails, doing laundry and editing our pictures, so until I can post again, here is a photo...

Pucker Up

Having lived in Brussels for a year now, I feel like I have adjusted fairly well to most Belgian/European customs. However, no matter how long I live here, I don't think I will ever get used to the "air kisses" that all Europeans do as a gesture when greeting and leaving each other's company.

There are several bad things about these air kisses. The first problem is that no country seems to have a set number of air kisses. Some people say that Belgians give three air kisses, but then some say two, and others argue one. Most Brits seem to give one, but say a Brit and a Belgian are greeting each other, then how many should they give? What generally ends up happening to me is that I have no clue how many to give, so I start with one kiss and then pull away, but then the other person still has their cheek sticking out so I mumble something about, "Oops, I didn't know how many kisses to give." and then I go back in for another one. Talk about awkward!

However, the most embarrassing thing that happened to me recently concerning kissing was with our friends Emily and Andrew (they are Brits). We were leaving their house, but after we had gotten our coats on, we started into a deep discussion about something, so I wasn't thinking about leaving (and getting myself mentally prepared for how many kisses to give). So all the sudden the conversation ends and I see Andrew all puckered up and heading for my lips and I freaked out! Luckily he just went ahead and kissed my cheek since I was standing there like a deer in headlights, but for a split second all that was in my mind was, "Oh my gosh, Andrew is about to kiss me and Kyle and Emily are standing right here!!!!!" Of course I couldn't hide my deer in headlights look, so I then had to explain to all of them that I thought Andrew was about to kiss me on the lips, which gave them all a good laugh.

And even harder situation is when you are greeting a fellow American here in Belgium--should you do the typical American hug, or the Belgian kiss? Personally, I like to stick with the hug, but most Americans seem to have adapted to the kiss better than I have, so that is what usually happens. Not that I think every man is trying to kiss me, but the other day we were at church and after having greeting many Americans with the awkward hug/air kiss thing I went to greet our minister. Well he skipped over the hug part and went straight for the kiss and again I thought, "Oh my gosh, the minister is about to kiss me on the lips!!!" Maybe I should just start sticking out my hand for a handshake long before anyone can pucker up...

We Survived!

We had a great time babysitting the Lodge kids this weekend. I felt a little silly taking so many pictures of them and documenting so much for only being there 30 hours. But after seeing how quickly kids grow up and how often friends move away, I didn't want to miss my chance.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=121a73ha.cgr80kr6&x=0&y=-uffd4n

Beading Babes

(Photo of a typical Brussels day courtesy of Julie Anne Verbeelen -- notice the diagonal rain coming from both directions.)

I had a good day (despite the terrible weather) of going to Brugge to see my good friend Amy Chan and her beading buddies. We went to her friend Dianne's house to do our beading. Dianne's husband Svein is an artist (but the website doesn't do justice to how great his stuff is). It was really nice to spend the day in a home filled with beautiful art! After beading for a while we had lunch and dessert. These girls have their routine down pat! They were kind enough to teach me lots of new beading tip so I will post some pictures of some of my "work" soon -- but first I want to get a few more pieces together. (I think all the art talk is starting to rub off on me!)

I've also mentioned before that we are babysitting this weekend for four little boys. Even though we are basically only spending a total of 30 hours with them, we have already had to turn down five different activities that would have taken place during that time. This has taught me that:
1. you really have to readjust your life when you have kids;
2. we really keep ourselves busy here; and
3. it kills me to have to pass on any activity, so I think kids are going to put a real crimp on my social life!

Even though I have spent the last paragraph complaining, I found out that today is National Get Over It Day (they are celebrating it in bars throughout America tonight). So whatever topic you sound like a broken record to your friends and family about, just Get Over It and get on with life!

You think you have problems...

Wow, I just finished watching the most amazing documentary. It is called Secret Lives and it focuses on the lives of Jewish children who were hidden by Christian families during the Holocaust. It is a film that will definitely stay with me for a long time to come. What these rescuer families and hidden children had to endure is just amazing. First the children were torn from their real families, then they had to get adjusted to being in a new family and lying that they were not Jewish. Then after the war they were reunited with any of their surviving relatives, who had just gone through living in a concentration camp for three years. Most of these children spent their formative years living with the rescuer family and often didn't want to go back to living with their real mom or dad. These rescuer families treated the children as their own, so after the war when the children left to be with their real families, the rescuer families felt a huge loss also. It is a sad story on all sides, but it definitely makes you appreciate all that you have. The emotions that you can feel just by watching the film are amazing and I highly recommend everyone rent this.

Jungle Gym

Just a few more things I have seen in my past two days at the gym:
--a man working out in khaki capris
--a man running on the treadmill in flip-flops (those cheap .99 Wal-mart kind)
--a man doing a crossword puzzle in between situps. He would do five situps holding the newspaper and pen to his chest and then lay back down and do the puzzle for awhile in between reps.
--A rather flamboyant guy often dances along to his iPod in between sets of situps. Sometimes he gets so into the music that he even sings out loud a little bit. But today he took it too far when he started to do pelvic thrusts to the beat of the music (and it did not look like he was just trying to work his gluts.)

The Sunny Side of Life

Since I have recently pointed out how lucky Kyle is to have such a good life in Brussels, I will now mention how lucky I am to be a non-working spouse here. This past Tuesday, as it was gray, rainy, and 32 degrees Farenheit in Brussels, Kyle found out he would need to go to Madrid to do a story the next day. When I saw that the forecasted weather in Madrid was 55 and sunny, it only took me two minutes to pack my bag. So Wednesday evening we flew to Madrid for two days. Kyle was very busy with meetings, lunches and dinners both days, so I was a solo tourist most of the time. I realized that although it is nice to tour around with someone so you can share your thoughts on things, it is also nice to tour around alone. I really enjoyed setting my own pace, eating wherever I wanted to and just doing my own thing. However, I think two days of touring by yourself is just long enough :)

We arrived Wednesday evening and Kyle went straight to a dinner (at 9:30p.m.) with the WSJ reporter in Madrid. I ate at a great tapas place and then met Kyle, his co-worker and the co-workers wife for drinks (at 11:30!) We didn't get to bed until 2:30 a.m. The Spanish lifestyle of siestas, eating lunch and dinner late and staying out late is definitely a great one, but also a hard one to get used to for just two days! (Amazingly Spaniards eat lunch between 2-4 p.m. and dinner between 9-11 p.m.)

Thursday morning Kyle and I had a nice breakfast, but the best part of it was the cafe con leche. The waiter brings you a coffee cup that is filled about 1/4 full of coffee and then he pours hot milk into the cup right at your table. It was wonderful! After breakfast Kyle went off to meetings and I went to The Prado Museum, which has a variety of well known works. Afterwards I wandered through the Retiro Park and basked in the sun. Kyle's lunch appointment cancelled, so we were able to meet up and shared a huge, delicious Paella dish for lunch. I then wandered the streets of Madrid and went back to the hotel for a nice long bubble bath. At 7 p.m. I met up with Kyle and a former WSJ employee for drinks and tapas. The tapas and Spanish wine are incredible!

Friday I took a long walk from out hotel to finally end up at the Palacio Royal. After a lunch of even more tapas, I went to the Thyssen Museum. I am not an avid art fan, but seeing paintings by Goya, van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Picasso all in person can help you to become one. I was able to drink up a little more sun (and a cafe con leche) in the park before we had to leave to catch our plane back to Brussels. What a great whirlwind trip!

Click below to see the pictures from our trip:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=121a73ha.7lp4p7sy&x=0&y=taxjor

Sunday Brunch

We had a lovely afternoon with the Lodge family, who invited us over for a "proper English brunch." Emily cooked up sausage, bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and of course--beans. The funniest part of being with the Lodges (who in case you hadn't figured out are British) is that Kyle and I come home saying things like, "right, knackered and ooh cheeky"
After lunch, we all played a few rousing games of Kerplunk and Cluedo Junior. Andrew and Emily are raising such well behaved and polite boys (George 7, Oscar 5, Abe, 3, Charlie 1) that Kyle and I agreed to babysit them this weekend while Emily and Andrew are in London at a wedding. Look--even one year old Charlie is well trained to help out!

Ward and June

In honor of worrying early and often, I am already worried about the day we move back to the USA (which is hopefully not imminent). The reason I am worried is because Kyle is completely spoiled. They say that you should not do anything for your husband in the first year of marriage that you don't want to be doing for the rest of your life. Considering that we moved over here after only four months of marriage and he works and I don't; I think I am screwed. I realized all of this last night as I hauled the groceries up four flights of stairs, made a chicken pecan casserole from scratch, then proceeded to make a granola dessert "just because" and then wash all the dishes that these things entailed. As I was doing this I made the bed, tidied up the house, and had two loads of laundry running that I then folded and put back in his drawers before he had probably even noticed they were gone.

Now, I know many, many women do all of these things on a regular basis. However, I don't want to become one of those women. When we lived in Montgomery, AL (for those first four months of marriage), Kyle and I equally shared all of the household duties. He could cook and do a load of laundry as well as I could. But somehow in these last 14 months of not doing any of those things, he has "dumbed down." In his defense, living abroad is difficult enough that a couple must often 'divide and conquer' the tasks just to survive -- I have no idea about how he pays the bills and (for the first three months) he no idea how to start the dishwasher (but don't worry, he has learned). But it seems a little bit easier to me to hit a few keys on the keyboard then get on your hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor.

Footnote: I am not saying I don't have a great life here too, but I just think there will be a lot of adjusting on both our parts when we move back, and I like to point out Kyle's weaknesses more than mine :)