But, we braved it again anyway. Yay us! We even found parking in a parking deck that allowed us to park the van without half of it hanging out the back of the parking space. It's hard to explain how exciting that is without sounding like a total nitwit. Just trust me on this.
So, we exited the parking deck and went in search of the Christmas market. Man, oh man! It was freezing. We sort of wandered around a bit until we saw some booths. Booths=Christmas market, right? Turns out, not necessarily. But we did find a cool chocolate shop called Chocopolis. Actually, there were a lot of chocolate shops. Everywhere. Yum!
But, since I have a lot of stuff I want to post and I really should be doing research for my Masters' project, let me try (note I say try) to give the condensed version.
Brussels - now I know how Jean-Claude Van Damme got muscular. He walked up all the dag-gone steps in this city and probably gave up driving for walking or running for the sake of maintaining sanity, although I'm not entirely sure that Belgians would hesitate to drive on the sidewalk to get from point a to point b, even if it meant maiming or killing pedestrians. If it weren't for that pesky seat belt law, I would have been curled up in the back of the van in the fetal position, humming nursery rhymes, thinking about my happy place.
Anyhoo, we wander around the downtown area seeing a ton of chocolate shops and restaurants. Turns out we are on Restaurant Row. Of course we are...now how the heck are we supposed to chose which one to try? It's freezing outside and the kids can only take so much of the cold weather. We see a gluhwine stand that offers to add amaretto. Count me in! So we try it and it was good. Not fall to your knees and worship the grapevines good, but it was wine served hot, which may just be an acquired taste. It definitely helped warm us up, though. We eventually did have an amazing lunch, couldn't tell you the name of the restaurant, though. But the waiter talked me into a glass of champagne that was the best I've ever had. Did I ask the name of the champagne? Of course not! Why on earth would I actually ask for useful information?
Now is a good time to thank VTech for it's OUTSTANDING line of kids toys. T got the kid proof camera from Santa and if it hadn't been for that camera, we would never have been able to make it through our 'quick' lunch that lasted for almost two hours. The kids meals were better than ours, and ours were GOOD.
Thinking we had seen the Christmas market, we head back to Chocopolis to load up, only to discover that we hadn't even gotten to the Christmas market. Oooops. So we head back towards the market place. The kids see a carousel, so we stop and let them ride. It was a little macabre, lots of steel and freaky looking animal or sculpture things, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Maybe it's a Belgian thing and we uncultured Americans just don't get it.
After letting the kids ride, we head into a church to try and warm up. S's legs were so cold they were bluish. In the church, which was breathtaking, there was something going on - I'm pretty sure it was a christening. There are tons of tourists there, so we don't feel like we are invading. To the side of the christening ceremony, in the middle of the church, is a wooden staircase that winds around a marble? stone? cement? column. After being inside for a few minutes, R and I realize that we don't see T. Looking around, we spot him on the steps. This isn't good. Even though the steps weren't blocked off and there didn't appear to be a sign saying to keep off, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he's not supposed to be up there. So R tried quietly to get him down. Usually when T is somewhere he wants to be and we do not, trying to get him to leave requires bodily removal and some shouting (sometimes him, sometimes us, sometimes both). Weeeelll, that's not really an option in a church. And luckily, T doesn't shout either, but it's a pretty determined no that we get in reply. It's pretty obvious that we are going to have to go and get him. As we nonchalantly approach the steps, the priest stops what he's doing with the christening, walks over to the staircase where T is, points at the bottom step and says, "Ici", which means 'here'. The tone, however, was more like, 'get your butt down here right now or I will throw in into the pits of hell myself.' T, gets it, and heads down the steps but is hesitant to approach Father Scary. Father Scary, isn't about to move an inch and R and I both start to try and sink into the floor. This dude is mad, and a scary mad at that. (Which it understandable. T should not have gone up those steps, we should not have lost track of him, etc. - yes yes, it's all my fault, okay? Me - I'm sorry God. Really I am. God - talk to Father Scary about that, whydoncha?) T is now about three steps away from the bottom and Father Scary points at T then at the door saying, "Sortie ici!" Which loosely translated means, "get out!" So get out we did.
And that was enough of Brussels for us during this tour of Europe. To quote REM, "That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight/losing my religion". Seriously!
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