Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

It's particularly blustery here on the coast of Belgium today. We've enjoyed and appreciated all Ma's scarves and beanies. Can you believe Belgium only has 60km of coastline (with a tram running the length of it)... less than around the bay from France to the Netherlands? And even less across the channel to the UK. Koksijde is a beautiful coastal town. There is a mix of tall new apartments and very unique old coastal homes with cute attics and steep pitched rooves. All the instructions in the apartment, and menus in the cafes are in French, Dutch and German (little English). I guess we are getting prepared for Brussels on Friday (mostly French speaking) and then Paris Saturday. We are just a short bike ride off the northern French coast and Dunkirk here also. I've been reading about the WW1 and the EU in Brussels. History makes much more sense when you can imagine the context!

We are sleeping well with the long dark hours, reading a little, drinking inexpensive coffee at toasty warm cafes (koffie verkeerd -lit. 'Coffee the wrong way' with lots of milk, our preference to the sweetened whipped cream on the Belgian cappuccinos). The cafes are lit up with Christmas lights and friendly to dog owners but we are not spending all our time in them, we are walking and exploring lots. Although we are a little gentler in our schedule than before NYE when we were trying to see a lot (people and places) in the cities. Maybe it's the coastal air but I do feel more rested than when I finished up work! We have hired a couple of bikes and L tells us that if she had an upright bike like that in Melbourne she would happily ride to school.
K.

L is to do a phd on waffles/gaufrette/wafel/wafeln and the development of the word in various languages.

Here she is studying.
The phd is to be entitled, 'Waffling on'.

L's cake and pancake dinner!

Ice skating, Haarlem

Christmas celebration!

Christmas

We've been making it hard for people to keep up with our progress, having travelled to four countries in Europe in our first 5 or so days! In the main, though,we've been in Belgium and Netherlands, and we came back to Netherlands last night to stay with P and S, after a big family get together at M's place. Joost, Robert and Annaliese and families were all also there, so we had a Christmas dinner stretched through two rooms... after soccer/hockey out on the road, kids running up and down the stairs and an amazing spread of entrees, appel mus, delicious main meal and tira misu (coffee and honey), caramel/chocolate icecream, followed by coffee/tea and neuhaus chocolates (from Belgium)!

Our plans for the next few days: Not too much apart from seeing some more of the Netherlands - we're now close to Amsterdam, the Hague and Leiden, so we'll see where we get to, then back to Belgium on Friday. From Friday begins a great trip around Europe for us, from Belgium to France, then Italy and England, before our final return to Netherlands.

Before all this, there are some plans to celebrate L's birthday here in Holland, and K has some ideas for catching up with more relatives. Ge is currently reading Donald Duck in Dutch, and L is looking at a present of a whole lot of stamps from P.

Just going back one day, we also enjoyed Christmas Day itself, in Ghent, celebrating by cooking ourselves a great breakfast and dinner. We also took a trip to Brussels, where we parked right next to the ice-skating rink (openair) next to a Christmas market there. The kids and I skated, and it was good fun, apart from someone setting off a firecracker at one stage and giving us and others a bit of a fright! L has been using her French, especially in Brussels, where it seemed to be the major language.

French country town panorama.

Gent market panorama

We made France!

Creating panorama, Ghent.

Design Museum, Gent.

Hi jinks in Belgium

It hailed after we climbed the Dom!

Dom Toren. We climbed it!!

Qrriving in Belgiu,

Yay! We are in Belgium now! Before leaving, when we went out to load the car, there was snow on it from the night. We had the clear it off with warm water. At about 9:30, we left. Over the border, nearly everything was covered with a thin layer of snow. Soon, we got to the house. The-person-we-house-swapped-with's Mum got there too, let us in and showed us around the house. G and I went outside and had a massive snowball fight. We came inside later to our rooms, on the third floor. Mum and Dad's room is on the second floor and the living room is on the bottom floor. We had pizza/sushi and chips for dinner. Oh yes, also, you may have noticed that there are a couple of spelling errors in the title... that's because the keyboard here is different to the one back home, so I have had to concentrate to make sure I don't make any more in this.
Bye for now,
By L

snow upon arrival in Belgium!!!

Boots and fireworks

Munster. Cathedral...

This is us in Munster! Our second day in Europe was spent in Germany, at the Christmas markets. This is one of the few photos without us eating. That day, we had; mulled wine/hot chocolates, potato cakes, olives, chestnuts, schnitzels, a German drink called cola - fanta, chocolate, apple cider, coffee, fries and a croquette burger. As you can tell, we were kept busy eating all day. However, we still had time to look at the market stalls. Everything there was lit up with Christmas lights, making it all very festive and fun to be at. The architecture was also beautiful; every separate building was a work of art. All in all, we had a great day in Munster, Germany.

So here we are in Germany...

New coats.