Wednesday, Aug. 24th. Sarah Ann and I go to Oostende on the Belgium coast. We took a sea cruise along the coast south to Neeuwpoort. We paid for the round-trip but in all honesty it was kinda boring, although it was a nice first look at how incredibly built-up every km of coastline is (Hey, they only have like 50 of them....)

Sunday brought with it the Druivenstoet (Grape Parade). These were the "Giants of Overijse"

Sunday, Aug. 21. Sarah Ann and I go to the Druivenfeesten in Overijse. (Druiven = grapes). The area south of Brussels in Overijse (pronounced "o'-ver'-eye-zah") and Hoeliaart (basically "Hoo-ey'-laaarrrt") are renowned for their glass greenhouses in which they grow their grapes. It was a much bigger industry in the past, now a lot of the greenhouses have been torn down or fallen into disrepair, but the growers still take a lot of pride. The grapes in this picture were almost as big as plums, no joke....if only they could figure out how to make them seedless.....

The weather wasn't great, but we still had a great time.

Saturday, Aug. 20: Mike and I travel about 2 hours southwest into Wallonia to a tiny village of about 200 people, Chassepierre. This village hosts a festival of Street Performance Artists every year and it draws over 30,000 people! The village would actually prefer less people, actually, but they sort of throw up their hands. Apparently the artists are different each and every year. There were stilt walkers, jugglers, acrobats, dancers, comedians, and weird people who dress up and act like lizards, and much much more! Mike thought I was nuts, and the whole time we were driving down there he was thinking "we're going to get to this thing and it's going to be like 3 guys juggling bean bags...." He was pleasantly surprised. And the village was sooooo charming!

My lovely friend Sarah Ann again :)

Mike at the citadel

More citadel

More views from the Citadel

A spooky photoshop rendition of the citadel :)

Views of Namur from the Citadel

The citadel which towers over Namur. Namur lies at the confluence of two rivers, so this has always been an important strategic point, since the days of the early Romans.

Now, to Namur :) The cities in Belgium are always dotted with little statues like this one. I guess they're from famous comic strips, but I never recognize them obviously...still, they're cute to look at. Here, Mike feeds the snails some Mentos (Being in Europe, he feels that it's only right to eat Mentos all the time.)

Sarah Ann and I with Sjalle, brother of the owner of our local cafe and long-time friend of SA. He's undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkins lymphoma and SA made him the hat he's wearing.

One of many bachelors we saw celebrating his bachelor party :) To translate, he is having a "Solden" which is a sale. On his price list, a kiss on the Mond (mouth) has been marked down from 10 euros to 3. Nibbling his ear is still 5 euros. Nipples remain at 2 euros, and the "Tarzan," sadly, has gone from 20 to 2.50. Kisses anywhere else are only 50 cents. Kisses from him are double price. Apparently the standard for bachelor parties here is for the groom to be "kidnapped," he has no power over where they go or what he wears...these guys were from a town near Holland; they took the train and would be staying in Leuven til the first train of the morning at 6 a.m. Long night!!

But first....Marktrock :) Annual rock festival held in the very old, beautiful city of Leuven, which is about 20 minutes away. I think I read that about 300,000 people attend over 3 days. Sarah Ann and I went on Saturday evening to see a bunch of bands I've never heard of. It was interesting seeing this town transform into a giant mosh pit though.

Assumption day in L-L-N

Another public holiday in Belgium, which means Mike doesn't have to go to work. :) We've had a nice day; we got in the car and drove to Louvain-La-Neuve (which means "The New Leuven"), a totally modern town that didn't even exist until the 1960s or 1970's. There was a big fight between the French speaking people at the Catholic University in Leuven and the Flemish speakers. Basically (although I think it depends on who you ask) the French speakers got kicked out so they went down the road and started their own school, and their own town. The official line from the Catholic University website is this:

"In 1971, following pressure from the world of Flemish politics, which was hostile to a francophone university on Flemish soil, the Université catholique de Louvain was split into two separate universities, a Dutch-speaking university which remained in Louvain (Leuven in Flemish) and a French-speaking university which moved almost all its departments to the Brabant Wallon, to a new town symbolically named Louvain-la-Neuve."

It is a cool town in that the whole thing is basically built on top of a bunch of roads and parking garages. You park you car then take the stairs or escalator up to the pedestrian streets. Not a lot of character other than that; it looks like all the buildings were built at the same time in 1970, which they were. But they had some neat restaurants and a movie theater, and it's very close to where we live, so we may be back. (Unfortunately, alas, most of the movies are dubbed in French instead of English with French subtitles). Being summertime, and a public holiday, and Monday to boot, there wasn't much going on, so we hopped back into the car and drove to Namur (More to post later)

Sadly, it was closed.

"Who, me??" We luckily got to stop in the lovely town of Bitche, France, for lots of giggles and photo ops. Not sure what the "Ville Fleurie" 3 flower designation is.....

Aaah, but THIS was a lovely sight. Piles and piles and piles of wild chanterelle mushrooms. Unfortunately I didn't get to eat them because it wasn't until after I ordered that I learned the word for them (Pfifferlingen, FYI) But they sure were beautiful. For those of you who've never had them, they have a very distinctive apricot-y taste; I like them a lot.

Breakfast at the Quellenhof was good, but the "meat" selection was a bit lacking. The stuff that looked like pepperoni on the right seemed fairly edible. The rest seemed like the winners of some odd "create the grossest looking lunchmeat you can" contest. Especially the unidentifiable meat chunks in aspic, formed into a round lunchmeat slice. (back row, 2nd from left) And the perfectly good slices of ham hollowed out and filled with cat food. (bottom center)

Sunset and a bottle of wine on the mountaintop, what better way to spend an evening??

We got to see about 6 guys take off while we were there; really really cool

Really dug the helmet. The gigantic backpack caterpillar thing on their back holds an extra parachute, the sack for the chute they're using, and the little chair they sit in while they're gliding.

A really special treat for us was coming across a paragliding take-off point. The winds were not very good so they were spending a lot of time sitting waiting for the right wind. As a result we got to talk to some of them for a while and learn a lot about the sport. I think if I ever take up an "extreme sport" this is the one! I'd take that over flying/bungee jumping/skydiving anyday! Unfortunately I don't think there is anywhere nearby and convenient to take classes. Maybe an impetus for another solo vacation? :)

Do you believe I was in the Black Forest yet?

Carrie and the Black Forest

More panoramic views

At the top of "Mount" Merkur, just ouside of Baden Baden. Beautiful views of the surrounding countryside, all of which is the northernmost tip of the Schwarzwold (Black forest)

A free concert held just outside the Kurhaus (Casino). The weather was fabulous, the music was nice (classical); we ran into this as we walked to the Dorint hotel to make our massage appointment.

Excavated ruins found underneath the castle and modern baths. Very interesting to find out how the big complexes were heated. Apparently the whole place was built over a sub-level like the one here, wiith pillars built by cementing tiles together; they had this massive fire going, like in a boiler room, and the heat and smoke created there would drift among these columns and heat the floor above. Then in the walls, they had these hollow bricks; the heat and smoke would go up through the walls via these bricks and up to chimneys, heating the walls in the process. The giant fire was also used to heat the hot water tanks, which were mixed with cold regular water as needed to get whatever temperature water you wanted in any particular room. Anyway, this heating system was apparently very well preserved. Interesting.

Self-timer picture of the terrible twosome

SA in front of the Friedrichsbad, the other large Therme in town. The Friedrichsbad is what they call a Roman-Irish bath.



What is a Roman-Irish bath, you say? Well, apparently, Romans preferred the steam baths, of varying temperatures. The Irish enjoyed warm, dry sauna-air baths. So these Roman-Irish baths create an experience with a combination of both. They like to quote Mark Twain, who spoke of his experience here "At the Friedrichsbad, you lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world in 20."


The somber, relaxing experience at the Friedrichsbad is as follows. The entire spa is completely clothing-free (not-optional) but the men and the women go through each step separately. On the day we went even the one step that is co-ed was also separate, and we went early in the morning hoping there would be less people. We were terribly self conscious for the first 15-20 minutes or so but it really does get better.

1. Take a warm water and soap shower, clean yourself off really well. Wrap yourself in a warm towel and slip on some shower shoes (both provided)
2. Warm air bath (a room filled with circulating dry hot air) - lie for 15 minutes
3. Hot air bath (a small room with VERY hot air) - 5 minutes
4. Rinse off again in the shower
5. The lovely "soap and brush massage" which is just what it sounds like. You lie down on a table, they dump warm soapy water on you and scrub you all over with what looks like a floor scrub brush.
6. Rinse all the soap off
7. Steam room, with eucalyptus scent infused into the steam.
8. Rinse off, more steam room
9. Warm pool, temperature is 37C (body temperature), float and swim around for 15 minutes
10. Jacuzzi pool, 5-10 minutes
11. Regular swimming-pool temperature water, you're supposed to move around in the water for 15 minutes
12. Rinse off again
13. Ice-cold immersion bath (talk about waking up your nerve endings!!!)
14. Dry off with another yummy warm towel
15. Pretty, nice smelling lotion for you to put on allll over
16. Get wrapped up in a nice warm towel and blanket coccoon, lie down in the dark and nap for 30 minutes

Doesn't get much better than that. The whole process takes 2-3 hours. The soap brush massage costs an extra 8 Euros but it's so worth it.

Whenever I win the lottery I am definitely going to get a "hired lady" to give soap brush massages every day :)

A morning walk around town, with the Old Schloss in the background.

SA and I lean out of the windows of our 4th floor room at the Quellenhof on the morning of our second day.

Carrie and Animal in front of the Caracalla Therme, all relaxed

SA in front of the large indoor pool at Caracalla

Relaxing at the Caracalla

This is in the outside portion of the Caracalla spa, one of the two large public "Thermes." The Caracalla is the larger and livelier of the two, like a healthful waterpark. Several pools of varying sizes, temperatures, and depths; steam rooms with eucalyptus-infused steam and twinkling lights on the ceiling, a mini "river" complete with natural feeling current; "aroma-saunas," and an experimental "blue room" with pulsating chairs, blue lights, and ambient music. We came here as soon as we got in (after driving almost 7 hours) and left 3 hours later feeling relaxed with legs like mashed potatoes :)

Baden Baden

Baden-Baden, Germany, in the northern part of the Black Forest, is a small town, population 53,000, that became well known in the time of the roman for their "healing" thermal springs. The first bathing houses were built around 47 a.d. It became a popular gambling town for French and Russian visitors for whom gambling was illegal in their own countries. It's a very "poshy-hootsy-tootsy" town with boutiques from Chanel, Hermes, etc. lining the road. Not one sleazy street vendor in sight.

Here is the city's website, in English.

There were a few big attractions we didn't get to hit (mostly some nice gardens, the two castles (one from the 12th century, one from the 15th century, and some of the neat churches and cemeteries) But we did get to see a lot, and we left feeling so pampered and so lucky.

We stayed at the Hotel Quellenhof, a 4 star hotel, in a room with 2 twin beds for only 95 Euros a night. I thought that was a pretty good deal. The hotel was in a very nice super convenient location, just steps away from the baths and a short direct walk to the major pedestrian areas, the casino, and the park. However, we also got to snoop around in the hotel Dorint, right next door to the casino; this is a 5 star hotel and its' soooo posh. I had found a special deal there for less than 150 Euros a night, and it also has its own private spa/bath. Definitely worth a splurge if you really want to feel rich and pampered but can't afford the ridiculous 600 euro a night rooms at the Brenner.

Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

Sarah Ann and I on our way to Baden-Baden, Germany. Stopped in Wierde, Belgium (really kind of unfair to give this label to only one small town in the country....:))

Nick and Peter living it up in the music tent. The artificial (and cigarette) smoke was sooo thick, none of the pictures turned out very well. This was on Saturday, during 80's hit night

Mike enjoying the "spelletjes" (which are "little games" at the Vlaamse Kermis (the Chiro (pronounced "ghee-ro") is like the local Boy Scouts, and they helped a lot with serving food, drinks, selling tickets, etc for the Kermis.

Our new friends Nick and Solange. They live down the street from Sarah Ann's family. Nick grew up in the United States but his family is Belgian and he's been back in Belgium since he was 17. They're both really friendly and nice and their English is very good and they don't mind speaking it, which is always a big criteria for who we end up being friends with :) Nick works at a garage and Solange is a teacher.

My friend Sarah Ann and her father Peter. Everyone in the village, old young and in between, comes out for the big Kermis. We stayed up until well after 4 a.m. on Friday night and things didn't die down until after 6 a.m. on Saturday night! Peter is from Holland but has lived in Belgium for over 20 years, so he has an interesting perspective on things.

So here's what we've been doing since August: This is Mike and I inside the music tent at our village festival, the Vlaamse Kermis (Kermis means "fair") This night we got to enjoy a fun Beatles cover band called the Mal Evans Band, as well as a Flemish Pixies cover band called the Wixies.

Sarge looking handsome as ever

Beavis enjoying his new wonderful big back yard out in the Flemish countryside

Trying a new blog site

I need to find a site that will allow me to easily tell my story as well as narrate captions for photos in a chronological, orderly way. I am hoping this one will work; but as always, a new site requires a lot of reading to figure out how to do all the things you want to do. So this is just a first post to get things started. Here is the outside of our house in Ottenburg, Belgium.