After our very quick trip to New York, we returned to Belgium only to immediately leave the country again. This time we headed “next door” to France. We arrived home to Belgium on Thursday. Then we left again on Saturday.

We met some friends at the most amazing zoo I’ve ever seen… Darcy (friend) and Todd (my husband) both work for the same company, but she has been in France for 11 years. She is married to an Italian and they have beautiful twin daughters. Darcy recommended we meet at the zoo – it’s about halfway between our place in Belgium and their place in France.

There is no way I can do justice to this zoo. At the end of the day, we converted our day passes to season tickets. The zoo is incredible!

We saw capybaras, which are the largest rodents in the world. My kids have loved them since we read Capyboppy over 2 years ago. We still watch videos about capybaras on a fairly regular basis – they left a lasting impression! This was the kids’ first chance to see one in person. I am sure the capybaras are unaccustomed to children screaming and jumping up and down to see them, but I hope they felt extra special that day.

The viewing area for the giraffes has a clever design. We were able to see them from the sidewalk, but there is also a wooden platform around the base of a tree that elevates you high enough that you are nearly as tall as the giraffes, so you can see their sweet faces. The ostriches share the space with the giraffes. The ostriches seemed enormous even standing next to the tall giraffes – but they moved too fast for my camera. I cannot believe some people actually ride them, though the birds are certainly strong enough.

We also saw bald eagles, koalas, a Bengal tiger, camels, lions, gorillas, and elephants – Indian and African. There was also a baby Indian elephant, but I was too far away for decent photos.

Laine and Isaac had a great weekend playing with the twins. Laine enjoyed being the “big girl” for a change and adored both of the girls. They had a great time with her, too.

The areas for the animals at the zoo were truly remarkable. The birds were kept in by netting overhead. But the areas for the animals was reminiscent of their areas of origin, which was really neat. I think the most shocking one for me was the kangaroo exhibit. We were 10-12 feet from the baby kangaroo and there was nothing between us except a small sign warning us to keep off the grass. We could easily have all but reached out to touch the baby if we’d wanted to get kicked by its mother.

To top of a fantastic day of animal watching, we stopped by the play area to let the kids burn off a bit more steam before putting them in the car. The climbing areas were unbelievable. Isaac climbed to the top of one and then was able to find Laine for me when she slipped out of my sight (still inside the play area).

Even after hours at the zoo and visiting so many animals, we only saw about 1/3 of the exhibits. We also learned that they’re open on Sunday, so I am certain we’re going to return.

After the zoo, we headed to Lille to spend the night. Once the kids were fed and off to bed, the adults enjoyed some handmade pizza and catching up on ex-pat life. The next morning, the kids got to have an Easter egg hunt and they were kind enough to share a (tiny) bit of chocolate with us. We spent a gorgeous morning at the park and enjoyed a wonderful late lunch with our friends before heading back home to Leuven. We hope to host the same friends at our place sometime soon.

If you follow me on social media, you’ll have seen that we spent a few lovely mid-April days in the City that never sleeps. The purpose of the visit was to meet with the Belgian Consulate to request residence visas for all four of us. It turned out to be a bit more stressful than we anticipated but… spoiler alert, we were able to get what we needed.

If you’re interested in the full story, read on:

We arrived at the Consulate a few minutes before our scheduled appointment. We were seated in a small waiting room where another couple was already talking to the Consulate employee. The Consulate employee sits at a desk behind a Plexiglas wall (after having been there, I can see why they do this). Anyway, there’s a small space at the bottom of the Plexiglas for you to slide pieces of paper back and forth to each other. And we needed at least 40 pieces of paper each. The woman, whom I’ll call Jane*, was NOT in a good mood. Apparently she’d been told earlier that morning that she didn’t have permission to process visas. As she was working on Todd’s application, she finally got the green light to process them. Once she had collected all of Todd’s papers, she asked us to return to our seats so she could complete the process with the couple who had been there before us. Their application was really complicated and it sounded like they’d already been denied once, so they were applying again in a different manner. There was a fair bit of “tone” from Jane towards this couple…

Once she finished their intake process and sent them on their way, she returned to us and it was my turn to submit my papers. As we were working, she asked when I was leaving New York. I responded “tomorrow night.” A few minutes later, she asked how soon we were leaving for Belgium. I again responded with “tomorrow night.” I honestly thought she was going to blow a gasket. She wanted to know who told us we could do that and we explained that our attorneys had advised us this was an option. Let’s just say she… disagreed. Strongly. She told us it would be “3 to 5 business days and then it will be mailed to you.” Well. That was going to require some adjusting of our schedule. She had our passports! She was really angry with our attorneys. I assured her that there was PLENTY of annoyance with them to go around. She asked me why I hadn’t called her directly. I assured her that if I’d known that was an option, it’s what I would have done. (I can also promise you that if we ever live overseas again, I’ll call their Consulate to see if they have a “Jane” there instead of using these lawyers). We had not called the Consulate because the company relocating us had given us attorneys, so we had followed the recommendation to let the attorneys do the work. If I’d had any idea I could just call the Consulate directly, I could probably have saved us a good 4+ weeks of headaches. Clearly this woman can get things done.

Anyway, she continued to be annoyed, but thankfully I was able to direct the annoyance towards someone OTHER than us. 🙂 This is key. She completed gathering my paperwork without incident. Then she gathered all of Isaac’s. Then she began to collect Laine’s. And here’s where the tide shifted. One of the last pieces to collect is a photo of the applicant. You face a small camera lens on the wall, which is surrounded by a reflective surface, so you can see what your photo looks like. She took a photo of Laine. Then she burst out laughing. Laine made a face at her reflection because she’d been sitting still for too long. We explained to Laine that she had to be serious for the photo. Jane took another picture. Laine made another face! The woman absolutely cracked up. The third time was the charm and we got the picture we needed.

Once she completed gathering all of our papers, Todd and I needed to go to FedEx to make copies of the FBI reports on us and then return them to her to include with the rest of our paperwork. (Fun fact: she had to open these reports so she could verify that they were unaltered. But then we had to go make copies of them and return them because she can’t do that). As she told us to do this, Todd and I both silently held our breaths waiting to hear about the self-addressed/stamped envelopes to mail our paperwork back to us. She sighed heavily and told us to come back at 11:00 the next morning and she’d have the documents available for us. I’m sure the aforementioned Plexiglas window is there for her safety. It was also to keep me from launching myself over the table and kissing her at that moment. WOOHOO!!! What a relief!

We were then able to enjoy the rest of our time in New York. Spring was in full bloom and the weather was perfect. I am sure there are people who can refrain from being in love with New York in springtime, but Laine and I are not those people.

We had quite a list of things we wanted to do in New York. We ate Tex-Mex for our first dinner in the City. Isaac and I were in heaven with his refried beans and my avocados. Yum!

We went to see both the Bull and Fearless Girl statues down near Wall Street. The 9/11 Memorial was moving. The subway entrance near there is now light and open and beautiful. We walked through Times Square, checked out the Empire State Building, and admired the ceiling in Grand Central Station. Laine really loves the Chrysler building. We all found Central Park gorgeous with all of its flowers and trees in full bloom.

Laine and I got to attend a service at St. Thomas 5th Avenue (my former church home) with my dear friend Helen. Afterwards, the 3 of us met up with Todd & Isaac for lunch/dinner together. The sushi place was so good that we returned to Nobi the next day for our last meal in the City!

We ended our whirlwind trip with a quick visit to Central Park. Literally everything was in bloom – I only took a few quick snaps because I was trying to enjoy the time. Then we took a taxi to JFK and bought Laine a new tee shirt…

* Jane is not her real name, but she helped us when she clearly didn’t have to do it, so I don’t want anyone to know her real name in case they get the wrong idea.

Our final day in Holland, we toured Delta Works. At least 26% of the country lies below sea level, so flooding there is a constant concern. There is a video that explains the catastrophe which lead to the creation of the Delta Works. There was a large flood in 1953 which breached the dikes and resulted in over 1,800 deaths. The short version of the solution that is Delta Works is this: lessen the amount of seashore to be kept from flooding via a combination of dams, sluices, locks, dykes, levees, and storm surge barriers.

We were able to tour the storm surge barrier at Oosterscheldekering (try saying THAT 5 times fast). This is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It was pretty amazing to see some of the machinery and equipment they made specifically to be able to build the storm surge barrier in addition to understanding how the barrier itself functions.

The design of the storm surge barrier is intended to minimize the negative impact on the environment. The water flows in and out of the barriers with the changes of the tides on most days. The water does rush in and out very quickly during the tidal changes. Our tour guide was explaining that some of the seals and dolphins there can get incredibly fat. They wait just inside the barrier and as fish come racing in on the tide, the predators can eat their fill just by stationing themselves in the right place and opening their mouths. So… it’s not perfect, but it’s better than a permanent dam might have been. I’m sure the well-fed mammals aren’t complaining!

In addition to the tours, videos, and interactive displays inside the museum to teach you about how the water management works, there are also lots of other fun activities available. We attended a presentation on seals (so cute!) and a sea lion (so huge!) and got to “meet” the animals.

Laine and I walked through a display on whales. All 4 of us stood inside a hurricane machine to see what it would feel like to have that much wind blowing at us. Todd and I rode down the enormous water slide.

And finally, we repeatedly played outside at the water playground. There we were able to experiment with opening and closing dams, use an Archimedes screw to pump water uphill, and spin a large water wheel to move water by running on a drum with our feet.

We came home from the fantastic weekend with a definite plan to return to The Netherlands as soon as possible. I still want to go to Efteling, eat some stroop wafels, and spend a day or two in Amsterdam.

On our second day in Holland, we toured Kinderdijk. There are multiple possible reasons for the name “Child’s Dike,” but I believe the correct one is related to a child in its cradle being rescued there after a particularly bad storm. There was a cat on top of the cradle (not in the cradle, mind, for those with a song now stuck in their heads) who was moving back and forth to help balance the cradle so it wouldn’t sink. There’s a lovely little book called Katje, The Windmill Cat that tells the story. Like a good homeschooler, I bought the book after we finished our tour that day.

We learned a lot about Holland’s challenges with water during the tour. Kinderdijk is located on the lowest area of land in The Netherlands, so it is an area that would be the first to flood. Back when the windmills were used for water management, they would move the water from the polders (low-lying land used for farming) UP into the canal and the up again to get it into the river where it could be washed out to sea. They raised the water up 3 separate times to get it to the river because the windmills could only raise the water up so high. The water often needed to go up 140 cm.

They used 3 different types of windmills. The first type they built were made of brick. The land where the water is being removed is peat, which you can think of as a sponge. As you remove water from it, it shrinks. As it did this, the heavy brick windmills began to sink, as well. So they began to make the windmills from thatch. The thatch was very thick, so Todd and I figured that one would be about as warm as the other. The final type of windmill was made of wood, but it’s a completely different design. The living quarters in a wooden windmill are much smaller.

The day was pretty still when we arrived, but it got windier. We were really fortunate to get to see the miller take in the sails while we were there.

We got to watch her wrap up the “sail” of the windmill. (I saw her wrap up the last one, so I didn’t take a video because I knew it would be 10-15 minutes long and I’d lose my audience). Anyway, as you can see in the video of her stopping the mill, the sails are attached to trellises that run all the way up. She unhooks the bottom of the sail. Climbs a bit up the “ladder” to unhook the next section, rolls up the sail, and then hooks it around the side and ties it as the end. It is very physical work. The sails are very heavy.

We had lunch near this particular windmill. Afterwards, we rode the boat back down the canal toward the entrance. They left some wooden clogs out (apparently this was the easiest way to keep your feet dry in the days before rubber boots) for us to try on.

Kinderdijk is a UNESCO World Heritage site. These windmills are no longer used for water management. While most of the 19 mills here are now privately owned, we were able to tour 2 of them that are kept open to the public for educational purposes. The best way to keep a windmill from falling into disrepair is to run it, so the millers are still using the mills.

They now use Archimedes screws to pump the water up out of the canal and into the river. These are powered by diesel pumps.

Holland has moved on to new technologies for windmills, as well. We saw countless wind turbines on our way back out to the island we were staying on. The wind turbines are used to generate electricity, which was an entirely separate set of engineering challenges, but also fascinating.

When we headed back to the hotel, we decided to go to the beach for some fun in the sand – we stayed away from the VERY cold water! – and got drinks and snacks at the restaurant on the beach.

If you’ve ever been to Holland in April or May, you’ve definitely heard the name Keukenhof. It is called “The Garden of Europe.” It is absolutely gorgeous, but I’m not a good enough photographer to have been able to capture most of it. Plus I wanted to enjoy the day without spending it all viewing through a phone lens… Now, I did take a zillion photos. I TRIED to pick out the best ones so I wouldn’t inundate you. This was really hard to do because it was the most incredible place.

Keukenhof also offered some other types of entertainment. One of those was this super-cool player machine which works a bit like a player piano with additional belts and such. I heard “In the Mood” from a distance and practically ran to find the source. I attended a few dozen jazz band concerts in high school, so that song always brings back fond memories.

There were several fun photo ops, as well. Laine and I took advantage of all of them.

There was also a great play area for the kids. This was a fun place for them to climb across various rope bridges. Then we found the zip line, which the kids wouldn’t ever miss an opportunity to ride.

We ended the day by climbing up this lovely windmill. I got a couple of great little videos of the inside workings, but unfortunately I didn’t save them. I’m sorry to have lost them, but it was an incredibly neat experience, nonetheless.

We stayed in Leuven this past weekend. The weather was quite nice, so we enjoyed spending quite a bit of time outside. Friday the kids learned there was a bouncy house set up in the courtyard behind the library (our porch overlooks the library) and begged to go play. They bounced there for a while and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

On Saturday, I finally had the opportunity to buy a bike, so now all 4 of us can use them to get around town. Leuven is really bike-friendly, and it is actually easier to get around on a bicycle than it is in a car. In some areas, particularly outside the inner ring of Leuven, the sidewalks are even divided so part of it is for bikes and part is for pedestrians.

The streets inside the city ring are a little too narrow to accommodate this, but it makes my mama-heart feel a little safer to have an extra 8 inches of space between my kids and the cars.

Once we paid for the bike, we brought it home to do a bit of repair work on it. We managed to find the Belgian version of Craigslist for all of our bikes and I’m so glad we didn’t have to buy new ones! The kids wanted to go bounce at the library some more, so we took our bikes and tools over to the library courtyard and the kids played while Todd worked on the bikes and I tried VERY hard not to be a helicopter parent. (Do you ever feel like you’re becoming the worst version of yourself)? I wanted to be sure they didn’t accidentally hurt any of the smaller kids while they were jumping.

Once the bikes were repaired, the men-folk needed haircuts, so we rode the bikes to the barber shop. Isaac LOVES his new, older, look.

After haircuts, we decided to head to the park as it was sunny and beautiful outside. We went to Domaine Kessel-Lo, which is a local national park. The park is huge! We only saw a small portion of it, so we will have to go back again to see what else we can find. As I was looking on Google to be sure I noted the correct park, I saw all sorts of cool things we didn’t know about. There were lots of kids there, but it didn’t feel ridiculously crowded and there was plenty of room to get to do the things the kids wanted to do. The kids climbed on 3 different wooden playscapes all located close enough to one another to make it possible. All of the climbing/play structures we saw were wooden. There was an area where large, downed trees had been stripped of limbs and left for kids to scramble across. There were some really cool swings.

After the park, Todd and I were in need of a bit of refreshment, so we then headed to Vlierbeek Abbey, which happens to have a restaurant area. We were able to score an outside table, so we got a light snack and some drinks.

The abbey had lots of open, green space, which the kids miss living in the city. (It’s not easy to go from a 1/2-acre yard to no yard). We glanced briefly in the church. The walls were very white and it felt a bit between – somewhere between the beautiful old churches and the modern churches. It did have a great pipe organ up on the balcony and stained glass windows, but no exposed rafters. As I said, it felt “between” eras to me.

We also walked through the cemetery adjoining the abbey. There were a lot of really large tombstones, but many of the dates were from the late 1990s, so it wasn’t as old as I expected it to be. I found it interesting that a smallish plot sometimes had up to 6 names on the tombstone. I am curious about how that worked, but there wasn’t really anyone I could ask. The sign near the entrance might have explained, but it’s written in Dutch.

We rode home before dark (the kids don’t have lights on their bikes yet) and set up a game of Settlers of Catan on the porch. It was our first night to get to use the seating area out there and it was perfect!

Sunday morning, Laine wanted to go on a bike ride. Riding through Leuven can be a little intense with the cars, so we decided to follow the bike trail that runs along the canal. We didn’t have to go too far before we rode to Wijgmaal. We stopped there for lunch and found a Formula E (electric cars) race on the television. Isaac was thrilled to learn about a different type of car and statistics about all of the racers. Todd and I were amused that almost none of the racers competing were representing their own countries of origin.

The restaurant/bar also had several new games, so we played a couple rounds of Rummikub. Todd won the first game. The second game was a draw.

We stopped home for a brief respite before running one more trip for errands. We stopped in Todd’s office to print something for this week’s homeschool lessons. Then we popped in to another new-to-us grocery store on the way home. Interestingly, I think it was a Polish shop! I didn’t understand any of the language written on the packaging (not that I can do that in most of the grocery stores) and their offerings were somewhat different than I’ve seen in the other stores. Nothing bad or weird, just different. I bought lunch meat at the counter – I was trying for salami and ended up with something closer to summer sausage. So, if you thought I’d mastered grocery shopping by now, fear not, the adventure continues!

As we were wrapping up our family vacation in Switzerland, we were headed to Neuschwanstein in Germany. This was part of Laine’s birthday present – we promised to take our “princess” to THE castle. If you are unfamiliar with this particular castle, I’ll let you in on a secret. This castle was the basis for Cinderella’s castle (a la Walt Disney). It is stunning. But I digress. Let’s start at the beginning, m’kay?

Country #1: Switzerland. We woke up in Switzerland! Still every bit as beautiful as it was in the last post, but quite a bit foggier and cloudier. I’m thankful I took a bazillion pictures my first couple of days there.

Country #2: Lichtenstein. We watched a delightful video on Lichtenstein before we left: link here to get an idea of what to expect. It is the 4th smallest country at only 63-square miles! (I’ll give you the opportunity to Google which 3 countries are smaller. But, yes, I know what they are because we’ve looked it up. Twice. Because we forgot what the 3rd smallest was). The great thing about touring such a small country is that even though we only walked through the capital, Vaduz, for a short time, we got to get a feel for the country as we covered a reasonable portion of it. The people were friendly, the tourists were abundant, and the architecture was fascinating.

As we finished our brief tour of Lichtenstein, we headed to…

Country #3: Austria. We stopped only briefly in Austria to grab lunch and have a quick walk. We stopped in the city of Bregenz, on the eastern side of Lake Constance. This lake is bordered by 3 of the countries we visited that day (all but Lichtenstein).

We weren’t in Austria long as we were eager to get to…

Country #4: Germany. The day we told the kids we would be moving to Europe, their primary concern was their birthdays. Laine was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to have her annual birthday party. So, in our panic, we said “we’ll take you to a castle for your birthday!” And then she learned Belgium is known for its chocolate and, remembering those 2 ideas, she was packing her bags within seconds. She asked if she could have a carriage ride up to see the castle. We were able to ride in a large horse cart to the top – one of the other American passengers even bought hot chocolate for our 2 kids when he learned that it was Laine’s birthday.

I wasn’t able to get any really great photos of the whole castle because while we were there, a huge snowstorm started! It felt like being in a blizzard. It was incredibly windy and the snow was blowing all around us. Thankfully, my sweet friend Mo sent me a photo of our visit to the castle back in 2006!

We headed back down the mountain in the mini-blizzard and had a great time throwing snowballs at one another most of the way down. We were on one of the last castle tours of the day, so we had a quiet walk back down on our own. We even were able to trek the last bit down through the woods instead of along the road. We went back into the town, Schwangau, to our rooms for the night. We had a lovely large suite to ourselves and the kids even had their own room! The view from our porch included a glimpse of the castle! But it was too tiny to be captured in a photo. Ha!

We walked about 2 blocks to dinner and the snow resumed while we were there. We walked back to our suite through beautiful snow! It stuck to everything except the streets and it made the trees lovely.

The next day, we again were in 4 countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland (to the airport), and finally back to Belgium. Just to give you an idea of how interesting the directions are here, the most direct route (as suggested by both our car and Google maps) included passing through this bridge.

Hello again friends!

We traveled to Switzerland last weekend and it was glorious. We started off early Thursday morning and Laine got to ride on a real train for the first time. When our train arrived in Brussels, we were greeted by a friendly attendant who informed us that we didn’t need to buy tickets for the kids. She directed us to the counter for a refund. I love Belgians!

Our flight was delayed a bit, but we landed, collected our car, and were on our way. This was the view from the car as we were leaving Zurich and headed east.

Our timing was absolutely perfect as we were staying in town in a little valley (Bad Ragaz) and then heading up the mountains to hit the slopes. It was spring time at the foot of the mountains and still wintry at the top! We skied/sledded on Friday and Saturday. The kids were in tee shirts and snow pants for their ski lessons on Saturday morning!

We were just in awe of the mountains surrounding us. Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. You can see the mountains from absolutely everywhere…

We found a delightful little play area just up the road from our apartment. It was part of a primary school and had lots of places to climb and balance.

We headed up the mountain on Friday to try to figure out skiing. At some point during the day, Isaac told me this was the most snow he has ever seen in his life. I assured him it was the most snow I’d ever seen in my life, as well!

We weren’t able to get ski lessons on Friday, but we taught the kids a few basic things (Pizza vs. French fries for those of you with young skiers).

Then we decided to try something truly daring. We rented AirBoards. Think inflatable sled. Basically, you throw yourself on the sled and go HEAD FIRST down the mountain. Totally safe. Definitely not utterly insane. But!!! It was everyone’s very favorite thing we did. In theory, you steer by leaning your body and dragging your feet, so we wore our ski boots because they’re more rigid. In reality, however, you can only steer a bit. My method was to crash fairly frequently as speed control. Isaac was completely fearless and basically stopped periodically to give us a little peace of mind before he’d be off again.

The first trip on the AirBoards was taken a bit more slowly as we figured them out. We stopped to take a chocolate break part-way down the slope.

Lunch breaks on the slopes were stunning. The first day we ate inside, but the next day, we were able to score a table on the deck.

At the end of both days on the slopes, we were toast! We took the long lift-ride back down to our car at the bottom of the mountain to find dinner and rest a bit.

Our last day in Switzerland, we decided to go explore. We headed South by Southwest (see what I did there, Austinites?) to Davos, which is the highest city in Europe at 5,120 feet. A few photos from the road:

We stopped along the way several times. The first stop was for a romp in the snow and a snowball fight. We paused on a bench just long enough for a group selfie.

We stopped to have a picnic lunch at Burgruine Belfort – which is a ruined castle in Switzerland. Firstly, the view was amazing. We took a short hike up to the castle. I was reminded of several of our Treehouse friends (and our director Traci in particular) as we walked up past fast-flowing waterfalls, clambered over downed trees, and soaked up our beautiful surroundings. When we got to the castle, we found an IBEX resting quite comfortably along the top of the wall. We were so surprised! We took a few photos and tried not to disturb him. He was pretty sure he could take us out, though, so he wasn’t too concerned.

I also managed to take my favorite group photo at the end of our lunch:

Once we arrived in Davos, we decided to play in the park. The 4 of us had a TERRIFIC snowball fight and had to pause a few times so as not to take out innocent pedestrians. There are no photos of that as I was busy defending myself. Laine also finally got to build her snowman.

Our last stop of the day was sheer accident. We decided to follow the road up the mountain until it ended. We ran out of snow-cleared roads (and weren’t willing to brave anything further in the Alfa-Romeo rental car) at the perfect Swiss restaurant. I’d added fondue in Switzerland to my list of things we had to do. Todd and I got an order to share, but the kids quickly decided we had made a good choice and helped us finish it off.

The next day we left Switzerland bright and early, but that’s a post for another day…

Our apartment is in downtown Leuven. The street in front of our place is pedestrian-only, so the entrance to our garage is the very last one before the street is closed to cars. We are one block from the waffle stand, 3-4 blocks from the grocery store, (depending on which one you want), and about a block from the bank. We are easy walking distance from lots of shops, including the sporting goods store where we bought bike helmets this weekend. It’s across the street from the home decor shop where we got rugs and other household items a couple of weeks ago. The library is next door and the bookstore is less than a block away in the other direction. The Grote Markt, with the beautiful old Town Hall and Sint-Pieterskerk, the enormous Catholic church, are also only a block and a half away. We have several parks nearby and I expect we will spend quite a bit of time in those places once the rain is less frequent.

This apartment is quite large. All of the exterior rooms have enormous windows in them – the windows take up the entire outside wall of each room with short radiators mounted to a low wall under them. The windows let in a terrific amount of natural light! The windows themselves are a brilliant design. Check out the photos below:

Our landlady came by late last week. I think she’d been hoping for a chance to meet us. We had a few concerns (stove vent isn’t working & there’s a leak in the drain in the WC). She owns the apartment above ours, as well, so she introduced me to the couple who lives above us. They are lovely! The apartments on the first 4 floors are all exactly the same floor plan – the fifth floor is different. We’re on the first floor. The second floor neighbors have so many bookshelves that their apartment looks like a library. It is wonderful! The couple is older than we are and he is a professor at the university here. He also teaches in Bologna, Italy for at least 2 months of the year. They were welcoming and incredibly kind. They even offered to let Todd and me use their bicycles. They have also said they’ll invite us up for dinner one evening.

Last Saturday (a week ago), we went to IKEA. We came home, unloaded the car in our basement garage, filled the elevator, and rode up to our floor. I stepped out to open the door to our flat. The kids followed. The elevator doors closed and it disappeared. It returned a moment later with our fourth floor neighbor, Sven, hovering in the midst of all of our purchases. It gave him an opportunity to meet the new neighbors. Ha! What an introduction. He showed us where the magnet is to block the elevator doors so I don’t have to worry about that happening again. Ha! His wife Victoria, a delightful woman originally from Mexico, stopped by to introduce herself this Saturday. She speaks “American” English, so that was an added bonus. She also told us there was a parade planned for that afternoon – more on that in a bit.

This apartment building is more than I could possibly have hoped to find. The neighbors we have met are all friendly and have offered to help us settle in however they can. The only person we haven’t yet met is the elderly woman on the 3rd floor, but I even know a bit about her from the rest of the residents.

Saturday, we decided to check out the parade Victoria mentioned. We walked to the end of our block and there it was! (Did I mention I love living downtown)? The kids caught almost as much candy as Halloween’s haul, plus a few stuffed animals.

Laine was in heaven and Isaac also had a great time. These are a few more of my favorite things from the parade:

We also managed to get 3 bikes this weekend, so Todd and the kids are all set. Leuven is a bike-heavy town and it’s actually considered to be the fastest mode of transportation around here, so I hope to procure one this week, too. One of Todd’s coworkers has pointed us to the local version of Craigslist, so we are getting to explore some new areas in our search, too.

Laine’s birthday is a week from today. We will leave for Switzerland later this week. I’ll be sure to tell you more about that adventure when we return!

If we travel in similar mom or homeschool circles, you’ll have seen this title and know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Part of the adventure here is learning how best to operate the appliances here in Europe. Laundry here is…different. In some ways it is better! E.g., my clothes are SO much softer than they are in Austin. In others, it is definitely more challenging. Both the washer and the dryer are much smaller here. And they run for a VERY long time. I don’t even know how long the washer runs, but it’s well over an hour even if the water temp is only 40 degrees C. The dryer will run for 1:48 on the “Automatic” setting. And the clothes are still wet at the end. I don’t mean slightly damp, either. I can run them again for a second cycle and then the result is mildly damp clothes. The dryer doesn’t vent to the outside world, so it basically heats the clothes enough to cause them to steam and then condenses the water again into a separate container. Thus, I have a new gate on how much laundry I can do in a day:

I washed two small loads of kids’ clothes. And the drying rack was full. Everything has to hang to dry. I just took the photo before I hung anyone’s underwear. 🙂 You were looking, weren’t you?

As long as I run a load of laundry every day, it isn’t a problem. Washing sheets makes for an interesting afternoon, though, as I have to use chairs to spread them out to dry. My sincere hope is that eventually spring and summer will arrive so it will only rain once per day instead of mornings, afternoons, and evenings. (Please note, I’m not saying it rains all the time. I’m saying it rains multiple times per day). I would love to dry some clothes outside, though!

Meanwhile, I’m off to restart the dryer before Isaac wakes up. He’s out of long pants. If I start rerunning the dryer now I can probably finish drying them on the towel warmer before we go out this afternoon.

A final note, for those of you following along on the “mystery meat” saga, we have an answer! It was rabbit. It’s packaged similarly and placed directly beside the chicken. I finally returned to the same grocery store and was able to find it.