Mother's Day 2007

For ages, I have been lobbying for a guillotine, but Greg didn't see the point. Finally I spotted one for 10 Euros but still Greg absolutely categorically under no circumstances stated that I was not to buy one. When I opened my present on Sunday I realized why. Yay, I have my guillotine. It was just meant to be a cheap interim one until we found a better one. Well, instead I found a laminator, so now I have a laminator too.

We had lunch with the church in the park. It was very slow going with Jordy's sore foot. Amazing recovery though when she spotted the babies, you'd never know she had a sore foot. Equally non amazing was how quickly her foot was too sore to do anything once the babies were nowhere in sight. Nevermind, she did make me a very sweet Mother's Day card.

I had my heart set on having dinner in the Biergarten, right next door to our flat, since even though we've been here for a year, I've never been in the biergarten. I was sooo hopeful about the biergarten, that I hadn't bought any food for dinner that night. Which left us in a bit of a pickle cos, the biergarten was closed. Jordy's wasn't up to a long walk, and I didn't want to go anywhere else, so we postponed my Mother's Day dinner till Wednesday. And it was very nice.

Jordan's a star

Jordan's school was participating in a Graetzelfest which is a local festivity. So Jordy got up and sang, 'When You Believe" from the "Prince of Egypt". She was extremely nervous and spent a lot of time
singing in front of the mirror, and trying to convince me to let her
borrow my "strictly off limits to Jordan " clothes.

Everything went well on the day, Jordy sang, her teacher and class
mates turned up after she sang with their "We love Jordy" signs, and
then... Jordy stole the show by falling off the seats and hurting her
foot. That wouldn't have been so bad for Jordy if I didn't stop to
take photos. She's convinced everyone saw me do it and then decided
what a good idea, let's all get a photo.

I tried to take her mind off her injury by pointing out how cute her paramedics were. Perhaps that was the reason why, when Jordy's friend came to deliver Jordy's bag, she too fell off the bench and almost injured herself.

The Saint Michael and Saint Gudula Cathedral

On my recommended list. My enjoyment of this church was augmented by the small information cards dotted around the area. Of great interest to me was this story of the "Miraculous Sacrament".

Statement on the Miraculous Sacrament (‘ Sacrement du Miracle ’): Hatred for the Jews during the Middle Ages. "In 1370, the Jewish community of Brussels was accused of the profanation of the Holy Sacrament and punished for this act. It was claimed that on Good Friday 1370 Jews used daggers to stab communion wafers which had been stolen from a chapel. Blood was said to have flowed from these wafers." There's more to the story if you are interested http://www.cathedralestmichel.be/eng/cult_archi_miracle.php?lang=eng

There's also this cool pulpit made out of wood. And I really liked some of the paintings on display as well.

The Fun Continues;Things really start going down the toilet.

By 8.30am we needed to be at the airport. 7.20am we were waiting to check out of our hostel but the reception was closed and didn't open till 7.30am. Should we forfeit 30 Euros and not worry about handing in the keys? Or should we wait? We waited. In hindsight this was the wrong decision but our excuse is we were a bit sleep deprived so our thought processes were still in sleep mode.

We just missed our train and the next one was running late. Not only that but then it stopped at every single station. However we arrived in time to check-in only..... where was the check-in lady? The other counters hadn't seen her, the check-in sign was still up, what was




going on?
None of the airport staff could tell us and none of them knew where the Sky Europe counter was because everything had just been changed around. Arrrgh! Finally, finally walking around in circles, we found the Sky Europe agents who were absolutely no help whatsoever. Arrgh!

The upshot was Sky Europe were completely in the right and we were obviously in the wrong so if we would like to book tickets for the following day that would be 350Euros, thank you have a nice day. Arrgh! Arrrgh! Arrrgh! As if!

We did manage to get friendly service from Brussels Airlines and cheapish tickets. Now we only had a ten hour wait at the airport which would have been okay except they didn't sell any fresh waffles. Sometimes there really is no justice.

Originally the photo of the lady pissoir was intended for "What the?" on the Rove Live show. No I didn't try it out, yes I did feel funny whipping out my camera in the ladies toilets.

Bon Apetit

On the other corner to where the buskers were, was a restaurant and since it seemed to be pretty quiet, we decided to eat there. No guesses about what Greg wanted to eat-Steak tartare. I almost couldn't get him to let me take a photo, as a photo would have dug into valuable eating time. The waiter was very impressed to see that Greg was not a typical tourist and that Greg obviously knew how to eat this Steak.

I was very pleased with my Salad Nicoise, and my Bordeaux. Jordy was equally pleased with her meal and her Merlot. We made it clear that we hadn't travelled all this way to Paris so she could drink lemonade etc...

We did a tiny bit of a family roam looking for dessert, crepes of course. Then we got lost, walked completely the wrong direction back to the train station, ended up taking a taxi and arrived with barely enough time to board the train. Whereupon I promptly burst into tears, thoroughly perplexing my husband because we'd made it, why was I crying? Tears are a perfect release of stress.

But the fun didn't end there. On our return to Brussels, we got lost again. Greg was getting more and more frustrated because he recognized all the landmarks, and we should be practically standing next to our hostel. After an hour of walking around in circles, we crossed the street and arrrgh, there was our hostel.

Greg thought that this experience should have set off another set of tears or at least a bout of grumpiness. But I think we used up our quota in France. And besides, considering that this was the first time we'd gotten lost in all our travels, we'd done good. Plus at 1.30am, who has the energy?

We just managed to enter the Notre Dame before closing time. So we didn't get to see much. As we didn't want to disturb the mass, we left. But that was okay. We got to see the stained glass windows and Greg thought the outside was the best bit anyway and I have to agree. Behind the cathedral was the sweetest little garden. Greg was a bit amused by how enamoured with it I was. but it was so pretty and the trees were in blossom and the sun was shining and we were in Paris.

As we were leaving the garden, some buskers started playing. They were fantastic. I just love it when a band really enjoys their music. Plus they were cute. Proof was in the number of young sweet things that gathered to watch them. I don't remember their name because Jordy couldn't pronounce it and I couldn't understand what she was saying.

The homeless person who decided to join in on their act was also hugely entertaining.

On the Boat

I really wanted to boat down the Seine. I was a bit hesitant to suggest it, but my aching feet opened my mouth for me. Plus, I really really wanted to boat down the Seine. (I am aware that I am using boat as a verb when it is really only a noun. I apologise for my bad english.) I sincerely recommend doing this at the beginning of your day as the ticket was for the whole day. It might be a little slow as a mode of transport but it is so cool. I thought it was cheap too, about 12 euros.

Whilst we were waiting we bought a couple of Eiffel Tower keychains. I don't know what happened when Jordy went to buy them but she came back a bit red, the vendor was looking embarrassed as well, and his friend was killing herself laughing. You'll have to ask Jordy for all the details.

We embarrassed Greg by waving to everyone as we sailed past. I was surprised at how few waved back. I was unsurprised that the young men waved back...to Jordy. Although she is still in denial about this.

Eiffel Tower

It was starting to get really crowded in the Louvre so we headed to the Eiffel Tower. I had wanted to grab a bite in the Place de la Concord but everything seemed a little too pricey, plus it looked like it was going to rain. I don't know if it was really as far away as I felt it to be or if I was just tired but it felt like it was a long way a way. But the walk there was so pretty, and the sun was shining and the trees were blossoming.

The euphoria of being here was dimmed a little by the drunken hooligan singing that was reverberating around the park. Why! Why! Once again, we got lunch from a queue free kiosk. It was within coughing distance of the Eiffel Tower and the other food booths but, it was behind a few trees. I was very pleased to be eating a baguette with cheese in the park by the Eiffel Tower.

Photos a bit dark as the rain clouds were rolling in which was lucky for us because the rain chased the long queues to the Eiffel Tower away. I had really wanted to just fork out the money and get the lift up but the climb actually wasn't that bad. And there are informative history posters on the way up and you get to walk around the tower at each level.

Unfortunately, we could still hear the hooligan slurring..I mean singing. The Tower seemed to provide perfect acoustics. Thanks to the acoustics we also got to be very surprised to hear the chant of the Haka. It almost brought a tear to my eye..NAH! Typical us to arrive in Paris at the beginning of the rugby season. But come on, who equates Paris with rugby!

So we consoled ourselves with crepes.

The Louvre

Since we only had ten hours in Paris, we chose a bare minimum of three things we wanted to do there. -The Louvre, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Paris has the nice feature that museums are free for school aged kids. The Louvre was very reasonably priced at 8.50 euros and even better, buying your ticket was ease free as you could just get it from a ticket machine. More tourist attractions should do this.

I was very suitably impressed with the Louvre. I would have liked more time to appreciate the paintings but it was so crowded, we chose the paths less travelled.

This statue on the left got our "poser's award".

It seems a terrible and yet a good thing that so much of the art which we recognised could be attributed not to being well educated but to being well "Simpsonised" as in the Simpsons.

On to Paris

Not the most attractive photo of myself but oh well. Greg got tired of me taking photos of him when he's asleep and my reasoning, "but you look so cute." , just doesn't cut it with him. So this is his revenge.

Anyway, I am certainly coming to appreciate trains. Especially the T.G.V. We left Belgium and arrived in Paris in a little over an hour. As you can see, the early mornings and late nights were taking a bit of a toll on us.

We met some Aussies on the train who were incredibly Australian. As in they sounded like they were off some "Our World" programm on Aussies. It's funny how, when you're in NZ, the Aussies are a bunch of 'blighters";but when you're a long way away from home, the Aussies almost feel like our "cuzzies from across the Tasman".