Since Carolyn did such an admirable job summing up our visual fun in Belgium, it’s my turn to sum up what we consumed whilst we were there. Belgium is known for good eats and an amazing array of beers. For a country of its size, they have hundreds of beers made there. Ignoring the swill that comes out of Inbev (yes, a Belgian company that managed to buy Anheuser-Busch), they have some very good beers and all of them have their own special glass to drink out of. I’ll just sum up a few of the more interesting ones we had (we managed to sample over 20 different beers in our weekend there, so I won’t bore you with the details).

Der Garre is a small, old bar in the center of Bruges. They have contracted out with a brewer to make their house beer. Bruges is touristy, and this place had plenty of them, but they claim the locals come just for this beer. I can understand why. It is high in alcohol (12%), but the alcohol doesn’t overwhelm it. So it has a refreshing taste as well. And it’s nice to have a little cheese with it as well. The bar was friendly and bustling both times we went.

This is Carolyn in the bar of the De Halve Maan Brewery, the last remaining brewery in Bruges. Right after WWII, there were over 30 of them. We’ve been on a few brewery tours and each one tries to make it a little interesting. As this place had been brewing beer for 150 years, the process has been modernized and requires less space. So, while they have a big building for brewing, they only really need part of it to brew the beer. As a result, they’ve kept the old bits around as a view into the past of brewing and show you around it. It was very interesting to see the way things have changed. People need not crawl around closed fermenters cleaning beer out of it while getting drunk on beer fumes. De Halve Maan make three beers, Brugse Zot blond and brown and Straffe Hendrick. We had all three at one point and they were all lovely. We liked the glasses so much, we bought two to bring home.

In Belgium, there’s a beer store called brewmania where you can buy a beer and drink it on site. The owner was a friendly, knowlegable and chatty guy who was happy to help find recommendations for us. This happens to be his house beer. The glass is an interesting combo of a typical Belgian beer glass but the stem is a handle, to keep the beer from getting warm by you touching it with your hand.

There are 7 monasteries in Belgium that still make beer. They’re trappist ales. Among them, Westvleren is the hardest to find. They only make exactly the amount they need support themselves for the year and avoid labels and other marketing. As a result, their beer is a bit rare and not cheap. It doesn’t help that they make very good beer that has won awards. Beermania had some, so I had to splurge and have a bottle. It lived up to expectations.

Now onto food. Belgium is a lovely place to eat. It’s even better if you like meat and fries. There are fries everywhere. We ate more than our share of them. The dish above is a local dish called Waterzooi which is a stew of chicken, veg and a cream-based sauce. It was delicious. I also ate way too much steak while I was here. Carolyn avoided that for more fish based dishes. We definitely ate well overall, although there was the occasional meal that wasn’t perfect. The lunch in the picture above was excellent.

The last weekend in August is August Bank Holiday in England (and much of Europe, I think).  It marks the end of the 6 week school summer vacation and is the last public holiday until Christmas.  We decided to take advantage of the three day weekend to hop the Eurostar under the Channel and head to Belgium.  The Eurostar terminal is at St. Pancreas station – just a 15 minute bus ride from our flat.

We took the 7 am train from London and arrived in Brussels at 10 am (even with a one hour time change).  Our plan for the weekend was to head to Brugge, the capital of West Flanders and a canal based UNESCO World Heritage site, and enjoy some Belgium chocolate, frites and beer.  We stayed at the Bauhaus Hostel just outside the main city centre and after dropping off our bags headed out to explore.

Here is the belfry in the city centre, we climbed all 366 steps to the top:

Here is a view from the top:

We explored through lots of cobblestone streets, toured a brewery and an old beguinage and enjoyed some good fish stew, steak, frites and belgium waffles.  We even rented bikes and journeyed a few kilometers out of town to Damme.

On Monday we got up early to catch the bus to DeHaan, a town on the coast of the North Sea.  We got to town about 9 am so the beach was pretty quiet.  We had it to ourselves for a little bit and then the crowds started to come out.  So we headed back to Brussels where we would spend our last night before catching the 7 am train back to London – just in time to get to work for 9 on Tuesday.

Here is a picture from the beach:

We only had one evening to explore Brussels but it seems like an exciting city with tons of amazing architecture – old and new.  Like this Art Nouveau building:

I’ll leave it to Matt to fill you in a bit more on the food and beer we enjoyed in Belgium.

Back in June, I made a trip to the east coast for my cousin’s graduation from high school.  It was a great week where I got a chance to catch up with family in Connecticut and New Hampshire and spend the weekend in Boston with friends.  I was even able to make it to my friend Naomi’s wedding (she was nice enough to schedule it for the weekend after the graduation).  All in all it was a great trip home.  Matt was even able to join us for the weekend in Connecticut to see all the family and celebrate the graduation.

Here is Tony getting ready for the big event.  Note the coordination of family clothing.

I had the chance to see my little cousin Carmen starting to crawl as well.  No photos to share but here she is celebrating with me and Tony.

Naomi’s wedding was at the Elm Bank Horticultural Center in Wellesley, MA.  It was a beautiful setting and ceremony and a great party.  Here is Haley and I with the bride:

And the balloon bride and groom:

While visiting Matt’s family in Tuscon, we had a chance to venture over to Bowie, Arizona to visit the straw bale house my friend is building in the desert.  Unfortunately, she was out of town (in Michigan) for a few weeks so we didn’t get a chance to see her.  Ground breaking on the house was back in April and at this stage the foundation has been poured, the walls are up and the roof is on.  We had a chance to poke around the site and check out the views.  I was really happy to get to see the house in progress and can’t wait to come back to see it all finished.  I am so impressed with what Nicole has accomplished – she created the drawings, has learned tons about construction and with the help of family and friends, has been building her home herself.

Here’s Matt outside the house.

While in the area we had the chance to explore some other beautiful places as well.  First we visited Katchner Caverns, an amazing limestone cave, which was only “discovered” in 1974 and open to the public only after efforts were made to ensure its preservation in the 1990s.  No photos allowed inside.

Afterwards, we went for a lovely walk in Chiricahua National Monument, a maze of rock spires.  Although we left Matt’s parents at 5:30 am, by the time we went to the airport, had breakfast, went to the caves and drove the couple hours over to the Bowie area, we didn’t arrive at the monument until about noon.  So we set off for our 2 hour walk in the heat of the day, not great timing for us wimps used to England temperatures.  It was well worth it though to see such amazing scenery.  It must be wonderful to see this place in all seasons.  An example of the views:

After this action packed day, we headed back to Tucson and finally got to experience a southwestern rainstorm complete with thunder and lightning.

By popular demand, I would like present a photo dump of our trip to Denver and Arizona. ‘Twas a lovely time and a good start to what looking like a busy couple of months of travel and visitors (hurray!).

A typical scene in my life this week:

After our celebrations in Denver, we all travelled down to Arizona to enjoy my parents beautiful home with its spectacular setting and views. Here would be me sitting enjoying a well earned beer before meeting all the nice people my parents have met since moving to AZ. A very relaxing week so far. Alas, we’ve got less than 3 days before we begin our journey back to the UK.

Just a quick note to present to my world Dr. Lisa Badanes. She officially got her PhD in developmental psychology. Carolyn and I are in Denver to celebrate her great achievement. Congratulations Lisa!!

For those of you unaware, the birth of Carolyn is on 15 July. And it happens every year! Happy Birthday to her! 🙂

This year, we went for a bit of culture. In Regent’s Park, one of those wonderfully manicured English green spaces, there’s a summer outdoor theatre. Now, this could be seen as not the best idea in the world since England usually has a bit of rain now and then . Regardless, we wanted to see some acting in a nice green setting, so we planned to have a picnic in the park followed by some Oscar Wilde. We packed a nice meal and wine and trekked to the West London. The day had been grey and raining on and off all day, but the weather forecast (which is NEVER accurate here), claimed it would let up by the evening. We stepped off the tube and, the moment we stepped into the park, the skies opened up. Oops! We took shelter under some trees until it let up and wandered in search of a good spot to set up. Since it was raining, a little covering would be nice and we found it under a gazebo:

We planted ourselves in the spot that seemed to be most likely to hold back the rains which it did marvellously for about 30 minutes. Then the winds came. The rain kept creeping closer and more sideways so we put up our umbrella to act as a wall against the rain and just enjoyed the lovely setting, food and company. We managed to stay about 70% dry as the rains let up:

A wet, but contented, birthday girl (note how wet the floor got even with a roof over our heads). Even with the rain, we were both in quite good spirits. With the meal over, we realized that, with about 20 minutes until the play, the skies were blue and the rain was gone. A rainy picnic was fine since we had a gazebo to protect us. A rainy outdoor performance might have been less fun, so we thanked our good luck and made our way to the theatre:

Those are all cut roses to make a garden for the second act. It was a performance of the Importance of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde. Neither of us knew it very well but we found it quite funny and well acted. I can’t put a finger on it, but I felt like a lot of the humo(u)r, after 2.5 years as a resident of the country it takes place in wasn’t quite as lost on me as it might have been had I not been living in England. Maybe it’s just me being an ass (“oh, look at me! I know England now that I’ve spent some time here”), but I felt a little closer to the whole thing than I have when I’ve seen other British theatre.

Anyway, the rain did nothing to diminish the celebrations and we got to see some wonderful acting and culture to boot. The celebrations continued through the weekend with a nice pub crawl. All in all, a successful birthday with many more to come.

So, I think it’s been made abundantly clear that Chewy has gotten a bit fat. Anna not eating meant he had plenty of food to munch on. For the past year, he’s been on a diet which means we keep cutting back on the amount of fancy diet food he can eat since he’s not losing weight. Add to this that he misses his friend Anna, and you have a whiny cat.

We try to compensate by being his exercise companions. As luck would have it, we found out that the garden in back of our building is communal. We figured that Chewy would love to have a little outdoor play time. However, we’ve now learned that Chewy is, for lack of a better word, agoraphobic. Yes, we have a cat that is afraid of the outdoors. When we bring him outside, he gets so scared he pissed on me as I carried him down. Regardless, here are some photos of a cute cat that shows that he has in fact gone outside:

Here’s a scared little kitty hanging out on a bench in the garden.

If we bring him down in his crate, he is far more willing to just hang out. Inevitably, he will look for anything that gives him a roof of sorts, though.

Never fear, there’re some indoor stairs he does like to chill out on in the common part of the building, so we just run him around on those and give him lots of loving. Hopefully, his diet can end soon so he can stop being hungry. 🙂

Just a quick note to say hello and, for those of you reading, that I’m still alive. This evening, I’ll be doing a bit of the jetset lifestyle by spending 72 hours in the US. I arrive tonight in Boston around 10pm and then go to CT for Carolyn’s cousin’s graduation (congrats Tony!) and then up to New Hampshire before hopping a plane back to London. It’s been a year since I set foot in the US so I’m looking forward to what’s going to be a fun, but too short trip!

Well, it’s been a bit of a blog drought. I’ve got plenty to write about, but I need to get off my lazy ass and write. Alas, this entry won’t be much more lively. This past weekend, we took a road trip up to Scotland with our main destination being Edinburgh. It was a lovely weekend and a great way to see the country. It’ll be added to the list of things that require a proper write-up. In the meantime, I’m taking the boring photo dump route. Here be a link to all our photos from our trip to Edinburgh:

Well, in an attempt to not lose the blogging momentum, I’ve been back from Greece for less than 24 hours and here I am writing! This will just be a photo dump with a few select photos. In a nutshell, Greece was amazing. Relaxing, beautiful and fun. That sums it up nicely. I’ll have to post multiple things to get it all in since we spent time on 4 islands and Athens. Busy busy. Anyhoo, you can now see all our unedited Greek photos.

The lovely town of Mykonos. In the summer, this place is a mob-scene, but show up a couple weeks early and it’s quite wonderful.

The Caldera, volcanic center and town of Santorini. Yes, the white on the tops of those cliffs is a town and the houses all mostly white and blue. Love this photo. Much more on Santorini to come.

The Temple of Hephaestus in Athens. Not as big as it’s neighbour, the Parthanon that sits atop the acropolis, but it’s more intact. It was a joy to come upon this in the Ancient Greek Market (aka. the Agora).

Yikes! I think that’s a record for longest gap between posts. It’s been a busy busy month and change. Allow me to give you a recap with details later. I’m not guaranteeing too much for the next 10 days as we’re going to Greece in 3 days, but here’s a little to whet your appetite. Since I last posted, we’ve gone skiing in the Alps, enjoyed a nice visit with Carolyn’s parents, taken a cycling trip in Richmond Park, played games, hung out with friends, sung in choirs (for the first time in 4 years), travelled southeast England, celebrated my birthday. For now, let’s start with some evidence of a trip to the Alps:

Behold the Matterhorn as viewed from our hotel in Zermatt. Tres cool. And, since we were in the area:

Proof that not only did I ski, but I did some of it in a blizzard. And we ate lunch in an old farm house on the side of the mountain. Alas, the camera fogged up, so the only picture in there looks like a silly 1970s yuppie picture, but that’ll all come soon enough. So sorry for being so neglectful. I promise tons of fun to follow!

In October 2008, my parents were due to visit London and my mom had a special request.  She asked us to get tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London.  I had not heard of the Key Ceremony so I looked into it.  The Ceremony is the nightly routine to lock up the Tower of London and has taken place every night without fail for over 700 years.  It even happened nightly during WWII as bombs were falling on London.  So, we wrote off for the free tickets and were sent 4 for one of the nights during my parents trip.  Unfortunately, they weren’t able to come in October 2008 so my friends Nicola and Rachel joined Matt and I on the scheduled night.

Fortunately my parents were able to reschedule their trip so in March 2009, we were able to go again with my parents.  Here is a spooky shot of the Tower at night during their visit.

Each evening had a different character but the ceremony is the same every night.  The Tower, the Jewels and all the residents are locked in at 10:00 pm sharp.