A Fairytale Easter

We spent Easter weekend in Alsace, a hilly Northeastern French region that borders Germany and is home to the big city, Strasbourg.  We rented a very cute gîte in the small town of Andlau with our friends Trynke and Arne and their son Melle. Our Gite was next to a river and wooded area, and Wilson ran away during one of his daily walks.  Luckily he ran ‘home’ back to the rental, dogs must have really good senses of smell!

Arne and the kids.

Alsace has a rich history of switching between French and German Rule, and because of this the architecture, language, and local food are a mish-mosh of French and German.  You can find bretzels served in the patisseries, alongside crepe stands.

We spent one day in Colmar, which is a very popular tourist destination as the buildings look like something straight out of Beauty and the Beast.  The buildings are all colorful sandstone with timber framing, and they don’t all appear to stand straight.  Some of them are slightly curved or tilted, which really gives you the impression you’re in a fairytale.  We arrived in Colmar on Easter morning and were pleasantly surprised to find the streets alive with food carts, craft fairs, and caged barn animals.  We wandered through the throngs of people, ate the best crepe yet, and took a boat ride down a canal/river running through the “little Vienna” neighborhood.

Typical architecture in Colmar

One of the several squares in Colmar all decorated for Easter and filled with stands selling cheese, candy, toys and beer.

Taking a break at the sausage and beer stand.

Vintage metal toys for sale

One of the busier streets and cafe's in Colmar. Everyone was out for Easter in Colmar while most of the rest of the country was sleepy and deserted.

Me and Lilah posing outside a building covered in 100s of faces (Maison des Têtes).

Family photo on a bridge overlooking the canal running through "Little Venice". We took a boat ride along it right after.

Historically the color of each building designated the profession of the occupant.

Alsace is also known for their wines, so we went wine tasting in Andlau and were surprised to like the Reislings!  We tend to stay away from Reislings in the US because they are so sweet, but the ones we tried in Andlau were crisp, refreshing, and delicious.

The whole group (minus photographer Chris) walking down to the local wine tasting bar.

After wine tasting...

Pals and Canals

So many bikes!

Over the years we’ve made a fair number of Dutch friends… we seem to always like the Dutchies who enter our lives, so we were particularly excited to travel to Holland last weekend.  We arrived in Amsterdam late at night (after driving through Parisian traffic which I hope to never to again), and were immediately shocked at the number of bicycles parked everywhere.  We’ve heard that Amsterdam is very biker-friendly, but we really weren’t prepared to see hundreds of bikes lining the streets everywhere we went.

With Michael and Libby

On Saturday we met up with our friends from the States, Michael and Libby, who were in Europe on vacation.  This was a fun little rendez-vous since it was our wedding 5 years ago to the weekend that started their tradition of an annual international trip!  We went to the Van Gogh museum, which we loved, our favorite paintings we hadn’t seen before were:

De Aardappeleters, 1885

Skull with Burning Cigarette, 1885-1886

After the museum we walked around the canals, and eventually made our way back to Michael and Libby’s hotel where we drank Libby’s favorite cocktail (and maybe my new favorite as well), the French 75.  

Lilah loved these two!

French 75's - aren't they pretty!

This gin, lemon, sugar, and champagne delight was just what we needed before eating some amazing Thai food (probably the best we’ve had since Thailand), and walking through the Red Light District.  I am happy to report that Lilah slept the whole way through the red light district, as I felt like a pretty bad mom bringing my 7-month-old to see prostitutes and sex shops.  The red light district was packed with tourists, and is pretty much exactly what we expected: girls in lingerie standing in lit up red-lined doors along several blocks.  Behind the girls you can see into a small room with a bed.  I had a hard time just staring at these girls, I wanted to open a few of the doors and talk to the girls to learn their stories, or to save them or something.  On our walk back from the red light district we encountered the Stille Omgang, a catholic silent procession for self-reflection and forgiveness for one’s sins... two very different worlds.

Red Light District

Another bachelor party!  This time a priest and monks in the red light district.

On Sunday we met up with our friend Aniko, who we met while we were all living in Riverside.  We hadn’t seen her for about 3 years, so it was a treat to spend the day with her and her daughter Merel.  

With Aniko and Merel

Aniko showed us around Amsterdam, we went to lunch at a great café where Chris ordered some kind of raw beef sandwich (he claims it was delicious), we walked around the Nine Streets, all through the canals, and were going to see the Anne Frank House, but it was closed because Obama was in Amsterdam that day and was going there.  There was a big nuclear energy convention starting the following week, so many presidents were in Amsterdam – we even saw a protest against the Chinese President.  

Aniko and Lilah

We ended the day at Blue, a restaurant at the top of the Kalvertoren shopping center where we had a great coffee and view of the city.

View from Blue

We loved Amsterdam, it is quaint, beautiful, and so friendly.  We will be back!

Canal by Day

Canal lit up at night

Brussels

Town Hall in the Grand Place

We arrived in Brussels on a Saturday afternoon in time to see the Grand Place alive with people, a small market, cafes, and shops.  We spent the evening meandering through the narrow streets lined with waffle stands, chocolate shops, beer, pomme frites, and mussels.  It was a little overwhelming at first, the whole city seemed like a glutton's paradise, and everything kind of looked the same so we felt a little lost at times, or like we were having déjà vu walking through the streets – were we just on this street or is this a new street with delicious things everywhere?  

Buy one of these sticks with your choice of chocolate, and you get a cup of hot milk to make your own hot chocolate.

We made our way to the famous sculpture Manneken Pis, and it lived up to it’s very low expectations, I think Lilah may have been bigger than the little peeing man.  We encountered some very drunk older men in suits – one of them fell on Wilson, another was lying in the middle of the street (and we are pretty sure we saw an ambulance headed his way), and a third one was dancing with every women he encountered at a very crowded bar while knocking himself and his dancing partner into tables and patrons.  There is something about seeing completely obliterated 50+-year-old well-dressed men that is just hilarious.   

Mannekin Pis

We spent a few hours at a bar called Delerium Tremens (this wasn’t actually a Huyghe Brewery bar, but Chris was still very excited to be in the land of the Delierum Tremens), and enjoyed some Belgian beers we’d never tried before.  We made friends with two French guys who lent us their Yahtzee set and then ended up gifting it to us before we left.  Lilah was a great sport, she seems to really love being in new places and people watching – which is great for us! 

Typical street view

On Sunday we met up with our friend Stef for the day – she is Dutch, we met her while we were all living in Honduras.  We overlapped in Europe for a few weeks before she moved to Australia so Brussels was a good half-way point for a quick rendez-vous before she left.  We had a pretty authentic Belgium lunch at Fin de Siecle, which had a great atmosphere with good beers and excellent food (Chris and Stef had sausages and stoemp, and I had carbonade flamande), and then went to check out another area of the city, home to Mini-Europe and the Atomium.  I think Europeans have a thing for mini things, we've heard of a Mini-France, and now this. The idea is that you can walk through a scale model of the whole continent, and see all the main attractions of every country.  But it was was closed, so we turned around and headed to a very NON-mini molecule looming on the horizon.

The Atomium (should be called The Molleculem)

The Atomium was built during the World's Fair of 1958, and is composed of multiple silver spherical rooms, connected by diagonal stair-wells in the shape of a molecule. After buying our tickets for the observation deck in the top atom (102 meters up) we discovered that we'd have to wait in an hour-long line for the elevator. So we opted to go through the ‘museum’ of the Atomium instead, which gets you up into a few of the lower pods.  The exhibits were terrible (dusty dated history exhibit), and this place should never be visited by anyone.  If you ever find yourself in Brussels, just enjoy the Atomium from the outside, but don’t waste your time going here!  Regardless, we had a very fun and hilarious day exploring with Stef.

Thanks for meeting us for a long lunch!

Brouwerji Huyghe - Belgium

A couple weeks ago the whole family piled into a tiny rental car and and drove to Brussels, Belgium. The EU has open borders between their countries, so we drove right through the border crossing which had fallen into a state of disrepair and resembled an apocalyptic stronghold. We took a wrong turn, which would have been potentially disastrous due to road-signs being in a strange language and a data plan restricted to France, but miraculously we wound up on the right street and drove straight into Ghent. Apparently the medieval city/castles of Ghent are a popular tourist destination but we didn't know this, and besides we weren't here for culture, we were here for beer.

Huyghe Brewery

Ghent (well technically Melle) is home to Brouwerji Huyghe where they brew Delirium Tremens, one of my favorite beers (the best beer in the world actually). It is a tripel, a strong champagne-like beer with a very mild fruitiness rounded out with a golden warmth. I think it has been getting popular in the US in the last few years; I seem to spot the pink elephant at more and more beer venues. We donned hairnets and began our tour, and were a little surprised when the tour ended up being in Flemish. So we didn't get much information, but now and then the guide would step aside and give us some explanations in broken English. We saw the copper stills, a complex filtration system, the bottling plant, and the warehouse. There were stacks upon stacks of creates headed all over the world.

Lilah is very embarrassed by her mother.

bottling plant

Then the tour came to an end, and the real fun began... beer tasting. For the 7-euro tour admission we got unlimited beer pours from a trio of adorable Belgians. We were probably there for 2 hours and no one was rushing us out. They even filled up a giant, over-sized Delirium Tremens chalice for a guy dressed up in a lion costume on his bachelor party. We tried all the beers on tap, and both decided that La Guillotine was actually a far superior beer to Delirium Tremens. Also on tap was a Floris Kreik cherry beer, which Kimmy really enjoyed. The bartender saw this and took it as his cue to open up the private reserves hidden in a fridge behind the bar. He brought out an assortment of fruit beers (Floris & gluten free Mongozo), ranging from mango, apple, raspberry, honey, and passion fruit. We even enjoyed a coconut beer out of a coconut shell. Bizarre! This treatment solidified my opinion that Delirium Tremens is the best.

Apparently it was completely normal for the Bachelor to be wearing a fur suit.

I love my drinking partner (She's holding a draft cherry beer that wasn't sweet)

The Bar... the best, sorry I didn't get the bartenders to pose.

Lilah absolutely loves coasters. It gives us a solid 15 minutes of freedom.

Coconut beer might sound gross, but I thought it was great. I mean there is a time and place for coconut beer... but it worked here.