Tall, Dark and Handsome....

The most famous beer coming out of Ireland - Guinness....what else would I be talking about?

Our weekend in Dublin was a great time - it was nice to be away and not have to be really busy with touristy stuff the whole time. The weather was nice, chilly, but clear days, so we spent alot of time walking around and exploring the city!

When we arrived on Saturday around 10am Ireland time, we went straight to the hotel and dropped our stuff off and started to explore a bit. Our hotel was located in Temple Bar which is not 1 bar, it is about 8-10 blocks filled with pubs, bars and restaurants and some shops - what a place to drop us off!

The weather wasn't fantastic, so we decided to do the Guinness Brewery Tour which was about a 20 minutes walk from our hotel. On our way, we stopped at the oldest pub in Ireland, The Brazen Head, est. 1196.... The pub was pretty interesting with low doorways and thin doors and lots of small rooms - they did have flushing toilets though, which releived me (literally, haha).
The picture here shows the bar, the stone part in the front is the original building and when you go through this, there is a large courtyard with lots of tables outside. It would be a fantastic spot in the summer!

We headed towards the brewery and Dylan was more excited than I have ever seen him. The tour was pretty interesting, I acutally learned a bit about the brewing process and why the beer is so dark. Mr. Guinness opened the Guinness Brewery at St. James Square in 1759 when he signed a 9000 year lease. The buildings were pretty old and the beer tasted delicious! We read after this that the Guinness Brewery is the biggest tourist attraction in Dublin - it was packed! If anyone ever goes, make sure you purchase your tickets for the tour online beforehand, we got to skip the lineup of at least 200 people and go in ahead of them since we had done this - you also get a discount for purchasing them online! This picture is of Dylan and I on the top floor of the brewery where you get your complimentary Guinness and a view of the city.

Once we had a taste, we decided to continue our travels on to another pub. When we left, this fella approached us and said he was going to see his buddy play at a pub with free drinks! He said "Come on, I just picked up these Germans (4 German guys waved) and we're heading over, we got room for 2 Canadians too"! Who are we to say NO? So we followed this guy (who we dubbed as Curly) and went to a pub not far away to hear his friend play. His friend, Steph, was really good and we've been trying to find him online, but can't remember what he called himself. Curly was an interesting cat too, a little odd, but nice fella in general and we had a good time!

We explored some of the city, had a bite and were in bed by 9pm on Saturday night...imagine! Our hotel was along the river in the middle of Temple Bar, we could here people until the wee hours, but we were content to sleep through that and get up early on Sunday for another full day!

Sunday was a relatively nice day so we did a walking tour of the city. We went to Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christ Church and the middevil part of the city. We walked through the large shopping district early afternoon and along the river. The river runs through the middle of the city, along Temple Bar and there are large (for cars) and small (for pedestrians) bridges over it every block or two. This is us on Sunday morning in front of one of the bridges that has the Guinness colors.

After this tour, we decided to go to Gogarty's, a large pub and have a cold one (see picture below). At this pub, there is live Irish music from 230pm to 230am which we enjoyed all evening! We loved the music and sang along to some of the songs and had a great time. We had our own mini pub crawl and explored the pubs in Temple Bar until late that evening. Was funny, for a Sunday afternoon, all the places we visited were packed, so we weren't the only ones enjoying a few Guinness!

Monday morning, we slept in, had a bite and went back to Trinity College to see the 'Book of Kells' which is an old bible that was written (mostly in pictures) in the 6th century. We walked through the museum and around the campus. The campus was really old - built in 1592 and was the first University in Ireland.

Before we left, we had to have some Irish Stew. It is the dish of choice in Ireland made with lamb. Neither Dylan nor I like lamb, but we decided to try it anyway. It was good, but Mom's stew tastes better to me!

We left Dublin around 4pm and headed back home to Brussels. Because our tickets were so cheap with RyanAir (53 euro for the two of us), we flew to the airport in Charleroi, just outside of Brussels.
Here is a summary of our trip home:
- get bus from Dublin to the airport (45 mins)
- fly from Dublin airport to Charleroi (1h40mins)
- get bus from Charleroi Airport to Charleroi train station (20mins, after a half hour wait)
- get train from Charleroi to Brussels (1hr, but we had to wait 1h40mins for the train)
- get metro from Brussels Central to our apartment (15mins)

We arrived home at 11:45pm on Monday night after leaving Dublin at 4pm (Ireland time), for a total travel time of 7hrs. We had a fantastic time and if we're still here for St. Paddy's Day, we hope to head back that way (but hopefully get a flight from Brussels Airport)!

Sinterklaas is not Santa Claus

I was out exploring with a friend the other day and she informed me that Santa here is not like Santa at home. Santa doesn’t have a sleigh or reindeer or elves or live in the North Pole – no, Santa Claus here lives in Spain! I was a little sceptical at first until we saw “Santa” aka “Sinterklaas” in one of the store windows.

Just read on Wiki: New Amsterdam in North America originally was home to the Dutch and but eventually it was occupied by the English and renamed New York City. The name Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch Sinterklaas.

The picture above Sinterclaas arriving from Spain.

Sinterklaas has a long white beard, wears a red dress and hat and holds a long gold staff with a fancy curled top. Sinterklaas carries 2 big books with all the children’s names in them, which states whether they have been good or naughty in the past year. Sounds familiar, right? Ok, now more detail.....

Sinterklaas arrives in Belgium (and the Netherlands) from Spain by steamboat. Sinterklaas rides a white horse over the rooftops named “Slechtweervandaag” which means “bad weather today”.... (What a strange name for a horse in a country like Belgium.....where rain is typical). Ok, so this is the odd/racist part that I’m having trouble getting used to: Sinterklaas does not have elves – he is assisted by many mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful outfits called Zwarte Piet which means ‘Black Petes’ in Dutch. This came to have racist connotations, originally Pete was said to be an imported African servant of Saint Nicolas – now the story has a more politically correct explanation – Pete’s face is said to be “black from soot” from climbing down the chimneys to deliver the gifts. Attempts have been made to change this racist tradition and introduce “Colored Petes” with the story that Sinterklaas passed through a rainbow with his boat on his way over from Spain – red, blue, green and yellow Petes – but it hasn’t caught on yet.

The original story was that Sinterklaas had only one helper – Zwarte Piet or Pete – but it was the Canadian soldiers during World War II who liberated the Netherlands and helped organize the first post war Sinterklaas celebration that changed this into multiple helpers!

Sinterklaas brings gifts to children on the evening of December 5^th and the children get them on December 6^th. They do still celebrate our traditional Christmas Eve and Day – but no presents during this time. No stockings here - children put their shoes at the bottom of the chimney or by the front door and when they wake up the shoes are filled with candy (I wouldn’t want to be the person filling Dylan’s sneakers – or eating the candy that was in them for that matter!) Sinterklaas carries 2 books with him – Golden Book and Black Book – you know what that means – also, they get a pile of wood or salt instead of coal here! Instead of threatening no toys, parents here threaten their children that they will be put in the sac and taken back to Spain on the boat with Sinterklaas – that’s a little scary!

So, it is quite interesting that they don’t have the same traditions as we do at home – especially the Steamboat part – and why Spain?

I Want You For Belgium

On Sunday morning on the Metro, we noticed alot of people draped in Belgian Flags, Jupiler clothing (their local beer), people covered in the "I Want You for Belgium" stickers and faces painted with the Belgian flag. We weren't exactly sure what was going on, but talked to people throughout the day and got some answers.

The Belgians organized a protest - over 25,000 people walked from the city centre to Cinquantenaire Arch (park across the street from our apartment). This was an important day in Belgian history, so thought I would share the details of this with you.

Quote from the Herald Tribune:
"Some 25,000 people staged a Belgian unity march in Brussels Sunday to vent their anger at a linguistic spat that prevents a government from taking office stoking speculation Belgium's Dutch and French-speakers would be better off breaking up."

Belgium currently does not have a government. The Dutch speaking and French speaking people in Belgium are fighting over power here and are not coming to any conclusions on their own. The protest was to announce that both sides want to come to an agreement and elect a government.

There was talks of breaking up the country into parts - Brussels being the centre, Dutch in the North and French in the South and having separate countries for each.

This is a quote from EuroNews today:
"Marchers carried banners and distributed leaflets in Belgium's three languages, French, Dutch, and German.
Flemish pressure to reduce French-speakers rights and redraw electoral boundaries around Brussels recently led to a collapse in talks on putting together a new government, which has yet to be formed 161 days since the last elections.
Some say the country has a dog's chance of getting a new government until the rift between the two communities is closed."

In Brussels, everyone speaks French and little Engligh. In Antwerp on Saturday, I spoke French to a sales lady and she looked at me like I had 3 heads. I asked her (in French) if she spoke English, she replied (in a Dutch accent)"I'd much prefer English to French".

Not hard for me to beleive that a language can tear a country apart....

Runaway train...

Hello Everyone! Great weekend in Brussels - first weekend I remember where I didn`t see a drop of rain!

We planned on leaving for Antwerp on Saturday morning - Antwerp is less than an hour away and we heard it had a great shopping area. We left the apartment and headed for North Station to catch the train late morning. They leave frequently for Antwerp, so we didn`t have a specific time to catch a train. We met a guy named Adam who was heading to Amsterdam on the same train - he was from Boston and on day 3 of his 3 month European adventure - he sat with us and we had a great chat.

About a half hour into the ride, Dylan said "I think we're going the wrong way"...... then the train left. He realized then that we got on the wrong train and were heading to Luxembourg (the country) - not a good thing since our ticket was only from Brussels to Antwerp. We got off at the next stop (Ottignies - outside of Brussels) and ran for the next train heading back to Brussels which left in 2 minutes. We arrived in Brussels over an hour later and got on the next train to Antwerp - about an hour and a half after we originally left. We said goodbye to Adam and left him to figure out how to get to Amsterdam....

When we finally go to Antwerp, it was a beautiful day and our shopping extravaganza started. I bought 2 new pairs of boots (which I'm really excited about) and we explored the city. It was a shoppers heaven with lots of cool sights along the way.

We left Antwerp at 630 when all the stores closed and headed home on a packed train!

On Sunday, we got up early and headed towards a market that Dylan read about online (open from 6am to 1pm at South Station). You all know how much I love a good market - fleas or not! The outdoor market was bigger than I could have imagined! We were there for 2 hours and didn't see all the booths. We bought lots of fresh veggies, meat and cheese - all for about half the price that I would have paid at the GB! It was great! We are going to go back in 2 weeks time for sure to try to get through the whole thing. It was pretty crazy as people were hollaring everywhere trying to get you to buy things from their booths.
People pull up 18 wheelers and open up the side of the truck and 'voila' they have a butchershop, a cheese store, a fish market, a vegetable stand....etc....and sell off the side of their truck.

This was the highlight of my weekend - I was happy to go shopping and get new boots - but I loved this market! Next time, we're bringing the wheelie cart! :)

ALLLOOO!

This was a few weeks ago:

We were sitting watching TV and we heard someone outside screaming... "ALLLLOOOO .....ALLLOOOO .......ALLO?"

I'm not sure who he was hollaring to or at, but he kept going:
"ALLO? ...ALLLLLOOOO .....ALLLOOO"

We turned the TV off and listened,
"ALLLOOO .....ALLLOOO ....ALLLOOOO"

We went out on the patio to look around and see if we could see him:
"ALLLLOOO ....ALLLOOOO .....ALLLLOOOO"

It is still a mystery!

"ALLO?"

And we laugh about it everyday when out of nowhere someone says "ALLLOOO"!

Tara's Visit to Belgium

Tara's visit to Brussels was a success!
When she arrived on Friday (Nov 2), we spent her first day here exploring Brussels. We had fun doing some shopping, eating chocolate and walking around to see the sights.


On Saturday morning, we left for Paris. When we arrived, it was too early to check into our luxury hotel, so we locked our bags up at the train station and started our adventure. We spent the day visiting Notre Dame, the Louvre, Paris Eye (which i thoroughly enjoyed), Arc de Triomphe and anything else we came across on our travels. In the evening, we headed back to the train station to pick up our bags and headed to our hotel - Formule 1 (where their motto is "When you're asleep, our rooms look as good as anyone's). The hotel rooms are small, cheap and you share bathrooms and showers. For the minimum amount of time we spent at the hotel, it was a great deal!

On Sunday, we went to the Chateau de Versailles - Royal Palace for the King of France - and the home of Marie Antoinette. The grounds were beautiful and we had a great visit. This took up most of the day. The picture of us behind the trees is taken on the grounds. On Monday we went to the Picasso Museum and to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The top of the Eiffel Tower was better than I could have imagined (324m)!

By the time our train left on Monday evening at 10pm, we were all exhausted and ready for bed. We enjoyed our trip to Paris!

We went to Ikea on Tuesday, Tara went to the Atomium on Wednesday and on Thursday we went to Amsterdam. We had fun in Amsterdam - we went to the Anne Frank Museum (Tara and I have both recently read the 'Diary of Anne Frank') and saw all the interesting sites in this crazy city! The picture of us is at one of the pubs in the Red Light District.

On Friday we went to the De Vinci exhibit at the Koekelberg (large bascilica in Brussels). This was an amazing display and we were both impressed with what we learned and saw.

Before Tara left, she stocked up on chocolate and we went out for Belgian waffles! Dylan and I both enjoyed having her here and look forward to more visitors!

Manneken Pis & Jeanneke Pis

Ok - if you can believe it, Manneken Pis is the most famous statue in Brussels. I decided that in order for you to get an idea of how silly it is (sorry Belgians), I had to post some pictures.

There are different stories as to why Mr. Pis is famous, but you can read about him on www.manneken-pis.com if you're interested. I walked by the statue on the weekend and there was a sign that said that Manneken Pis was going to be dressed up 3 days this month celebrating different holidays. He has over 750 costumes on display in a museum in Grand Place. I also read that every time he is dressed up, he pees BEER....haha.....Dylan and I are going to go and check it out next week to see if this is true.

Jeanneke Pis is Manneken Pis's sister. I think that they are both a little disturbing, but who am I to criticise the little guys. This is the only information I can find on Jenneke Pis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanneke_Pis.

Thought you may find this interesting!

Trews Concert

All is well in Brussels!
The last post was on Halloween and Dylan and I had a fantastic time at the Trews concert! I won't get into too much detail, but I will say that:
- beer were 1.8 euro (that's how they say it over here)
- I was their biggest fan
- there were 50 people there max and we were front and center
- we met the band afterwards and I talked the ear off them :)
- we made it home that night, but are not sure how

Anyway, great night all in all! I requested my fave Trews song "You're so Sober" and sang every word. The pictures didn't turn out great becuase the photographer had a few too many drinks....but they captured the moment anyway.
The Trews came over and introduced themselves and were all very friendly and interested that we were in Tilburg for the show even though we were from Nova Scotia - was such a great time!

We made it home safe and sound and had a lazy day. Dylan was off for All Saints day, so was nice to lounge around before a busy weekend.