sayhitojohn

Today was the Skinny Jeans debut. I grew tired of wearing the same old single pair of drab pants that still bore grease from Greece.  I love olive oil almost as much as my pants. Paris is much more fashion forward then Littleton so I was going to feel right at home in these, maybe even my man-prees would be fine here.  Patti and Tara keep telling me that they are not skinny jeans, but I am not so sure about that. After I only burst 2 blood vessels in my left eye trying to get these on we headed out to start our day at the Palace of Versailles (PoV). We had it on good authority that if we arrived at the PoV before 9:00 we would be all set. We arrived at 9:05. But, we had a few other things working against us, the first being that PoV is close on Monday which makes Sunday, our day, the busiest. Our second challenge was the 20 tour buses which were already in the lot when we rounded the corner from the train station. Those tour buses hold up to 65 people and the quick math put that at may

The kids were easy to wake this morning as they were still reveling in their spy game triumph of the night. They were successful in filling their spot under the covers with pillows and sneaking around our bed. Just minute before they were going crazy, then it was all quiet. I looked over to see them under the covers and barely moving. I hovered over them for a few minutes,sure that they could not handle it for very long. When they did not come up for air I figured that just maybe they must have somehow relaxed under there. It was only later when I heard them rustling around the room that I clued in.  We left Ghent this morning earlier than Patti wanted, as I was insisting that we do everything possible not to miss our train to Paris via Brussels. I t was a train that was not available to us the first few times that we had checked, and if we missed this one we were in trouble. We arrived in the Ghent station early enough to take the train before the one that we had planned for the Brus

STRIKE! Yes, we did it again. This time it was a double, a train strike along with a trash pickup strike.  The trains, not the trash, helped make up our minds to spend the day wandering and touring right here in Ghent. Patti and I decided to let the kids sleep in and we got out for some early touring just after dawn. The sun did not break through the clouds until later today but we still found some interesting things to look at and snap the occasional picture. This is the most contemporary design that we saw in the old city center.  Waking up early like we do at home has not been a problem, but I have gotten good at laying around for a while before actually getting out of bed. For whatever reason I have been sweating profusely at night in this hotel. Everyone else is cold, but I wake up at about two in the morning drenched, actually dripping with sweat. I must be going through the DTs from my lack of mountain biking. When the kids woke up we took a walking tour and interspersed were th

Today it was off to Brussels to have a look around. This was bigger and really had none of the quaint appeal of Ghent or even Brugge. But what it lacked for in the cute factor it more than made up for in chocolate. The kids, and I, ate way too much chocolate...again. From the train station and into the old city square and beyond were shop after shop of Belgian Chocolates. In nearly every one of them the kids were able to score free samples. Back and forth they went zigzagging across the narrow streets canvassing each and every opportunity. In many stores there were samples out for the taking but others were more guarded with their freebies.  When it was the latter case the kids would put on their best puppy dog eyes and talk about how they wish there were samples. Sure enough a plate would soon emerge and chocolate was served. Waffles were also highly available starting at 1 Euro and rising exponentially as you added flavor. The old town square was in partial renovation but the remaini

Polar Express.  In Case of Fire: #1 Stop Smoking.  I used an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, white enamel sink a-reeny.   Yes, that's fear in my eyes.  Woe is me.  What means this? Church of the Immaculate Confection.  Tram-nastics. 

We woke up early and passed on the $27.50 per person breakfast at the Marriot today and instead opted for some grocery store fare that we picked up last night. We hopped on the tram from Koren Market to Sint Peters Station for our train to Brugge. When we arrived in Brugge we rented some tandems and rolled into Market Square to check out the farmers market. The kids found a deluxe waffle maker who cooked them right on the spot and on demand. We have found that getting a fresh, first time out of the iron, waffle is a challenge. Most vendors take an old waffle and fit it back into the iron and warm it up. They still call that fresh. While the girls like their waffles the first time they come out of the iron I don't mind the twice baked. The second pass seems to caramelize some of the sugars and makes for a crunchy chewy waffle.   Then we had fries with lots of mayonnaise, a new favorite.  All this food served as a good brunch carbo load for our ride out into the Belgian countryside.