MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Week 35-36 Dec 7-Dec 20

It's almost Christmas!  We have been working hard leading up to a nice two week break.  Many European companies close between Christmas Eve and New Years, and we are lucky enough to take part in that this year!  We have been busy with Christmas shopping, visiting the Christmas Market, work, Holiday parties and our Dutch final exam (we passed level one... we can speak to 5 year olds!)
To get us into the holiday spirit, we participated in the Santa Run, a 5k race held in Antwerp to help celebrate the holidays.  We were taken aback by the seriousness of the "Santa" part of the race.  There were roughly 4,000 participants and all were dressed in a full Santa costume.  We are talking Santa pants, a Santa jacket, a Santa hat and last but not least, a Santa beard!  To add to the fun, there was a Genever stop (Belgium's take on gin) at the halfway point of the race.  We really enjoyed the race but just so everyone knows, the Santa suit is not breathable!  We were definitely sweating at the end of the race!

Carolers in a sweet ride!

Two American Santa's

4,000 Santa's ready to run!

The beards were scratchy

Men dressed as Santa pulling a Santa!!!

Mid run! 

Antwerp Christmas Market

Brazilian Feijoada
 (Some of the interesting things you eat when you celebrate the holidays with expats)

Week 34 Nov 30 - Dec 6

Around this time of year, several regions of Europe celebrate the season by setting up Christmas Markets.  Our own lovely home of Antwerp has a very nice one.  However, the tradition is believed to have German roots, and the city that supposedly does it best is Cologne, Germany.  If you know how Molly feels about Christmas, you know there was no option for us to go over and check it out. 

We left early Saturday with a pair of fellow expat friends.  Cologne is only a 2.5 hour drive from Antwerp.  Maybe even a bit faster...since you get to drive on the autobahn!  We kept the speed at a fairly safe level, but it was unbelievable to watch the BMW's and Mercedes fly past at 200+ kph (120+mph).  After checking in at the hotel in Cologne, we were ready to hit the market around noon. Now, we hadn't done too much prep for this trip, and our assumption was that there would be one BIG Christmas market in the center of the city.  Well as it turns out, there are EIGHT markets of varying sizes throughout the city.  And people turn out in droves for these things.  Each of the eight markets consists of bunch of vendor stalls setup for folks to sell Christmas knickknacks, food, drink, more trinkets, more food, and more drink.  Each market had it own theme and was decorated to match.  One key tradition of the markets is gluhwein.  They cook up a red wine with cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and orange zest. Each market served the gluhwein piping hot in a unique ceramic mug.  We just HAD to collect them all.  It basically turned into a Christmas themed pub crawl.  After about your second cup of gluhwein, you don't notice the cold weather anymore.  

Weihnachts Market

Gluhwein!

A happy guy with pulled pork!

It wouldn't be Germany without mounds of Brats

A view of the Old Town

Market #2: Winter Market

It had an awesome ice skating rink

Market #3: The Old Town Market

After wandering around the markets for about six hours, we were ready to take a break and sit down for dinner.  We were dead set on stuffing our faces with some traditional German grub.  We got a good recommendation from a local.  The place was packed, and there was no host/hostess seating system.  We wandered around trying to find any open tables, and eventually we ended up standing in the middle of the place looking lost.  A waiter finally took some pity on us, and directed Molly and Emily to sit with a lovely Dutch couple.  I guess the idea was they were going to leave at some point and all four of could sit down, but it didn't work out that way.  In the mean time, a family at the next table finished up their dinner and waved Tyler and Luke over to sit.  After the parents of the family settled the bill, they asked Tyler and Luke to watch the kids while they ran to the restroom.  The whole seating system was a cultural experience in and of itself.  It is rare you get to sit with people you don't know at dinner, much less BABYSIT before enjoying your meal.  Eventually, we were all seated at the same table and the German kolsch started flowing.  This was the only drink on the menu, and the system was that you told the waiter when you wanted to STOP drinking beer, not when you wanted to start.  He carried a multi-tiered tray of beer through the restaurant every so often, and if you had less than half a glass left, then you were getting another one.  He would mark it down on a coaster on your table.  Finally, we figured out that if you wanted to be done, you put your coaster on top of your glass to give the signal.  The waiter would came by and tally up the total by hand on the back of the beer-counter coaster, you paid (cash only), and got the heck out of the way for the next group to sit down.  After dinner, we hit another market on the way back to the hotel, and called it a night.

German dinner

Market #4: Rudolph Market

The next morning, our first stop was the Cologne Cathedral.  The city is well known for this church due to its massive size.  It took over 600 years to build and survived both world wars intact.  As per usual, we had to climb to the top to see what was going on up there.  533 stairs later, and we were on top of Cologne.  What a great view!  And it was fun to see the Christmas markets below starting to wake up.  After climbing back down, we headed over to the two remaining markets we hadn't seen the day before.  We also made a quick stop for a Berliner (traditional German jelly doughnut) or two.  By this point, were worn out and ready to head home.  

The Cathedral

A Chirstmas Market from above

We made it to the top!

It was a really fun weekend.  We had a great time with good people.  And it was nice to see Christmas celebrated in a way that focused on bringing people together to enjoy each other's company. The good food and good drink don't hurt either. Merry Christmas!         

Week 32-33 November 16-29

We have gotten behind again in our blogging.  It is a busy time of year with preparing for our level 1 Dutch finals, Christmas parties, and the full release of all 10 seasons of  "Friends" on Belgian Netflix. The last weeks of November were a blur.  Molly gracefully and beautifully aged one year.  Not really in celebration of her birth, but with coincidental timing, we were invited by some friends to travel to Ghent to see the "Six Days of Ghent" track cycling finals.  Having never seen track racing in person, we were naturally intrigued.

The "Six Days of Ghent" is a long-standing event held in the Ghent velodrome each year. Professional cycling teams of two compete in various races over six days to accumulate the highest point totals.  We attended the sixth, final, and most exciting day of the competition.  We arrived on scene around 11am.  Naturally, your ticket entitled you to a free Belgian beer.  The racing had already started with the finals for the junior level.  Having never tried to understand the finer points of track cycling before, we were extremely confused.  However, after about 30 minutes we started to get a basic understanding.  About 10 teams of 2 were racing around the track for 60 laps.  At any given moment, a team of would have one active racer, and his teammate would be leisurely biking around the top/outside lanes of the velodrome.  When the active racer would get tired, he would somehow signal his partner.  The partner would swoop in, and the active racer would officially change places by grabbing hands and sling-shotting his partner forward into the race.  It is a pretty wild thing to see.  The juniors finished their race and crowned a champion.  Then the female riders held several events to close out their six days.  It was at this moment we began to understand what makes track cycling so exciting.  The race we had watched with the juniors, was only one format of racing.  Across the six days, the riders competed in various types of formats, each worth differing amounts of points.  The race we had witnessed was the hardest format to follow as all teams were competing and the leaders often lapped the back of the pack, making it difficult to tell who was winning.  Once the women started going, we starting seeing different formats of races, and we really started to understand the competition and really started to get into it.  After the women crowned a champ, the big boys came out.  The top 5-8 teams competing in the event were legitimate professionals, with many of them having won gold medals in their discipline.  We got to see these racers compete in about 8 different formats.  Our favorite races were the most simple, where the teams of two would ride the track alone for 3 laps to see which team could get the fastest time.  As they day wore one, 3 teams started to pull ahead of the rest, and the crowd at the velodrome reached capacity.  Two of the top three teams were Belgians, and the top team had a rider from Ghent.  Needless to say, the old barn started getting pretty noisy.  It all came down to the final race, which was in the crazy-all-teams-racing-at-the-same-time format.  Thankfully, our afternoon at the track had given us enough knowledge to follow what was happening, and we were right with the crowd on our feet when the local team crossed the finish line for the win!  

It was truly a great sporting and cultural experience.  These are the kind of random local experiences that we really treasure getting to be a part of.

Velodrome riders

The full velodrome

We tried a lap.  It was HARD.  Molly with 2 friends.

The next week, while those lazy Americans were off work AGAIN for another random holiday on the fourth Thursday in November, we were hard at work.  However, we were graciously invited by a fellow expat to a Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday.  We were really grateful to get to spend a pleasant evening with fellow Americans (and Belgians!) and to get a delicious taste of home (turkey is a hard thing to come by here).    

Week 31 November 9 - 15

It was a very special weekend in Antwerp: Sinterklaas arrived!  Since we are from a land where Santa Claus rules this season, we had a bit of catching up to do to understand what the heck was going on.  What follows is our interpretation of what we could piece together in our level 1 Dutch understanding and reading Wikipedia articles.  We apologize for any inaccuracies.

So, Sinterklaas is the celebrated figure of the holidays in the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France.  Much like Santa Claus, his origins are based on Saint Nicolaas.  However, Sinterklaas' modern day traditions are different in many fascinating ways.  Sinterklaas is a Turkish bishop who lives in Madrid, Spain.  We still don't know why, but hey, why not pick a nice place to live.  He spends the year preparing to bring gifts to all the children that have behaved well.  Just like Santa's elves, Sinterklaas has many helpers called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).  These black-face servants help Sinterklaas prepare for his annual gift-giving trip by making sweets, keeping the book on which children have been good or bad, and just generally helping keep the whole operation moving.  Now, coming from a land where black-face is considered very offensive, it was quite shocking to see many folks running around as such.  It seems there is a growing contingent of the population here that are rallying against further inclusion of Zwarte Piet in the traditions, but most folks seem just accept him as a non-offensive part of the lore.  At any rate, Sinterklaas starts really gearing up at the start of November.  In fact, they start a daily "news" show that documents his preparations, and they even coordinate activities in the schools to match the show.  It seems Sinterklaas is kind of a forgetful old man and Zwarte Piet is always having to save him from himself.  For example, this year the they went to start up the boat in Spain, but Sinterklaas couldn't find the boat keys.  Then he got them lost in the fog on the ocean.  Both times Zwarte Piet always helped the old guy get back on track.  Finally, the big weekend is here, and Sinterklaas arrives to town.  He pulls into the port and rides his white horse into town (the same white horse he rides when he delivers gifts).  We were present at his arrival in Antwerp, and he drew quite the crowd.  After pausing to chat with many children and hand out sweets, Sinterklaas made his way to the town hall to address the public.  He opened his book and read many instances of children who had been very bad this year.  Each time, Zwarte Piet would have to politely correct Sinterklaas on his misreading of a passage or tell him to read a bit further because in fact all of these examples were of children being GOOD not bad.  In the end Sinterklaas came to the conclusion that "There are no naughty children this year!"  Everyone cheered because that means that from now until December 5 (Sinterklaas' birthday), children can set their shoes by the window at night and Sinterklass/Zwarte Piet will leave them treats in their shoes.  Now, if you have been a naughty child this year, instead of getting treats in your shoes, Zwarte Piet will stuff you in a sack while you sleep and kidnap you to Spain for the rest of the year (a bit harsher than coal in your stocking...).

Sinterklaas' crew dusting before he makes his appearance

Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet!

It is always such a pleasure to experience new cultural traditions.  It was so wonderful to see that no matter the differences in the way we celebrate, we all have reason to enjoy getting together as family and watch the joy on children's faces at this time of year.

Week 30 November 2-8

We are a little behind on blog posting so we will be playing catch-up with a couple of posts this weekend.  Last weekend we went to Madrid for a short visit.  Our friend Victoria was in Madrid for two weeks for work, so we trekked down to spend time with her while getting to visit a new city AND country!  We flew down on Friday afternoon and were there just in time for Spanish dinner time.  We walked to Plaza Mayor and had dinner outside on the square.  We enjoyed our first of many Iberian ham and cheese plates.

Palacio de Comunicaciones lit up at night

Puerta de Alcalá

Friends!

On Saturday, we got serious about exploring Madrid.  First, we headed to a small cafe for breakfast (Café de la luz).  This cafe had a set breakfast menu where you got a coffee, a toast (toppings including goat cheese, tuna, and ham to name a few), a piece of cake (carrot, cheese, or chocolate) and fresh squeezed OJ.  It was a delicious and lovely (and healthy... we are pretty sure) way to start the day!  From there we went on a scavenger hunt for a giant Darth Vader head.  Madrid was hosting a promotion for the new Star Wars movie called "Face the Force", and there were 8 different Star Wars related helmets around the city.  The one we felt we HAD to see was Darth Vader (we later ended up seeing a Storm Trooper as well).  After some quality time and pictures with Darth, we continued our exploration of Madrid and wandered through the Parque de Montaña.  We saw the Temple de Debod, a temple given to Spain from Egypt and the Plaza de España with a famous statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Cake for breakfast. The Spanish do it right.

Palacio Real and Catedral de la Almundena in the distance

We had been wandering with the ultimate aim of reaching the Royal Palace.  When we arrived there, the line was relatively short line.  We decided we had to go inside and see the opulence on display.  It was amazing!  We have a few pictures but throughout most of the rooms, no photography was permitted.  Even the rooms they used solely as dressing rooms had gold leaf  and porcelain walls.  After the palace, we headed to the Mercado de San Miguel for lunch.  This huge market was full of different stalls where you could buy various snacks and drinks.  We tried sangria, ham sandwiches, pizza, cheese, fruit and croquettes.  It seems the Mercado is a popular weekend hangout for the locals because it was incredibly crowded!  After lunch, we walked more of Madrid and explored the shopping street Gran Vía (also a popular destination on a Saturday) and then headed back to the hotel for a siesta!  We had tapas for dinner to round out the busy day.

Royal Palace selfie

This must be the least valuable ceiling fresco in the Palacio Real because they let you take a picture of it

Royal Palace selfie 2.0!

Spaniards getting their market tapas on

Plaza Mayor

On Sunday, we again had a delicious breakfast before heading to the Prado art museum.  The museum was full of famous artworks from artists such as Goya, El Greco, Rubens, Velázquez, and Raphael to name a few.  For you non-Antwerp residents, Peter Paul Rubens was a famous painter here in the early 1600's.  He was born in Antwerp and his house is now a museum here.  The Spanish King Philip IV was a big fan of Rubens' work and commissioned many pieces, many of which are displayed today in the Prado.  It is kind of funny that we live in his hometown, but we saw more of his artwork in Spain than we have here!
It was a LONG museum visit (if you don't know: museums are not Molly's strong suit).  So after LOTS of art and someone getting in trouble for touching something, it was time to go...  We went to Los Gatos (more tapas) but it was very crowded so we got sandwiches and snacks and took them with us to Parque de Retiro to eat lunch in the park.  This was our second park in as many days, and we were  really delighted by the amount of green space in such a large metropolitan city.  Retiro's size and scope were very reminiscent to Central Park in New York.  It was a beautiful day so we wandered through the park and came upon the Crystal Palace, a building made almost entirely of glass.  It was once used as a greenhouse but is now used for art exhibits.  After a break at a cafe on the lake in the park and more tapas and cava for dinner, we only had one more stop to complete our adventure in Madrid: we had to try churros and chocolate.  We went to a famous churros place that was open 24/7 and ordered the only dish they offer: churros and chocolate.  The chocolate is like Spanish hot chocolate, basically a more delicious Hershey's syrup.  They were delicious, but our eyes were definitely more ambitious than our stomachs could handle, and we ended up giving our leftovers to a very happy man on the street.  We headed home early Monday morning.  We had a great time visiting with Victoria and getting to explore the beautiful city of Madrid.  We are excited and hopeful for more Spanish adventures in the future!

Breakfast at Restaurante Tandem

Tapas at Los Gatos

Crystal Palace makes for a wild pano

Crystal Palace selfie

Out on the lake in NOVEMBER. Can't beat the weather in Spain.