Week 10 June 15- June 21

We had a busy week this week, with Tyler traveling to Luxembourg for a work meeting and Molly attending a sushi lunch fundraiser for the Nepal earthquake.  Also, we finally got our Belgium residency cards, so we are officially no longer tourists!  This weekend we stayed around Antwerp because De Reuzen (The Giants) were in the city and wandering all over causing roads to shut down, which made for traffic nightmares.  Friday evening, it took Tyler almost 2 hours to get home because the giants closed roads a couple kilometers away!  Our one weekend adventure was to take another step towards assimilation in Europe: buying bikes.  We went out of the city early on Saturday because they seem to be more reasonably priced in the suburbs.  Because Tyler is so tall, his bike would not fit into the back of the car so he got to enjoy his new purchase immediately.  He rode from Boom  (we only wish we could say we lived in BOOM) back to Antwerp.

Awesome sushi 

Sweet new rides

Now for the story of De Reuzen (The Giants).  Oma Reus (Grandma Giant), arrived in Antwerp on Wednesday from outer space (but really the French theater company Royal de Luxe), and she slept until Friday morning.  We get a little vague on the rest of the story because we were operating on the few words of Dutch we understood when they begin talking.  Along with Oma, Kleine Zwarte Reus (little black giant) showed up at some point too and reunited with the grandma.  These things are HUGE puppets that take at least 10 men to operate.  The best relation we can make, is a Macy's parade balloon.  On Saturday, we saw Oma Reus tell a story, which was about The Red Star Line (an ocean liner that carried immigrants to America from Antwerp) and New York and "The Promise Land"... aka the only words we could understand!  We ran into the Little Giant later while he was napping in the Grote Markt.  Then he woke up and wandered off...

Sleeping Oma

Somehow a safe "from space" got dropped on a car... and it later exploded before Oma told her story

Some kind of artsy industrial daylight metaphor that woke the Grandma from her slumber

Grandma giving her speech at the harbor

Oma in her wheelchair... those are people in her lap, that's how big she is!

The "little" guy sleeping....

He woke up and had places to be

The Giants getting some rest before their closing ceremony

On Sunday we decided to go on a bike ride up through the port, where we discovered there are over 2000 docks!  That's what it takes to be the second largest port in Europe.  On our ride back in we stopped to see both Grandma and the Little Giant.  They were both sleeping. I guess its exhausting to be a giant puppet because they sure slept a lot!  We waited for them to wake up, and then we headed on our way.  We can't say that we fully understood the Giants, but they were certainly a spectacle.  It was amazing to watch them in action, and it was unbelievable to see the amount of people the Giants attracted.  We can't wait to see what interesting summer events pop up next weekend!

Antwerp view from the port