Lier

The town hall at Lier, Belgium, where we stopped on our way to the Netherlands on Saturday. It was a beautiful day - for January. About 40F. We felt even better about it after talking with my parents in Chicago who said it was subzero with a foot of snow on the ground. I told Eliot that, if he stays a midwesterner, this will be the warmest winter of his life. (Barring drastic climate change...)

The main tourist attraction in Lier is this astronomical clock. Unfortunately, we thought the town hall tower (above) had the astronomical clock, so as the noon bells rang and no figures were appearing, we looked around to try and find the clock that actually has moving figures. As the photo shows, we made it to this clock at about quarter past. We still liked it even if we didn't get to see all the bells and whistles.
Eliot liked this sheep hearding statue. He greeted several of the sheep individually and discovered the dog that is near the sheperd.
Chris in Lier's Begijnhof. We headed back to the car after the Begijnhof and headed up to our destination for the day - a museum on the water management (read keep the sea out) technology in the Netherlands. When we got there, the parking lot only had five cars. A careful inspection of the information board seemed to reveal that the museum (and accompanying water park) are not open in the winter. Despite Eliot's insistence of, "Open, open!" no one appeared to open the musuem for us. So, we drove on to another town. The drive past all the water and sand and dunes was very pleasant and eased our dissapointment at the museum's failure to recognize the marketing potential for being open in the winter....

Eliot!

In Tournai, Eliot was fascinated by this ATM booth and would not give up his post until we scooped him up. We don't know why....

Eliot helps me vacuum now. It takes longer and I have to negotiate for my turn but it beats using my half day off to vacuum around the house.

Funny fry advertisement sign. Pile on the mayo!

Eliot surveying La Piscine post nap.

Kortrijk, Beglim

On the way home from Roubaix we stopped at this Belgian town that turned out to be really quaint. Our favorite part was the Begijnhof, a community for women who wanted to be in service to the church and to people, but did not want to be part of a convent. Very cute, modest, white houses. One is a B&B today. We enjoyed an evening stroll in the middle of which Eliot declared, "Ho, ho, ho Santa Claus." Don't know why.

La Piscine Part Deux

Here is the outside of the museum.

Here are some old post cards from the days when the museum was the community's swimming pool and bathing center. (There are still some of the old bathtubs tucked here and there in glassed off rooms.) The top left photo features the sunburst windows.

Standard issue swimsuit at the pool. A big photo blow up on the wall showed men standing about all wearing these suits.





A view from the second floor. All the little doors were once shower stalls. Visitors can walk through some, others contain exhibits.

La Piscine, Roubaix France

It's pretty lousy weather here. Wet, cold, cloudy, dark early and late. So, now is the time we've chosen to hit up a bunch of museums on our to do list. On Sunday we went to a museum called La Piscine (swimming pool) just over the border in France. It is in a former municipal swimming pool in a town that was thriving until the textile industry faltered. It is an art museum with a section featuring the town's history that has silk swatches that women could choose from for dresses and home decor from the 1800s. But, the highlight is in the area where the swimming pool used to be. They made the pool more narrow and flanked it with a collection of statues that bask in sunlight pouring through sunburst stainglass windows. (I guess the
sun was out long enough to do us the favor of filtering in the windows and highlighting the statues!) Eliot like the pool area and then slept through most of our visit. (We planned it that way....) I'll do one more post about La Piscine to squeeze in more pictures!

Back to the Botanical Gardens

Our flight back to Belgium was uneventful and upon returning to our very cold home we found our water pipes had frozen! Our landlord came over and helped us solve the problem.

We spent most of Saturday morning sleeping in - finally catching up on the sleep we lost on the overnight flight and then during the next few days when Eliot woke up in the middle of the night demanding, "Play, play, play!" Eliot slept 14.5 hours on Friday night! We headed to an almost empty market on late Saturday morning - and missed the waffle vendor much to Eliot's dissapointment.

After Eliot's nap we headed to a megastore to restock the empty fridge. Then on Sunday we took advantage of a sunny but frosty day to visit the Botanical Gardens. We went inside the castle that I've posted pictures of before - it had an exhibit on plant drawings inside. The room with the blue wall shown here seemed to hardly have been touched since its royal inhabitant left.

Chris and Eliot taking time to smell the flowers.

Happy New Year!

We have had a great few weeks visiting family and friends in Chicago and South Bend, IN. Eliot has soaked up all the love and attention from his grandparents, great-grandparents, aunt, and uncles. I got to see my kitties - cute as ever and so content living with Eliot's Aunt Andrea. Chris and I also went to our Chicago offices to say hello. We got to visit some of our favorite spots including Lincoln Park Zoo, our church for the kids' Christmas Eve service, the Botanical Gardens, and several public libraries (libraries aren't the same for us in Belgium because most books are not in English and hours are more limited). We indulged in some foods we only find state-side like sweet potatoes, Mexican food, and Carol's Cincinnati Chili. We also gave some of our Belgian favorites as Christmas gifts including Speculoos paste, syrup waffles, and chocolate. It will be hard to leave our families again in a few days but we are so thankful for this time with them. When we are back in Belgium I will put up a photo album from our visit.