Thanksgiving in Bruges

My parents were interested in taking a day trip to Bruges, Belgium, and we decided to go on Thanksgiving -- to have a different kind of celebration.

Once again, I felt victorious to have everyone ready and at the train station by 8:30. This time, the station was decked out for Christmas.

train self-portrait (it may have been only 9:30 a.m., but I was already sporting a sweaty sheen -- Mom never sweats, lucky girl!)

We had to take 3 different trains to get there, and the kids handled it like champs.

There's a bike parking lot outside the Bruges train station. This is only a small portion of the thousands of bikes there!

We stopped for a quick photo (it was super windy and cold!)

Flemish is the main language spoken in Bruges. And now I know what it's like to travel somewhere and be completely in the dark. It is such a weird feeling to not even be able to read the signs! Flemish is so foreign to me, I couldn't even get a hint of meaning out of it. The residents of Bruges seem to be offended by the speaking of French, but fortunately most people have a pretty good handle on English.

I was completely smitten by the crosswalks.

This bike almost looks small enough for Eva to ride!

The first part of our trip was cold, but sunny.

The rooflines, the windows, the doors, the cobblestone streets -- all charming.









We were wishing we could see the Christmas lights, which were strung across all the major streets, turned on. So cute.

The name of this store is entertainingly ironic.

We ate Belgian fries (this time I had Samurai sauce). Eva had an order of beignets covered in powdered sugar that we all shared (fabulous) -- I forgot to take a picture.

This beautiful building is in the central square.

At this point, my dad took Max and Lucas up to a famous belfry which contains 47 bells. They had to climb 366 steps to see it, and I knew that it wouldn't work with Eva, so we abstained. Apparently it was quite the cool experience, though. The bells started ringing while they were up there, and they got to see the mechanisms (simultaneously like a giant music box and clockworks) in action.

They also saw some amazing views!

At the same time, Mom and Eva and I were exploring and looking at shops. It started pouring down rain, and Mom's new umbrella blew inside out. We ducked into a nearby museum, which was really, really boring.

This was pretty much the only thing we saw that we liked. I knew there was a good Van Eyck museum in Bruges, but we didn't have time to search it out, so we went into a couple of cute shops and then headed back to wait for the guys to come down from the belfry.

As we walked back, the wind was blowing and the rain was coming at us in sideways sheets. Mom was holding her broken umbrella to try to give us some protection and we were practically walking blind. At this point, Mom and I were soaked and not too thrilled about it.

Eva, however, totally cracked us up by declaring -- in a very chipper voice -- all of the parts of her that were wet. These included her hair, her scarf, mittens, legs, shoes, socks, nose, etc. In short, all of her. I tell you, that girl is completely unpredictable. She can have a total breakdown over the dumbest, tiniest, thing, but when she has real cause to complain, evidently she keeps her cool and her sense of humor. What the?!

We met up with the guys and looked for a place to go inside and have hot chocolate. (Incidentally, although we were still in the midst of a deluge, the guys all thought we were exaggerating about the misery of being out in the storm. Lest we forget, they had only just emerged from the protection of a building, while we had been out in it for over an hour. I'm just saying.)

Our moods were significantly improved after eating Belgian waffles and sipping hot chocolate. Eva ordered fresh fruit with whipped cream and was delighted with her fancy cup, complete with candy leaves and a tiny cookie on top.

We started meandering back to the train station, stopping to take a few photos, since the rain finally stopped.

I love this church!

I guess we weren't the only ones whose umbrellas failed them.

At this point, we realized we had a very short window before our train left, and we rushed back to the station, making it up to our platform with only a couple of minutes to spare!

I noticed just recently that Lucas has the very same smirk as my dad. It was fun to watch them, side by side. (I only wish Lucas weren't so weird about having his picture taken!)

The kids were champs yet again on the way home, even though we had to take three trains again, and even change train stations in Lille and have an hour layover on the return.

We finally got back to our apartment at 10:00 p.m. After getting Eva off to bed, we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and carrot salad.

It was a long day, the weather was not nearly as cooperative as we would have wished, and we didn't eat any traditional Thanksgiving foods, but I'm pretty sure we won't be forgetting this Thanksgiving!