Spreek vous Brussels?

Last weekend was a long weekend in the UK due to a Bank Holiday on Monday. Unlike the States, they don't really name their national holidays like we do (Memorial Day, President's Day, etc); they're simply called 'bank holidays'. Sure there are days with official names, but it's got nothing to do with time off from work. Anyway, this post is about our trip on the Eurostar, through the chunnel to Brussels.

When we priced out return tickets to Brussels (it's not cheap!), we realized it was about $200 more total if we wanted to go first class ($300 versus $400 each). What that means is that you get bigger seats, a table, a nice meal, and all the wine and champagne you can drink! So, realizing that this is something we probably won't do again (at least not for a very long time), and this being our first vacation together since we were married (apart from family visits) we went for first class.

To get to the Eurostar train, we had to get to St Pancras Station, which is a brand new and really nice station. We took a train from Oxford to London Paddington, then the tube from London Paddington to St Pancras Station. It was pretty easy, even though the tube we were on had some problem and we had to get off it after one stop and switch to a different one. St Pancras Station is the nicest train station I've ever been to. Usually, when you think of a train station, you imagine a dark place with dirty floors and, if you're lucky, a takeaway coffee shop or McDonalds. But since this is a new station, and because the Eurostar station is there, they can get all kinds of things from France and Belguim on a daily basis. That means they have some great shopping and excellent food choices.

Here's a picture of me in the station


Getting on the Eurostar was like getting screened for an airplane, but way faster. You didn't have to take off your shoes, and you didn't need to take laptops, etc out of bags. Plus, you can take all the liquids you want! The waiting lounge feels like a first-class lounge, with wooden floors that keep it pretty quiet, and modern comfy chairs/benches all around. There's even a wine bar, and you can take your wine with you to go read or whatever in the lounge.

The ride to Brussels takes 2 hours from London. The train goes through the Chunnel, through France, stops in Lille, and terminates in Brussels - at 186 km/hr. Here's me still at the St Pancras Station showing how I thought I would react to traveling at that speed.



Here's the spread they put out for us. Paul had the lamb, and I had the vegetarian option.


They give you champagne as soon as the train takes off, then bring you your food a little later, and some more wine. By the time you're done eating, you're nearly at your destination.

We booked a cheap hotel through Hotwire, so it only cost us $100 per night to stay in a Sheraton hotel on the North side of Brussels, about 20 minutes walk from the center, and 5 minutes walk to the station for Bruges.

Our first day, we went to Bruges. This was a pretty last-minute trip, so we had bought a guidebook at the train station in London, and charted out where we wanted to go.

Here we are on a bridge at Minnewater, which apparently used to connect Bruges with the sea.


They keep swans in the canals after Maximilian of Austria was imprisioned and his adviser beheaded. The adviser's crest featured a swan, so when Max was freed, he declared that there had to be swans there all the time. Here's one of the swans that looked pretty friendly


The architecture in Bruges is really beautiful. They claim to be the Venice of the North (though Stockholm may argue with that one).


Since it was a bank holiday, and the weather was gorgeous, there were people everywhere.


After touring a couple of museums (we bought a day pass), we stopped for some beer (and OOH is it AWESOME beer!)...


and some mussels...


We toured the old town hall in Bruges


And came across this random flag dancing thing...


The next day we toured Brussels. Here's their town hall


The Royal Palace...


And their Cathedral...


And here's me getting ready for some serious chocolate shopping!



And of course, a trip to Brussels would not be complete without a picture of Mannekin Pis


What was strange about being in Belgium, especially during a bank holiday weekend, is that we never knew which language to speak. Flemish sounds a bit like a mix between English and German (which both Paul and I kind of speak), but French (which I speak, brokenly) is also their official language. With all the English tourists around and speaking English to shopkeepers and waiters, we knew it was OK to use English, but it still seems rude not to ask first in French. So often I'd get tongue-tied with all these languages floating around.

The other strange thing was more just a commentary on how touristy it was. Like I said before, the weather and the bank holiday really added to it, but Bruges seemed almost Disney-esque with chocolate shops and museums everywhere (not that that's necessarily a bad thing), and Brussels was overflowing with overpriced restaurants (we're talking $30 for a personal size pizza on a side street). Luckily for us, some of our relatives had given us cash in Euros as wedding presents, so we were much better able to tolerate the prices!

In all, the trip was just what we needed. Some time away from school and work to just be together and enjoy being married.

May Day in Oxford

Tomorrow is May Day in Oxford. It's one of those celebrations of spring that goes back ages. Currently, the city gets up at 6AM to hear a boys' choir performing at Brasenose College, followed by Morris dancers (looks like men in leiderhosen waving hankies and banging sticks together). I read a story about the Morris dancers a couple of weeks ago, and I guess membership is dwindling, so they're now bring women into it.

After much debate, Paul and I decided we'd rather have a good night's sleep than participate in this, especially since I've got a lot going on at work right now and I don't want to be wiped out by lunchtime. However, I found a great video on YouTube of the May Day festivities from last year:




Also, we did see some Morris dancers the other week. Here's some pictures of them...

Dancing with Sticks (also note the woman to the right of the dancers, in the black coat. You may notice she's about to step on what looks like a pothole in the pavement. It's actually there on purpose to mark the spot where Protestant Martyrs were burned alive back in the day. You can read more about that here.)


...and Dancing with Hankies


PS. We're going to Brussels on the train this weekend! Going through the chunnel, and arriving in just over 2 hours from London!

Butcombe Beer

Couldn't resist when we saw this in the store!

David got Hitched

On March 10, I received an e-mail from my brother to let me know that he planned to get married April 5 to his live-in girlfriend Stella. So, we booked a flight back to Boston to attend the wedding. Here's some of the pictures I took:

The rehearsal dinner at Papa Ginos following the rehearsal at the church. Stella chose this restaurant. She's in the green sweatshirt, and my brother is in the middle/back turning to talk to her.


Here they are at the reception in the church basement.


Cutting the cake (it's behind the bride - didn't get a great shot of it!):


And me and Paul - we were sick with colds from all the flying (this was shortly after we got back from Poland, so we were pretty jetlagged too), but we made it!:


We wish them the best.

No More Youth Discount!

I turned 26 on March 31, which means I am no longer a "young person" in England, and cannot get the "young person's discount" on the train. However, I had a really nice birthday. Paul took me out to a Thai restaurant that a colleague recommended to me, called Chiang Mai Kitchen, and it was fantastic. The highlight was scallops with some sort of hot sauce - it sounds strange but it was sooo good!

I also got a second birthday celebration when Danalisa and Amanda took me out for dinner and a movie (27 Dresses). It was so nice to have a girls night, as I don't get to see them as much as I'd like to since I've been working full time. Here we are at the Giraffe having dinner:

Easter in Poland

Well, it has been a while since I've updated, and Easter was a month ago, but I have pictures! We spent Easter with Paul's family in Rydultowy Poland. The picture at the top of this post is of Paul and his grandfather. And no, that is not a mountain - it is a giant slag heap from a coal mine!! All of that stuff came from under the ground! It is so big they are thinking of putting ski slope on there!

It was great to see all the relatives and to eat Babcia's (grandma) food! It is so funny when Paul's grandma puts out the spread of food for each meal - it's enough for 10 people and it's just me and Paul! We left on a Friday and returned on Tuesday evening, so we had about 3.5 days there. Paul's grandparents life with his great-grandmother, who is 95 years old and always smiling!

Easter is the most important holiday in Poland, and it is celebrated over several days and nights. In fact, it's called Wielkanoc (vyel-ka-notes), which means something like "many nights", because Easter is celebrated over several nights. Pretty much everyone in Poland is Catholic, and it seems like the church bells don't ever stop ringing during this time, as there are masses throughout the holiday weekend. We went to 2 masses, one with Paul's grandfather and one with his uncle. They like to sit up in the balcony with the rest of the men (not to mention some bats!), and with the service being entirely in Polish, it sure was a cultural experience!

We also visited Paul's grandmother's brother's family who live nearby. They put out two huge platters of delicious desserts for us, and served us coffee with milk from their cow! Unfortunately, I ate so much of the desserts that when they brought out some ham and cheese to eat, I couldn't eat a morsel more! I still haven't quite figured out why they have dessert before meals, but the same thing happened when we visited them on our honeymoon, so it's just something I'll have to remember for future visits.

Paul did the talking when he could, and I tried to learn some Polish, but with only a pocket dictionary I bought at the airport, I didn't help too much in the conversation!

Here is Paul's grandparents' house right after a small snowstorm.



Near Rydultowy is a town called Rybnik. We went there one afternoon and walked around the town square, which was all decked out for Easter. Here's a picture of Rybnik's town square:

Easter Monday also has a funny tradition. They call it Smingus Dyngus, which is a nonsense word, but what they do on this day is spray people with water. More specifically, boys go around and spray girls with water, and the girls are supposed to give them a treat. Paul's cousin Jakob tried to explain this to me, and when I told him that if a guy squirted me with water, I'd be more likely to punch him in the nose than give him candy, he seemed very confused. I guess if you grow up with it, it makes more sense!

The other neat thing I saw was easter baskets. On the Saturday before Easter, people brought baskets with bread and flowers into church for a blessing. This food was then served at Easter dinner. I haven't fully looked into this tradition, but it was really neat to see all these people walking to church with pretty baskets.

We flew on Wizz air, a Hungarian discount airline. It wasn't that cheap since there is huge demand for flying to Poland for Easter due to the large number of Polish people living in the UK. But, it's the only airline that flies direct to Katowice. Anyway, it started to snow when we got to the airport to go home! Fortunately, it wasn't enough to delay our flight too much, so we managed to get back on schedule.

Here's our plane waiting out the snowstorm before we could board!

I went to Bath and got a Shower

As exams are coming up this week at the Business school, I and a bunch of my girlfriends who also have partners in the program decided we should go on a trip together to get away from the stress of studying. The group of us were a big international melting pot - there was Alka, Vinita and Bhakti from India, Nina from Denmark, Karen from Australia, Janick from France, Alina from Romania, Mikki and me from the USA. We all left after work so we still had a chance to go out for dinner on Friday night. Bath is just a 45 minute train ride from where I work near Didcot. We stayed in a B&B just to the west of the city center, which had a lot of English country charm and a nice hot breakfast. It rained the whole time, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! We're already excited to start planning another trip together.

A bit about Bath: It has been known for its hot spring baths since about 800BC when the Romans were in the area. They liked the springs so much that they built a whole complex for them. The Baths themselves still exist as both a tourist and an archaeological site. Archaeologists have found all kinds of items at the bottom of the pools, including over 13,000 coins! There's not much else for industry around there, though it seems the city was a stop on the way up the Avon River where boats could unload cargo into warehouses to be shipped to other areas of the country.

Friday night we went out for some Thai food, then went to a couple pubs. The first pub was called "Mole's Pub" and it was located in a cave-like basement with lots of little nooks and crannies to explore. Neat place!

Unfortunately they were at the end of their set, and the pub was closing (most bars close at 11pm in England) so we had to find another place to hang out! The city center was bustling at night, and unlike Oxford, you didn't see lots of cops and falling-over-drunk college students. I have been reading a lot about England's drinking problems, so it was nice to see that it's not always that way. Anyway, we had a blast at night and didn't get back to the B&B until about 12:30. Here's what the Bath Abbey looks like at night:


The next morning we had our breakfast and left for the city. Alka was nice enough to offer to take our luggage back to Oxford since she had driven to Bath. That meant we had more time to explore the city without lugging all of our overnight things around with us. Our first stop was to make sure we saw the old Roman Baths. Here is some of the group in front of the entrance (clockwise: Karen, Janick, Mikki, Alina, Bhakti, Nina; missing were Alka and Vinita, who had already seen the baths and went exploring the shops instead):


Here is part of an old temple wall that has been reconstructed after being found on the site:


And here's what I thought was really cool: old curses that people had written and thrown into the pool:


Here's a close-up of one of them:

Here's Karen, Nina and me in front of one of the drains at the baths:


And here's the main bath. It really is that green from all the algae and other creatures living in it. There were signs all around not to drink or even touch the water! You can see the steam rising up because of all the rain.


This is a piece of an old roof, which shows how the Romans used hollow bricks to make the arches more lightweight. Pretty clever stuff!


This was a weird part. This area was all dark, but when I looked in, I thought I saw what looked like big eggs all around. Turns out they're stalagmites! The sign in there reads "hypocaust" which is an old Roman term for "central heating" (thanks Wikipedia for that definition!) I'd suggest looking it up if you're interested, it's pretty neat! I heard from a tour guide there that they would have children cleaning out the ashes from the heating system because they were the only ones who could fit down there! Yuck!


After that experience, we needed to do something that wasn't so damp, so we went to the Jane Austen Center for Afternoon Tea. I'm not a big Jane Austen fan, but the place was really charming and put on a great tea. The sandwiches weren't the best (butter & cheese and butter & cucumber), but the sweets and the tea itself were delicious! Most of the girls had never been to Afternoon tea before, so it really was a treat - and a true English one at that! We all felt very English and very proper.


We spent the rest of the day poking around shops and seeing sights like the Royal Crescent:


The inside of the Bath Abbey, where the choir was practicing - so pretty!


And the outside of the Bath Abbey:


The Pulteney Bridge (apparently one of four in the world lined with shops on both sides)


And last, but not least, this handsome pig statue: