Found it!

Church of Our Lady

On Sunday we explored the other end of the city of Bruges including a nunnery, brewery, lake, church, and hospital museum that was mostly religious art. Back in the 12th century not much was known about healing the body so the emphasis in hospitals was on healing the soul.

Minnewater Lake or "Lake of Love"

We walked past the picturesque house across the lake to check it out. It is an abandoned restaurant now. Sad.

Courtyard of the nunnery house

Someone has a sense of humor

We even stumbled upon a miniature rail village. My dad would be pleased we got to see a miniature train, sample a beer, and visit a nun's house all in one day.

A toast of Zot beer after the brewery tour

Dinner on our last night was a steaming pot of mussels with frites and mayo on the side:

Monday was our last day in Bruges and we successfully ticked off our list the remaining items of what we wanted to do:

• Basilica of the Holy Blood of Christ (small but beautiful)
• Chocolate Museum (complete with a sample at the end)
• Climb to the top of the bell tower
• Enjoy a Belgian waffle
• Find that darn bridge in our painting (see previous posts)

After ascending the 365 steps in the Belfry tower, we saw nice views of the city in each direction and we got to see and hear the bells chiming.

Belfry Tower

While on the spiral staircase I thought of Ryan counting steps in times past when we would climb towers. Moments later, a lady passed us counting each step out loud. The tradition lives on.

View from the tower

After our trek up the tower, we rewarded ourselves with fresh Belgian waffles and chocolate sauce:

Finally, I'm happy to report that we did find our bridge scene:

Our weekend was complete and the "winging it" strategy worked out just fine.

Here is the Eurostar train I took back to London at the end of the line in St. Pancras station:

Eurostar

And it's almost the "end of the line" for our time abroad as ex-pats.

Bridge Day

Our Saturday in Bruges was Bridge Day. We started with a boat tour and went under several bridges on the canals. One bridge was so low that people on one side of the boat had to duck their heads when we went under, accompanied by squeals of laughter.

Duck for the low bridge!

Two of the bridges we went under were supposedly the oldest on the canal dating from the 17th century.

After that we bought a painting at a street market of a bridge in Bruges.

Where we bought our painting

The artist showed us on our map where the bridge was located. We took off in search of it but we couldn't remember what the scene in the painting looked like as we had left it in our hotel room. We went back to the artist to ask him again how to find the bridge. One more try, no luck, but we sure enjoyed strolling along the canal and this time we saw two drawbridges, one of them raised while a big cargo ship went under it.

We also walked right by some old windmills and one of the old gates to the city.

 I like the  Belgian "lacework" on the fence around the windmill:

Old City Gate

When we got back to the hotel room we took a picture of our bridge painting to refer to on our next quest for "The Scene of the Painting".

Quaint, Historic, Elegant, Decadent Bruges

Our first dinner in Bruges was at Brasserie Mozarthuys.

We sat next to two ladies from England. We got to talking to them and discovered the lady in her 80s remembered World War 2 and getting sent out of London by herself at the age of 7 to avoid the bombings. Fascinating hearing her perspective. She later married a soldier from Belgium who was in London working as an interpreter for the Americans.

The woman and her daughter come to Bruges regularly to visit with her deceased husband's family. We enjoyed talking with them and they were interested to hear our story of living in London as Americans and how Chris's dad was stationed in England during the war. Turns out the ladies were staying in our same hotel so we saw them a few more times.

View from our hotel window

In the morning we could hear the clip clop of horses outside our hotel window giving carriage rides on the cobblestones. Add to that the musical tolling of bells from the Belfry tower nearby. To complete the picture a long line of swans flowed gracefully past in the canal. The word quaint barely begins to describe it.

 Our Hotel de Tuilerieen

Our hotel windows open up like french doors and only a bar protects you from falling out. You can sit in the window seat and people walking by smile up at  you. 

Don't fall out!

This is the hotel where cast members from the 2008 movie In Bruges stayed: Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.

Movie Star photos in hotel bar

The breakfast buffet is in an elegant room with an impressive chandelier. Included in the options were crepes of course, but also fruit dipped in a chocolate fountain. Decadent!

Breakfast Room

The breakfast attendant goes through a litany of Bon jour, hello,... until she finds the right language to communicate with us. It's so impressive how many languages people speak here.

Just look at this Warm Drinks menu to get an idea of the international flavor...

Weekend in Bruges

It's just under three weeks before the Russells Abroad Experience ends. Time for one last quick trip. Beautiful Bruges it is!

12:58 We board our Eurostar train that will take us from London under the English Channel.

The conductor makes announcements first in English, then in French.

Amazing to think that in 2 hours we will be in Brussels, Belgium. The portion of the trip through the underwater tunnel takes just 20 minutes.

Our ears pop even in the tunnels on land.

14:59 We arrive in Calais, France. With the one-hour time-zone difference, it has taken just one hour to journey from the island housing England to "The Continent". 

I notice that now the announcements are first made in French, then English.

16:08 Now we are in Brussels and Dutch(German?) has been added to the announcements, followed by French and English. Feeling very multi-cultural! This portion of the journey was through peaceful countryside.

17:30 A one-hour local train ride from Brussels to Bruges and we are here. We walk to our hotel right on the canal near the historic area.

18:30 We are checked in to the hotel and checking out the free wifi. The 1.5 mile walk from the train station took us a while as we made our way through the winding cobble-stoned streets with our rolling luggage clunking along.

Actually it's turned out to be a rather long day when I think about it. We left our house at 11:00 am to catch a train to take the underground to get to the St. Pancras International train station to get on the Eurostar. By the time we walk to our hotel its been 6 1/2 hours door to door. Seems like a long time ago that I was jotting down "Amazing to think that in 2 hours..."

For some reason I did almost no planning for this trip, thinking we would just figure it out when we got here. I used to always buy a guide book ahead of time and attempt an itinerary. I've become complacent after so much traveling, maybe even burned out from trip-planning... Rough  life, right?

So we will just wing it this time, Bruges  is one of those places you can just wander around and enjoy, I'm thinking.

Earned the Right to Cry

I have been doing some commiserating with other moms of kids just starting college.

Melissa sent me this photo that I just had to share....

Yep, our kids will always be our babies, even when they head off to college.

Here is some tongue in cheek advice from another friend:

It was a mistake to raise such awesome kids. If we had raised them to be horrible then letting go wouldn't be nearly as hard. Make your kids rotten, folks. You will appreciate their leaving.

I love Melissa's answer to this:

Maybe if we hadn't done such good jobs raising our kids it would have been with jubilant anticipation that we kicked our kids out. Thankfully this was not the case so we earned the right to cry at their moving on down the road of life, knowing we will always be there waving, should they look back and our arms will always be open for one last embrace.

My Up-With-People musically-talented friend Pam always seems to find songs appropriate for the moment. Her blog references the song "Turn Around" by Malvina Reynolds:

Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four.
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door.

Pam and Melissa both found this song from Fiddler on the Roof wafting through their heads:

Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play?
I don't remember growing older, When did they?
Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.

So if any of this brings tears to your eyes, just remember Moms, we earned the right to cry!

Feet of Lexi (3), Mama, Ryan (7) 

Many thanks to Susan, Melissa, and Pam for practically writing this blog post for me!

Moving on to a New World

It's been just over 3 weeks since we pushed our last "chick" out of our nest. The empty nest thing is getting easier, I just try to focus on the positives:

• I'm no longer on chauffeur duty.
• I can listen to MY music stations in the car now.
• We don't run out of milk as fast.
• I still have my grand-dogs that need me.

I am reminded of our flight from London in August heading to Seattle to visit Ryan in his new digs. The all-day flight across the Atlantic wore me out, especially since I spent the whole time working on a cross-stitch project for Ryan: "Home is Where the Heart Is".

Then our connecting flight from Calgary to Seattle was delayed by several hours. Finally we were up in the air on our way and I rested my eyes and dozed off. I awoke when I heard the flight attendant comment on the beautiful view. I looked out the window and felt like I was in another world. The majestic Canadian Rockies were displayed before me in all their glory.

So maybe I'm waking up now in my new world of no kids at home... and finding the beauty in it.

Canadian Rockies from www.kheli.com

Fickle English Weather

I walked to church last Sunday morning in beautiful weather, wearing sunglasses, feeling silly for bringing along my brolly (umbrella).

After Mass, my weather gear swapped places as I carried my sunglasses and used the umbrella for the walk home.

I've learned to always be prepared for the English weather to change in an instant.

When we first moved here in July, 2009 from hot humid Houston, I wasn't prepared for the cooler English weather. I was in denial and kept wearing warm-weather clothes. It was supposed to be summer after all!

Over the last four years I have finally given in and learned to bundle up. Layers are actually quite useful, see above paragraphs on fickle weather.

Now I find myself much more comfortable but I can't figure out why the shops have all those skimpy summer clothes in the windows?

Looking in a Mirror

The last several weeks I have felt as if I'm looking in a mirror, a special time-traveling mirror that reflects an image of me from the past. Allow me to explain.

When we visited freshly-graduated Ryan as he is getting settled in a new city starting a career with Boeing, I saw myself after my college graduation, moving to Houston, starting my career at Shell.

Seeing his first apartment brought to mind my first apartment. Observing the pride he has in his brand new car, I saw myself 29 years ago so happy to have my first car.

What's more, here was Lexi preparing to start college life at Vanderbilt. My eyes saw Lexi, but my brain traveled back 33 years ago to my Freshman-at-UT self.

I just couldn't help but make comparisons, although I'm sure the kids weren't interested in my past, this was their shining moment. Still, walking around campus brought back memories of the blisters on my feet from my first days of campus trekking. I told Lexi she was lucky she did so much walking around in London and to the train station so at least she is in shape and her feet are used to it.

Finally, I can see myself in the new families at the American school here in England. That was me, fours years ago, scanning advertised lists of UK items that others moving back home were trying to get rid of. The feeling comes back to me of the haze I was in trying to figure out how things work in this new country. Now I'm on the more confident side of the mirror, happy to reach out to the newbies and wish them the best.

If I can carry my analogy a bit further, I'd like to think that my journalist dad, if he were still alive, would see himself in my blogging... in the special time-traveling mirror.

                                            

Then and Now

When I see this patio table that I gave away this week to a new family at the American school,

a vision appears in my mind's eye of Lexi's 2nd birthday party celebrated around it 16 years ago...

It's funny how an ordinary object can trigger memories of the past.

I look at this sofa now...

and I see the past....

Ryan, 1 1/2 years old, with cousin Chelsea on Halloween, 1992

Ryan's baptism, 1991

1997, Lexi and Ryan in "tent" with the sofa pillows that always seemed to end up on the floor.

But wait, the history of that couch goes back even further...

My first apartment, 1984

Now we are downsizing, purging for our move back to the States.

My beloved sleeper sofa that made its home in 5 different residences over a span of 30 years is about to be left behind in England.

It sits in the garage waiting for someone, anyone to come get it for free.

I tried to donate it to charity but it got rejected. It doesn't have the "Fire label" tag that the Health and Safety laws in England require.

So I'm offering it up for free, for anyone willing to come collect it and give it a good home.

I would love for it to provide 30 more years of support for another family...

And Chris is just tired of messing with it as it is so very heavy!

Heavy with memories...