News years Eve in Belgium....
Still cold, brrr, but ice is starting to melt on the roads. Our mission today is to drive up to Antwerp and get the car jerry has been given to use. Jerry heads to his favourite cafe for coffee and the internet and I have a few moments of tidying,blogging and praying in my warm kitchen before I wake up the kids. Lovely!
The drive to Antwerp is easy because no one is on the road. Jerry's office is actually in Antwerp and when he is in the country he will be working either there or in Ghent. When people hear that they are aghast, "who would want to drive So Far?" Of course by our standards this is nothing, like going from MI/Brighton to Southfield, or NJ/West Orange to NYC. Jerry likes to be at work early and that is not the European way, so he thinks he'll be fine. Anyway, we find the dealership no problem and the guy is waiting. Truth told, when I looked at the car on line, it looked bigger! Thank you marketing photographers! But no matter-here it is and we aren't paying for it, so it is lovely. It does have to back seat, so total capacity of 7, visitors take note! We were presented with a bottle of champaign along with the vehicle--bonus for picking up the car on New Year's Eve?! Off Jerry went to the in the rental car, he will cab home from there. The kids and I pile in, I have spotted an Aldi just up the road and since we are in huge Dutch half of the country I want to stop in to see which of our favourite products are here. Unfortunately the exit from the dealership is up a slight hill onto a busy street, and I embarrassedly stall the car 4 times before managing to clear the premises--yikes! I stall once more in traffic before parking at Aldi, but somehow my skills at the stick shift have revived by the time we are done shopping(toast sprinkles,tiger broodje,eierkoken!) and I get us on the highway and home with no further stalls, even in the small traffic jam we hit. Go Me! After lunch Danny, Molly and I take a walk downtown to go to the Proximus(comcast) store. I am hoping the SIM cards I got in the mail will activate the phones I brought. 45 min. wait later I find out that my android will take the card, but not the cheapy I brought. It seems it is locked for the US. Hmph! So I will continue to figure that out. Meanwhile, if I new anyone in Belgium I could call them! We walked a bit, visited a couple of shops and the food markt and then headed home. By this time Jerry had come down and joined us, which helped because he could carry groceries too!
Our New Year's Eve festivities consisted of:
Making a delicious Belgian hot chocolate recipe that the secretary at Danny's school, Mary, gave us...
Cooking up frozen pizzas we found- Turkish,Greek, and pomodoro
Watching Cinderella Man with Russel Crowe and Renee Zellwiger-pass the Kleenex
Calling family- I happily got a chance to talk to Mom and Susan, Jer chatted with Hank
Listening and then watching the tremendous amount of fireworks shot off at midnight. I had just gone in to say Godd Night and Bonne Anne to Danny when they really kicked in 11:58ish. We opened his shade and could see right through his picture window as the colours exploded all over the dark Moom and star filled sky. It was so cool!
Happy New Year in Belgium!
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