Brussels

Bonjour! Picking up where I left off (Maastricht Daytrip), our European Christmas Vacation then took us to Belgium. The Belgian border is only about a 45 minute drive from Megan and Todd's place in Eindhoven. So, we woke up early and set out to our first Belgian stop, Brussels. Brussels is the capital city of Belgium, and it struck me as a very big city as compared to our other European visits. Brussels is also home to the European Union and NATO. It has a very metropolitan and cosmopolitan feel to it. The country of Belgium speaks both French and Dutch. Apparently, Belgium is basically linguistically divided North and South. The Northern half of the country speaking Dutch, and the Southern half speaking French. Brussels, being the capital, is officially bilingual, but we certainly heard and saw significantly more French than Dutch.

Our first stop was the Atomium, which is pictured above. The Atomium is a large steel structure on the outskirts of town that was built for the 1958 World's Fair. Christina, the resident chemist of the group, advised that the structure is built in the shape of an iron crystal. It is actually much taller than it appears in the picture. (338 ft.) The line to take the elevators up and into the spheres was extremely long, and we had a full itinerary, so we did not go to the top. Maybe some other time in our lives.

After parking outside downtown, we rode the subway to the center of the city. As soon as we walked up from the subway, C and I were shocked at the size of the city. It felt much busier and bigger than we expected. But, in the midst of the city and the high-rises sits the Grand Place. The Grand Place is one of the most prominent squares in Europe. Along the outside are various guildhalls and the city's Townhall. Unfortunately, it rained for a bit of our day, so the pictures probably don't do it justice. The buildings are incredibly well maintained, and many are contain intricate statues and carvings.  As you can see, there were Christmas decorations all throughout the main square, including a huge nativity scene right in the middle of our view.  Shooting off the Grand Place are a few shopping avenues and various cafes. Chocolate and jewelry seemed to be the most popular items to purchase. C partook in the Belgian waffle with chocolate.  I was shocked at the sheer number of high-end chocolate shops in the city.  They were literally everywhere! Below are some photos of the Grand Place.

After leaving the square, we found a nice cafe to sit and have lunch. The place is called a la Mort Subite, which apparently means "Sudden Death." The clientele was a mix of tourists and locals on their lunch break. The menu consisted of mostly sandwiches, omelets and beer. C got the ham and cheese omelet that is shown below; it came with the largest slice of bread I have ever seen...haha. I ordered the croque-monsieur, which is basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Todd and I were looking to enjoy ourselves as much as possible, so we splurged on some beer. Immediately, the Chimay Blue jumped out at me. The Blue is also called "Grand Reserve." It is maltier with more caramel to it than the other Chimays. A great beer to drink while sitting in a Brussels cafe on a rainy day. Here are some photos from our lunch spot.

After lunch, we wandered around the city a bit with the goal of reaching the world-famous Mannekin Pis. I am not entirely sure why or how, but this little fountain of a boy holding his wiener while pissing into a pool became a sensation. There were lines of people waiting to get a picture. It felt like the Trevi Fountain! Personally, I thought it was a bit underwhelming, but the people of Brussels really love it. All the chocolate shops near the fountain sell chocolates in the shape of the Pis. Further, the little boy is constantly dressed up by the locals. He apparently has hundreds of outfits for all occasions. Just a few days ago, Todd sent us a recent article about the city's love for this little fountain. It is actually an entertaining read. Below are the photos we took of the little guy.

From the Pis, we roamed around a bit more. We randomly found some cool parks. We then walked to the Royal Palace of Brussels. Evidently, the king and queen do not live there anymore, so I am a bit uncertain as to its purpose nowadays. But, it looks very nice. It is basically across the street from the Parc de Bruxelles, which is appeared to have little music and food venues set up throughout it. Our timing was unfortunate because the fountain was off and obviously, there was no greenery. But, you can picture how nice it would be in the Summer. Like I said previously, maybe on our next trip to Brussels.

That was basically our day in Brussels. Short and sweet. However, because my traveling partners were all so awesome, they indulged me on my quest for beer. We went back to the car and used the GPS to get to Anderlecht, outside the city. The neighborhood was a stark contrast to earlier in the day. But, across from a vacant lot full of garbage is Cantillon. This brewery is a rarity and basically, non-existent outside Belgium. It makes the finest lambic beer in the world, using old-school brewing methods. The owner is a fourth generation brewer. Yeast is obviously an essential ingredient to beer, and therefore, most breweries are extremely meticulous about the quality and quantity of yeast added to the beer. In contrast, Cantillon produces its beer via "spontaneous fermentation." Wild yeast and bacteria that naturally inhabit the region are allowed to freely enter the beer, and the beer generally aged in oak barrel for a period of one to three years. The brewmaster then carefully blends the lambics of different batches and ages before bottling creating "gueuze." Sometimes, fruit or additional sugar is added as well. The result is a beer unlike any other in the world, and no two batches will ever be the exact same. The beers are generally dry with some sour taste. Cantillon probably does this better than any other brewery in the world. Megan, Todd and I shared a couple of glasses of various styles, and then I bought three bottles to enjoy later. One of them made it home safely in my suitcase, packed between socks, underwear and t-shirts. One of the best brewery experiences of my life. The owners and employees are obviously extremely passionate. They greet everyone on their way in the door. Here are the pictures below:

Heaven

That concluded our whirlwind tour of Brussels. Our next stop was a quick one in Ghent. I will post a short synopsis of that trip soon!

Europe Trip - Day Four (Maastricht)

Hallo again! Keeping the European Christmas vacation blog series rolling, we have now reached Day Four. After the Christmas night craziness, we planned a day trip to Maastricht. Maastricht is located far south in the Netherlands, approximately an hour and a half drive from Megan and Todd's home in Eindhoven. Our first stop once we arrived was Grotten Sint-Pietersberg. The grotten actually refers to a network of man-made tunnels and caves that have been carved out over time through the limestone. We started our day in Maastricht with a guided tour of the caves. The network of caves is incredibly long and has a few interesting spots along the tour. For example, there are plenty of charcoal drawings through the tour that have been created through the course of hundreds of years. You can see photos of a few of them below. Also, the Netherlands hid some of its best works of art down in the caves during World War II. At certain points in the tour, there are large concrete structures that look like something from a sci-fi movie. These were guarded by armed guards when the paintings were being stored down there. Further, some of the rooms are even climate-controlled to preserve the artworks. The last picture below shows the entirety of the cave network. It runs underneath many parts of the city, and we only toured a very small fraction of it.

After finishing our cave experience, we drove to the center of the city to explore some of the sights. As you have already heard, Christmas markets seem to be extremely popular in this part of Europe. So, the first square in Maastricht was full of street vendors and carnival rides. We ate some street food, including lumpias (sort of like fried spring rolls) and frites. The fries come in a newspaper cone with various sauces available. This time around, we tried the Andalouse sauce, which was basically a spicy mayo. The fries are always made to order, extremely hot, and crispy. Easily one of the food highlights of our trip.

After filling up on fried food, the four of us embarked on a walking tour of the city that Megan and Todd had purchased in a prior visit to Maastricht. Like much of our trip, it was overcast with sporadic rain. But, it didn't deter us. We completed the walking tour anyway. Maastricht claims to be oldest city in the Netherlands, and you can certainly see why during a walking tour. One moment, you are on a street lined with clothing stores, and the next, you are walking through a cobblestone street with the old city wall right next to you. One of the coolest sights on the tour is the Helpoort.

The Helpoort is the city's old gate, which dates back to the 13th century. You can see it pictured to the right. This entire area of the city is filled with remnants of the old city. At one point during the walk, it started raining pretty steadily, so we found a little cafe on one of the squares. C had a delicious, yet little, hot chocolate, and I had the Kasteel tripel. The Kasteel glass is one of the best. The beer is a good tripel. It's approximately 11% ABV, and tastes a bit boozy. The Kasteel tripel is very spicy and has the classic Belgian taste of clove and candy sugar. It's not the pinnacle of Belgian tripels (the balance is a bit off) but good nonetheless.

The walking tour ended in Vrijthof, the most well-known square in the city. The large red church tower is especially easy to spot and stands out among the gothic buildings along the square. Here are some of my favorite photos from the walking tour.

After a day sightseeing, Megan had made reservations for us at an Indonesian restaurant across the river in Maastricht. There are Indonesian restaurants all over the Netherlands. Prior to World War II, Indonesian was known as the Dutch East Indies and was a Dutch colony for over a hundred years. So there is a long history of Indonesian culture in the Netherlands. The restaurant was nice and offered an array of Indonesian food for the four us. None of us had ever been to an Indonesian restaurant before. We ordered a variety of different items, including various rice dishes, salads,and satays. We had pork, lamb, chicken, beef, tofu and shrimp. The spices were bold but not overly spicy. I especially enjoyed the peanut sauces. Also, I tried a Palm Speciale. This beer was probably the most prevalent beer on tap at every cafe/restaurant throughout Belgium. I decided to give it a try. It is a Belgian amber from the Palm brewery. Clearly, it is meant to be an easy drinking beer for the masses. I certainly would not say it is terrible, but it does not offer anything original or exceptional. I actually think it has some similarities to Fat Tire, which I don't particularly enjoy. But, I can see Palm Speciale being a decent with a sandwich or in this case, Indonesian food. The dinner was great. Absolutely, no complaints, and a great way to end our long day in Maastricht. The city is one of my favorites and flies under the radar with tourists outside the Netherlands. Both C and I would highly recommend a visit to Maastricht.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - Days 2 and 3

Hallo! Last week, I posted Day One of our trip to Europe over Christmas. Today, I will attempt to give a relatively quick, yet thorough recap of days two and three. We woke up at Megan and Todd's place in Eindhoven on Christmas Eve (Day two). They have an awesome tri-level, townhouse-ish rental just a short bike ride outside downtown Eindhoven. We hopped on our bikes and rode approximately 45 minutes to the neighboring town of Nuenen. Before exiting Eindhoven, we passed by the home of the local soccer club, PSV Eindhoven. The stadium can be seen below. In the team store, we purchased Baby Cattey an official PSV onesie.

We then continued our winding bike ride to the picturesque town of Nuenen. The town is famous for being the home of Van Gogh from 1883-1885. Below is his depiction of the church in town and then our photo of the same church. (Interestingly, we actually saw the original in Amsterdam at the end of our trip...things coming full circle.)

While in town, we ate lunch at a neat little cafe/bar where a gentlemen took a pretty decent picture of the four of us. In the town square, there is a statue of Van Gogh. We also rode to the famous windmill just outside the main square and took a few photos. The windmill is apparently famous enough that it is the only photo posted on Nuenen's Wikipedia page. As we were leaving, C and I partook in a Dutch tradition, Oliebollen. These fried dough balls covered in powdered sugar are sold at stands throughout the country during the holidays. It reminded me of a less cooked beignet, and it left a good deal of powdered sugar all over C's face.

On the way home, we went to the local grocery store, Albert Hiejn, to purchase our Christmas feast. It was good that we had four bikes, because each of us ended up with groceries strapped to ours. Obviously, I ended up with two twelve packs of beer bungied to my bike. I rode home extremely carefully. We had dinner reservations at a cafe in Eindhoven that served only two options, meat and vegetarian. Each couple shared one plate of pork tenderloin and one plate of brie with roasted vegetables. The pumpkin soup was excellent, as were the beers. At night, we went to a concert in town. The duo of Woody and Paul spoke entirely in Dutch but sang exclusively in English. It was odd knowing the lyrics better than anyone else at the venue, but not having any idea what was going on between songs...haha. Either way, it was a fun experience, and the music was decent. We then biked home in the rain and went to sleep while waiting for Santa.

Christmas Day, we woke up and walked to the park. In this picture, you can see me inspecting Todd's brand new soccer ball after their dog sunk her teeth into it. The four of us then spent the remainder of the day cooking, eating, drinking, dancing, and playing charades at their home. Their rental is great. Here are a few pictures of the place.

Unfortunately, C and I didn't have any real gifts to open because we tried to pack as lightly as possible. So, we had an idea to open the envelope containing the gender of our baby on Christmas day. It was probably the best gift anyway. For those of you who we speak with less frequently, see below:

After opening the envelope, C celebrated with a glass of raspberry/blueberry juice. Todd and I celebrated with a bottle of Hertog Jan. For better and for worse, Hertog Jan tastes like Miller High Life. Absolutely nothing special about it. Todd tells me Grolsch and Hertog Jan are sort of like PBR for the young dutch folks. Barely any bar or restaurant outside of Amsterdam even serves Heineken. The best part of Hertog Jan is clearly the label. The rest of the night, Megan, Todd and myself indulged in various fantastic Dutch and Belgian beers that Todd had purchased before our arrival. It was like beer heaven. A few of the chosen beers are shown below. The Westmalle and La Trappe beers are trappist, meaning they are brewed inside the walls of a monastery and the monks oversee the brewing process. I will explain more specifics about trappist beer in a later blog. The Westmalle tripel for example is generally regarded as one of the very best belgian tripels in the world, and wow, it did not disappoint. A few of the beers I took pictures of are featured below.

After a bit too much fun, the four of us crashed. It was a memorable Christmas on many levels. C and I had a fantastic time spending two days around Eindhoven. It was great to be tourists, but not in touristy places. And, Megan and Todd made sure we had fun the entire time. The next five days of our trip were much more hectic, but equally memorable. I should have plenty of good photos and good stories for those days as well. Until next time...