When leaving the States I was so worried about what I was leaving behind, the conveniences, playgrounds, friends and familiar stores that I forgot completely what I could look forward to. Today I was reminded what makes Europe great to me. We packed up the kids and granny and drove down to Grand Place in Brussels, a mere hour and a half in the car, after making a little detour to the airport to pick up our missing suitcase. I'm very proud of the fact that I found my way straight into the city. So much was still familiar. We were all hungry and cranky so we parked next to novotel and made a B-line for the first place advertising Belge Frites. I was eager to have my kids taste the mother of all fries, the original, the way they were intended to taste, but they hardly ate any. I think they were confused by the size of the fries, or just plain grumpy. Ezra preferred to eat the ketchup with the mini plastic fork they provided for the fries. Aaron, Granny, and I ordered Mitraillettes, a Belgian treat. Not sure who exactly invented it. A mitraillette is half a baguette (wider than a normal baguette), with a thin crunchy crust and a very soft inside in which they put a sauce of your choice, then some salad (usually lettuce, corn, and carrots), and then some cooked meat of your choice, and fill it up with fries. They are extremely yummy, but somewhat hard to get your mouth around.
After at least the adults were satisfied we headed over to Novotel to change Micah's diaper, and then made our way past the market with the precious arts, down the cobble stoned narrow alley ways to the Gallery Royale de Saint-Hubert. The Gallery is just what the name implies. It is an archway that in and of itself is beautiful to look at and walk through, with frescos and columns four stories high, curving in a glass roof that covers the length of the archway. Stores line both sides of the gallery, their window fronts works of art in and of themselves. We could only restrain the children with difficulty from running into the numerous chocolatiers that had their candy displayed in the most tantalizing towers. Aaron got them a treat a little further down at his favorite belge chocolate store, Leonidas. Just one alley over we coaxed our still fussy and grumpy kids on to grand place. I'm not sure what I expected, maybe an "ooooo" or "ahhh", but the kids couldn't have cared less. Aaron and I however took a deep breath almost as if to inhale the magnificent beauty of this 700 year old plaza and had to reassure each other over and over that we were really here, living only an hour drive away from the city we both love so much(for those of you who don't know, we both served as missionaries in this city). We proceeded through the Grand Place and saw that for the first time the gates of the hotel de ville were open. We immediately headed over there to take a look. As we took turns looking at the courtyard, the kids finally found something interesting enough to get their attention; the metal board with the historic information that was in the entry way. They took turns hiding behind it, laughing and giggling as they played peekaboo with each other.
Antsy for a belge waffle I had the kids follow me down the corner and past Grand Place, where I bought them their first real belge waffle. The kids have been obsessed with waffles as of late, and I would like to think that their smile was slightly bigger than usual when eating these ones. As I ordered my hot french Gaufre de Liege in French from my favorite place Belgaufra, a little stand in the wall, I realized that all my worries had been for nothing. I may have left the familiar conveniences, stores and friends that I loved behind in the US, but no matter how American I have become, I was raised in Europe, and the shoe still fits. I love the history and the awe that expands my mind and seems to fill my whole body like water on parched land, when I stand in magnificent places where people have lived and worked for almost a millenia, and to see it in tact and magnificent still. I love the food, the smell, the sound of different languages spoken all around me, and being able to converse with people in a language that isn't my own. I will always be a citizen of two continents my heart divided between them both, but for now I'm grateful to be back after 8 years absence.
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