And we're off!!!

After much anticipation, we head out VERY EARLY tomorrow morning to catch our flight to Rome, and we should be on the ground in the Eternal City by about 8:30 CET. I've done a lot of research and have things pretty well planned out, but I've also been sure to leave time for just wandering and doing whatever comes to mind. We'll take two daytrips, one to Pompeii (and Sorrento if time allows) a few hours south, and the other to Orvieto, about 90 minutes north - we figured it would be nice to get out of the city for a few days and see a little bit of the rest of the country.

We will have internet access while we're there, so I'm taking my laptop and plan to upload some photos along the way...so be sure to keep your eyes out for more blogging and pictures!

Oh, and I almost forgot...

Happy Holidays and Aachen photos

Merry Christmas!

or

Happy Hanukkah!

or

Happy Kwaanza!

or

Happy Festivus?!?

Oh geez, Happy/Merry whatever I guess!!

One never knows what to say on one of these blogs, when the reader could be celebrating anything (or nothing) really! :-) Anyway, we're having a nice quiet Christmas morning here in Belgium, me organizing photos and writing blogs and virtual Christmas cards, and Carl working on his papers (of course). We may head over to a friend's place later, but otherwise we plan on a quiet day at home.

Last night we got back from Aachen, Germany so here's a little "trip report" from there:
Aachen is a very pretty city of about 250,000 people in extreme western Germany, right at the border of both Belgium and the Netherlands. It's best known for being the home to Charlemagne, as well as the crowning place of most of the kings and queens of the Holy Roman empire from the 900's to the 1500's. The Aachen Cathedral, parts of it dating from about 800 AD, is the biggest attraction, and I've included some photos of the outside and inside here. The large gold box in one of the photos is the shrine of Charlemagne, and is said to contain his remains. Charlemagne's throne, where the coronations took place, is unfortunately not on display to the public. Pictures never really do it justice, but particularly the inside of the cathedral was beautiful.

Our main reason for visiting Aachen when we did was the huge Christmas market they hold there every year. The 23rd was the last night for it, so we were happy to make it there in time to enjoy it for a few hours before it closed. It was a lot like the one in Brussels, but a little bigger and obviously with a German flair. After wandering around the market and the medieval center for a while we had a yummy German dinner followed by a visit to an Irish pub. It's become a bit of a joke between us that somehow, no matter where we go, we always seem to end up in an Irish pub! :-) Anyway, Aachen is a lovely city, and we look forward to going back again soon!

Update on Belgium's political crisis

There have been some recent developments in the situation facing the Belgian government, so I thought I'd take a moment to catch everyone up since I'd talked about it previously. The following BBC article (again, I don't see any mention of it on CNN, MSNBC or FOX news) gives a pretty good and concise update, so here's the text:

Belgium gets emergency government

Rival parties representing Belgium's Dutch and French-speaking populations have formed an emergency government, ending six month of deadlock. The government of caretaker Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (who lost elections in June but stayed on as caretaker) will stay in office for no more than three months. It is then set to hand over power to Christian Democrats and Liberals - the winners of elections in June.

The two parties have so far failed to reach a deal, prompting fears Belgium could split along linguistic lines. The Liberals and Christian Democrats won 81 of the 150 seats in June's elections. But their efforts to form a government have floundered in a dispute over greater regional autonomy - broadly favoured by the Dutch-speaking Flanders region but opposed by the French-speaking south.

Belgium's King Albert II earlier this week asked Mr Verhofstadt to form an interim government. "The prime minister has unblocked the situation," a spokesman for Mr Verhofstadt said of the decision by the Christian Democratic party to join an interim government. The interim government now faces a parliamentary vote of confidence on Sunday. Assuming it passes the vote, it will remain in office until no later than 23 March next year.

On Saturday, thousands of trade unionists took to the streets in Brussels, complaining about the political stalemate and rising food and fuel prices. Last week, the European Commission warned that the political paralysis was beginning to affect Belgium's economy.

Holiday "break"??

Carl's winter break has officially begun, but there's a catch: he has three major essays of 15+ pages each due when his classes start up again on January 14th! I guess that's how it goes with a condensed, one year MA program - even your "breaks" aren't really breaks. That's okay though, he's making some good headway and is on track to have two of the three essays completed (and the third researched) by the time we leave for Rome on New Year's Eve. That way he'll only have one of them to finish after we return. That's the plan at least, we'll see how it goes!

On tap for this coming week: a 10 mile run today (should be fun in the current freezing temperatures!), our last French class tomorrow, my last two Dutch classes of the year on Tuesday and Thursday, and an overnight trip to Aachen, Germany next Sunday! Believe it or not this will be my first time leaving Belgium since we arrived here (not counting the U.S. trip to get my visa), and I'm excited! Thalys, one of the inter-city European train companies, has a train that takes you there in only 90 minutes. Aachen is not only the closest German city to Brussels, but it also has a Christmas market that's supposed to be nice to visit. I paid another visit to the Brussels one yesterday, but I'm looking forward to seeing a German version of it. Keep an eye out for a trip report with photos next Monday! After we return from there we'll stay close to home in order to allow Carl to get his work done, then it's off to Rome!

Birthday report

So as I said before my birthday was Sunday, and overall it was a very nice day. The run to Waterloo went well, although we ended up taking a slightly different route that was a little shorter than the planned 9 miles - what a bummer! :-) The weather held for us though, and while we didn't see the giant commemorative battle statue (it's evidently well south of the town), Waterloo itself is very pretty. We'll have to add it to the list to go back and see on a nice day. The view from the top of the statue is supposed to be great on clear days, so we'll try to time that one.

Later in the evening we headed downtown, where a friend took this nice shot of us at dinner. Lately for some reason I don't tend to like very many photos of myself, but this one turned out pretty well so I thought I'd post it. After dinner we wandered around the Christmas market and ran into a few other friends. It was fun, but once again the rain returned and made it not very pleasant to be outdoors, so we called it a night and went home. I hadn't really thought of this before, but this was the first birthday I've celebrated outside of the United States. All in all it was a nice one!

B-day Run to Waterloo

So my birthday is this Sunday, another year gone by - my how time flies! What am I doing to celebrate, you ask? Gee, I figured why not take a little jog to...oh, I don't know, maybe Waterloo? I'd love to say I'm just kidding, but unfortunately I'm not! Our marathon training group usually does our runs on Sundays, and this week is a 9-miler, just about the distance to the town that was the scene of Napoloen's famous defeat.

I shouldn't complain actually, because despite the weather predictions not looking so great, it should be a good time. After we finish the run we plan to meet at a pub/cafe for lunch and refreshments before hopping a bus/train back to Brussels, so I'll have a nice group to celebrate with. Plus, it'll be cool to see the place and the huge statue that commemorates the battle - which of course is set high on a hill with 226 stairs to the top (that info. courtesy of Wikipedia). That ought to be fun after running nine miles! Not sure if we'll do that trek or not, but regardless it'll be neat to see. Too bad I can't bring my camera (no WAY am I running 9 miles with that thing around my neck!). Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend - I'm sure mine will be both enjoyable and memorable! :-)

Plaisirs d'hiver/Winter Pret

Both of the above phrases mean "Winter Wonders" which is the name of the Brussels Christmas market and festival. We checked it out for a few hours last night, the first of what I'm sure will be several visits this month (it runs through the New Year). It's a huge event, taking up a big portion of the city center with temporary shops, food stalls, an ice skating rink, ferris wheel and merry-go-rounds. The Grand Place is also lit up in appropriately grand form, with an amazing display of constantly changing lights set to music. I got a decent shot of it which I have uploaded, but photos don't really do it justice - it was just beautiful!

Hopefully we'll be able to pay a visit to at least one other Christmas market this month. Just about every city of any size has one, and each city usually gives it its own local flair. It's such a neat concept - I wonder why the U.S. doesn't have these??

Oh, and Lyndsay, if you're reading, I finally got to try some glühwein...it was tasty, and just perfect for warming us up on a cold, damp evening!