Waterloo Who?

We have our own little piece of war-time history in our backyard, so we finally took some time to check it out. Waterloo is a suburb of Brussels. You may or may not know that J and I are allergic to the suburbs, so we called a friend to come along for support…she’s from a town an hour away from my hometown (small world much?) and has the two cutest little girls. After getting in our fill of history, she and her hubby had us over for HOMEMADE margs and shrimp bisque…seriously. I’m still drooling.

I’m not a history buff, so I had to learn a few things during our sightseeing. So, I’ll share a few with you, but I’m assuming you already know this….

The Battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815 in Belgium, what was then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Napoleon’s French wore blue and Wellington’s Anglo-Dutch wore red, so it was pretty. Napoleon lost, which ended his rule as Emperor of the French…poor guy. Then they constructed a monument called the Butte de Lion (Lion’s Hillock)….it’s really a hill with a Lion on top. And according to Les Miserables, the Duke of Wellington complained that they altered his battlefield. Sheesh. Can’t please the man.

Once you climb the 226ish stairs, you can barely even see the lion..

But you can see some pretty sweet views of Belgium..

We also went into this tomb with a 360 degree panorama painting of the one-day battle equipped with life-like un-alive figures of men and innocent horses.

Finally Some Music

Live music was the thing that brought J and I together. Dates 1, 2 and 4 were shows (3 was at the Terminal B Chili’s at DFW, as I was flying in and he was flying out). After that, hips: attached. We switch back and forth introducing each other to new bands since we have totally different styles. Actually, in the beginning, we maaaaybe had two current bands that we both knew, other than that, our two quite long lists didn’t overlap. 

Enter: Lisa Hannigan. An Irish singer, songwriter and musician. I was hooked on her music (and Ireland) with THIS video. So, when we heard she would be at the Cirque Royal in Brussels, duh.

LH opened for Glen Hansard, one half of the duo The Swell Season. Sensational music. Sensational night. Check out their tunes while you take a gander at the venue..

  

Stuff It

Our stuff is here! Our stuff is here! I could scream it from a mountain top if there was one nearby.

Stuff including our festival posters and record collection and THE most comfortable bed on the planet. We’ve been sleeping on the fold-out couch for two weeks and my aging back can’t take it anymore. (Please note that it was a fun camp-out for the first few days, but two weeks is too long. So, guests, plan accordingly.)

Oh, and we get real food again! Our kitchen stuff is here now so we’re no longer limited to home cooked meals that have to: 1 – be cooked in the oven; 2 – come in their own oven-safe package or don’t require any; and 3 – can be eaten without a bowl/plate and with plastic utencils. So we were pretty much left eating pizza, lasagna and other finger-foods. The experience did point us to MexiGo, a pretty decent Mexican take-home (not really take out, you have to cook it yourself) that CheeseWeb (thanks!) informed us about. Yum, prooobably going to be one of our favorites over here.

We had heard from lots of other expats that when your delivery comes in, the movers have this crane that they can lift your things through your window. We were super excited to see our boxes come in this way. But no such luck. The movers climbed the stairs the old fashioned way…bummer.