Vive Le Carnaval!!

This post is coming much later then anticipated. Our internet died earlier this week, and so I am just now playing catch up.

I spent most of this weekend in Brussels. Friday night we discovered a street in Brussels that is packed full of well-priced ethnic restaurants, and indulged in a delicious evening of Thai, followed by a strawberry crumble Mcflurries. Delicious.

Saturday we ventured out to explore the park in Laeken (or Laken, in Dutch). This park is HUGE, and is not the easiest to navigate. After darting across the Belgian version of George Washington parkway we found ourselves face to face with a giant wall, and it took some time to figure out how to actually get into the park. We eventually found the park, and in the process saw the atomium.

Me in front of the Atomium

The Atomium is a large silver atom built for the 1958 World Fair. It sounds strange, but it was pretty cool to see. You can also go inside, but we decided to save that for a day where we might have more visibility, and thus a better view.

We headed into the park, and came across a gorgeous garden. We had the entire garden to ourselves, and had a blast running and jumping around. Celeste and I staged a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style photoshoot on this cool little dock in the middle of a reflecting pool taken by the fabulous Lori Mullins. I'll have to borrow pics from Lori to post later.

The Garden we had all to ourselves!

The weekend overall as great, but Sunday was really fun! We headed to this tiny Belgian town in the countryside of Wallonia (the French speaking part of Belgium) to experience Carnaval Belgian Style.

The town of Binche is quite small, but their Carnaval celebration is acknowledged as being the best in Belgium. When we boarded the train we had no expectations. We weren't sure what was ahead of us, but it ended up being pretty awesome.

We rolled into Binche at about noon and shivered in the drizzle while staring at empty streets. Could this really be the Carnaval we had read so much about? We began walking around town, and a few minutes later we could hear the distant rumble of drums. According to Carnaval tradition in Binche rehearsals for drummers start weeks in advance, and the rumble of drums is a common sound. On Carnaval Sunday the drummers go from house to house gathering together those that are dressing up. We followed the sound of the drums until they led us into the main square of the town.

It was here that we realized why the streets were so empty; everyone in the town was in the main square! People were dressed in bright costumes, and were jumping, dancing, drumming, and throwing confetti around. It was so much fun to watch!

We ducked into a little restuarant to get out of the rain, and I had a hamburger for lunch. This Belgian version of a hamburger was certainly not all ground beef (there was definatley some pork or something in it) and, of course, was not on a bun but was on a crusty roll. It was a different take on a hamburger, but was delicious.

We headed back out in the square and went to buy some carnival accessories. Then we wandered more around town, admiring costumes, and indulging in Belgian fries with andalouse sauce, delicious.

Next it was time for the parade. This was completely different then any parade I've ever been to. Each little group of costumed celebrators is followed by a tiny band. They march about 20 feet to drumbeats, and then the band plays a song and they turn around and face the band and dance. This is so much fun to watch and to take part in, but it is also a very slow-going parade. Once a group finishes dancing they continue thier slow march until the next group comes along. Each band plays the same song, and after about 10 minutes of this we knew every note to the song and were jumping and dancing along. At one point a photograph with an official looking badge around his neck walked up to me, pointed at my mask and said something in french, then stuck his camera about 4 inches from my face and started snapping pictures. I was so surprised and confused that I pulled a Deb and tried to hide from the Camera.

The Parade

Papa Smurf at the Parade. The Smurfs are actually a Belgian Creation. I'm serious, look it up.

When the parade ended we figured that we would go back to the main square where the parade would finish becuase we assume that this would be where the Carnival celebrations would resume. When we got to the square however, it wasn't very full, and we realized that the parade was moving so slowly that the very first marchers wouldn't reach the square for at least another hour and a half. We ducked into a bakery, indulged in delicious treats, and hopped on the train back to Brussels.

All in all, it was a great day. Being the center for the EU and the unofficial Capital of Europe, Brussels is such an international city that sometimes it is difficult to get a true sense of Belgian culture. Going to Binche was a fabulous way to experience something that is central to Belgian culture, and that is the way that they celebrate le Carnaval. Though it was a giant festival, all of the people that we met that day were living in Belgium, and we felt it was a great way to get to know more about Belgian culture. This did have it's drawbacks, and we obviously had more difficulty communicating then we do in Brussels, but it was really a great day.

Other highlights of the week include:
-Having some really interesting stuff to work on at work this week
-Ash Wednesday Mass with some fine people and Confession with a really great priest
- Being a Pirate. In internetless-induced boredom I began playing all of the free trial games that were available on my computer, I prompty became addicted to Tradewinds. Once my free trial was up I downloaded a free trial of Tradewind, Tradewinds 2 and Tradewinds Caravan. Really a great game.
-Finding out my good friends kim and mike were going to come visit me in two weeks! yay!!
-discovering the break room at work that has free coffee for Ind/Dems
-Realizing (from Kim's blog) that the Fall 2009 classes were posted online for Rochester, yay!
-sitting in the 2nd floor stairwell trying to get the neighbor's internet signal
-Celebrating having the house to ourself (the family was in EuroDisney Sunday-Wednesday) by putting on Judith's spinning class mix and dancing around the kitchen.
-Eating a Durrem, mmmm

And now I'm off to shower and then enjoy a weekend with my friend Kiersten who is visiting from London!

Much Love!