Life: Idiotropic

This weekend was a three day weekend, but a cold, windy, nasty, misty, gusty, wet weekend here when the sun would peak out long enough to tease you into your shoes so that the second you stepped outside or even thought about going somewhere, it would let loose a shower of wet and leave you drenched and wondering what happened.

So... my plans on Strasbourg fell through due to our apprehension about the weather and our Friday was a warm, cozy one inside. Saturday looked even worse, but at 10am, it was dry, so Kirk told us all to get ready, we were going to Dinant. It was bit whirlwind and last minute, but by 1120 we were all piled the car with our cheerio breakfasts ready to go in their ziploc sandwich bags. (And now 1/4 are on my van floor - a big improvement to a couple years ago when only 1/4 would have been eaten and the rest were on the van floor)

Dinant is a small Walloon town in southern Belgium very near the French border. It's nestled in a valley hugging the river that divides it on either side. On the cliff above is an old Citadel which has a history dating back to the 11th century and the bridge dating back to the Roman age.

The town itself is picturesque and charming, so I was satisfied just walking along the restaurant lined riverfront taking pictures. But, we did the tour of the Citadel too -- a large building lined on so many walls with narrow slits they used to shoot from. One room had been knocked sideways during the war, so it was hard to walk without falling over and the water on the floor was completely sideways... it was strange to see it - seemed like it should be pouring down instead of sitting still at a slant.

We did a figure 8 all around the town. The kids liked the river and the ducks. Tiara told the girls what ducks say in French so we heard that for a solid 10 minutes from all three little ones as they greeted each duck that swam by.

Mid walk we stopped in a beautiful patisserie for ice cream (YUM), coffee, and cocoa. Cocoa made with milk and real chocolate. Delicious. And coffee that was smooth and creamy - I could have had 5. All the bakery windows were filled with couques de Dinant - the hardest cookie in Belgium, apparently, and ones that are imprinted with many different shapes/designs. They were pretty, but we didn't buy one. We got some other cookies instead that we forgot to try - I just remembered that they are still sitting in Tiara's purse.

Dinner was simple, but good. I had lamb. The girls had chicken nuggets, spaghetti, pizza... universal kid food. Kirk had the Croque Hawaii - a toasted ham, cheese, and pineapple sandwich - popular in Belgium, Netherlands, and France.

The big drama was in the last 5 minutes when Luci fell, scraped her knee and reopened an old scab leaving a 5x1" path of bright blood on her brand new white tights.

Knee aside though it was a nice day in a beautiful place, and we didn't do the boat ride that the girls were begging to do, so I think we must go back... just 90 minutes away, it really isn't far.

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