Brussels Part I (and the trip to Turkey that almost never was)

After a long flight (7 hours straight of movies and no sleep for the kids) we were so glad to arrive at Paul's sister's Kate and her husband Wim's beautiful 3 storey house in the cosmopolitan Schaerbeek commune of Brussels (grateful also that our bikes survived the plane trip). Reunions of the cousins are always happy and the kids settled immediately into excited but comfortable companionship...

..

...and screaming games of superhero tag in the case of Tom and Theo. I was motivated by Wim into going for a brain-clearing run in the nearby sprawling Josephat park, filled with gorgeous trees, large and old enough for the park to be closed during windstorms to protect the populace from falling wood - an interdiction which we all ignored when we ventured out the next day when winds were high.

We spent the first three days catching up from jet lag, exploring the streets

public squares

and parks of Brussels both above

and below - the underground ruins near the European Parliament were almost empty of other tourists so the kids could run wild through the many caves and recesses throughout.

One of my favourite things about Brussels is the way you look down a narrow street and at the end of it see some gorgeous church or other spectacular architectural facade. Everywhere you look there is something unique, whether it's a beautiful Art Deco facade, an amazing piece of graffitti that would be at home on any gallery wall, or an abandoned corner in the middle of a dense urban retail stretch left to grow wild (this one right around the corner from the second hand bike shop where we bought Jacob's touring bike).

No doubt each leg of our journey will involve mishaps. For the past five days we've had two not insignificant ones, hopefully our record will improve as we go! The first incident was at the lovely Park Leopold, which is almost directly behind the European Parliament (you can see the curved tower in both pictures).

In the park is a huge pond, enjoyed by ducks and moorhens, which that day was partially covered in a layer of green algae. The kids were of course eager to feel it, so after hollering at them to just touch it and then catch up to me, I continued on the walk. I looked back once to see the girls crouching at the water and Tom running down to the edge, then looked back again to see Tom coming up for air, having fallen head first into the pond and soaked from the top of his hooded sweatshirt to the bottom of his sneakers. Kyra pulled him up out of the pond (luckily not falling in herself) while we all rushed to help. Tom was unfazed by his dip in the water on a cold windy day, but then screamed at the indignity of having his entire outfit stripped off so we could warm him up in everyone else's sweaters.

The second incident was more near miss than mishap. After Paul, Kate Wim and I returned home from  an evening of moules frites and vol au vent washed down with local Zinnbier and sour cherry aperitif (kids stayed back watching movies and practicing French with the teenage babysitter) we sat down over tea to confirm our flights and go over some plans for istanbul. Just before we went to bed at midnight I pestered Kate to print out our boarding pass for the our flight to Turkey the next day. She gasped when she looked at the details and exclaimed that we needed to go to a completely different airport than we had thought. It was analagous to thinking we were going to porter at the island but then discovering the flight was leaving from buttonville airport. If Kate hadn't discovered that minor detail we would have showed up at the wrong airport and missed our flight, with all the emotional mayhem and financial stress that would have ensued. Thank you Kate!!!

Fortunately we were able to adapt and caught our extreme low budget flight to Turkey (not even a free salted peanut or glass of water) and landed in Istanbul, greeted by pink skies and the moon.