Belgium!

Lets see if you can tell a difference in blogging style between Kasee and me (yes, Jason is writing a blog post for the first time in  2 years! Did you know that I am the one that started our family blog only to relinquish the reigns after 2 posts?) After Morocco we boarded the plane in Tangier and headed to Brussels, Belgium. Although we witnessed many differences between each place that we visited I found the airport security differences to be very interesting. Security in Morocco consisted of a metal detector at the door and one security guy that didn't seem to mind when it went off. Anyways on to Belgium.


You may ask why Belgium? I went on a church service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.mormon.org) to Belgium and north eastern France. What this means is I spent 2 years teaching people in French about our church as well as providing service for anyone in need. During the two years I agreed to not phone home (emails were ok), watch movies, date girls, or even stay up past 10:30 and sleep past 6:30 am. These rules were in place so I could focus 100% on missionary service and I loved it!


We were welcomed to Belgium by my good friend Patrick. Patrick and I met when I was in Namur, Belgium, my last stop before I went home. He would meet us for lunch every Friday and we developed a great friendship that has lasted over 5 years since I have returned home to the states.


With Patrick we went and visited Namur. I'll be honest, we didn't see or do anything too exciting to the average tourist but it was wonderful to be back walking the streets of my old cities and hearing the familiar French accents in each town. I was also able to see my old apartment located within the house of Madame Bourginogne. She was an angel at 89 years old. She loved taking care of us even if that included a scolding for not wearing warm enough clothes when it was cold outside. She passed away a few months after I left.

We also visited the Citadelle in Namur. It provided us with great views of the city!

We were lucky to be in Namur on market day. The market was full of clothes jewelry and delicious local produce. We also tried to local favorite "le cuberdon." It was a grapish chewy treat.

For lunch we got what I had been waiting 5 years for... Belgian frites. They were as good as I remembered. I made myself sick trying to eat all the fries that we bought but it was totally worth it! 

To finish the day with Patrick we stopped off in the small, quaint town of Dinant. It was fun to hang out with the Mrs. and with Patrick while exploring the streets of this little town. [The inventor of the saxophone was from Dinant]

The next day we said our goodbyes to Patrick and headed to Liege. Liege was my first city that i lived in during my two year stay. We spent the morning walking the streets and again revisiting the familiar memories of my mission. 

We couldn't leave Liege without eating at my favorite friterie. We shared a mitraillette: a large baguette topped with fried meat and tons of Belgian frites and then topped with your choice of delicious sauces. 

After Liege we headed over to Nivelles. We enjoyed a romantic walk through the park where I used to hang out on preparation days during my mission (this is the 1 day during the week where missionaries can do something besides missionary work). 

 We also checked out the local LDS chapel as well as my old apartment and downtown Nivelles.

We even lucked out and they were having a little carnival in the center of town. As a missionary I always wanted to participate so it was fun to be able to with Kasee. Kasee got a barbe a papa which is the term they use for cotton candy. 

 Barbe a papa directly translated means dad's beard which Kasee demonstrates in the picture below.

 After an evening of hanging out and eating we retired for night at our countryside hotel. To get there we followed our GPS. Our GPS, however, did not warn us that it would be taking us on a windy 1 lane road through the countryside to get there. Although it was nerve racking to taking blind curves for about 20 minutes we did see the beautiful countryside and arrived safely at our quaint little hotel.

Next stop: France!