12/1/13 Did I mention Belgium is Lovely?!!!

What an excellent day!  To begin with, Mother Nature blessed Belgium (and all of us visitors) with a day that was almost too beautiful to believe!  It was about 47 degrees, no wind and SUNNY!  Had a delicious breakfast buffet at our hotel (took some pics below!) but mostly it was a LONG, SLOW breakfast for me with delicious English Breakfast Tea and a time to study about all I would like to do and see while in Belgium!  Then had a chance to reorganize my space, my stuff, myself, get some fitness in and sort through the stuff I brought along for the study tour, shower and ready myself for the first collection of meetings and buffet lunch with all the students and staff/faculty for the study tour.  I get included in several get togethers which is really kind and also a lot of fun!

We did a welcome buffet lunch at a really neat restaurant and then a 3 hour Walking Tour with a really brilliant Tour Guide.  I will admit I was a bit taken aback when he showed up with a white blind person walking stick and it was for him because his now legally blind.  But he still sees shapes and knows Leuven so well he doesn’t really NEED to see to show it to us.   He is writing his 2nd book about the great St. Peters Catholic Church he took us to.  It is very old and amazing….

After the walking tour, Pat and I walked some more!  We were trying to find somewhere to buy water to have in our rooms.  It’s very expensive in the hotel.  But, it was also early Sunday evening in Leuven and not much was open any longer!  So, well, we bought a couple bottles at a pizza shop and I found a laundromat so I can wash a few things before we head to Brussels on Thursday!

I was so proud I packed early and packed “light”…but I suddenly hate everything I packed!  But it doesn’t matter in the end!

We ended up back at the bar at the hotel and again has a small “house beer” and shared a meal of “Belgian Meatballs” (they taste an awful lot like American Meatballs!) and stir fried vegetables…and then we decided to book our high speed train tickets to Amsterdam!  Yay!  We will go Tuesday all day.  Then we went back to the lounge and had tea and visiting with some of the students in the Belgium Masters program and just enjoyed the heck out of ourselves!

A great day.  More than just the incredibly detailed medieval architecture, etc. but for the beautiful weather, taking the time out to appreciate all of it; missing my doggies, my family and friends a little, but knowing they’re happy I’m happy, yada yada yada.  It was, for me, finally one of those days that I was really able to stay “in the moment” more than I ever recall doing so for such a long time!

I found this online link to a Self-Guided Walking Tour of Leuven, which, if you’re interested, will further describe my pictures and probably have better pictures than I’m ever able to capture!  I’m a notorious lousy picture taker…but I gotta give myself this credit: I still do it anyhow!!!!   http://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/leuven-landmarks-walking-tour-5136.html