Our foreign travels 1

We left for Israel on Tuesday. Our flight included a 12 hour stop in Brussels. Our son's trip, back in October, included a similar stop. We thought that being able to explore a new city mid trip would be a blast.

It was. Except that the New York-Brussels leg of the trip is packed with movies and meals which makes sleeping a bit difficult. We landed at 2:00am New York time. Taking the train from the airport to the town center was easy, and even delightful.  At one train stop, we sighted a bunny chewing on a clover along the train tracks. The scene looked like it had come out of a Durer etching.

My youngest enjoying the museum...

too tired in Brussels

As soon as we got off the train, we walked to Grande Place. The old square was just waking up for the day and many places were still closed. Before we had left New York, we had decided that it was essential while in Brussels to eat Belgian waffles, eat chocolate, drink coffee and have Belgian beer.We found an open cafe.It seemed the perfect time to indulge in waffles and coffee.. We did need to be caffinated for the day.

The coffee was excellent. The kids had waffles. My youngest, the one who is pretty indifferent to food declared it the best waffle he had ever eaten. I had a bite. It was indeed swoon-worthy. By this time it was about 3:30 am New York time. My youngest then fell asleep in the cafe, with his head in my husband's lap.We let him sleep for abut half an hour and then went on to the Museum of the City of Brussels.It was rainy, we only had one umbrella with us and it was next door.

The museum had a pretty wonderful collection of alter-pieces that I remembered from my days studying art of the Northern Renaissance. My youngest was begging to go to sleep, so he and I settled in on a bench where he fell asleep with his head on my lap while my husband and daughter wandered through the museum.

Eventually, we woke my youngest and resumed exploring. Brussels is astoundingly beautiful (or at least the corner of it that we explored) with twisting cobblestone streets and wonderful buildings from the 1600's. I did take lots of photos , but I won't be able to upload them until I get home.We did buy chocolates to give as gifts in Israel. We did sample caramel filled chocolates at Leonidas,and they were mind blowing.

We had hoped to go to the Magritte museum, but at that point, about  2:00pm Brussels time we were all too crazed by sleep deprivation. We went back to the airport to nap before our next flight.