2008 will go down as the most relaxing, enjoyable Christmas ever. Thanks to the NH Bruges hotel for letting us stash a few presents under their giant tree in one of their lobbies. One little girl woke up very, very happy that morning.

Here’s an overview of Christmas Day in Bruges:

Presents!

More presents!

Touring the ice sculpture festival…

…followed by the Christmas carousel ride.

The Christmas Day dip…

…which was then followed by the Christmas dinner dance.

I never understood people who said things like “Once the kids are grown up and gone, [INSERT SPOUSE'S NAME HERE] and I want to travel.”

I always think “Why not travel with the kids now?” Anna points out her next vacation destination on this subway mural. Looks like somewhere in the Mediterranean or perhaps North Africa. Either will do.

I’m too fidgety to spend 18 years nesting and watching the suitcases collect dust. The world will have changed and I will have missed it, plus there’s that what-if-I-get-hit-by-a-bus-tomorrow theory (a dump truck hit me the week before Thanksgiving, so the likelihood of being hit by any vehicle seems pretty probable to me).

I also strongly believe travel is one of the best forms of education available to children. Where else can they learn about culture and language, apply math skills with money, hone their navigational and people skills, and learn the lesson of being happy with what you have –such as being happy with what’s in your suitcase and learning to wear the purple shirt that’s packed instead of whining about the pink shirt stuffed in a drawer 3,600 miles away?

So instead of saving money and nesting, we kissed a few thousand dollars goodbye in Belgium–a country that shares France’s good taste and charm without the attitude.

If someone ever asks Anna where was the first place she ever tried ice skating (because that question often comes up during speed dating) she can proudly say Belgium. Bruges, if she wants to be specific and impress. We did a half dozen spins around the rink before Anna proclaimed fatigue and begged to get out of her skates. Our first rotation was an excruciating 10-minute exercise that could have been mistaken for angry interpretive dance. By the sixth rotation, we weren’t quite channeling Dorothy Hamill (did that just reveal my age???), but there was genuine gliding across the ice.

The day after ice skating, we headed into Brussels for an afternoon of sightseeing. We hit the comic strip museum, the Atomium, and Mini-Europe. The Museum of Comic Strip Art reminded me of the Friet Museum–a bubble gum-sweet love letter to doodling. Though, to be fair, the artwork in this museum went beyond doodling. Where else can you find homosexual erotica in French, classic superhero graphic novel drama, and the Smurfs all under one roof?

The 20-year-old museum was created by a handful of die-hard comic book fans who renovated an Art Nouveau building designed by architect Victor Horta. The building, once a department store, is now a series of galleries circling a wide, dramatic staircase. (Is it a Belgian tradition to take a passion or a fetish and turn it into a museum?) The 20th century was a prolific one for Belgian comic strip artists and their imaginations have been thoughtfully encapsulated in this museum. This former department store now houses 6,000 original plates and life-size cartoon sets.

After a hot waffle and even hotter hot chocolate, we schlepped out to the Atomium, which required a 20-minute subway ride to the suburbs. Built in 1958 for the World Fair, the Atomium is an iron atom magnified 165 billion times and towers over Mini-Europe. Inside the center ball of the atom (can I call it a nucleus? I don’t know…) is a snack bar serving ice cream and beer.

Is this what Andre Waterkeyn envisioned a half century ago? Who can say. I see the Atomium as the ultimate mid-century design (which you can also find at the snack bar). Forget the Bertoia chair or an Eames sofa. Waterkyn fused science and art by taking something unnoticed and undervalued–a ubiquitous molecule found throughout any Rust Belt small town on both sides of the pond–and blew it up to the point where it commanded not just acknowledgement, but jaw-dropping awe. You’ll never look at iron the same way again.

From inside the Atomium…

…and from the outside…

Next to the Atomium is Mini-Europe, which Anna perceived as a series of fancy dollhouses and castles. The best part about this exhibit is that as we were walking in, a French-speaking family approached us holding a ticket. I thought they were asking us for directions, but they were offering us a free ticket. They had a spare to spare. I thought Mini-Europe was just Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and a few o
ther Euro architectual icons, but instead it’s a thorough examination of every recognizable edifice in the EU.

I wish we had had more time in Brussels. I wish we had had more time in Belgium. But it was Christmas Eve the day we were in Brussels and it was time to get shopping for some of these:

A little more than 24 hours ago, I was hanging out here, the Grand Place in Brussels:

Nice, eh? The Grand Place lives up to it’s name for it is both grand and truly the place to be, even when it’s about 30 degrees out. Hard to transition from that to New Jersey, but that’s where long, stuffy plane rides help out.

To begin at the beginning, we arrived in Brussels and took a train out to Bruges. Belgium is like New York in that it takes about an hour to get everywhere. Except instead of taking an hour to get from New Jersey to Brooklyn, where you go through tunnels, past Broadway billboards, and can’t distinguish one apartment building from another, a Belgium hour takes you past sheep, 800-year-old churches, and rolling countryside.

And 60 minutes later, et voila, you’re in the charming, laid-back medieval city of Bruges…

…where the Westvletern flows, sweets are stacked, and cones of french fries abound.

Which brings me to one of the highlights of the trip–the Friet Museum–a centuries-old church converted into a museum that is the ultimate ode to the french fry. The origins of the french fry are difficult to trace. Everyone claims to be the first to take a potato and throw it in hot oil. However, Belgium can lay claim to consuming the highest amount of french fries per capita. That’s pretty impressive considering Belgium is a small country filled with skinny people. The Friet Museum is both a love letter to the french fry and a love letter to the people of Belgium. This was the quirkiest, incredibly informative, most charming museum I have ever visited–an unusual hybrid of modern kitsch, archeology, and anthropology. Mike said I was beaming the whole time.

Suspended from the ceiling were strings of various potatoes–like an exhibit in a planetarium. This display could have been a traditional glass case of plastic Russets and Yukon Golds, but no–a couple of people in Belgium lovingly strung several dozen potato models and placed them in soft light in the center of a dark room so that your eye would be immediately drawn to them. That’s devotion. There were also detailed explanations on the etymology of ketchup and why we dump mustard and mayonnaise on everything. The tour ended with a cone of french fries served in a pink and green room.

The Friet Museum was followed by the chocolate museum, which wasn’t kitschy or charming, but a very serious explanation about the origins, development, and exploitation of chocolate. In other words, it’s the story of Western colonization, so it’s a downer.

The real chocolate tour is through the streets of any town in Belgium. From Bruges to Brussels, the chocolate shops were packaged to please the eye and the soul. How can you walk into a chocolate shop and not feel instantly happy?

If the chocolate shop doesn’t quell the cravings, you can always get chocolate poured on to your waffle and then dribble it all over your face–a true sign of a tourist–the inability to gracefully eat a chocolate-covered waffle while on the go.

The whole purpose of going to Belgium was to eat and be charmed. We had been talking about this trip for about two years. We talked about Belgium when we were in Jamaica. During our visit to Belgium, I talked about Poland and Greece.

While we mapped out our globe-trotting to-do list, Mike sucked down varities of beer, Anna sampled french fries on every corner, I got hooked on steaming cups of Belgian hot chocolate (how can you go back to Swiss Miss after that???), and no one ate the steaming pots of mussels that were on every single table at every restaurant we went to. But we did try Belgian stew.

Interestingly, lasagne was offered everywhere. Anna is not a lasagne eater, but she did eat a bowl of spaghetti our first night in Bruges. We dined at this charming pub overlooking the Christmas market and the bell tower–the famous Belfort–in downtown Bruges. We sat on the second floor by the window, watching Bruges get ready for Christmas and Anna attempt to eat spaghetti. It was the perfect way to start our week–surrounded by twinkling colored lights and the buzz of holiday shoppers punctuated by the clip clop of the horses pulling tourists around in carriages while a little girl wrestled a strand of pasta.

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We’re in the land of beer, chocolate, and waffles, enjoying, um, beer, chocolate, and waffles. It’s Christmas Eve and after a long, leisurely day of sightseeing, we’re enjoying the warmth of the holiday from the comforts of our hotel room. But here are a few snapshots from our almost four days in the city of bridges. Merry Christmas everyone!