In Belgium

So a brief break from the tales of South America, because its the weekend, and Eva an I hit the road again. Well we only went 30-40 km north from here, but that's the great thing about living in abroad. For me, driving 30 km north gets me to some wonderful destination in a foreign country. At home that gets me to Long Beach, not the same. So we went to Knokke which is a ritzy beach community near the border with the Netherlands. It is called the "Monaco" of Belgium. Incidentally, Brugge is called the "Venice" of Belgium, and we passed through another seas-side village today that Eva said was called the "place I can't remember the name of that is in Spain" of Belgium. I teased her and wondered if Belgium has any places that are nice on their own merits.

The weather didn't really want to cooperate though, as it drizzled most of our time there. We of course had no choice but to retreat indoors in search of pancakes. What a shame, more eating. The place we wound up in was not serving pancakes until two PM so I settled for the next best thing; a steak and fries with mayo. That's right, you've all seen pulp fiction, well they put mayo on fries here too. Actually did you know that while they are often called "French" fries, it is more or less accepted that they were invented (if you can "invent" cutting a potato and cooking it) in Belgium?

There are a lot of expensive holiday homes in Knokke. There are also a lot of expensive shops. It is the place where the rich (and I suppose the famous) of Belgium come to play. I am neither rich or famous (although stay tuned for two weeks and the famous may change) but I still had a nice time in Knokke. We walked around viewing all the nice houses and window shopping through town. I also made sure to take a picture of the man peeing statue, something Belgians seem to really like (see manneken pis in Brussels) All in all, it was nice day away from Oostende. From the road in Belgium, Brian Out. -Sorry, Brian back in again, two days later. I was reminded by Eva that I DID get pancakes that day after all. We went home, after a visit to her grandmother's and Eva made me pancakes. Of course they were delicious.