Jan 17th. Mozart's magic and other things

Another busy week with occasional vomit. On Sunday Dan and I were planning to drive to Brussels to work from our BE office a couple of days. The day started out nice. We went to Starbucks for breakfast stopping over at different coffee shops along the way to pick up other tidbits to suit everyone's taste. We were talking about the Lion King show that we saw last night. Later in the morning we had planned to visit a nearby farm with a petting zoo. However, when we got home, Isabella dived head first onto the floor when trying to get out of her jacket. We all learned that chin bleeds as much as forehead.

When she quieted down, Isabella fell asleep on Dan's shoulder. Georgia and I went for a walk along the river. It was a beautiful day - lots of cyclers and kids around. Dan and Isabella woke up towards lunch and we all went to Yo Sushi that recently opened up in the mall. Very very overpriced but we miss sushi so much. When we come back to US, I am going to make a massive order of sashimi from Catalina Ops, hopefully it will not result in another Irene.

Arrived to Brussels and walked around town in the evening. They still have the Christmas tree up in the main old town square. Together with lovely buildings in the center it looked beautiful. Dan took me to a restaurant he found last time, I think it is called something like "Fin De Clecl." It is a off center. Beautiful tall-ceilinged room with a rambling mix of tables and weird modern art paintings around the walls. Only local clientele. We had awesome chocolate mousse and crème brulle with grog.

Incidentally, this time around we've stayed at Best Western in the Grote Market area. Something must have died there and hotel tried to cover their tracks with some sweet smelling substance. Yak! And the Internet does not work. Ibis and Accord next door were much better.

In the morning we connected with Danielle and headed out to the office. I may have written about it before.. the office is shaped like number "8," with long lineup of motivational posters along the way. I am assuming they are there to help orient you on where you are on the number eight. The motivations are all in French. For all I know they could be de-motivations. It is funny how all the instructional signs in the bathroom and break room are in English, while most of the team speaks French/Dutch. "Don't forget to remove the signs of activity in the toilet bowl."

Tanya called us in the morning to say that Georgia was sick at night but felt better in the morning and so went to school. Then I got a call from school midday saying that she is feeling sick and needs to be picked up. They told me that she told them about being sick @ night and so gave me a screaming about sending a sick kid to school. At that point I did not know if we have to jump in the car and drive home ASAP. Then Tanya called and Georgia explained she was not feeling great and arranged to be picked up in advance. It is nice that she is taking charge of things like that but it would be more comforting to be in the loop, in advance :)

After all that excitement, I started feeling nauseous too. By the time we went to the wondrous In't Spinnekopke on 1 Place Jardin Aux Fleurs recommended by a co-worker, the mere sight of those rich sauces filled me with despicable disgust. That being said, the place is amazing. Highly highly recommended. Lovely typical Belgian décor. Waiter hovered around us like a mother hen. The food looked and (must have tasted) awesome. Those tender pieces of kidneys beckoned from the glistening pools of butter cream with islets of bacon. Poor Dan, he ate both our appetizers and main dishes, and drank his beer and my wine as the waiter kept peering from around the corner to ensure that the food and drink were getting its due. In the end I recovered enough to pick slightly at the desert. Now, a few days later, how I wish I ate all that food!!

Back home, on Tuesday night, excitement had continued, but in a good way. Tanya, Georgia and I went to Rose Theatre for the "Magical Mozart Evening by the Candlelight." The music was magical all right. The stage was decorated with flickering electric candles and performers were dressed in period clothing and wore wigs. They did a mix of instrumental and aria pieces. One of the singers was particularly good. She did the challenging aria of the Queen of the Night flawlessly. So memorable. Georgia really liked it. My only criticism is that when there are 4+ musicians playing they really need a conductor. Otherwise it becomes an exercise in trying to all play at the same time, which, by definition, is a little lacking.

Then, at night it was Isabella's turn. Poor thing, she had it worse than Georgia a few days ago and it continued well into the next day. What do we have now? Wednesday? Nothing eventful. Thursday, our downstairs neighbor, Anastasia and her little daughter Emily, came over for dinner. It was very nice to have them over. We have a few things in common, like the boiler and kid manufacturing processes.

Then, Dan's mom called to say that she broke her arm when walking our dog. And the roller coaster with my sister. Everyone, please be well!!

A few more things. We were driving, and Dan noticed a guy drop his box of cigarettes on the ground. Dan stopped, rolled down the window and shouted to the guy that he dropped his cigarettes. The guy shouted back "Nah, it was empty, I threw it." Seriously?? I know it does happen everywhere but this was slightly unsettling.

Construction crews are back breaking the cement "quick fixes" before Christmas. Nice to see!

Read an interesting article in one of the local papers. It described disproportionately higher abortion rates of girl fetuses vs. boy fetuses in ethnic neighborhoods. And correspondingly higher births of boys vs. girls. It appeared that in those neighborhoods families chose to abort following discovering baby's gender during the ultrasound. The article discussed various approaches to address this. One of the suggestions was to not tell gender to mother even if it is known. Great!! Then again, US is not much better on the same topic. Everyone loves to get into business of women making decisions about their bodies.

Tonight we are going to York for a weekend. Will write more when we are back.