Three Winter Walks

 Suprisingly, December 2014 turned out to be a great month for walking.  I set myself a goal to get out for a walk every day, even if it was just ten minutes, and also ended up doing three bigger hikes with some great people.  Here's a recap and some photos of those.

Walk #1:  December 6th's monthly hike with Ingrid

(14.15 km in 3h 20 min)

Ingrid and I were so lucky - after a week of gray, rainy days, we managed to get an unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon for the inaugural walk with our new map.  The route I plotted out went along the Demer River and was supposed to be 12 kilometers.  However, what I thought was a bridge turned out to be nonexistent and we had to walk all the way to Zichem where the next bridge was (and a cute watermill) before we could head back the right direction.  But all in all it was a great walk and we found a cozy cafe to quench our thirst afterwards.

The sign says go straight but there is no bridge!

The old watermill on the Demer in Zichem

Walk #2: December 28th's belated White Christmas

Surprise, surprise! On Saturday it started snowing, those big soft fluffy flakes.  We couldn't believe it!  We usually have to wait until January for a bit of snow here, and I think last year we didn't get any.  And snow that sticks and stays is even more rare.  But we woke up on Sunday morning to a brilliantly sunny, ice cold day, where everything was covered in gorgeous white snow.  So my husband, my oldest son and I went out for a walk, through the fields near our home.  It was gorgeous and we were not the only ones out taking pictures.

This path was VERY slippery...

Walk #3: December 29th's annual Christmas walk with Leen

(7.3 km in 1 h 46 min)

This is the second year Leen and I met for a walk during Christmas vacation, so we decided to call it our new annual tradition.  Last year, her daughter Hannah joined us, and this year, not only did her son Lucas come along, but my husband as well.  Will we get an even bigger crew next year?

Luckily it was a lot warmer than the day before, and we were again blessed with sunshine.  Most of the snow had started to melt but the roads and paths were not as slippery which was a good thing.  We ended up doing a marked route around Korbeek-Lo called the Sint-Camillus walk, and ended like last year at the local cafe for a hot drink.

Posing in front of a traditional Flemish "square" farm

Still a bit of snow in the fields

December turned out to be a great month for walking.  I'm looking forward to some great hikes and other active adventures in 2015 and plan to be more proactive about documenting them here.

In the meantime, I want to wish you health, happiness and many good things in the New Year and thank you for reading!

Milestones

Kim was reminiscing on her latest blog post about when she started running in 2006.  I also started running in 2006, so eight years ago.  Hard to believe!  And despite the ups and downs I've had the past two years, running is still a part of my life, but now as one element in a variety of different types of exercises I do.

Selfie from one of our walks this summer

Ingrid and I took our last big hike of the year together two weeks ago and we were wondering how long we had been doing our monthly walks together.  Spurred on by Kim, I decided to figure it out, and it seems since 2009, so 5 years.  Wow!

Like with running, our hikes have evolved over the years, the major change being the longer and longer distances we do.  Another change is that, having exhausted pretty much all the trails on the two walking maps we had for our region (Zuid Dijleland and Hageland), we've had to branch out and start a new walking map in a different region (de Merode).  The new map is a laid out a little bit differently than the old maps we were used to, which tripped us up a bit on our very first route - instead of our planned 12 kilometers, we had to take an unexpected detour (what I thought would be a bridge over a river did not actually exist and so we had to keep going til the next bridge).  Result: we walked almost 15 kilometers instead.  But it was no problem, we've worked up to these kinds of distances gradually and we were fine.

And that is what is fun about looking back at milestones and reminding yourself of how long you've been doing something.  Whether it's running, hiking or anything else, it's amazing to see how far you've come and how much you've improved.  What milestone do you look back on with pride this year?

Happy Halloween...and not Japan

Happy Halloween!

Although I didn't look too pleased about my butterfly costume in this Halloween snapshot from 1968, did I?

I must have had about the same expression on my face when my husband told me we wouldn't be going to Japan as planned...

Fortunately it was for a really good reason (a big job promotion for him and he absolutely had to start the week we were to be in Japan) and so I didn't pout for long (really, I swear, I didn't!)

So we cancelled everything.  Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you catch it and it's a really good thing.

Have a great weekend!

Venice

My first time in Venice left me with a lot of impressions and a real desire to go back with my husband and kids someday.  Because I was taking care of little Anastasia from 9 to 6 (with an hour break at lunchtime, which I used to get out for a walk every day, exploring different neighborhoods) I got to know the city in an entirely different way than if I had been on a weekend city trip, which was actually really cool.

Laundry is hung everywhere in Venice.

I don't think I'd want my undies out for the grabbing right at street level...

Part of wandering around with a toddler means you look like a local.  Every day we spent our mornings in one of the few city parks, and by the end of the week, I'd made acquaintance with some of the other mothers who also came every day.  Old ladies on the vapporetto boat we had to take to get to the park always commented on how beautiful Anastasia is and what nice chubby legs she has (you don't have to know much Italian to understand these sorts of comments).  And more than once, tourists summoned up their very best Italian to ask me directions, and I felt bad disappointing them - not only could I not understand their request but often I was just as lost as they were!

Venice is a pedestrian paradise but a nightmare if you have a bad sense of direction!  And the main highlight of the city for me, seeing as I had little time for museums and churches, was just walking around the city and seeing it as one big open air museum.  Luckily I was able to take my time in getting to know the area our apartment was located in, and then slowly branch out.  After a while you get a mental map of the city in your mind, and you also realize that if you happen to get turned around in a street there is no need to panic, just keep going and soon you'll see something you recognize, or signs pointing you either in the direction of the train station or St. Mark's square, the focal point for tourists in Venice:

St. Mark's Basilica

One thing I hadn't expected was the difference in sounds in Venice as compared to home.  For an entire week, I heard not one car, bus, motorcycle or heavy truck rumbling outside my window!  Instead there were the church bells tolling every hour, sputtering boat motors, and singers on gondolas.  Quite a change of soundscape!

Spot the grumpy looking cat in the window?

I did poke my head into a few churches during my wanderings...

View of the Grand Canal from the Accademia bridge

It was an intense and tiring week (taking care of toddlers is hard work!) but at the same time rewarding and extremely interesting.  I was even able to get a ticket to a concert of chamber music by Vivaldi in a little church for my final evening, which was really special.   But by the end I was missing my family and looking forward to going home.  So we ended the week with an excellent farewell lunch at La Zucca (a well known restaurant that specializes in vegetable dishes), and I flew back to Brussels, hoping to return someday.

Enjoying a well-deserved Aperol Spritz!

Life is like a box of chocolates...

...you never know what you're going to get.

Remember that line from the movie "Forrest Gump"?

That really describes how things have been around here lately.

My parents-in-law were planning a big party to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and as one of the gifts my sister-in-law arranged a photo shoot with a photographer, which was unexpectedly a lot of fun for us all.  The party itself went really well - a good time was had by all and it was so nice to see some of my husband's cousins we normally never see.

Tomorrow, I leave for a week in Venice!  This was also unexpected - I'll be looking after the 18-month-old daughter of a friend of mine who has to do research in an archive there.  She was having a hard time finding child care and asked me if I would consider flying down and helping her out for a week.  I've never been to Venice so it will be exciting and I am hoping to get out for lots of walks with little Anastasia to see different parts of the city.

Then, in October, my husband and I are going to Japan for a week!  This was my husband's idea to celebrate our 20th anniversary (which was two years ago - ha ha!) and he kind of sprung it on me early this summer.  I've been quite anxious about the whole idea (especially leaving my kids on their own while being so far away, which they think is great, of course) but as it's coming closer, I am starting to get really excited about it.

Finally, I even surprised myself and finished the Matt Roberts 12 week workout program I mentioned I was doing way back in May, I think.  I did take off four weeks while my niece was visiting us in July, but after she left I got right back on it and ended up doing all but 8 of the 84 days of the entire program.  The program was hard, and there were some workouts I really dreaded (like swimming) but I did it.  I lost some weight and had to part with some clothes that got too baggy, but the best thing is how good I am feeling physically right now - all set to take on looking after a toddler for a week, right?

Once a Runner, Always a Runner?

Sunday we met a couple whose 17-year-old son had just competed in a track meet here in Kessel-Lo, and had come in 6th in the final of the 5000 meter.  I was curious about what his time was, so I asked.  His father was pleasantly surprised that I was interested and when he told me the time (around 14 minutes), he was pleased at how impressed I was and that I had an understanding of how fast that was.  "You must be a runner," he said, "most people have no idea what those times mean."

You must be a runner.  I'll be honest, it felt good to hear that!  Even though I haven't really felt like "a runner" for some time, I have actually been running here and there, so I guess that does mean I'm a runner.  Right?  What are your thoughts on this?  Is there a certain amount of running you need to be doing to call yourself a runner?

In any case, motivated by this nice conversation, I took myself out for a "real" run on Monday morning.  Yes, I've been doing interval runs on the treadmill for the past few months, and I've done a few run/walks with my husband on Sunday mornings, but it had been a long time since I'd just gone out by myself on one of my old routes for what in my book qualifies as a run.

Just me and my Garmin, the path through the woods and the neighborhood and past the old abbey farm where the horses graze...it felt great.  I was doing ten minutes of running alternating with 2 minutes of walking and I hit 5000 meters at 36 minutes.  Not too shabby, I thought to myself.  I may be slow but I'm still a runner.

Summer Recap: 5 Teenagers (including1 Niece), 3000 Kilometers, 4 Weeks, 7 Countries!

Outside the cathedral in Bourges

So, my niece Maddie came to visit us for nearly a month this summer, and we really wanted to give her a chance to see as much as possible while she was here.

We managed to get her to seven countries while she was here (Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, England, the Netherlands and Germany), the highlight of which was a big road trip to the south of France for ten days.  It was a lot of fun - all five teens (Maddie, my three boys and Charlotte, Florian's girlfriend) were great company and good travellers.  I had been wanting to take my kids to the area for years to see the medieval city of Carcassonne, which I visited when I was a teenager travelling with my French host family.

Cloisters in Narbonne Cathedral

Hiking down to the natural bridge in Minerve

We stayed in a gorgeous gite in Pouzols-Minervois, a small village in the middle of vinyards located about a half hour inland from Narbonne, which was really well located for the Mediterranean coast as well as neat places like Carcassonne and our new favorite spot, Minerve (which inspired our running joke of saying "tu Minerve" while we were driving there) - a very cool ancient Cathare city built on cliffs and with an amazing natural bridge in the ravine below - and much much less touristic than Carcassonne, which really put the kids off.  Most days we went and visited things in the morning and then headed back to the gite late afternoon to spend some time relaxing before making dinner.  And one day we drove the 150 kilometers to Spain, to visit Figueres, which happens to be the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and where they have an incredible museum showcasing his life and work.


We could not get over how busy it was at the Dali museum!  The line to get in stretched right around the building and the place was jam packed.  The crazy architecture and the sheer number of Dali's works of art made the trip more than worth it, however.  It was quite an adventure!

I feel so lucky to have been able to get to know my niece better, spend time with her, my husband, kids and my son's lovely girlfriend, and get back to one of my all time favorite parts of Europe.

Enjoying a relaxing boat ride on the Canal du Midi

Can you tell I'm in my laughing place?

Maddie wrote some very nice blog posts about her European adventures on her own blog (including lots of pictures!):

France Part 1
France Part 2
London
Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany