Trip To Belgium – 2008 – Page 3 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Soon, Brussels

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Grote Markt (Grand Place), Brussels Belgium.

Grand Place

No, I did not take this photo. I grabbed it from the Winter Wonders Web site.

We leave in a few short days and I find myself hyperventilating with anticipation. We’ve done our preliminary test packing and it looks like we’ll be able to fit most everything into our respective backpacks. This includes my recently acquired Manfrotto super deluxe tripod so I can take extended exposure shots. Travelling light and without checking luggage is HUGE in terms of piece of mind and rapid mobility.

The overseas flight from Atlanta to Brussels is not even half full at this time. I am hoping this translates to some stretching out and maybe some sleep before we get there. If not, we know how to beat the jet-lag by now. You just have to push through that first day.

In terms of camera gear I will, of course, have the Sony Alpha 700. My lens arsenal will consist of the the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 as my primary walk about with the 11-18mm for wide angle shots and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for evenings and other low light situations that require me to shoot handheld.

On the fence regarding the Minolta 70-210mm and the Sony fisheye. We’ll see.

The forecast looks good. Cold, but no precipitation.

On the agenda for Brussels:

Mini-Europe because I want to do some fake miniatures of a real miniature. It’s also the location of Atomium which was created for the Expo ’58 (the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair).
The RenÃ© Magritte Museum because, well MAGRITTE!
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences to see some whale skeletons.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts to see ‘The Death of Marat‘ by Jacques-Louis David.
The Belgian Comic Strip Center to see the cartoons!
Delirium Cafe which boasts over 2,000 different beers to choose from.
La Mort Subite for more beer.

And as much more as we can squeeze into the time we’ll be there. We are tentatively planning a side trip to Bruges which is only an hour away by train. There’s an ice sculpting festival going on that I would like to check out.

If we have the energy, we’ll ring in the new year at the Grand Place which I believe will have a fireworks display before heading back to The States on new year’s day.

Forecast

Clear skies and cold. No snow (boo) no rain (yay!)

Winter Coats

Winter Coat

Hello dalink, have you seen moose and squirrel?

Winter Coat

We have acquired new winter coats along with hats, gloves and wool socks. We’re also packing scarves. Highs in Brussels are in the 40’s and lows are near or below freezing.

Travelling Digitalia

Digitalia

I think I have the tech for the upcoming trip to Brussels sorted out. The G1 Android has been unlocked and I have been in communication with Belgacom and they indicate I should be able to pick up a “pay as you go” SIM card for my phone that will allow me to make voice calls and data connections over their 3G network. This will be much less expensive than paying T-Mobile roaming charges and will allow me to utilize the features of my phone like the GPS and Google Maps. Not that I have a real need, but the geek in me wants to play….

I’ve also acquired a MSI Wind U100-420US 10-Inch Netbook. 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM (upgraded to two), 120 GB Hard Drive, XP Home and a 3 Cell Battery. Built in WI-FI as well as an Ethernet port this computer should be all I need to keep up to date with my online obligations as well as allowing me to offload and process my pictures. Web cam, nice large keyboard and display and it weighs under 2.5 lbs making it something I can tuck into the pocket of my backpack for easy toting!

For the price, this thing rocks! There are some newer models coming out at the beginning of 2009 which have more features (and cost alot more) but this is all I need. It’s snappy and easy to use and being relatively inexpensive it would hurt my feelings to lose it while abroad, but it would not be devastating.

Shiny Euros

We have received our travelin’ Euros for the upcoming trip. I love the colour of European money. The holograms are so pretty. It’s like play money in that it doesn’t look real, but it also evokes the passion I associate with travel. Having Euros in hand makes the whole thing more “real”, if that makes any sense.

Of course, being the shutterbug I am, I wanted to photograph the bills as a matter of course so I played with different configurations and ended up with the above shot.

When I had finished procressing the RAW file and went to open it in Photoshop CS3, the strangest thing happened. This message popped up saying “”This Application Does Not Support the Printing of Banknote Images”:

In doing some research, this seems to be the same for the new American bills that were recently issued.

What stikes me is that this is not a scan of the Euro notes. It’s a photograph and it doesn’t even include a complete, unobscured bill in the photo. Yet Photoshop recognized the content of the image and produced that warning and, presumably, will not print it in the unaltered form.

It only let me save the oringinal file as PNG and I have not tried to print it.

Technology is cool!

Beer And Spiders

Cynthia @ The Dumon Chocolate Shop in Bruge 2005

We’ve been to Belgium once before, specifically Bruges. Long time readers of this blog might recall the “Maiming Of The Nose” incident where we had to rush Cynthia to the hospital after arriving on the train from Amsterdam.

When plotting the previous trip our friend Bill Shirley was most helpful in suggesting how to go about exploring beer options while we were there.

Cynthia is not a fan of beer. Prior to going to Belgium that time she had consumed less than one beer, pronouncing the drink undrinkable.

It was suggested by Bill that Cynthia try a Lambic, a traditional Belgian brew that is fruit flavored (peach, raspberry, etc.) to see how she would like that.

As it happened, we went downtown prior to our trip and ended up at The Flying Saucer where Cynthia was able to sample a Lambic prior to our journey. She liked it quite a bit and we made a point of acquiring some during our stay in Bruges.

Cynthia actually liking a beer is, well, incongruous. She had the few prior to and during our trip but none since. As we are laying the groundwork for our upcoming trip she’s actually mentioned how much she is looking forward to having a Lambic or three while we’re there (along with samples of chocolates from the some 80+ chocolatiers listed in the Brussels phone directory).

As we were reading up on the upcoming Christmas trip Cynthia found information regarding the brewing process for Lambic. Turns out it is not fermented the way other beers are. With traditional beer brewers, yeasts are added manually to ferment the wort. But with Lambic beer, wild airborne yeasts””present in the atmosphere in and around Brussels””are allowed to permeate the wort naturally.

To accomplish this, the wort is pumped into a copper tub called a “cooling tun” which sits in an open sided building, exposed to the elements where the naturally occurring, airborne yeasts fall naturally into the wort.

It is then poured into untreated wooden barrels where the wild yeast and and wort ferment.

The process cannot be duplicated manually and since the process is the only way to actually produce this particular brew, the Lambic brewers are exempt from any of the the same health standards and regulations that govern all other brewers in Belgium.

This has Cynthia conflicted. I believe the exact term she used was “eee-yewwwwww!”

On the one hand, she finds Lambics tasty and enjoyable. On the other hand, she has to reconcile the fact that the brewing process operates outside of sanitation standards she finds acceptable.

We’ll see how it goes. I wanted to see about touring a Lambic brewery, but just found out they have a tendency to attract spiders that feed on the bugs that are attracted to the wort.

Cynthia says God has quite the diabolical and ironic sense of humor.

Poor Impulse Control

Cynthia e-mailed me this morning saying:

OK- I’ve suddenly been bitten by the travel bug. I can be talked out of it though. Go ahead and tell me why it wouldn’t be a great idea to fly to Brussels for Christmas!!!!!!

I couldn’t think of a single reason…

3 hours later we have our flight and hotel booked.

Looks like we’ll be hitting up the Plaisirs d’Hiver/Winter Pret (“Pleasures of Winter”) festival to celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year!

w00t!