Thanksgiving, Belgian Style and Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet

What started out as a simple Thanksgiving dinner with another American family, turned into a somewhat large celebration including some of our Dutch friends. My friends Amelia and I had been working all week planning the right menu and dividing up who would make what. Our biggest obstacle turned out to be the turkey. We knew that we would be able to order a turkey from a butcher but could not stomach the idea of having to pay the equivilent of about $8.50 a pound. I even tried to see if the food store could get one in for me but was told they would not have have them until Christmas. We were told that a German food store chain carried frozen turkeys, so Amelia and I set out to the closest store in the bordertown, Aachen to get some. We were able to buy 2 - 6.5 pound frozen turkeys for about $2.50 a pound. The next day, I almost lost it when I went to the food store down the street and saw huge fresh turkeys in the case. 

Getting dinner on the table was a little hectic but convincing 9 little pilgrims to sit down and eat was easier than I expected. Our meal turned out great and it was so nice to be able to share some of our Thanksgiving traditions with friends who had never experienced it before.

The next day, we sent the kids off to school and went to Brugge. We didn't have much time there, but were able to squeeze in a brewery tour, which we would never have been able to do with the kids.

Saturday, Campbell's hosted Sinterklaas and his 2 of his Zwarte Piets. The event was really nice with pancakes (crepes), ice cream and candy. Campbell's gave us a choice of gifts for the kids. All of the options were very nice. Sinterklaas called each child up indiviually and gave them their gift. Seeing Sinterklaas is always nice but I still find the Zwarte Piets very odd.

The Prince of Swimming and Prince Himself

Colin has been taking private and group swimming lessons since the spring. He has been working very hard everytime he is in the pool and is now starting to swim by himself. I think his teachers voice is really funny. You can hear her cheering Colin on in the background.

Monday night we went to see Prince. He just confirmed the date last week and was able to fill the 14,000 seat area in Antwerp in a matter of days. We found out that a few of our friends also got tickets, so we met up with them to take the tram over to the arena. He must have played for about 3 hours and it was amazing. I think there must have been about 7 or 8 encores. Twice, we left our seats thinking it was over and ended up going back in. It is hard to believe Prince is 52! The concert was fantastic and I hope that I will be able to see him again sometime.





On the way out, we were a little disappointed that the cops were wearing their standard hats and wished they had been issued raspberry berets just for the night. Also, a friend introduced me to Stan who she described as the rock star of Antwerp. I will have to ask around about him because Stan doesn't sound like a rock star name to me.

We were out a lot this past weekend and are looking forward to a few uneventful days.

Happy Halloween!

The kids have been so excited to dress up for Halloween ever since Craig brought the costumes back from the US at the end of September. Colin was a skeleton and Chloe was a garden gnome. The kids were allowed to dress up for school on Friday and they had a parade of costumes for the other students at the end of the day. On Saturday, we went to a Halloween party given by the parent and child group I am a member of. Colin is on a roll because he won best costume again for the second year in a row! I think that Colin forgets that kids in the US trick or treat. I am not so upset about that.

The school is closed this week and half of next week for Fall break.