Belgium: The Land of Beer

In Belgium there is beer as far as the eye can see!  This is great for BK, but I'm not so keen on the beer.  I reached my max around Friday night.  Tasting is good, drinking is not so good.  Ick- it just makes me bloated and kind of gross...and I really don't like the taste either.  This may be too much information, but it is what it is.  I think it's more the taste, as I really have no problem with champagne (bubbles).

In Belgium we did something that we don't normally do- we took a couple of different tours to show us around Brussels and the surrounding area.  I was really hoping that these "tours" weren't a bunch of people loading onto a tour bus heading to who knows where.  I was pleasantly surprised...most of them only had around eight people and were a great way to see the city and surrounding areas.

Panoramic of Brussels main square

Beer Tour:
Friday afternoon we aptly started with a beer tour.  We started the tour at the oldest bar in Brussels, which also had all of the Trappist beers available to drink.  We picked either blonde, amber, or dark for our first beer, then got more info about the Trappist breweries and Belgium beers in general.  Here are the two that BK and I picked:

After this bar we went to Cantillon Brewery, one of the oldest in Brussels, where we had Lambic, which is beer without the bubbles.  It's quite sour, but I guess something you should try?  We also tried some of their other beers as well, which we didn't think were all that great either.  For the end of the tour we visited a bar and tried some other Belgium beers.  Keep in mind that throughout the tour, we were also walking through the city and getting a bit of the local culture and history as well.  It was fun, but not the best one we had.  Beer lovers may have different thoughts, but that is my take.

Discovering Flanders
I actually have no clue why this tour had this name, but we thought it sounded interesting, so we booked it.  The tour was run by Global Enterprises, which also ran the chocolate tour we did Sunday. On Saturday we went to Ostend, Bruges and Ghent- three cities outside of Brussels.  We rode the train to Ostend, which is on the coast.  It reminds me a lot of Long Island, and specifically the South Fork with it's cold and windy beaches.  We toured around, then stopped to have some fresh shrimp from the fish market along with a beer that complimented the shrimp.

Beer and shrimp by the harbor in Ostend

After Ostend, we hopped the train again and headed to Bruges.  This is a town that many people suggested we visit.  It is much smaller than Brussels and has quite a lot of charm. Our tour guide suggested that if you come back to Belgium one could easily spend a few days here exploring.  We did the boat tour, checked out the wall of beers, had some traditional Belgian food and of course, more beer.

Boat tour in Bruges

From Bruges, we caught the train to Ghent, which is a university town about 35 minutes from Brussels.  We actually liked Ghent better than Bruges- it was a little more active and bustling than the other two.  We toured the cathedral, looked through the oldest part of the city and checked out the river.  As a group we decided to head back to Brussels and have one final beer together.  I actually opted for a mojito- I couldn't take any more beer. The one drink quickly turned into more and we ended up hanging out with our new tour friends for drinks and dinner until around midnight.  Fun!

At Delirium Bar

Chocolate Tour

We did the beer tour for BK and the chocolate tour was for me.  Before coming to Brussels I told BK this was the one thing that I wanted to do, and it was well worth it.  We did a tour, tasting and demonstration with the same tour company from the day before. As a group we explored the city more then headed to an apartment to make our own chocolate creations.  In addition to creating our own we learned about how pralines are made and sampled some of the homemade ones.  Following the demonstration we visited some of the city's premier chocolate shops to sample some new and different varieties of chocolate and learn about how the various chocolatiers approach their creations.  The most unique thing we tasted was a champagne truffle with vanilla powder on the outside.

BK's chocolate creations

Brussels was lots of fun and packed with activities.  I would definitely recommend spending a couple days there if you get the chance.  We spent Sunday afternoon relaxing and enjoying other parts of city we had not yet seen.  Lucky for us Monday was yet another Swiss holiday, so we had a day to relax and recover from the trip.  We're off to Romania next, but not until June.  I'm sure there will be many more Swiss adventures to report on until then!

A Holiday Home for the Boys

I realize that all of my posts right now are about Tanner and Toby, but for the time being, my life literally revolves around these jokers. Forgive me. We'll all get settled and move past this phase ...hopefully sooner than later.

Last weekend BK and I ventured off for a long weekend to Belgium (more about this later). Just like in the States, we were faced with the task of finding somewhere for Tanner and Toby to go while we're on vacation. In Texas it was typically a friend who stayed at the house, either of my parents, or occasionally a TCU student who watched them.

Now that we're in Switzerland we don't have those nice familiar choices anymore. This was a serious concern for BK and I, as right now the boys pretty much won't let us out of their sight to ensure that we don't leave them again. Much to my dismay, BK even got to the point where he didn't want to plan any more travel until we had the dogs figured out. How were we going to leave them for a weekend, or longer, when they wouldn't even let us leave the apartment without howling at the top of their lungs?

Thankfully, our dog trainer found a place for us outside of Basel. She even called the place and explained to them what we were working on from a behavior standpoint...and they still agreed to take the boys.

On the way to the dog holiday home

BK headed to Belgium last Sunday, which threw Tanner into a tailspin; so much so that he stopped eating, would just sit and shiver, and was making himself throw up. I took him to the vet, who gave him something to calm his stomach, and he seemed better after that. Thursday the trainer picked up myself and the boys to take us out to the "dog holiday home." In Switzerland dogs cannot be loose in the car, so the boys had to ride in "the box" (crate) in the back of the car. They did not appreciate this and Tanner pretty much cried the entire 20 minutes it took to get there- an awesome start.

You're probably wondering how it went...

It was GREAT! The owner even said that they were "lovely" dogs. I've heard a lot of words used to describe the boys. Lovely is not one of them. This place is pretty much a big farm where the dogs essentially run the place. T&T had their own 6'x4' room to eat and sleep in, but spent the majority of their time with the pack of dogs that was there. They apparently got along great with the other dogs and were only on a hunger strike for the first day. We even made it back to Basel on public transportation.

I found this the other day and thought it was funny- reminds me of our reunions.

I celebrated this success by booking four additional stays for them while I was there to pick them up. Woo hoo! Let the travel planning begin!

My Pockets are Full of Cheese

And apples, and sausage, and I would put pate in there if I could...

BK and I have had to go back to the basics with our little four-legged friends.  We moved into our permanent apartment, which was such a relief, but it seems to have really impacted the boys.  A couple days after we moved in, we went out with some friends one night, then the next morning were informed by the upstairs neighbor that they barked the ENTIRE time we were gone.  I do feel this is somewhat of an exaggeration (they're never barking when we come back), but ultimately it was a disturbance to our neighbors, which is not good.  I've read many times before that noise is the cardinal sin in Switzerland...I now believe it to be true.

Trying hard not to piss off everyone in the building, we wrote an apology note, translated it into German and placed it in everyone's mailbox to let them know that we had just moved in, were sorry for the disturbance and were working on it as soon as possible.

So, back to the cheese in my pockets.  Like I said, we're back to the basics, meaning that we reward them for everything good they do, meaning that I often have these things in my pockets as to ALWAYS have them with me.  Sometimes I wonder what that smell is...well, it's usually that I have cheese in my pocket and have forgotten about it.

Ignore noises outside? Treat.  Stay on their bed while I go into the other room? Treat. Don't bark while I'm on the phone?  Treat. You get the picture. These treats are not just dog treats (in fact, not dog treats at all), but mild Swiss cheese, little sausages and apples, all of which are cut into tiny pieces by yours truly.  I didn't open the pate until today, and only did because Tanner was being stubborn and refusing all the other treats.  He rebelled a little bit after BK had to go out of town this week, but we're back on track now.

We didn't get this idea ourselves.  We hired a trainer to come to our apartment last Saturday to help with the boys.  She assures us that no matter how old, the dogs can learn what we want them to do. I certainly hope so.  We've made progress, but have a long way to go.  BK and I will be getting retrained for the next couple of weeks.  I have dreams of our family coming over to discover that we have completely different dogs- i.e. so well behaved!  We'll see.  One day at a time and teeny tiny baby steps moving forward.