New and Improved French Fries

Belgium is known for it's plethora of beer varieties (over 350!!!!), chocolate and, apparently, french fries. We sampled them all, although the number of beers that we drank was disproportionate to the short day and a half that we were in the country.

In Brussels we had a wonderful time with a friend of Marsha's (Jim's mom). They were roommates in nursing school and have kept in touch since then. Linda and John have a beautiful home outside of Brussels. We walked around their neighborhood and ran into a chateau and it's adjoining woods all in the middle of fall colors. Not only did they feed us a homemade meal, but we also did laundry and called home(both are a rare treat for us). That evening, John drove us into Brussels to see the beautiful Grand Place and share some beer.

The next day we visited the medieval town of Bruge. Although it is the most-visited place in Belgium, we had it mostly to ourselves during the chilly autumn. We spent most of the day marvelling at the quaint town and wandering the narrow streets. We popped into all sorts of place to warm up, but avoided the numerous lace shops. Some of the treasures we found were:

\176a classic Flemish shop packed full of enormous cheese wheels with sausages hanging from the ceiling and fresh bread popping out of every nook.

\176a real Belgium waffle!! The are sweet with a cakey-texture. Definitely a dessert rather than a breakfast food. Nothing like the waffles that my dad makes every Sunday.

\176a hole-in-the-wall bar with stone walls, candlelight, classical music, and a huge list of local beers served with cheese chunks.

\176for our post-beer grease fix, we stopped by a fry stand and choose from about 10 'sauce' variety. They came smothered with a tartar-like sauce (better than it sounds) and a curry sauce.

Dag (Flemish) / Au Revoir(French),

Tera and Jim