One day, three countries

Yesterday was a whirlwind of the European countryside, WWII tanks and monuments, delicious pastries, and a little bit of faintly illegal acts.

After a morning run, I hopped in the car with Mom and Dad. With Aunt Jen's blessing and Claire the GPS, we were on our way. We had a few moments of confusion as we tried to get on the main interstate but after that, every thing was fine. For the most part...
First stop: Stoumont, Belgium. Of course the first thing we did was go to a pastry shop.

Next, we drove around the Belgian countryside, admiring the Ardennes Forest. In December of 1944, the Ardennes Forest was the sight of The Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the Bulge was the last major offensive battle for Germany within the European Theater. The Germans were unsuccessful, but they severely inhibited the Allied resources. The Americans lost over 75,000 men and the Germans lost over 67,000 making it the largest and costliest battle for the Americans during World War II. Below is a picture showing the dense forests of the Ardennes Forest and the Belgian countryside.



We were able to visit Musée December 1944 in La Gleize, Belgium. The lady at the museum fed us lots of Belgian chocolate and told us in French that her son went to Las Vegas. Outside of the museum, there was a Tiger Tank from WWII. Dad was so excited. Mom and I both agreed that all of the tanks that we saw all looked the same to us. :-)

After La Gleize, we had a delicious lunch in a really cute town called Houffalize, a town known for mountain bike trails. Dad got a platter with different types of smoked fish, mom got a corned beef dish, and I got a salad with walnuts and several varieties of the absolute best goat cheese (chèvre) I've ever tasted. One was sweet, one was drizzled with raspberry sauce, and my favorite was smokey with a balsamic vinegar crust on the bottom. It was heavenly.


Next, it was time for Luxembourg! All I have to say for this country is that it looks like Genovia. I felt like Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi. Just saying. Dad got some gelato, mom and I tried our first real macaroons (lemon and salted caramel) and we strolled around the city center.

On our way out of Luxembourg City, Dad spotted a sign for General Patton's grave. When Dad was a kid, Patton was to Dad what Brandi Carlile is to me so obviously, we had to find the cemetery! After a long detour, we found the cemetery only to learn that it was closed! But that didn't stop us! We found a weak spot in the fence, I filmed the covert ops mission, Mom kept a watch for cars (um, and police!) and he made a run for it. One hour later, we left the cemetery without even a misdemeanor! Yay!
I spot a caucasian Quaker male, approximately fifty years and one month old....

It was almost 7 o'clock but we still had to at least drive through Germany. We didn't see anything too exciting in Deutschland but I did get an appreciation for everything I've been learning about in my Western Civilization class. It's incredible to think about that just about 70 years ago, Hitler was conquering the countries we visited and the Allies were counteracting his plans. The war monuments and sites seem much more real and alive to me compared to the Civil War sites like Gettysburg.

We booked it back to Brussels and made it back at 10:30pm, completely exhausted.
Here's a photo of the sunset on our way out of Germany.

We're having a relaxing morning...a long run, a big cup of coffee, and arts and crafts time with Ben! We're leaving to visit Brussels in just a few minutes. Yay!