The thing about Brugge is that first you treat it like any other city. “Oh, look at that street! So charming, take a picture! You might never see its like again.”

And then you see another charming view.

And then you realize that the entire downtown is this extraordinary and you relax. You can just walk. You can revel in the gingerbread-fairytale texture of it all. You can wait for the right light. You can concentrate on details.

You can even have your eye caught by a raspberry pastry that’s just perfect to share in the hot midday sun.

You can decide that today and Sunday won’t be enough and pencil in another day.

Brugge, the city with random street signs, baffling maps, and the prettiest downtown I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in more beautiful places, more stunning places, more cultured places, more interesting places, but never a prettier place. I’m so glad that it exceeded the memories I have of the few hours we spent here on our way to Zeebrugge to take the ferry to Hull for our Scottish backpacking trip. It is a city designed for wandering. Yes, the main squares are stunning. But be sure to leave the main tracks, dodging down little side streets. The city is quieter, smaller, close to you. The sheer number of period houses dawns on you. This isn’t a matter of a few great showpieces. There are blocks and blocks of medieval streets waiting with their textures and secrets.

Yesterday I was up before the sun. 5:26 and I was roused from bed by an insistent wakefulness. The sky was so bright and I marveled again at the length of the days. I made tea in the kitchen, writing in my journal as I stood at the counter watching the rabbit and the two pheasants in the grass across the way. I wrote about things that are tickling my fancy here in the Netherlands, like the fact that although the bakery bread is all bland uninspired variation on Wonderbread, there is bread in a box.

Good bread in a box. Heavy, square rye bread that is thick and tastes of coffee and cream.

There is yogurt in cartons. Pour, plop.

The way that secondary highways are labeled with distance, not just every kilometer, but every 100m. 27,4…27,5…27,6…

The rest of the early morning was spent starting a cropped sweater from yarn leftover from the green vest, listening to podcasts, enjoying the time alone. I made porridge and ate with Rainer, then sent him off for a 76km bike ride. Before he returned I’d roused the kids, fed them yogurt and HoneyLoops, and we’d sat at the table and done our formal learning. Somehow, while searching for an online video explaining how tides work, I stumbled on a homeschooling blog called Little Acorn’s Treehouse with a link to a full-length Magic School Bus video on mussels and tides.

We’d finished it just in time for Rainer’s return and, while he ate 2 bananas and drank water, we scurried to get ready. The kids clambered onto their bikes and we headed off. It was an hour-long speed interval run for me, although not for Rainer. He’s far faster than I am. But still, an hour of running after 2:40 on the bike is still tiring. We loved the paths, the straight sweeps of tall trees giving us shade. A country with this many official and unofficial bikepaths seems extraordinarily civilized.

Lunch was Asian coleslaw with tofu. Cool and crispy. Just right after a hot run. Afterwards Rainer did some research while the kids played and I tidied. Then, the beach.

It’s 6km to the west of us, and we hope that yesterday was the only time we’ll take the car. There are bike racks for the bike racks there. The tide was going out and the beach just kept getting bigger. I lay down and nearly dozed off. I was so tired and the breeze off the ocean was cool in the hot sun. The water wasn’t as cold as I’d feared. Warmer than many a Canadian lake. Tias wasn’t to be gotten out. He did flips over the waves.

Home for showers and a supper of leftover cinnamon chicken soup. Then the kids had ice cream while Rainer read our three pages of history. We lugged our immense Usborne World History encyclopedia to Europe. It’s so big and heavy it’s embarrassing to think that we brought it. But we really wanted the kids to get a sense of the sweep of history, and since we’re still in the Middle Ages in our history co-op, we needed some way to cover Napoleon and communism and, well, all the rest. Traveling makes so much more sense when you have hooks upon which to hang new sights and new facts.

Bedtime routines. Right now we’re reading “The Little Riders”, a story about a little girl in Holland in WWII. I was looking for something that would help us talk about WWII without depressing the living daylights out of me and without being too much for the kids. This short chapter book is just right. A little girl works to save the town clock’s metal riders and horses from being melted for German ammunition, and she’s helped by a kind German officer. A story in which even the bad guys have a few good guys. The World Wars are tricky things to talk about in our house. Rainer’s a German, I’m a pacifist with a childhood full of British Empire-centered war talk.

I stumbled to bed, so sleepy from the long, busy day. I was only able to read a few pages in my current Jane Austen novel, Emma. I’m reading my way through them again over the summer. Emma is such fun the second time, when you know what you do about Frank Churchill. And now it’s early morning yet again and I was woken by the pigeons that seem to live on the roof. Rainer’s made porridge this morning so that he can be fueled up for his trip to the pool for lane swimming. Right now I’m glad I’m not a triathlete and can stay home and drink tea.

Good morning. I hope that your world is making you want to walk in it, watch it, observe it.

I hope that your mornings have pockets of space for art and thought.

I wish you fog and sun in your vistas.

Early morning routines continue to be very important to my happiness, even though I’m no longer sitting in front of my full-spectrum light as I was in the winter.  Shhhh, the world is waking.

Knitting is on my mind and my fingers are full of yarn. I suppose it is only natural that I would be so drawn to something rhythmic and grounding and very portable in this time of adventure. When planning the trip I spent far more time thinking about art and about what art supplies to take. Knitting would happen, and there are yarn shops here, but I didn’t think too much about it. Now I can’t get it off my mind. The other night as I lay awake, kept from sleep by a quirky head cold, I designed pullovers and cardigans. I look at every sweater that passes me in the street. I try to remember what sweaters I have planned and what drew me to them.

I brought the yarn and pattern for the green shell along with me and knit it during soccer broadcasts.
Pattern: Aleita Shell from Interweave Knits Spring 08

Yarn: “Silky Tweed” by Elsebeth Lavold, colour 008

Mods: I wasn’t getting gauge so I rewrote it for my gauge and my measurements. For some reason I ended up with a much deeper V-neck than in the pattern, so this will likely be a vest rather than a tank top, unless I’m feeling sexy and sophisticated that day. I might unknit the top and take it up an inch or so, as long as that would still leave me room in the armpits.

The other knitting is all with sock yarn.  Some baby knitting, some ankle socks with the leftovers, and now some waffle rib socks for Rainer.  I’ve found a really promising German sock yarn website called Supergarne that sells yarn at about 60% of other prices. I’m seriously contemplating buying 2 sweaters’ worth of sock yarn.  I love working with the finer gauges, and it would mean more yardage would fit in the suitcase…

We’ve made it to our home away from our home away from home. Four hours of driving, three countries, and increasingly flat and wind-tossed landscapes. On the way we stopped and had a picnic of polenta spread with cream cheese and topped with slices of roasted chicken. Polenta sandwiches, if you will. Polenta may be my new favourite food. I cooked a huge batch of it with garlic and Krauter de Provence and we’ve been eating it over the past week. I can’t wait to be someplace with a BBQ so I can try it grilled. Rainer’s parents own a vacation home in Florida, and each year they swap time in this vacation house for time in theirs. This year they offered it to us and we leaped at the chance to live in another country. It is the first time I’ve ever been someplace where I don’t speak the language and neither does anyone with me. At first I was a little worried, but then I remembered that with both German and English at my side I should be able to travel pretty well. I’ve already ordered Belgian waffles in the Netherlands using English. That tickles my fancy. As we listened to the radio and walked about today, I found that Dutch is just near enough to German that my brain kept straining to make sense of it. Our goal here isn’t to gallivant around on an intense sight-seeing tour. We’re just a few km from the beach and I can see the dike rising green and grassy out the dining room window as I type. I haven’t seen the ocean more than a few times at a Florida beach since the trip my family took to BC when I was eight. Yet I’ve always felt a real tie to the sea, probably from reading the Anne of Green Gables series every year for 2 decades. I’ve wanted to visit the ocean for so long. Someplace with tide pools, not just the white sands of a Florida beach. I hope we can find a few tide pools around here. Our goals: learn about the ocean, see the tides sweep in and out, bike and run a lot, walk together a lot, homeschool and research, see a professional triathlon event, race in Brugges, sightsee in Brugges (like a Gothic architecture paradise!), eat fresh fish, and expand our horizons. (And buy yarn. Possibly in Brugges, since it’s historic role as a wool capital would delight me and make the yarn that much more special.)

Unlike the vacation apartment in Wittlich, the family that owns it vacations here. Our other place is owned by an older lady who lives above and there is a real spartan loneliness to the basement apartment. It seems left behind and unloved. There is a cottage charm and a real warmth here that we can already feel after just a few hours. Badly outdated lamps, a tiny TV, a cupboard full of old board games…like a Canadian cottage. It’s better outfitted than the other place, too. A kitchen with full supplies and even a washer and a dryer. The stair-ladder is alarmingly steep and narrow and it’s rope handle may seem less charming as I walk backwards down it to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, though…

But what’s my word of the year? Adventure. I can do anything, or at least try.

You’ll have to forgive me: we’ve had a busy and exciting week and I’ve barely blogged it. I’ve had almost no computer time. We leave for Holland tomorrow and I’m told we have access in the house there so things should be a little more regular for a time.

There was my birthday. Complete with a 90 minute run with Rainer in the morning as the kids biked in front of us. Then we went for an evening run - the kids’ turn to run for a while as we accompanied them. But it was my birthday so we stopped twice to eat one of my favourite treats, one of the only things I crave.

Rafaello coconut truffles.

A triathlon for Rainer and a swim/run for Tias:

A slightly less serious field trip than our architecturally focused ones:

Many more photos in the Flickr set. I’ll be back soon, with talk of our house in Holland and my total fixation on knitting.

My kids are big.

The finial is bigger.

The towers on the church upon which the finials belong, well, they are far bigger.

Here we are in the dark vastness of the Cologne Cathedral. Trying to capture the overwhelming space and sketch it into our travel journals.

But when you need a break from awe and grandeur, there’s always a visit to the Chocolate Museum. History, process, science, and the most luscious thick air you’ve ever put your nose in.

What a field trip! More photos on Flickr.

I had a headache, Sandra looked faded, Rainer was at the end of a long day, and the heat was on. Tias wanted the pool and we’d promised him the pool, but when we arrived, the parking lot was full and we tried to convince him it was better to come the next morning when the school kids were all in their classes. Nope. He needed water. Then we realized that just 500m to the left was the Bastenmuehle, an outdoor pub (sorta) that has tables in the shade and the Lieser stream flowing right beside it. A stream in which children and dogs are free to frolic.

Tias slithered with glee in the stream, playing in the currents and spaces between rocks while the rest of us sat at the outdoor tables and enjoyed the shade. And the quiet. The stress faded away. They serve Viez here, a delicious apple wine best enjoyed mixed with Coke. Called a Co-Viez. Too bad I’ve realized I’m allergic to alcohol. Co-Viez used to be one the highlights of our trips. The waterbrush once again delighted me. Art in the shade as Rainer drank a regional treasure and my son played in the stream.

Oh, I’ve just been itching to draw downtown. For 6 months or more! And as the days here turned into weeks I started to get itchier and itchier. Thank goodness I found a way to scratch yesterday.

Originally I set out the lines for the spaces thinking it would be a mix of journaling and sketches, but once I’d set out for downtown with 50 free minutes and started selecting views, I realized that this layout needs to be full of different locations in Wittlich. Doesn’t matter that it might take a few weeks.

Umleitung. Detour. Almost a vital, essential part of any adventure. Heckenmuenster clearly knew this and obliged.

But the hike to the natural springs is well worth the trouble it takes to get to the little town.

Water - just bubbling up out of the ground. Incredible. So alien for this prairie girl.