WORLD GEOGRAPHY 101: Belgium

So I told you the story about how our WORLD GEOGRAPHY course came to be in the last post.  It was a happy confluence of circumstances which has allowed us the greater ability to travel right now.  But have I ever told you how I got bit by the travel bug in the first place?  

It's two fold. 

First off, I was born into a family with a bit of a competitive nature.  Mostly the competitiveness is saved for board games and sports, but it's also extended into exploring the world. With 29 countries under my belt now, I still am one of the least well-traveled of my siblings.  My brother Nate has been to 74 countries, two of my siblings are at 60+, and two more are at about 50.   I don't think I'll ever catch them and that's okay, but that won't stop me from seeing what I can in my own due time.

Secondly, I have realized that I  have a deep deep love for other cultures and places.  There's just a yearning in me to see and experience the world from different eyes.  Reading books has provided that for me for many years, but there's just nothing that quite replicates experiencing things first hand.   Combining reading and traveling together turns it from just a surface experience to a transformative experience and I feel so blessed that we have been able to allow our children to have some of those transformative experiences!

So this post is all about our time in Belgium.   Our son-in-law, Garrett, had served his mission in the Netherlands and Belgium, so he gave us the scoop at places we should visit and our first stop was ANTWERP! 

We quickly realized after spending time in the Netherlands and Belgium, that the first place to begin our exploring is the Grote Markt of every town.  Grote Markt means "Great Market Square" and I'm not actually sure if every town has a Grote Markt, but it seemed that many of them did, and they tended to be in the cute old part of town.  The Grote Markt of Antwerp was especially charming and we enjoyed exploring there.

It wasn't very busy that day, so Ellie found it to be a perfect place to try out some of her dancing moves...

I have no idea where she gets her flexibility from!  😜

We thought this statue was completely charming! 

Ordering food in a foreign country is often an interesting experience.   We used google translate to figure out most of the food items...

but somehow we missed how large the pizzas were.  😆

After the Grote Markt, we just wandered around and explored Antwerp...

Steen castle was on my list of places I wanted to visit, but, alas, some heavy duty renovations prevented us from getting a better look than this postcard and across-the-street view.

It rained literally every single day of our trip, but the next day started off especially wet!  

Luckily the rain had let up a little by the time we'd trekked to our next destination of Bruges!

With cute gingerbread style houses, cobblestone streets, and picturesque canals, Bruges is a lovely place to visit!   Normally crawling with tourists, we were grateful to be there in the off-season to enjoy the narrow streets with lighter crowds.

We once again enjoyed exploring the Grote Markt of Bruges.

We also visited the Studhuis Museum and walked to the top of the Belfry Tower of Bruges.  

 According to Wikipedia: "The Belfry of Bruges is a medieval bell tower in the centre of Bruges, Belgium. One of the city's most prominent symbols, the belfry formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives, and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other danger."

  

We discovered that it's also a great place to get some exercise...

and get a fantastic view of the city from the top!

Seriously!   Look at this place! 😍

They also had some fun food being sold at the base of the Belfry.

After that we headed to the Gruuthuis Museum.

We may have been feeling a little silly by then...

After that we drove about 30 miles to the lovely town of Ghent!

One of our first stops was to "Graffiti Street", also known as Werregarenstraat.  I'm normally not a huge graffiti fan, but this place was so cool to visit.   What used to be a boring alleyway connecting two larger streets,  is now an ever shifting kaleidoscope of color and street art.  

Our only regret is that we didn't have any tools (spray paint or sharpies) with which we could add our own contributions to the art.

After that we found some fresh "Noses of Ghent" to try.   What are the Noses of Ghent?  Good question.  Let me enlighten you...

In Dutch, the noses are referred to as "Cuberdon". Here's one of the many stands we saw throughout the city.   Apparently there's quite a competition between the stands.

Here's a close-up...

"Known as cuberdons, neuzekes or 'little noses', these vibrantly-coloured soft-centred candies are said to look like noses and originate from the town of Ghent. Mimicking the jelly bean, they have a hard, thin and crisp outer BUT they house a super-sweet, gooey and sticky centre." Source sbs.com

There was so much fuss about them that we bought them from a couple different places, so we could try them out and see which we liked best.   

Frankly they were all too sweet and, in our opinion, totally over-rated.  We recommend sticking with Belgian chocolate, which we had plenty of and enjoyed immensely! 

Next we visited Gravensteen, a medieval castle dating back to the 1100's! 

And we just enjoyed exploring this beautiful place.

Ghent is one of the oldest cities in all of Belgium...

and the history is rich and interesting. 

 After a long day of exploring, we headed to Brussels, where we were staying for the night.  When we found out that Atomium was on our way to the hotel, we decided that a quick stop there was in order. 

Atomium was built for the 1958 World Expo and is still a sight to behold.

It was especially dazzling when it got a little darker and the lights came on.

We ended up staying at Atomium longer than expected and we were pretty exhausted by the time we got to the hotel that night.  

The next day we explored Brussels.

Brussels is a beautiful place...

but it's much bigger than Bruges and Ghent, so it was a lot of walking!

We thought Mannekin Pis (this small statue of a peeing boy) was hilarious and based on the crowds of people that were there, I'd say that it is one of the more popular draws in Brussels!  We were very surprised to find out that Mannekin Pis was created in the 1600's and has been stolen several times over the years.

Of course, we got  Belgian waffles topped with Belgian chocolate every day we were in Belgium.

We were pretty worn out to start the day...

and we had a long trek from the Brussels International Airport where we needed to return the car to the Brussels Charleroi Airport, where we needed to catch our morning flight. 

We saw a little police "show" along the way.   I have no idea what exactly they were doing or why  they were doing it, but they were entertaining. 

Before we started our long trek from one airport to the other, I made sure to get all of my Belgium postcards into the mail.

I may or may not be a little obsessed with sending postcards.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this trip!

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WORLD GEOGRAPHY 101: The Netherlands

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a dream of not just taking her kids to see the world, but also to EXPERIENCE the world.  She wanted them to read books, then visit the places in the books.   She wanted them to see a glimpse of history and culture that they could never fully appreciate without being there in person. 

The only problem with this grand plan is that traveling can be expensive.   And even homeschooled kids have plenty of commitments that keep them tied to a schedule.  

This past year we had some shake-ups though.  

1. We moved closer to NYC, which is THE place to find cheap international tickets
2. We subscribed to Scott's Cheap Flights, which clued us into incredible flight deals as they popped up.
3. We ended up with more flexible classes and schedules this year than in past years.
4.  We moved into corporate housing, which means for 1  year, we have no housing costs.

This combination proved to be a happy  confluence of changes that means that WORLD GEOGRAPHY 101 is officially added to our homeschool docket for the year! 

In late September we took our first World Geography trip, which included visiting the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden.   This post will just be about The Netherlands. 

Sadly, Glen was too busy at work to be able to come with us, so it was just the three of us on this adventure.  

 

 We arrived in the morning after flying all night, so we just dropped our stuff off at the hotel and went straight to Haarlem to get exploring.   Haarlem is pretty much the cutest, most picturesque little town ever. 

And it happened to be right where Elder Zimmerman from our old ward was serving, so we met him with some goodies from home.   

Then we treated him and his companion (who happened to be friends with my cousin's kid) to some Dutch ice cream!    Ice cream is a family tradition of ours whenever we travel!

After hanging out with Elder Z for a while, we went off to another part of Haarlem to visit "The Hiding Place."   We'd read the book together and were so inspired being able to see it in person. 

It was  humbling to see what a tiny space the Jews were hidden in for days after the Ten Booms had been arrested. 

The whole visit was a fulfillment of a dream of mine.  I love Corrie Ten Boom's message of forgiveness, love, and gratitude and was truly inspired being there and seeing where it all happened.  I think it's something my kids and I will never, ever forget. 

After The Hiding Place, we ran off to see the Inntel Hotel in Zaandam.  We had no reason to visit there, other than we'd seen pictures of it and really wanted to see it in person. 

Later that night we headed into the city of Amsterdam and went to the Anne Frank House.  We had reserved the tickets weeks in advance, but were only able to get tickets at 8:30PM, which pretty much meant we were exhausted!   

We had also read "The Diary of Anne Frank" together before our trip, so, even with our fatigue, this was another meaningful visit for us.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the museum, so this is all we have from that night.

The next day we woke up slowly and drove to Kinderdijk.     Kinderdijk is a  UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for its series of working windmills that keep the water out of the area, despite the fact that it's  below sea level.  

Here's a little snippet from their website:   "You won’t find a windmill complex like Kinderdijk anywhere else in the world. The ingenious system of windmills and pumping stations has been keeping the soil dry here for centuries now, in a constant struggle between human brains and the power of the water.Visitors come from all across the world to experience this unique piece of history for themselves. Since Kinderdijk is a monument to the history of humankind, we were officially included as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Now, we stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the most famous and most amazing places on earth. The story of Kinderdijk is now a genuine part of world history, kept safe for future generations to visit and experience.."

We enjoyed walking around in the lovely surroundings, exploring the visitors' centre, and eating some lunch. 

Next we drove to The Hague and got checked into our hotel there.   We found the temple....

Then we drove to explore the lovely city of Delft!   It seriously looks like it could have been a postcard. 

We took a canal tour, toured the Old Church, and Ellie had fun showing off her flexibility amongst the picturesque surroundings.

The next day we went to church in the Wassenaar Ward....

which happily for us, was English speaking...

although we may have been a bit jet-lagged still.  We did enjoy being a part of the Youth Broadcast which was being broadcast all over the world that day.  It was a cool thing to be a part of across the world from our home.

Later that day we headed to Madurodam!   Madurodam is a place I remember from visiting as a child.  I have pictures of me from there when I was about 3 years old and we visited again when I was 14.  

What is Madurodam, you ask?  Good question!   It's a Miniature Park, where they have many of the top buildings and sites from around The Netherlands in detailed miniature.   It was built by a wealthy family in the 1950's as a monument to their son, George Maduro, who had died in WWII as a Dutch resistor to the Nazis. 

 

I remember the picture of me there as a young child always fascinating me.  And it  was completely charming to me as a young teen and no less so as an adult! 

 I really enjoyed seeing a glimpse of so many places we'd been in the last few days, but also seeing what a teeny tiny portion of The Netherlands we were actually seeing! 

And since I knew we'd likely never see most of those places in person, it was a cool experience to see them in miniature at least. 

After exploring, we got some lunch in the restaurant there.

Then spent the rest of the day walking around The Hague...

The next day we headed to Kamp Vught, which is also known as Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp.  Because we'd spent so much time studying WWII before this trip, I felt very strongly that we needed to visit a concentration camp while there if possible.  There weren't a ton of concentration camps in this part of Europe, but this one happened to be right on the way from The Hague to Belgium, so we decided that was the place to visit.  It was a transport camp, which meant that prisoners didn't stay there long, but there were still plenty of horrors that happened there.

 This Jewish Children's Memorial was particularly poignant to me and it was absolutely heartbreaking to see how many children were murdered here. 

It was absolutely a humbling experience that we will never forget. 

Stay tuned for future WORLD GEOGRAPHY installments, including the rest of this trip!