Barcelona

I’m listening to this song as I write this post. Freddy Mercury and his impassioned and rather over the top number seems somehow fitting whilst writing about such a colourful and vibrant city. I heard this song so often during the television coverage of the 1992 summer Olympics and often wondered if I’d ever make it to “Barcelona!!” – imagine if you will Freddy belting out that last word. I certainly never dreamed I’d be visiting at the age of 40 with a husband and 2 children in tow – as the saying goes, life is full of surprises!

The Croad ladies hit the streets of Barcelona.

To say that we liked Barcelona is an understatement. We loved it – Olive declared it to be the best place we have visited and we are already toying with the idea of going back in the summer. Three days really wasn’t enough.

Before all the Barcelona love however, we had a wee bit of Croad love. I know that the girls have been missing Richard but I got a feel of just how much they miss him when I saw their reactions on spotting him at the airport.

Richard took this photo as the girls rushed towards him. Tissues anyone?!

After the dramatic reunion we headed into Barcelona. We were staying just outside of the city centre and once we’d dropped off our things and had a quick freshen up we jumped on the subway and headed into the city. Our first stop was the Arc de Triomf, a structure which was built for the Barcelona exposition in 1888.

So now we can all say we've seen two Arc de Triomfs 🙂

From here we wandered through the streets until we arrived at La Rambla, the tree lined pedestrian mall popular with tourists and locals. We grabbed a quick bite to eat then stopped at a souvenir shop to make the etremely important purchase of flamenco dancer outifts complete with polka dot clip clop shoes!

I think this picture sums up beautifully just how Olive and Edie feel when they don their flamenco outfits. And oh how they can get some noise out of the shoes!

As we excited the souvenir store we noticed that people seemed to be congregating on either side of the street and we quickly grabbed an empty spot. Being in a predominantly Catholic country on Good Friday, I had high hopes of seing something religious and our timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

When these two appeared we knew something interesting must be about to unfold...

...definitely interesting! Olive and Edie were completely unfazed.

Of course those guys were just the supporting act and JC soon took centre stage.

His Mum was there too and was a big hit with the girls - "Oooo look it's Mother Mary"!

Saturday began with the obgliatory search for a good cup of coffee and then we hopped on one of the tourist buses. We were heading for Parc Guell – the garden situated on the hill of El Carmel – and decided to take the tourist bus so we could see a bit more of the city along the way.

Olive really enjoyed the trip on the bus and listened very intently to all the commentary.

Edie mostly just practised posing!

We saw many eye-catching sculptures...

lots of interesting modern architecture...

a giant easter egg...

an old bull fighting ring...

and Gaudi's masterpiece the Sagrada Familia.

Maybe he was responsible for the giant Chupa Chups too!

We spent a good couple of hours in Parc Guell – there was so much to look at and listen to, as musicians were dotted throughout the gardens. The colours seemed so much richer and more vibrant than here in Antwerp or maybe that was just the beautiful weather!

Picnic lunch in Parc Guell.

Some of the gorgeous Barcelona colours.

We headed to the waterfront for dinner – close to what was the Olympic Village. We ate a great meal looking out at the sea and the girls had a blast running around on the sand.

Fish sculpture near Barceloneta beach.

The floral adornments, as you have probably guessed, are part of the flamenco outfits.

The beach at nightfall - beautiful.

We woke on Easter Sunday morning to more blue skies and headed straight back to Barceloneta beach. We’d promised the girls a longer play at the beach and a chance to wear “our togs”!!

No togs for me however - quite happy with a latte and a stunning view.

I know...I'm biased...but they are stunning!

And just a little bit crazy too!

Around lunchtime we walked into the old part of the city and stopped for some tapas. Then more wandering, a quick rest at home and then back to Sagrada Familia for a closer look.

It really is spectacular.

We headed back to La Rambla for dinner and a glass of sangria - yum 🙂

Richard disappeared back to the States very early on Monday morning and the girls and I spent our morning exploring the aquarium. I’d located the whereabouts of a Camper store and was planning on doing some serious credit card damage after all that fish watching. However Easter Monday in Barcelona meant most stores were closed so no new shoes for me – probably just as well! We did manage to find a Desigual store that was open which kept the girls very happy. They love the riot of colour and pattern that hits you when you walk into a Desigual shop and there was much oohing and aahing and a teeny bit of purchasing!

So all in all it was a fantastic trip – just a little on the short side! There are oodles more photos if you click on the Flikr link – my camera tells me I took over 500! Rest assured I did whittle it down befroe uploading!

It’s a big day in our house tomorrow – Olive is turning six. Will try and write something quick tomorrow evening. Until then, crank up the Freddy Mercury – Barcelona!!!

Dinant

On Saturday morning we packed up the car and drove south into Wallonia, the French speaking region of Belgium. As it was the last couple of days of the crocus vakantie, and as Richard is heading to the States next weekend, we wanted to have a bit of a family holiday. Plus we wanted to get back into travelling more regularly in and around Belgium. Our travel in recent months was focused heavily on New York and then New Zealand, and as our time in Europe is not unlimited we need to keep on exploring.

Notre-Dame church and the Citadelle of Dinant.

About a ninety minute drive south of Antwerp, you will find the small town of Dinant. This very picturesque settlement stands on the east bank of the river Meuse. Dinant is dominated by the gothic style, black onion dome of Notre-Dame church, and also by the escarpment or Citadelle perched high on the rocks above the church.

The traditional sites of Dinant had to wait however as Richard was very keen for us to explore some of the surrounding countryside on our fietsen or bikes. Olive and Edie are always keen to travel this way and as I do a lot of cycling in Antwerp, I couldn’t see any reason why not to…I had of course forgotten one of the key differences between Flanders and Wallonia…hills!

All ready to explore.

"What was that? A climb akin to the Wadestown hill? Yep..sure..no problem...gulp!"

Because of the aforementioned hills, there was a lot of huffing and puffing and a fair amount of walking whilst pushing the bicycles, but what we got to see made it all worth it.

"Just a bit further Mum...honest!"

Such beautiful scenery - Wallonia has so many more wide open spaces.

The reward for yet another climb.

Of course the great thing about climbing hills is that you also get to go down them – heaps of fun, if not a tad scary, on the fietsen. No photos of this unfortunately – all energies focused on surviving downhill dash with child behind me!

We covered about a 20km loop then reattached the bikes to the car and headed for our hotel, Les Grisons. We had planned to drop off our stuff and head out again but lo and behold we switched on the television just as the England vs Wales rugby match began. To be honest I was glad of an excuse to rest my aching limbs and made good use of the bath whilst Richard revelled in England’s defeat.

Les Grisons - just outside of Dinant.

The couple of times we’ve been in Wallonia, I’ve had the opportunity to parlez-vous Francais and I made very good use of my high school French on this occasion. There was a mix up with our booking which led to me opening the door into an already occupied room. I had to go back to the main hotel, ask the daughter of the hotelier – about 10 years old and no English – to go and get papa and then explain that “il ya quelqu’un dans chambre dix-sept”. I managed to get everything resolved without resorting to English once – tres bien!

We dined at the hotel restauarant – very formal, very quiet, an older couple next to us who appeared to grimace every time Olive or Edie muttered a sound, very stressed out Mummy – you get the picture. Halfway through dinner, the daughter of the hotelier appeared and promptly had Olive and Edie under her spell. Despite the fact that she had no English and their French runs to “bonjour” and “on y va”, they got on like a house on fire. The older, grim faced gentleman asked me about the girls and turned out to be quite lovely. We had a little chat en francais and dinner suddenly got a whole lot more relaxed – phew!

Sunday was devoted to catching the telepherique or cable car up to the Citadelle, and exploring Grotte la Merveilleuse – a fantastic cave which is renowned for its frozen waterfalls, stalactites and stalagmites. We also drove through the Rocher Bayard, a pinnacle of rock which marks the most westerly point reached by German troops during the Ardennes offensive.

Rocher Bayard.

Quick photo opp whilst there was no traffic.

Looking down on Dinant from the Citadelle.

The escarpment. It's possible to walk up from the bottom - only 408 steps.

Descending into Grotte la Marveilleuse.

Frozen waterfalls.

Our wonderful guide who switched effortlessly between French, English and Dutch - amazing.

Olive and Edie, who’d had a very late Saturday night, were starting to fade by the time we reached the end of our tour of the cave, so we started to make for home. Whilst the girls slept, we took a slow drive home via Namur and Leuven – more places for us to come back and visit. Belgium is definitely underrated as a tourist attraction.

If you click on the link to my flickr photos you will see many more images of our visit to Dinant, plus you’ll also find out who is Dinant’s most famous son – your clue is Henry Mancini’s famous musical score, The Pink Panther.

And I’ve written captions for the photos too – all the more reason to check them out!

Until next time – au revoir!

Roar! or NYC Part 3

My parents instilled in all of their children a love of music and whilst I didn’t learn an instrument, I love to sing. I was never going to be the next Celine Dion, but I can carry a tune and was in the choir right through primary and secondary school. Along with two very good friends of mine, who shall remain nameless, I had a lead role in the Sacred Heart and St John’s College production of Godspell in 1989. When working as a teacher I was always involved in the musical side of things – taking the middle school choir, helping direct productions and one year I wrote the lyrics for the 125th anniversary production of the school where I was working.

It’s no surprise then that I am a big fan of musical theatre. My younger sister and I used to entertain ourselves whilst doing the dishes by singing tunes from Phantom of the Opera. I’ve been lucky enough to see Phantom, Miss Saigon, Mama Mia! and Les Miserables – twice! So it would have been sacrilege for a show lover such as myself to go to New York and not make a trip to Broadway. Despite the array of choices – I would have loved to have seen Wicked or the Godspell production that has just opened, both written by Stephen Schwartz –  there was only one show that would do: The Lion King.

We bought the DVD of the Lion King for Olive shortly before she turned two, around the time that Edie was born. Olive loved the story and for her 2nd birthday Richard recreated a scene from the movie for her cake – I kid you not! We managed to find original Lion King figurines on ebay which the girls still play with today.

Our treasured collection of Lion King figurines.

Our DVD had an extra disc which had several short films all about the making of the stage version of The Lion King – Olive loved watching this almost as much as the movie, and this led to me borrowing the Broadway Cast recording from the library. (We eventually had to buy the CD from the library because we kept taking it out and Olive ripped the little booklet in half!)

Having that CD turned out to be a godsend. My wonderful second daughter was one of those babies who only napped three times a day, for 20 minutes at a time and I was finding everything pretty exhausting. The Lion King got us through those often challenging hours after Olive had woken from her afternoon sleep until it was time to start getting dinner ready.

Olive would line up her lion king figurines and an assortment of other plastic animals around the lounge, and we would recreate the opening Circle of Life scene with the stereo up really loud. Once Edie got to about 3 months old and was a bit more tolerant we’d get her to be baby Simba as Rafiki holds him aloft for all the animals to see. With my help, Olive would very carefully hold Edie and at just the right moment in the song, lift her skywards. Then we’d grab some balloons, turn the music up even louder and dance around to I Just Can’t Wait to be King. Edie’s version of dancing consisted of rolling from one side of the room to the other – we did our best not to step on her.

Our lounge windows faced onto the street and I’m sure there must have been many a puzzled passer by look in and wonder what on earth was going on. We didn’t care – we just kept on going crazy! During those mad afternoons I often used to wonder if I would ever get the chance to see the show – more specifically see it with the two fabulous girls I was having such a good time with. All I can say is – thank you Belgium!

It was never a realistic option to stand somewhere in NYC and watch for a glimpse of Richard as he sped past in the marathon so we figured a trip to the Lion King was a great way to use our time. We caught the subway to Grand Central Station and then changed to a train which took us to Times Square. We’d been in Times Square the day before and the girls got super excited when they glimpsed the huge advertisements for The Lion King. The Minskoff theatre was only a short walk from the subway although I was dismayed to see the entrance to the street blocked off by crime scene tape and several of New York’s finest telling us that we couldn’t go in. My heart sank – this was after our train broke down on the way into Manahattan – so I was beginning to think the Gods were against us. But then, only minutes after telling us it was no go, the tape was whisked away and we were allowed to walk to the theatre – huge sigh of relief from moi.

All dressed up for the theatre.

Inside we picked up tickets, bought programmes and headed up to the balcony to find our seats. It was a sell out and at exactly 1pm the lights went down, Rafiki stepped onto the stage and when I heard those opening cries from the Circle of Life chant…I burst into tears! Fortunately the girls were transfixed with the action on stage to notice  Mum blubbering next to them – let’s just say I had a bit of a moment – all you mums out there will understand 🙂

All ready to roar with Simba.

Inside the Minskoff Theatre.

The show was brilliant, lived up to all our expectations and the girls were caught in it’s magic for the entire two and a half hours. Poor Edie was desperate to go to the loo near the end but wouldn’t budge because “I don’t want to miss the show Mum!”

Just after the show - the smiles on their faces say it all - wow!

And it was really nice to leave the theatre on such a high and meet up with Richard, also on a pretty big high, and enjoy a celebratory dinner together.

Helping Dad celebrate at the Hard Rock Cafe - serious grooving was required!

Reading over this I seem to have written an essay rather than a blog post! Apologies everyone. As you can probably tell, the Lion King was my NYC highlight!

Hakuna Matata 🙂

Muziekinstrumentenmuseum

Our first solo trip to Brussels was a visit to the Museum of Musical Instruments. Our friends Christina, Charles and Bertrand had been there a couple of weeks prior and said it was not to be missed, and as it’s only two hundred metres from the Brussels Central station it was an easy destination to reach.

We left home early Wednesday morning and because it was a weekday the girls were thrilled to discover that our train was “a double decker mum!” After initially setting ourselves up in what turned out to be the first class carriage we were quickly ushered into second class by the somewhat officious ticket collector.

Becoming very accustomed to train journeys. Olive modelling her latest fashion in hair design - Bjorn Borg chic!

The Museum of Musical Instruments dates back to 1877 when the Belgian Government bought the collection of celebrated Belgian musicologist, Francois-Joseph Fetis. This was joined with a collection of over a hundred Indian musical instruments which had been offered to King Leopold II by the Rajah Tagore. The first curator of the museum was extremely enthusiastic and dynamic and increased the collection of instruments significantly. Because of this the museum became internationally renowned for the importance, quality, diversity and rarity of the items it housed.

The museum is also special because of the building it is housed in. The Old England is a former department store built from girded steel and glass in the art nouveau style.

Brussels art nouveau gem.

After getting our tickets we were all given headphones and began to explore the different levels. Next to many of the exhibits there were small listening posts which you could plug into and hear the instruments on display. This was a huge hit with the girls. They dashed from display case to display case, swiftly plugging in their earphones and then delivering their verdict on the music – in very loud voices! There was also a lot of impromptu dancing as they explored the enormous range of sounds.

Wired for sound.

Olive loved the harps and spent quite a bit of time dancing around to the beautiful music.

It was an incredible collection. What amazed me was the age of many of the instruments and also how beautiful they were. They were works of art, not only for the beautiful music that they produced but also because of the ornate carving, paintwork and embellishments that adorned many of them.

A tambourine from Florence.

An example of how beautifully decorated many of the instruments were.

As a music lover it was great to see my children so interested and excited by the displays. It was also a reminder of how lucky we are to have the opportunity to visit wonderful places like this.

Weather permitting we’re off to Holland tomorrow to go cycling round the Kinderdijk district, which is home to 19 molens – I’ll let you figure that one out yourselves!

Take care everyone. xxx

Not so gloomy Zondag.

It got cold in Antwerpen today. We have been experiencing a run of really great weather, which is apparently unusual for this time of year. Blue sky, no rain, warm sun – it’s been fantastic. So it was a bit of a shock to the system to wake to grey, overcast skies and a very chilly wind this morning.
Richard is never one to be put off by a bit of inclement weather and got us all loaded on the bikes and off to Rivierenhof, a beautiful green space just outside the city. There are lots of places to walk, cycle, have a picnic, a great playground for children and a very cool place to learn to ride your bike. A small section of Rivierenhof is laid out like a mini city, complete with street signs, traffic lanes, traffic lights – even railway tracks, and it was here that we headed. Olive has been practising riding her bike without trainer wheels. There is a bike shop around the corner from where we used to live and they have a K3 bike in the window. Not surprisingly Olive has fallen in love with it and so we have promised it to her when she is riding confidently on two wheels.

Dad will need hours of intensive physio for his back once Olive is going solo.

She is doing really well – is incredibly determined to succeed and I have to admit to having a few tears as I watched her wobbling along all by herself.

NZ's next Sarah Ulmer perhaps?

Richard’s back could only take so much crouching so after a quick snack we cycled back into the city heading for De Conickplein. We had seen a poster advertising a piano marathon there so thought we’d check it out. De Conickplein is not the best part of Antwerp to put it politely – not long after we arrived we witnessed the police involved in a very vocal altercation with some slightly inebriated gentlemen, whilst beautiful piano music wafted across the little square – quite hilarious! In addition to the piano marathon there were several stalls set up around the square selling second hand books. I had a great time searching through the boxes and found some old children’s books that I couldn’t resist buying. There’s something about the style and design of old children’s books that is very appealing and the fact that they are in Dutch makes them all the more interesting.

This was my find of the day - 10 Little Indians - although I'm probably not allowed to say that anymore!

Best page in the book! Hot girl with convertible!

So cute! Off to Snoepiland or the land of sweeties.

Quite frankly I find these three somewhat disturbing.

I'm picking Hans is the dog.

Cinderella.

The girls' favourite page.

We finished the day with Liam’s birthday party at the Little Gym. It was great fun so all in all despite the clouds the day was far from gloomy.
xxx

Birthday Part Two

So yesterday Olive officially turned five and, unlike most mornings, she was the first one up – no surprises why!

Presents! Poor old Edie was gagging to open "just one Olive"!

Granny got me a very cool clock for my new room. Instead of a cuckoo, an elephant pops out and makes a trumpeting sound.

Ooooooooo Nintendo.

This is a story that we read at school. Juf Greet told Mum I really liked it so she got me a copy. Thanks Mum.

Mum's friend Alix made this cool tshirt for me. Fellow kiwis - particularly you Wellingtonians - will understand how cool this is.

There was only one thing that would cut the mustard for breakfast today:

Mmmmm - berry pancakes. Just like we used to have at Elements Cafe in Lyall Bay.

Because we hadn’t been able to take our own cake to the party in the park last Saturday we wanted to make our own one to have at Olive’s birthday dinner. I decided to stick with the do it yourself theme of the party invitations and let Olive decorate the cake herself. You might remember seeing in a couple of blogs the beautifully decorated biscuits made by my friend Laurie. She told me where she got all her supplies and I made a visit to Maya’s on Kasteelpleinstraat and came home with a whole lot of icings, edible glitters, sugar decorations and the all important candles.

Waiting to be adorned. I used Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake recipe from the Feast book. So easy - no sifting or creaming. Just throw all the ingredients into a processor and blend into a batter. A piece of cake you could say!

Now for the fun part!

I didn't think Edie was going to get a look in when it came time to decorate, but Olive was very good about sharing the job with her zusje.

Voila - the finished masterpiece.

Very proud of her handiwork...and trying not to drop the plate!

We had a special guest for dinner. Mike from Taura NZ was visiting Taura Europe for a couple of weeks so we invited him to join in the celebration. It’s the second time we’ve hosted staff from Taura NZ and it’s really nice to have some time with people from home. It’s something we’re definitely going to keep doing as there are often staff from NZ working at the factory in Belgium. And I have to say Mike’s rendition of Happy Birthday to You was excellent!

Klap! - blow!

We finished off Olive’s birthday celebrations with a trip this afternoon to see K3 live in concert, performing their Alice in Wonderland show. When we arrived in Belgium, one of Richard’s colleagues suggested introducing the girls to K3 as a way to get them used to hearing the dutch language. Let’s just say Olive and Edie took to K3 like ducks to water.
K3 are something of a phenomenon in Belgium – they are the princesses of “kleuterpop”. They’ve been together since 1999, have released 9 albums, made 3 movies and have a tv show. When I was hosting the weekly coffee morning for the english speaking parent’s group, I had a K3 dvd on to entertain some of the littlies. An English woman who hadn’t heard of K3 turned to me and said, “they’re very Eurovision Song Contest aren’t they?”
So it was no surprise when I looked on Wikipedia tonight and found that K3 were on the shortlist to be the Belgian entrants for the Eurovision Contest in 1999. Those of you who grew up watching the Eurovision Contest – remember Buck’s Fizz and “Making Your Mind Up”??!! – will have an idea of how K3 sound. I know by now you will be desperate to find out more about Karen, Kristal and Josje (pronounced yosha), so I suggest visiting http://www.k3.be, click on clips and then click on Mamase – a particular favourite of the girls – the melody of which Richard thinks has been stolen from that Nik Kershaw classic The Riddle.

Kah Drie - how we say it here in Belgium.

We all enjoyed the show – particularly the cool 3d effects – and then it was home to put on the CD of K3 Alice In Wonderland and relive it all over again!
Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes and wonderful gifts. Hard to believe my baby is vijf!
Lots of love to you all xxx