Fall Break Part 1

Well we've been living in Lux for 3 months now, and we are finally settled in. We moved into our house, got some new lighting and furniture, we bought a car. So what do we do? Head out of town for a week. The kids had a week off for Fall break, so on another road trip we went.

We drove north to Holland stopping first in Maastricht, one of its oldest cities. We stayed at the Kruisherenhotel, an old church converted into a super cool boutique hotel. Think original stained glass and ceiling frescos meet Philippe Starck. Highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Maastricht. Highly recommend Maastricht in general. My crappy iPhone photos don't do justice to this beautiful little city.

One of the things Maastricht is best known for is its casemates, underground tunnels built to house guns and canons. We spent one morning on a tour of the Caves of St. Pieter, a labyrinth of over 20,000 tunnels. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring all the little cobblestones alleyways, historic buildings, and cute shops. Again, my photos don't do justice.

                

Jackson and Sophia trying to blend in with the street art

Next stop...The Hague where we stayed with Rachel, one of our closest friends from Penn. She is a kick ass attorney locking up bad guys with the International Court Tribunal.

With Rachel!

Paleis Noordeinde

Park at Paleis Noordeinde

Vredespaleis (Peace Palace)

Biking on the streets of Den Haag

Day trip into Amsterdam...

Night Watch at the Rijks

iamsterdam

And we couldn't leave Holland without eating raw herring! The car smelled really great after...

From Holland, we drove to Dusseldorf, Germany. What fun Dan had on the Autobahn. He only wished he was driving his BMW rather than our family SUV. Unfortunately for him, we left it in Seattle.

Dusseldorf was another lovely city full of beauty and charm. Dan had to spend the day at the local office, so the kids and I walked along the Rhine from our hotel to Alstadt, the city's old town.

On the Rhine River

Silliness on the streets of Alstadt

I've heard strangers pay kids 1euro per cartwheel at this park.
We had no takers.

Sophia on the Rhine

For lunch, we enjoyed local dishes of Französische Maispoulardenbrust (grilled chicken breast with herbs, creamy mushroom sauce, and noodles), Knusprige Fischstäbchen (fried fish), and Bratwürstchen with Kartoffelpü (fried sausages with mashed potatoes) at Brauerei Zum Schiffchen. If you ever find yourself in Dusseldorf, this restaurant is worth the visit...delicious authentic German food and kid-friendly too! I'm not really a beer drinker, but I had to try the Altbier, a dark fermented beer made according to ancient Dusseldorf recipes. Dark and creamy but surprisingly clean and refreshing.

Yum

That evening, we drove 3 hours back home to Lux to rest up for a day before heading out on our next adventure...Paris! Stay tuned...

Happy Birthday Dan!

Dan turned the big 4-0 this month. The celebrations began with a dinner at Toit Pour Toi, a delicious French restaurant in Schouweiler, just outside Luxembourg City. We enjoyed a fantastic meal - lobster, foie gras ravioli, cotriade (French bouillabaisse), buttery seared sea scallops, chevre, brie...not to mention the dessert quartet captured below - that was decadent and rich, just how we like it. At one point, Dan told me to lower my voice, because I was saying "mmmm....yummm" with every bite. The decor was also amazing. The dining room is a beautifully converted barn that feels both rustic and elegant. And it's quite big and airy but manages to feel dark, romantic, cozy, and warm at the same time.

Toit Pour Toi Birthday Desserts

Toit Pour Toi was our 2nd Michelin-starred restaurant in Lux so far. The first was Le Bouquet Garni, another French restaurant right in Luxembourg City. Did you know that Luxembourg has more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than any other country in the world? Of course, Lux is a tiny little country with just over 500,000 residents. But that still gives us 11 restaurants. Our plan is to hit every one of them in 2 years. 2 down, 9 to go. We will be eating very well.

To celebrate with the kids, we made a raclette dinner at home, a favorite from Dan's childhood. We bought him a raclette grill as one of his birthday presents. This particular machine is amazing because it comes with a cast iron grill and natural stone cooktop. Not sure how authentic Swiss it is, but we were able to grill filet skewers and lobster and crab to go along with our raclette, so we were happy!

Birthday festivities continued with breakfast in bed the next morning...a family tradition. Dan requested egg, rice, and sardines. I think the Tans are rubbing off on him!

Happy birthday, love!

Let There Be Light!

Most rentals in Luxembourg City come unfurnished. You're probably thinking to yourself "Well, that's not something to write about". But it is. Because by unfurnished, I mean UNFURNISHED. We were lucky to have kitchen cabinets and a couple of closets. What we didn't have was light fixtures. At first, it wasn't a huge deal because the weather was sunny and there was plenty of natural light. But as soon as fall set in, it was dark. It was gray. Seattle gray. (I guess Amazon likes to maintain headquarters in dreary cities.) So a light shopping we went. And by "we", I mean "I". Dan's version of light shopping is every so often yelling "It's so dark in here. Buy some damn lights already. Just get it done." If it were up to him, he would have gone to Hornbach (Luxembourg's answer to Home Depot) and bought 20 of the same pendant and stuck them in every room.

But I wasn't going to let that happen. I didn't want to look at ugly mismatched lighting for two years. And it gave me an excuse to further explore all the wonderful shopping Europe has to offer. It was a huge project. But somebody had to do it. The great thing about many of the home furnishing stores here is that they are combined with women's clothing departments. Smart. So it would go something like this. Wall sconce for upstairs hallway...shoes for me...dining room pendants....sweater for me...and so on. We needed 4 wall sconces and 12 ceiling lights. I was really missing my more design-savvy friends back in Seattle during this endeavor. But I got it done. Just in time for Dan's birthday. That was one of the items on his birthday wish list. Really. "Light" was actually at the top of his wish list.

Terrible iPhone shot of entry hallway lighting...
hoping it's enough to entice any would be visitors

Chez Wright is officially open for business. Please visit!

Sabina Turns 2!

Little baby Sabina turned 2 on Monday! Dan had to be out of town on her actual birthday, so we began the festivities on Saturday night. Sabina requested pizza for dinner, so we went to at a little Italian restaurant down the street. I asked in French if they could put a candle (une bougie) in her dessert, and they just stared at me quizzically. After I said "pour son anniversaire" and demonstrated blowing actions, they said "ah...une bougie!". Apparently, it is pronounced "boo-jee" not "boo-gey". Yup, I was asking them to put boogers in her cake. Nice.

Sabina sporting her crazy smile at celebration #1

For Sabina's birthday breakfast, I made one of her favorites: egg and rice. But she hardly touched it. Then I gave her another of her favorites: a snack bar. But she didn't touch that either. After we dropped Jackson and Sophia at school, I took her to Cora's Hypermarche (not a market or a supermarket, but a hypermarket...it's kind of like a Target) to buy groceries for her birthday dinner (she requested rice with beef and "broky"), birthday cake, and some birthday toys. And right in the middle of the produce section, she vomited. Poor baby! What a way to start off her birthday :( Thankfully, she seemed recovered enough after a 3 hour nap to enjoy present-opening.

Celebration #2...my birthday booty

We saved the cake for tonight.

Celebration #3 with tarte aux fraises

Oh how time flies.

First Week of School...Check!

Well nothing forces you to adjust like going back to school. Jackson and Sophia started at International School of Luxembourg (ISL) on Wednesday. And I'm happy to report, they had a great week!

We received class lists last week. It wouldn't have been as exciting as if we were back at Villa save for all the interesting names.

Jackson's closest friend so far is a boy from Iceland whose family moved here 9 years ago for a 2-year stint. And Sophia's is an American who moved to Lux 3 years ago after living in Kenya for 3 years. 

All in all, a great start to the school year. It probably didn't hurt that ISL celebrated its first day back with 600 cupcakes. I think they're going to like it here.

Road Trip!

One of the things I think we're going to love about living in Lux is the ability to jump in the car, drive in any direction, and end up in a new country within a matter of minutes. That's what we did this past Saturday.

Thanks to a recommendation from the Su family, we drove to Bouillon in Southern Belgium to visit Chateau Fort, a medieval castle. We climbed I don't know how many stairs to take in the spectacular views of the surrounding countryside and the Semois river from the top of the castle. Then we headed way down to visit the armories, dungeons, and torture chambers (Jackson's favorite part, of course).

Outside the torture chamber

Sittin' in a turret

Heading to the dungeon

We were ravenous after hours of exploring and climbing (I was also sore for a couple of days...pathetic) so had a giant lunch in town of moules, entrecote avec champignons a la creme (so yum though Dan was not happy with me), omelette, and (at Sabina's request) chicken nuggets and fries, followed by a little shopping and paddleboating on the Semois.

We accidentally took the scenic route to Brussels (2-1/2 hours instead of 1-1/2...oops) so saw some of the Belgian countryside (cows galore) en route. In Brussels, we stayed near Grand Place which is the city's central square. What was orginally an open air market is now a beautiful square bordered by elegant, stately buildings including Town Hall, an impressive gothic structure from the 1400s and the equally impressive Maison du Roi, which houses the Museum of Brussels.

Tourists at Grand Place

We had a delicious dinner at La Roue D'Or, an old Brussels cafe serving French/Belgian food - more moules et frites, more entrecote, escargots, and stoemp (sausage with mashed potatoes and carrots; satisfied Sabina's request for hot dogs). Jackson ordered some amazing meatball concoction served in a beer gravy; we declared him the ordering "winner" of the night. 

Then we goofed off for a while.

Outside the Royal Theatre

Walking/skipping back to our hotel

Please won't you open, candy shop?

Candy shop also sold this in case you're in need of one

On Sophia's agenda before leaving Sunday...eat waffles! We are pretty sure we ended up at a tourist trap (Maison Dandoy) for this meal. But it was still tasty.

gaufres aux fruits

And we couldn't leave Brussels without visiting Manneken Pis

(or the Pee Dude as Sophia calls him).

Manneken Pis

Enjoy!

Scheuberfouer

Fair entrance

The Schueberfouer is the annual Luxembourg City fair. It is the biggest fair in the country and lasts 20 days. Lucky for us, the doctor we visited last week for our “contrôle médicale des étrangers” (basically a check up to make sure we're healthy enough to hang in the country) told us about Scheuberfouer or we might have missed it!

We spent a good 5 hours there this past Sunday eating Luxembourgish specialties like Gromperkichelcher (fried potato pancakes) and Gebakene Fesch (giant deep fried whiting). And oh yeah...we checked out some rides too.

Truth be told, the rides were just eh. But something about the people and the atmosphere made the day so much fun. They really get into it at Scheuberfouer. The 3EUR wine and beer (that you can actually walk around with!) probably helped. But it was more than that. For example, the House of Horrors was just your typical haunted house ride with not so scary monsters popping out of walls, smoke plumes, and annoying light effects. But then, at the very end, just when you're feeling kind of annoyed that the ride wasn't better, some dude dressed in a gorilla suit jumps out and attacks you. He chased us out grabbing our hair and pulling at our clothes. It was so freaking awesome! There was also a Fun House where the kids emerged completely covered in confetti because there was a dude at the exit whose sole job it was to ensure that they were. Don't even ask Sophia about the Hall of Mirrors where I'm pretty sure some dude purposefully directed her the wrong way. Little did he know she'd take off running. Ow. As I said, they get into it at Scheuberfouer.

Gebakene Fesch. The boys cleaned that fish UP.

Bina sporting her crazy smile on the carousel.

I'm not even sure, so just don't ask.