A (quicker than yesterday) update on my trip.
Woke up this morning to go to Easter mass, in French. Probably my last
foreign language mass before returning to the states. It is giving me
a chance to brush up on my french before Quebec though, so that's good.
I'm not one to get homesick, and I haven't been homesick at all these
past three months. That's not meant to bash being home, I'm excited to
be home again and see everyone, but I don't ever get overly emotional
about wanting to be home. As I was sitting in mass today though, I had
two spells of homesickness.
The first came during the sprinkling of holy water. The music was so
serious, and the look on the priests face stern. I imagined what mass
at immaculate conception would be like today, flowers on the altar
with a pond setup, everyone happy and singing loudly, and for the
sprinkling, I can imagine father alex walking up the aisle, flinging
waves of water at the crowds of people, soaking himself and those in
front of him while the choir sings "we shall draw water joyfully,
singing joyfully... Etc." you know how it goes. A stark difference
from the church I wax in, though it was still very nice.
The second spell of homesickness came while singing the alleuehia
before the gospel. The version they sang is exactly the same used
often at immaculate conception. So of course, to all the Belgians
around me surprise, belted out every note of it.
After church, food, candy, repeat. The weather was spotty so we had
several small meals. Whenever it got bad, we took shelter in a pub or
restaurant. This tactic was not easy on our wallet, as we found
Brussels is not exactly cheap. Multiple Belgian waffles, Belgian
chocolate, and a couple Belgian drinks later, we foud our stomachs
full and wallets the opposite. We visited a couple sites, the peeing
boy, which is a statue of a peeing boy, yes riviting I know, and the
square in front of the grand palace which was stunning.
The chocolate shops here are overwhelming. The streets are lined with
them and they pump out a chocolate smell onto the sidewalks that makes
it hard to resist going in every single one. With bad weather
constantly looming we hopped from one store to the other, with stops
at a pub or restaurant whenever we felt we needed to satisfy our
hunger to keep from buying pounds of chocolate (let's be honest, it
didn't completely stop us).
I think I just repeated myself in those last two paragraphs. Oh well,
bottom line is we ate, a lot. Which is what we would do on Easter
anyway, so there, it was justified.
Tomorrow, less eating, more touring...or just more touring maybe.
P.S in my blog last night I completely forgot to mention that we went
to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Really a moving visit, always an
incredible story and to walk though it in person brings it to another
reality for me.
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