Antiquing

I shouldn't really have rules about blogging, yet I do. Mine has been that I've tried really hard to blog in chronological order. Since I'm not always writing about the date of the post or even the yesterday of the date of the post, I figure keeping it in order will be easier to track. Well, we were so excited about Lucy playing tennis on red clay today, Tuesday, here in Brussels that I posted about it today. In the process I had skipped Sunday and Monday.

So I'll take care of Sunday now. Our primary activity of Sunday, which was the last day of July and thus sadly indicated to us that we won't be here much longer, was going antique shopping in Grand Sablon. Of course we tossed in some other little side trips and bought some chocolate, for good measure. I'll also add here that due to extensive sampling using non-scientific methods and no record-keeping whatsoever, we have determined that we do not in fact love all Belgian chocolate. Shocking I know. Take a minute to think about that. We've eaten so much mouth-watering decadence that we now pause occasionally to talk about how perhaps one piece or even one whole brand is not our favorite. Hmmm.

To get to Grand Sablon, I insisted on the bus and finally we took the #27. This is a photo of us happily waiting for the bus on a somewhat brisk Sunday late morning. I've been mentioning this particular route as a great way to get places for weeks to no avail, until Sunday. And to everyone's surprise, it was a lovely albeit packed bus ride. We traveled past the Parliament and then saw the Royal Palace. I've since learned that the Royal Palace is not the residence of the king. But this palace is gigantic and stunning, like most palaces I suppose. We'll hope to go tour it soon. Unfortunately the list of things we want to do before we leave Brussels is rather long, so we are going to have to start prioritizing our list. Anyway, this antiques market runs every Saturday and Sunday and many of the vendors also have stores in the immediate area.

This is a high end antiques market. I don't think bargain hunting is the real name of the game. Initially it does not look very large; those small green and red striped tents behind the girls and me (and in front of the church) are the booths. But they do weave in and out and there were more than my initial estimate. Very impressive silver, some cool art nouveau light fixtures, many tiny china teacups, jewelry both antique and collectible, amazing old maps including one site plan of the 1958 Brussels World Expo that the seller kindly told me all about in French (about 10 percent of which I understood) - it was fun.

Brian took the girls to buy more chocolate so I could have 30 minutes on my own. In the end I only bought one little purse, not particularly old but very cool, with Paris stamped on the front. Ironic that I bought it in Brussels (and that I bought almost nothing in Paris).

Additional side notes from Sunday: cool view from the Palace of Justice, just up the street from Grand Sablon; my first window shopping along Avenue Louise and Boulevard de Waterloo, both high end spots; read it was going to get warmer; pretty happy to read about the NFL season getting started; not really following the debt crisis in the US too closely; happily I remembered my Mom's August 2 birthday before it was July 31, so her gift should get there early.