Emily's visit (continued)

The last couple of days with Emily were filled with activity. She went with Malcolm on Wednesday to the Da Vinci Expo that we had seen earlier, and he returned full of plans for his own flying machines, involving intricate intermeshing wooden cogs. On Thursday I stayed home and sang and called opera houses for the morning and practiced, while she shopped with Maggie (they bought new Swatches), and then we met for lunch at the Golden Wheel just off the Grand'place. No visit to Brussels is complete without moule frites! I came back to do some more work in the afternoon, and they shopped some more before coming home for dinner.

Finally on Friday, we went to the BOZAR (the museum of Modern art) for an expo called The Grand Atelier, and believe me, it was absorbing. Ancient illuminated manuscripts from the 7th century, recently unearthed sculpture from Bulgaria, ivory book covers from the 11th century, paintings from all eras, this was an expo designed to explore the history of European cross-pollination of culture throughout the last two millenia. The beauty of some of these items was really quite tremendous, and the expo has excellent descriptive signs for each exhibit in French, Flemish and English, so we had no need to use the audioguide. The exhibit was also very large, so we took a break halfway through and had a Stella in the museum cafe to rejuvenate ourselves before carrying on to do the second half.

We had a nice dinner that evening, and Emily was heading home early the next morning via an overnight in London. She got up at 4:00 AM to take a taxi, and then a bus to the Brussels Charleroi airport, a regional airport 60 Kms or so south of Brussels, used by airlines such as Ryanair to avoid the higher airport taxes that come with landing at a closer airport such as the main Brussels one. Likewise she landed at an airport some distance from London, but the price couldn't be beat: 30 Euros.

It was great having her here as our first family guest, but she won't be the last: Maggie's parents arrive on Monday evening the 15th for a two-week stay.

next post: Cramignon!