After a much needed nap, (maybe we should have taken the shuttle around
Bokrik park instead of walking), we went to the dining hall in the hostel
and had dinner. It was a winner, pork in gravy, peas with carrot and onion
in them, and potatoes. The kids were used to seeing us by now and had become
friendly, the teachers as well. After cleaning up we went to the desk to
settle up. Our bill for the previous day came to 680 Belgian Francs each or
about $18.25. That was for the nights stay, breakfast, dinner and our drinks
from last night, amazing. I spent more than that friday night at the bar
watching the Eagles stink up the Meadowlands. We talked with the girl at the
desk, (first time we had seen her) who spoke perfect English as she had been
an exchange student in Minneapolis. She gave me instructions on how to use
the phone. I'll put it to the test later to try and call my wife after she
gets home from work.

     I went back to the room to take a shower. We are planning to travel
south to the Ardennes tomorrow to visit both the Trappists at Rochefort and
the brewpub of La Chouffe in the village of Achouffe, Luxembourg province.
We were two provinces away in Limburg so it's a bit of a hike. It seemed
like a good idea to make it an early night so I went looking for Tony and
Zeke. I found them in the hostel bar with the older group of kids and the
teachers from both groups. There was a party goin' on, so much for the early
night.

     The kids had the CD player cranking out dance music and they were all
having fun dancing and just clowning around. The girls dancing, the boys
clowning. Some of the boys were showing off trying to impress this one girl
who was more developed that the others. Zeke introduced me to another girl
named Julie who spoke English. Her parents traveled a lot and they had lived
in several different countries and she had learned four languages. She acted
as interpreter for the rest of the night, until their bedtime at least. She
told Zeke and Tony which of her classmates thought each one of them was
cute, then she tried to fix Tony up with one of the teachers. She at least
got them to dance.

     I tried to do the phone thing again with Julie and a teacher helping
but after an hour gave up in frustration. Whenever I got an operator they
couldn't here us and I couldn't get through dialing directly. Oh well, time
for another Kriek.

     Eventually after saying good-bye the kids were hustled off to bed. The
teachers sighed in relief and had another round. Our bar tab this night will
dwarf last nights. Everyone called it a night about 1.

     The next day, Friday, had breakfast, hard boiled eggs, lunchmeat,
bread, juice and coffee. We paid for our drinks from the night before and
took off forgetting to return the key and get our (Tony's) deposit back,
200BF or about $5.50. Drove to Hasselt got on the Highway south which ended
in Liege, the city, in the province of Liege. There we got stuck in city
traffic for 45 minutes but we did find the road to Rochefort which surprised
us all. Took it and arrived at the Trappist monastery there, the monastery
of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy just at 12, but the monks pray from 12 to 1 so
we went to a little Inn we had passed by a stream to taste the Trappist's
brews.

     I've just checked out the web site for the movie coming out this Friday
"A Dog of Flanders" at <www.dogofflanders.com> no, not Ned, the northern
part of Belgium. It was filmed in Belgium so I wanted to see if they
mentioned any places that we had visited. Turns out that part of the movie
was filmed in the provincial park at Bokrik, also some of it in Brugge which
we visited later, so I guess I'll have to see it.

Next Time - finally, a Trappist monastery and La Chouffe

Pics - the Bokrik shuttle, a windmill soon to be appearing in a major motion
picture


 
 

 Last      Main      Next