Belgian Waffles

Brussels: Done and Dusted in 2 hours flat

The Eurostar is undoubtedly the best way to travel. From St Pancras station to Brussels in 1hr 50min. Getting through customs is about as complicated as hopping on the tube and when you disembark at the other end you simply walk out of the station, no unnecessary lines, forms or waiting around for a a chance to land.
After a diabetes inducing breakfast of authentic waffles and triple choc hot chocolate it was time to see what Brussels had to offer, it was 9am by this stage, the city must be buzzing, surely? it is the capital of the European Union afterall...
WRONG!
Adam quickly pointed out upon leaving the station that although I had not yet been to Eastern Europe, this was as close that it made no difference. We crossed onto the aptly named Stalingrad Drive and realised the scale of the town was substantially smaller than you would think from perusing the tourist map, today's adventure would be swift!
Within 2hours we had seen the Grote Markt (the center of any Belgium city), taken photos in front of the famous Manakin Pis (the orginal 'little boy urinating' staue) and walked the breadth of the city into the new district. Ieper, we will see you for lunch!

Advancing on the Menin gate
Iper/Ypres pronounced eep-air is an eerie town in the middle of a 10 sq mile area where roughly 1000 000 people died over the course of both World Wars. The soil is incredibly fertile with Maize being the crop of choice. This is what bought Mooney and myself to Belgium, a tour around the battlefeilds of the Ieper Salient.
The town itself was destroy totally in the Great War, then subsequently rebuilt at great cost to the German government. This rebuilding of continental europe,paid for by the Germans of course, encourage the climate which led to WW2.
There are so many directions to head in while pondering the signifigance of Ieper that I am not going to attempt to get into detail. To quickly breeze through a few things of note-
The official remeberance poem 'Flanders Fields' was written by John Mcrae here and inturn lead the Poppy to be the flower of remeberance.
38,000 (yes thirty eight thousand) Australians died here during the battle for Passchendaele.
Hitler was injured and commended for his bravery here a few short years before entering into politics.
There are 176 cemetaries in the Ieper Salient region
Ieper was bitterly cold, Im glad we were not knee deep in mud.






Brugge
With the futlility of war behind us, we headed east for the coast. This city comprises twin rings of canals to aid fortifiaction, a Michaelangelo scultpure and the Basilica of the Holy Blood, where a vile of christ's blood has been protected since the crusades. Food and Beer, here, was easy to come by.


Antwerp
Diamonds, Beer, quite, possibly save it for the weekend...

Nigeria V Socceroos

First footy game in England, we had good seats, Australia won and the Stadium is a couple of hundred metres from our place. It was freezing though...

Valencia

Valencia was a pleasant surprise seeing that we booked it 7 months ago. It was a break away from the cold, although still freezing during the night. The city had a great blend of old and new.
Eve caught up with some German friends that she went to high school with in the States- while Hewy and I headed out to Ricardo Tormo Circuit for the last MotoGP race of the Year!!!!

The Old City
Our hostel was in the old quarter, we arrived on a public holiday during siesta, so the city was like the set from a zombie movie, very quite. The spanish have a sleep every day from about 2 til 5pm, so everything is closed. It's a great idea. The architecture is awesome in the old city, everywhere you go in Europe makes Australia seem like a very young country.



The Beach
while Valencia is on the Mediterranean the waves still looked big enough to surf. No bikinis or swimming but Eve was still very happy to see a real beach.




The New City
Valencia's new city IS the future. Really modern huge buildings. Exactly 50 years ago Valencia was flooded, they diverted the river and built a series of sports fields, parks and museums in the old river bed.













MotoGP
Last race of the year, Aussie Casey Stoner had already wrapped up the championship- 135,000 still turn up to cheer on the race. Absolutely amazing.

London Town

Finally a London update, we have been here for almost 4 weeks now and have gotten through most of the touristy stuff. Read on to see what we've been upto

Hammersmith

We live in Hammersmith. Our house has had a long procession of 4551 migrants in it, it is near the tube station, next to the Apollo Theatre and right on the Thames.




Out and About
Highlights of sigt seeing so far have been The Tate Modern Gallery, Dirty Dancing the stage show (it was an absolute classic, there are some real fanatics out there), the British Museum (were you can see how the poms stole from developing countries before the Yanks even had Thanks Giving) and we have been on the Jack the Ripper tour, which is at night in Whitechapel and its great. Also Camden was cool, Maybe not as cool as in the 80's but worth a few more visits at least.



British Museum


The Theatre district
Tower Hill

Camden
...these were all the punks I saw...