Jesus and Nemo go to Belgium

Hello Friends, do you remember when we were living in Germany and visited Chris and Florrie's friends in Turkey? Well, now we live in Sicily and they live in Belgium. They visited us for Carnevale last year; this year we visited them over a long weekend. We were there not to long after the despicable attacks so there seemed to be more law enforcement types with guns around. We were careful to obey all the rules, even this one.






It struck us all as a little odd considering this is one of Belgium's most famous icons. Many of you probably remember seeing this little guy peeing in all kinds of fountains and yards. There are many legends about the boy, you can read some of them here. He has a new purpose currently. He helps to define the attitude towards terrorist here in Europe.

The  Manneken Pis is located very close to the Grand Palace in Brussels. The area was amazing.
                                      
Here are Chris and Florrie with their friends Don and Jill and Chris with Jesus (he’s got the bobble-head Jesus in his hands!)

                            
More of the Grand Palace area.


These two men have not been crooks in the USA, Turkey, Sicily, and Belgium.
They have fun no matter where they go.



I know I'm known for an affinity with wine but once in a while I like a nice glass of beer,
just like the next man, and Nemo, of course, drinks like a fish.


Florrie was wishing she had an apostrophe when we passed these two places.
      

We saw some beautiful statues.     And, we went into some churches, actually lots of churches.
Some more fancy than others.

               

                                        

In one of these churches we saw The Ghent Altar Piece, the most stolen piece of artwork of all time. Even I wasn’t allowed to take pictures so here is picture from the article.


Belgium is one of those countries that has canals,
                
                

whimsy,
           
                      
              
                      
                                             






lots of amazing buildings,




some really cool public spaces and streets,









and best of all, good friends.
 
I must confess it has been quite a while since we were in Begium. I had hoped to have this done sooner but you know what they say about good intentions. Nemo and I will talk to you again at the end of the summer. Until then au revoir.

Jesus and Nemo go to Cambridge (England that is)

Hello friends, please excuse the formatting of this post. There have been some changes made in blog land and Florrie hasn't kept up. Hopefully the next one will be better.  This past October we all took to trip to visit an old friend from our Gaeta days.  We are lucky enough to have an airport under two hours away with direct flights into Stansted England. Because this is one of those you fly cheap but there are no amenities airlines, we were each allowed one small carry on bag, unless we wanted to pay an outrageous sum. Somehow in the excitement of bringing our friend some really cool cooking supplies from Sicily we forgot this fact and packed one big bag we could check in. Luckily for us we had some alternate luggage in the car and we can mail cooking supplies.
Pretty fancy luggage wouldn’t you say?

We found the town of Cambridge delightful.

 

 

 

 There was even a canal and entertainment! The guitarist made us all think about Alex. Florrie always gives street guitarists money because she says that could be her son and she's thankful it isn't.

 

I was thrilled to discover that a 
street had been named after me.


Nemo was a little jealous until I reminded him about the time we were in China and everyone knew who he was but almost no one recognized me!

Chris and Florrie played around with some telephone booths and we all enjoyed the art work.

Our friend Kristi had a special surprise for us. A visit to Hotel Chocolates, our very favorite chocolate makers in the world! She introduced us to these fine chocolates the first time she visited us in Germany and periodically sends us a box. We were thrilled to go to the actual store and this young man was happy to be in the blog with Nemo and me.




 
We all took a walk in our friend Kristi’s neighborhood. We found an old church and the gravesite of the son of an important man. I wonder what his Dad thought of him being buried in a churchyard?

The next day we all went to Bletchley Park. If you don’t know about Bletchley Park and the part the people here played in WWII you should do some research. It’s a fantastic story. Here is a link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/places/bletchley_park


This picture is the Bombe!
 

 

One part of the decoding process.

 

 

Here we have the smart but odd Alan Turing. He has been posthumously diagnosed as Autistic. Florrie hopes to be posthumously diagnosed as tall and thin! This sculpture is made out of slate tiles. It’s very interesting.

 

 

These are some of the work areas in one of the huts. We were all fascinated with the story of these hard working men and women.

 

 

This poster reminded Florrie of Jessica who as you all know is a yarnie extraordinaire. 

 

 

 

 

 

Before leaving England Florrie and Kristi visited an old mansion while Chris went to a plane museum. Nemo and I stayed in the luggage and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Here are a few pictures that Florrie took. The most interesting part to Florrie was the garden. The family managed to grow most of the food to support the estate despite England’s climate. This apple tree has been trained to grow along the wall where it is warmer.

Last but not least, here is a lovely lady Chris ran into on his plane museum trip.

Nemo and I will be in Belgium in a few weeks, until then ta-ra or cheerio as they say in England.