ようこの部屋

Today we celebrated a birthday of my grandmother-in-law. She is from a rural area near Brussels.
I love this area because the landscape is so beautiful. It is called Pajottenland. You can see some pictures from the link below.

http://home.tiscali.be/Pajottenland/

I did not know that it is called Toscane of the North… In Belgium people tend to compare their beautiful places to Italy… for example, Brugge is Venice of the North. Anyway, Pajottenland is pretty.

If you drive in the area, you see a scenery which was painted by Bruegel (a church from one of his painting still exists where my cousin-in-law had a wedding!), beautiful castle of Gaasbeek, a large rose garden of Coloma, etc. etc.

Belgian people like parties & biking. Today’s party was to get together in a café in the area to eat traditional Belgian lunch & take a horse carriage tour in the area while sportive people bike 30 km in the area.

I ate spareribs with vegetables, fried potatoes & mayonaise. I rarely eat a big chunk of meat but from time to time it is nice to eat something like this.

I was asked if I wanted to bike but I declined because I was too tired from moving and anyway I do not like biking that much (especially when you need to bike fast…). So I participated in the group for the carriage.

I tried a horse riding once in the UK while studying there but have never ridden in a carriage.

At the beginning, it was a bit scary because the carriage shakes a lot. Soon I got used to it and started to enjoy it. All the people in the carriage were women except one small boy from my cousin-in-law. My grandmother-in-law was really surprised (this was a surprise party). We were also surprised that the driver of the carriage was the father of a friend of my sister-in-law.

Belgian society is quite small. Everywhere you go, you encounter someone you know. It is a bit village country, in my opinion.

Well, the weather was not so nice but it did not rain. We went to see a windmill first and then went to a café to drink something. After we arrived there, more and more carriages and horses arrived. A 5-year-old daughter of my cousin-in-law was really fascinated by horses. She said she wanted to buy a horse… I wonder if she will get one… In this café, we met our bikers. My husband was suffering a lot because he is not used to biking fast. When we went biking, because of me, he had to bike always slowly… I asked him if he wanted to stop but he insisted to continue…

After this café, we returned to the original café where we started the tour. My aunt-in-law wanted to pay to the driver but he did not want to accept it because we are a family of a friend of his daughter and his family was quite close to that of my grandmother-in-law… This is typically Belgian!

We waited while drinking & eating (I had tea & crepes). Finally the bikers came back. My husband said it was good that I did not bike… He could not keep up with the fittest guys!!