Fourth Week in Belgium

The week started rather slowly for Laurene and I. We stayed home the first two days of the week. It was still rainy so that made it easy. The weekend, however, was a lot of fun. We drove to Oostende on the West coast to see the North Sea. It was very overcast and cool but the rain held off for the day. We walked along the shore and very few people were in the water.

A few diehards braved it though. To me it was just a bit too cold for that. We had our lunch at one of the vendors that border part of the harbor. Dad had a basket of immitation crab with other kinds of sea food. Dave shared his with a big seagull that swooped down and stole some of his fish on the fly. It almost knocked the dish out of his hands.

Another guy lost his whole lunch to the seagulls that way. I had what I thought were onion rings but it turned out to be fish of some kind. It was good tasting and and I enjoyed it very much. Then we walked to a large sailing ship moored in the harbor. We toured this ship called the Mercator.

Marina on Harbor

Marcator

In her glory days she was a great sailing ship built in 1932 at a cost of 225,000 euros and was used to train sailors and officers of the Belgian merchant fleet. She was retired in 1960 and is now a musem and a very intesting one at that.

We then walked to a nearby church to see it. It is being renovated on the outside. As with all the churches here it was big and very ornate. I was kind of awe struck at the hugeness of it.

Laurene's knee was hurting so we then returned to home. It's quite swollen and painful for her and I hope she can get it healed again. On our way home we stopped at the construction site of Steven's house to see how it is going.

Steven invited us to come and see his father-in-law fly his hot air balloon at a huge hot air balloon festival in the city of Eeklo late Sunday afternoon. We got back in time for dinner and went to a restarant where Dad had eaten before. They were full so they invited us next door to their partner diner that shares the same kitchen. From the lack of customers and decor it was obviously a high class place but Dad recognized and talked with the head waiter and a waitress he knew from another hotel on previous trips. We considered leaving but stayed and spent more for dinner than we have ever spent in our lives. The food was very well presented and most delicious but we probably won't repeat going there. At church on Sunday morning the temple president from the Hague in the Netherlands and his wife were visiting the branch. It is about a two hour drive from here. Afterwards we came home and got ready for the hour-long drive to the balloon festival. This is the third largest hot air balloon festival in the world. When we got there we met with Steven and his wife, Valerie.

Steven had arranged to get us passes onto the field where the balloons were being filled with hot air. They begin with large gas-powered fans to fill the balloon after it is attached to the basket.

Then the pilot fires burners into the horizontal balloon to bring it vertical for liftoff.

What a fantastic and exciting experience this was to see over seventy hot air balloons filled and then rise into the sky.

They were huge and colorful. It was a great experience to be so close to all of the action.