We sped off from the Festival of Slow and drove a long day through 3 countries  – UK, France, and Belgium.  We were invited to stay with my friends Alison and Andrew from the Expat blog Cheeseweb in Brussels that night.  Boy of boy did they put on a big welcome for us! First of [...]

I loved the subtle differences in these beach cabins in Knokke Belgium.  Knokke is a beach town filled with people on sunny days of summer, and completely empty for the other 11 months of the year!  This wraps up my writing about my summer in Belgium.  However I have provided the Best of’ Belgium photography [...]

Why did I go to Brussels this summer? Was it the beer, chocolate, frites or waffles? No. Was it the history? No. The architecture? No. It was for those 3 furballs above… Briefcase to Backpack just covered how to travel with pets…but I was actually traveling to take care of pets. As you would expect, [...]

Back when I had a kitchen, I owned a waffle maker. Waffles have made it into American kitchen culture, but do you know where they originated? The tiny country of Belgium; hence the beloved Belgian waffle. When I traveled to Belgium this summer I was excited to do my share of tastings of Belgian waffles, [...]

The night before I left for Europe, I went out with my friend Miles to have a beer. We went to a little dive bar on the Upper West Side in NYC, sat at the bar, and each had a pint of Stella Artois. The bill was $7 each plus a $1 tip – $8 [...]

This week I talked about Brugge as a ultra popular tourist destination in Belgium.  I enjoyed Brugge once I found some quiet neighborhoods on the outskirts of town, but I found other small Belgian town like Leuven even more enticing.  Leuven is home to Belgian’s oldest university.  This population of students brings a creative, vibrant, [...]

“You must go to Brugge.” “Have you been to Brugge?” “You can’t miss seeing Brugge!” These were the reactions I received after telling people I was spending August in Belgium house-sitting. It seemed that in Belgium, all roads led to Brugge, the little Unesco World Heritage town known for it’s medieval, historic architecture and maze [...]

I looked through the freshly cleaned glass devoid of fingerprints and surveyed my choices. Dark, milk, nuts, liquor, and fruit; this was my lineup of choices at the Godiva chocolate shop in the Grand Place of Brussels. I looked at my watch and hesitantly pointed to a dark one. The sophisticated looking man carefully picked [...]