a last minute trip and goodbye, Belgium

As I begin this post, it is late-Wednesday, August 29/early-Thursday, August 30. We leave tomorrow/today. While Jill and I are both excited to return and get to Connecticut, neither of us is looking forward to tomorrow. We will be traveling or waiting in airports for aprox. 19 hours (travel to the airport in the morning; check-in, customs, etc.; 9 hour flight from Brussels to Philly; 5 hour layover in Philly; two hour flight from Philly to Toronto; travel to Guelph). Obviously, none of this would bother me if it weren't for Milo. The flight here wasn't bad, but it was night and Milo slept. I am SERIOUSLY DREADING tomorrow. Milo really doesn't like being forced to sit somewhere. Trains have been okay because we get up and roam the aisles...and the longest we took while here was just over an hour long. Oh yeah, Jill and Milo are also both sick (head cold of course - the last thing one wants when flying, right?). I can only hope that someone is not seated next to us (oh how I wish we'd had the extra $900 to buy Milo a seat of his own). Anyway...we did take a trip yesterday and there are pics to be posted and shown...

We took the train to Ghent yesterday. Requisite Milo in Stroller Picture:



Upon exiting the train station, we let Milo out of his stroller to stretch his legs. He really wanted to go for a bike ride:



Or play with the tram:



While Jill visited the Museum voor Schone Kunsten van Gent, Milo and I lunched and played in the park:









Milo grew bored, so I invented a game loosely based on Donkey Kong, only starting at the top of the screen and working down...I played DK:



















Milo won:



When Jill finished we walked around the city. Following are some pics of Milo walking around and then a few shots of the city. If Milo's pointing, he's either enamored with a car, bus, or tram...most likely a bus or a tram.























And now for our goodbyes to Brussels/Belgium. We decided that today we'd do a bit of shopping and eat dinner at a restaurant (for only our third time since arriving...much too risky to eat out consistently with Milo...). Oh yeah, Jill also officially declared today The Day of Gaufres and pledged last night she was eating at least 9. While she actually only managed 2 (amazing, I know), we probably had the best Gaufres in Belgium, well, at least the best since 1950:



Here's a shot of Milo eating two of probably the best gaufres (the only reason this pic exists is that Jill didn't want a picture of her eating guafres on the internet...Jill really ate those, not Milo):



After dinner, Jill decided she wanted ice cream, rather than more guafres. At least we had what was probably the best ice cream going:



Alright...that's it. I'm off to put the finishing touches on my packing and then I'm going to bed. I'll update with pics of our voyage when we return to Guelph, as long as Milo doesn't get us kicked off the plane...