Belgium - Easter in Turnhout

We had a great Easter in Belgium. Our best-friend in Europe (Steven) invited us to his Mother's home in Turnhout where the rest of his family would be gathering for Easter. It was a big highlight to our trip.

We started out admiring all the art-work that his mother had amassed over the years inside her house. Where did she get it all? She made it! She's a fabulous painter and sculptor. It was like walking through an art gallery. Emotion and depth just poured straight out of her sculptures and paintings. What talent!

We were treated to some live music as Steven's daughter Elisa sang while Steven played the organ. Later, she recited some poems in French (one of her 3 languages). We will miss those two when we're back in the USA - we had some great times together on this trip in Barcelona and now in Belgium too.

When it got later, Steven took us to a bar in Turnhout where you could just tell the "beer-genius" (that's what I'll call him) what you felt like tasting and he would match a beer to your taste from over 300 different Belgian beers. I actually don't like beer... so I told the beer-genius to bring me a beer that people who don't like beer like to drink. He thought about it for a while, then nodded and scribbled something down on his pad. The result... a beer that I liked! A yummy beer that didn't taste much like beer! Valentina got something cherry-ish and enjoyed hers too.

The next day, on Easter, Elisa and her cousins ran around the garden searching for Easter eggs that had been dropped by flying clocks from Rome (or so the legend goes in Belgium). Valentina and I had been craving some good home-cooked food and Steven's mom provided a ton of it. Belgians really know how to eat... we seemed to be getting called to the dinner table every two hours. Needless to say it was pure happiness. In between meals, we all spent the day running around the yard playing games with all the kids and sweating in the cold weather.

Also, it turns out that Turnhout is the playing-card creation capital of the world. As a surprise parting gift, Steven's mom gave us 4 decks of playing cards made in Turnhout. I thought we shouldn't accept such gifts as they had been with Steven's mom for some time, but Valentina believes that one shouldn't deny a gift. Leave it to a woman to come up with a "belief" like that.

So that concluded two days full of fun, art, food, & family. What could be better?