Becca and I took advantage of a work trip last week to go up to Seattle, visit friends and hang out downtown. It was a great opportunity for both of us to decompress and celebrate a good 2008 and hope for a fantastic 2009. As part of the fun, Sunday we took the bus and headed up into the artistic Fremont neighborhood. We'd been given a recommendation to visit Brouwer's. It's a Flemish-inspired cafe that promoted its wide selection of Belgian beers and tasty food.
Needless to say from the picture above, it did not disappoint. The leather bound bottled beer list included SIX pages of Belgian beers. With these many choices, paralysis was bound to take hold so I left the choice in the hands of my handy waiter. A St. Bernardus Abt 12 and St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, coupled with a Croque Monsieur and Belgian frites (with mayo, naturally) left me very happy. The third seasonal ale I had though left me ruing the 10.5% alcohol content of all three beers. Dude. However nothing a few more frites couldn't take care of.
In short it was a fantastic place to enjoy top notch beer and frites and heaven for someone like me currently taking a break from the training bandwagon. The added bonus is that I found out it is located less than a mile from my friend Mark's place.
With that, I'd like to honor Brouwer's with a Davis Haiku:
Seattle's Fremont
Brings Belgian Beers and Pommes Frites
Too Much Temptation
Brian
Becca found her Seattle nirvana via a slightly different indulgence:
I actually considered getting the 5 kg(!) jar of Nutella for her (look at those puppy dog eyes) but in the end was too afraid of emerging one morning to find her passed out in chocolate-hazelnut coma, spoon still in her hand....
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Ode to Brouwer's
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Dateline Brugge
Just a quick note on our favorite location of the trip so far, Brugge. Located in western Belgium this Flemish (Belgian version of Dutch) speaking town is a very relaxing place to spend a few days and evidently quite popular amongst the european tourists (as seen by the huge number of them around town). We spent the night at 't Geerwijn bed and breakfast, which was nice though our top level room was very hot (not surprising given the 35 degree temp during the day). Otherwise it was a lot of wandering around the very old and scenic downtown and a very educational trip to the Straffe Hendrik brewery (where even Becca sampled the product) before heading off to Amsterdam. Brian was even able to take care of his frites fix. Overall Brugge is a wonderful place to just kick back and take an actual vacation (vs. seeing important sight after important sight). On to Amsterdam!
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
No sprouts here...
Brussels was our first actual sight seeing excursion. We went out on Thursday and spent the day touring Brussels. Besides being the political center of the European Union, Brussels has a number of interesting museums and centuries old architecture. Of course we didn't visit most of them, instead doing a bit of an alternative tour.
After taking a stroll around the Grand Place (the home of a number of beautiful buildings from the late 17th century) we did something a little different and visited the Museum of Musical Instruments in Brussels. It was quite an entertaining experience, complete with interactive locations where you could hear different pieces being played from the instruments in front of you. Definitely an experience worth having in Brussels. Otherwise we spent the rest of the day just walking around the town (going through a number of beautiful parks) and just soaking in the mix of ancient architecture and modern business that is Brussels.
PS Apologize for the previous abbreviated post; the internet cafes in Amsterdam are not very forgiving...
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Who needs an espresso machine...
Wonderful friends
The emphasis on this first part of our trip has been recovering and recharging our batteries while visiting some wonderful friends.
Becca and her family lived in Louvain-la-Neuve in 1978-79 and were wonderfully lucky to wind up living next door to a 'hyper-sympa' family, the Rahirs. The eldest daughter, Maud, lived in Oregon with Becca's family for a year during highschool, and the parents Yves and Anne Marie gave us a wonderful gift by celebrating with us at our wedding last year. Maud and Albert now has 3 sons (Oscar, Igor, and Eliot) and we're in awe of the energy and patience they have. We had fun playing with the boys and were impressed with Oscar's attempts to teach Brian French. It was also very nice to catch up with Fan Fan (Anne-Francoise), Becca's partner in crime during her time living here. We were sorry to miss Thomas, but hope to find a way to catch up with him later.
It was fun to explore LLN, a town built to incorporate the univerisity into the neighborhoods and to emphasize pedestrian traffic. We learned a lot about urban planning and architecture walking around and talking about the town and Becca marvelled about how much it had grown and expanded in 25 years.
After the visit with the Rahirs, we also had an (unfortunately too short) time with Steven and Catherine and their adorable children, Sara and Nicolas. Steven was an exchange student living with close family friends of Becca's during high school and they have stayed ever since. Steven also gave us the gift of his presence at our wedding. We really felt honored to have everyone around. We really enjoyed sitting on the back patio, watching the sun set at 10 pm (??!!) and gazing out across the fields and pastures. It was wonderfully relaxing.
We feel blessed to have friends like these around the world and consider it a perfect way to start the trip before we rev up the sightseeing.
B&B