The change from Italy to Belgium is like changing continents! After weeks of hot and arid climate, our eyes are adjusting to brilliant green color everywhere. It is really beautiful but vastly different from anything we've ever visited before. I must call on my imagination but I get a sense that we've encountered a mix of French and Dutch influence in architecture with fairly wide streets (particularly in comparison to those of Italy), row houses, and interesting shops everywhere. Today, Sunday, happens to be a special day in which cars are given up for one day. No driving. Taxis and busses and trams are in operation, but everyone is enjoying bicycling and walking. And it seems everyone, in fact, is outside and participating in the fresh air. But, to my blood, which has become thinned by the recent weeks of heat, it's cold here! And the sky would really like to rain--rain? What's that?

We went outside, hats, wind-breakers and all (I'm so glad I brought a taily-po), to explore for a couple of hours this morning, to get our bearings, and will go out once again soon to participate in the local events of the day. Already though, we have met such friendly people, and already we've tried some of the abundant and fabulous French pastry that's on every corner. So far we've learned that Bruxelles, as it is expressed here, is a melting pot for internationals. People who live here are from all over the world. We are told they get along well together, seem very tolerant and respectful of each other and are very non-aggressive. Since we just left Italy, we are very sensitive to this change. The predominant language here is French so we will get to practice our French a bit more, but the city-folk all speak perfect English.

We were delighted to find maps of the bus and tram system, but to our shock and frustration, we can't make heads nor tails of them! And to top it off, we realized that our 6:50 am flight from here to Dublin this Thursday is actually out of the Bruxelles Charleroi Airport which is about 70km away from the city. We are a little puzzled as to how we are going to work that all out that early in the morning. It's another challenge, but we seem to thrive on challenge--kinda.