Day: April 23, 2026

Yesterday (Thursday)we trekked to the Royal museum complex and Mont des Arts area. Where our neighborhood, Saint-Gilles, can be described as “vibrant bohemian”, the Royal museums quarter was filled with tourists and school groups. A whole different flavor of Brussels. I enjoyed rediscovering Magritte at the Magritte museum. I had forgotten his light-hearted and playful…

The goal of this morning’s trek was to get to the Magritte Musée by ten-thirty. That was the time on electronic the ticket I purchased in January that let us in to the Magritte museum and the Old Masters museum next door. Wait—did I say “ticket”?  When we arrived at the building with the large green…

Mussels with fried potatoes. A cornerstone of Belgian cuisine. This was today’s lunch. Mussels are a plentiful and cheap food, easily harvested along the coast of the North Sea. Although the prized catch comes from Schelde, a shallow river connecting western Belgium to the Netherlands and the North Sea, most mussels used in Belgium these…

Outside of inching across runways in Albuquerque and Chicago to experience lumbering jet choreography in the age of LAL (Living At Airports) where when the pilot announces to the stewards, “Prepare for landing,” it should be followed, once you land, with, “Please have patience while while we crawl. If you’re wondering whether you will make…