Christmas in Brussels, Belgium

Grand Place-Grote Mark

Disregarding what my parents actually likes (nature/few people), we went on a city break to Brussels between Christmas and New Years.
I know that makes us sound like terrible hosts, and we kinda are.

"But Brussels will be beautiful!", we thought - and we were (mostly) right. It is ridiculously lux and hued in gold. It is also almost uniformly cheap to fly to as it is a hub for European relations.

If we had stayed right in the center instead of the neighborhood of Stalingrad (slightly shady by the train station) and my parents hadn't been getting over the worst cold ever and the AirBnB we planned on staying at hadn't canceled and we last minute booked one that had them listening to our 1-year-olds screams all night - this trip would have gone better. If this trip hadn't been amidst (justified) fears about terrorism in Brussels - this trip would have been easier.

That said, Brussels is beautiful, airfare was cheap and everyone should visit the picturesque Belgian capital.   

Ratings will be done in Frites ( fries). We were such good parents for a year (ha!). We denied delicious fries to our daughter til we got to Belgium. Then, fries were everywhere and she ate them. And loved them. Thus - she loved Belgium.

Baby UBlau: U55 & U4

"Good decisions" aren't my strong point. I'm in for adventure, making every day count and a bit of the crazy. Thus you might not have noticed my absence for the last few months. Maybe I finally lost my hold on reality or the Ausländerbehörde had enough of our shenanigans.

But no! We kinda, accidentally made a great decision. We had a baby. And she's awesome.

Unsurprisingly, it's taken a lot of time and I've got a new hobby of writing about her - a lot. If you wanna know about what's it like to have a babe in Berlin, I share an occasional helpful post amidst weekly videos and an astronomical ton of nonsense at In Berlin, Baby.

Another thing taking my time is work. I am writing/editing/content managing my Po (booty - learning new baby related words) off. I put up 10 Germany Travel articles a month at about.com, direct Insiders Abroad and their quarterly magazine, manage EasyExpat part-time and contribute to German-Way. This is hard work on top of watching a beautiful little lady!

And perhaps worst of all, this work stuff is eating up the things I used to write about here on the blog. Now I have to professionally present how to go to the movies in Germany or why I have come to appreciate the low water levels in toilets. In short, there is a lot less swearing.

But then we do something so ridiculous, so utterly useless to anyone but us I say, "Ah-ha! This is a post for Back to Berlin..and Beyond!". The recent such adventure, the first since the birth, is a Baby UBlau.

Pregnancy Hiatus

I keep thinking about this blog.

I love tracking our adventures in Berlin and beyond here and have a stack of posts on our recent trip to Manchester and northern UK in my head, but have failed to get them to the page in any kind of timely fashion. Like many bloggers, life seems to be interfering.