Stereo types (to be added to..)

I like stereo types they let me know what to expect when I reach a country.  When something stereotypical happens I smugly tick it off.  I prefer when they are broken, however, which is one of the joys of travelling, constantly re calibrating.  Like the German barmen with a cracking sense of humour.
Northern Belgium, however, didn’t help itself. As I expected it was flat, flat, flat, grey skies and chocolate.  Then there is Bruges.  Beautiful churches and a clean cobbled Aldermantastic history.  I love breaking stereotypes!

Waterloo!!! (Nov 27th)

Today we visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo.  There’s three different visitor centre buildings (one fairly shiny and new, the others were probably quite impressive in their day but a bit musty smelling now), and a memorial in the form of a steep, 41m high, man-made hill with a large statue of a lion at the top.  Hazel climbed every one of the 226 steps up the side of the hill and wasn’t even out of breath at the top (that’s definitely something she gets from her Dad – my calf muscles complained loudly for about half an hour after the climb; Matt and H were playing spinning games because Hazel likes being dizzy).

On the way back we were stopped by the police.  They checked Matt’s driving licence and then sent us on our way (with a cheery “Bye Bye Man” from H). We were muttering darkly about being stopped because of our GB plates, but then the campsite owner told us he’s been stopped twice in the last week.  Turns out they’re stopping everyone during the feast day celebrations because they expect us all to be sozzled...

Hazel has been sleeping up the top of the van with mixed results.  On day one she slept up there throughout the night, no problem, and we assumed it would all be a breeze.  Day two she refused to countenance it at all (M moved up there at about midnight).  Last night she went to sleep fine, but then we think she got lost in the front part of the roof in the dark, having woken up disorientated, and so came and joined us.   So that’s won one, lost one and an away draw...

Getting started

After three days a few things have become self-evident.

1)      Don’t arrive at campsites after the reception has closed (although, if you do, having a baby in the van is a great help to getting people to open up regardless!).
2)      November is quite chilly
3)      When campsites say they are “open all year” it’s only true in a fairly notional sense (though at the first place, we were quite glad the water slides into the lake were closed – just looking at them made us shiver)
4)      If you unexpectedly run out of gas on day one, there is a limit to how much Chinese food you can eat.  Unless you’re Hazel.
5)      Belgium is very flat.  A bit like Norfolk in a lot of ways.
6)      We’ve brought far too much stuff, and not necessarily the right things...

All this aside, it’s been quite fun already.  The Christmas market in Bruges was disappointingly (non-veggie) food based, but the cobbled streets and 14^th century city hall were worth the visit, and Hazel enjoyed the many horse-drawn carriages, bikes and even the unexpected tour group on Segways...

The Belgians we’ve met all spoke Dutch on days 1 and 2, but only 90 miles further west, it’s suddenly all French (leaving Matt and I scrabbling around trying to remember words learnt from school 20ish years ago...).  They have all so far been unfailingly smiley to Hazel, and therefore helpful to us.  Matt has decided that the French-speakers are simply nicer than the Dutch ones, but I think we just understand them more.  And we arrived on a feast day so most people we’ve spoken to at the campsite have been more or less drunk...