A Belgian New Year

New Year's Eve Belgian style began with a wonderful meal that basically consisted of meat on a grill....Canadian heaven!!

Mat and Ineke are eager to start chewing




The meat comes in a pack and you put it on the grill. Each person gets to cook theirs exactly as they wish. It's a little like a hotpot.







Ineke, showing us how it's done.

Yum


Dessert was a wonderful fondue with marshmallows, toffee and fudge. I love chocolate, but I'd never thought of dipping sugar into sugar. It was good, but for the first time in a while---wait for it----I was sugared out.

That could be because we began our New year celebrations by consuming a large portion of this 2009 chocolate basket (all made out of chocolate) that was our Christmas present from Ineke. Belgians really do like their chocolate---and they do it well.

The drinking began at a bar for Youth in the small village of Arschot. There weren't many people there, but we hung out with Ineke's brother Stajn and his girlfriend Natalie.

Mat continued his quest to try as many Belgian beers as he could.

Our first picture of 2009. And our first New Year as a married couple.

Mat was just a little excited

We watched fireworks outside

Thank goodness it was beautiful, because it was minus 5 degrees.

Though she doesn't drink, Ineke bought sparkling wine for our consumption (mostly Stajn's because we kept pouring it into his glass)

Here is Stajn with Mat, after a few glasses of bubbly. Romance was in the air.

JANUARY 1st: THE RACE OF THE YEAR!!

We began 2009 by partaking in some very serious Belgian traditions. Each year there is a cycling race on an outdoor field track. When they were describing it to us it sounded like a bunch of drunk old farmers riding around their fields. It is not. It's a hugely important race, almost Olympic. The pride of Belgium is in Sven Nys, who had won 7 out of the last 9 races. Wearing the Belgian colours as the previous champion, Sven was clearly the crowd favourtie....but would he win??

At minus 5 degrees, the most important thing was the consumption of the traditional New Year's alcohol (Geneva). It is like drinking rubbing alcohol, but it does keep you warm.

This is a very bad picture taken of the ticket for the race. It is a race named after Sven Nys (who graces the ticket). Eventhough he is not dead, or even retired, he has his own race. I suppose this speaks to his talent, and the love felt for him by the Belgian people.

A photo of Sven leading the way. He lead for the majority of the 1 hour race, but also briefly fell back. Mat and I think it was all for the suspense, because the lead he won with was HUGE!!! And Belgium rejoyced!!

After the race, we visited Ineke's grandmother for their traditional New Year gathering.

This is Ineke and her youngest brother Bart.

As a New Year gift from Grandma, we were given a bottle of wine (see how amazingly welcoming and hospitable this family is). The shocking and amazing thing was that the wine was actually La Croix wine. This was a complete coincidence. How bizarre...and hopefully tasty.