Friday morning we packed up all our stuff and then went out to buy some bread to bring back to Rene's parents and to Lianne and Pablo. Lianne is a friend of Rene's from elementary school, and their parents are good friends. Lianne worked in Ecuador and met Pablo and now they're married. They moved to Belgium because it's way easier to do the marriage/work/residence permit there, apparently! We had talked to them earlier in the week and planned to stop off at their house on our way back home to Rene's parents' house.
On our way to Lianne and Pablo's house, Rene thought it would be neat to see Atomium, a big metal monument looking like an atom, built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. He didn't know where in Brussels it was, though, and after driving around the center of town for a little bit, he gave up and continued on the way to Lianne and Pablo's. Turns out, Atomium is in a park pretty far north from the very center of town, so there was no way we were going to accidently stumble upon it.
We arrived in Hasselt, Belgium, and had a lovely dinner with them, and played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan. It was the first time I had played that game, and it was really fun! I think I might want to get it so I can learn the strategy behind it- I didn't really know what I was doing and I lost miserably (Pablo won). The evening was interesting in terms of language, as Pablo and I aren't too good at Dutch yet, my Spanish is dismal now, and he didn't really learn much English. It was a night of a lot of translation, to say the least!
We arrived safe and sound at Rene's parents' house around 11pm, and spent a lovely day watching F1 qualifying and then sitting in the warm sun on Saturday before taking the train back to Leiden.
We had a fantastic week, but boy, was it good being home again!!!
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