Missing out on our Bowdoin 10 year Reunion

Fear Of Missing Out. FOMO. I've got it bad. This weekend is our 10 year college reunion and we, obviously, are not there. We knew with our move that we would miss out on a lot of events back home. This one is especially hard, though. Bowdoin was such a wonderful place to spend four years. We love visiting campus and reminiscing about all of the fun we had. I was so looking forward to showing Jude around campus and seeing him play with other classmates' kiddos. Our five year reunion was a blast and I know this weekend is going to be a lot of fun for everyone there. So please, fellow Polar Bears, enjoy your lobster and fill my Instagram and Facebook feeds with photos! I will be a little sad, a lot jealous, but it will help bridge the distance between us in Amsterdam and you all in Maine.

xo, the Durneys

There in spirit!

Memorial Day Weekend

We are just off a three day weekend here in Amsterdam. It was not for Memorial day, but rather Pentecost Monday. The Dutch celebrate "Remembrance Day" for victims of war on May 4th. The occasion was marked with the King and Queen laying a wreath on the National Monument in Dam Square. This event was televised and was followed by a two minute moment of silence at 8pm. The following day, May 5th, was a national holiday for "Liberation Day," when the Nazis left Holland. It is celebrated every 5 years. 

Being on European soil for Memorial Day/Remembrance Day made the days much more meaningful to me. Knowing that the horrors of WWI and WWII happened here or very close to here is hard to shake. Earlier this month, I visited the Anne Frank House Museum for the first time. It was incredibly moving and surreal to be standing in the rooms where she lived in hiding. On Saturday, we were in the Rivierenbuurt neighborhood second hand shoe shopping for Jude. This beautiful neighborhood is where Anne Frank and the majority of Jewish residents used to live. Along the main boulevard of this neighborhood, Churchill-laan, there was an outdoor photo exhibition.  Boards showed then and now photos of Holocaust survivors from that neighborhood with their families. The current photos of the grey haired survivors with their children and grandchildren warmed my heart, but the photos of the survivors themselves as children was too much to bear and I had to look away from their beautiful, innocent faces. 

A friend posted a Washington Post article to my timeline this week about an American cemetery in a small town in the South of the Netherlands. The residents of the town have been caring for the tombstones and visiting the cemetery since the end of the war to pay respect to their "liberators." Some times I am really proud to be an American! 

This was our first visitor-less weekend this month and we packed it with seeing Amsterdam friends. A first birthday party (Congratulations Coen, Karl and Courtney!), an Amsterdamse Bos rendezvous, an Indy 500 BBQ, an impromptu visit with our Dutch neighbors and a cheese and wine get together rounded out the gloriously long weekend. As Pete's school year and workload are winding down, I'm getting glimpses into the summer when we will all be home together and it is looking pretty sweet! 

Happy Birthday, Coen!

Kees won the battle of the singing toy. Jude was not too happy about it :) 

Test driving our friends Bakfiets in the Bos (Jude is in that Maxi Cosi and was quite happy). 

You can fit 4 kids over two rows in that thing! 

Jude and Felix, our neighbor's baby boy. 

Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery

My final post on our recent Belgium trip, fitting for today, Memorial Day. 

A trip to Flanders would not be complete without stopping to remember those lost there in WWI. Growing up near Antietam and Gettysburg, I am used to visiting battlefields, but it doesn't make it any easier to imagine what humans are capable of doing to one another. Over 8.5 million soldiers lost in the Great War, but not forgotten. 

There were many sites in the area to visit with the 100 year anniversaries underway. We stopped at just one, the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. A museum tells the story of the cemetery and stories of some buried there. One side of the walkway to the entrance was overflowing with gorgeous wisteria and the other had poles depicting each month of the war and the number of lost men in that region. 

While the majority of grave sites were British (close to 10,000), there were also many French, German, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian. Three Americans were buried there as well. It is the second largest British cemetery in Belgium.

The French plots- a number of bodies were extracted to France, leaving gaps between the crosses. 

Prayers that our boy never sees a world war. 

Flanders Fields

When we travel, I enjoy seeing and photographing the landscape and countryside as much as I do visiting the towns and cities.  It helps me remember the overall feeling I had of a place when I look back at photos. The patchwork colors of the fields surrounding Poperinge were just gorgeous! We took a drive to France and headed to Mont des Cats, an important hilltop Abbey that also makes their own cheese and beer. Emily had read that the cheese was famous so we bought a small wheel. It is really good, especially given how stinky it is! I was scolded by Pete this morning for not double bagging it in the fridge last night!

Mont des Cats

Hiking trail up to the Abbey

On our way home Saturday, we stopped in the neighboring city of Ypres (in French) or Ieper (in Dutch). Your guess on how to say that is as good as ours! Apparently the English speaking troops of WWI referred to the town as Wipers as it was too difficult to pronounce! We stopped just long enough to admire the grand square and cathedral.

B is for Belgium. B is for Beer.

No way we're going to make a trip to Belgium that isn't focused on beer! Poperinge boasts the Hop Museum showing the history of the hop industry there. Poperinge is also a mere 10 minutes away from Westvleteren, the Trappist brewery that we visited our first week in Europe last summer. After the drive to Belgium, we set out to savor one of the world's top-rated beers for a second time. It was raining so the outdoor garden we enjoyed in August was out. We managed to find a table and crowded in with the locals. 

Yarr, that's good Abbey cheese!

We all loved the local beer to Poperinge, Hommel Beer. We brought lots of that back to Amsterdam to enjoy in the coming months. 

Pete is intensely reading a beer book called Farmhouse Ales and read about a brewery just over the French border, La Brasserie de Saint-Sylvestre. Jude helped pick out a few bottles of the French brew. 

Hop medallions line the town streets

On our last day in Belgium, we hit up the hop museum. I'm probably not as into beer as I should be given Pete's enthusiasm for it, but even I thought this museum was awesome! It is in the original hop house where pickers from the field would bring their bags to be weighed, the hoops would be dried and packaged for distribution. I could totally get into the hop growing business! 

Jude "digs" hops

Poperinge, Belgium

While Emily and Tim were in town, Pete had a four day weekend for the Ascension holidays. I got a break from travel planning and Emily and Tim settled on a small, Belgian town, Poperinge in Flanders near the French border. The town is the epicenter of the Belgian hop industry, a culinary destination and has many WWI sites in and around. We took advantage of all the town had to offer and would recommend it! The hotel restaurant, Pegasus was really delicious and a great way to start off our trip.

View from the hotel

Friday was their town market . Waffles galore! 

Former execution site for WWI deserters

Would you like some salad with your goat cheese??

Just dipping her forehead in the fountain.. 

Jude loved on Alice in Belgium, too... She's apparently prepared to pay infinity dollars for us to ship him back to New York for her. So sweet :)