Belgian Friends and Frites (Fries) in Namur (11/07/03)
Last updated 11/15/03
After our time with the little "peeing boy" in Brussels, we headed to
the town of Namur, located southeast of Brussels and the capital
of Wallonia (the French-speaking portion of Belgium), to visit
Christophe and Stephanie De Vleeshouwer. I met and had the honor of
working with Christophe while he was a visiting researcher at the Video
and Image Processing lab in the EECS department at UC Berkeley (where I
am still a grad student). The De Vleeschouwers kindly invited us to
visit them in Belgium even though Stephanie was in the final stages of
her pregnancy and shared their home, time, and very yummy food during
our stay.
The main dish in our first meal together was the famous coq au biere
(yeah I just made that one up, but it sounds right) -- little game
hens, occasionally coated with Belgian beer, and baked along with
shallots. We also got to try endives (a leafy vegetable that reminded
me of chards which were boiled and then combined with the
demi-glaze formed by the coq au biere (this was very good and I'm
certainly gonna try this one when we get back -- Berkeley bowl has all
kinds of veggies and I'm sure finding endives will not be a problem).
Combine the 2 dishes above with some pumpkin soup made from scratch and
a nice bottle of red wine and you've got a veritable feast for the
palate. Other cuilinary delights are described in the pictures below.
Needless to say, there wasn't any time when our stomachs weren't
content with the quality or quantity of food that we got.
Christophe and Stephanie showed us all around Namur, including the
famous citadel of Namur, which is described below in considerable
detail. One thing that the pictures don't mention is that in Namur we
got to see Matrix Revolutions.
Warning:
Matrix Revolution spoilers below. If you haven't seen it, save your
money. If you liked it, please do not read any more of this blog. Or
any other blog that I write, because I think I've lost all respect for
you.
Lemme just say that it sucked big time. I thought that the 2nd movie in
the series was pretty bad, but I think the dialogue in this movie
rivals that of Terminator 3, and that is in no way a compliment. The
first Matrix movie was good -- decent plot, good special effects, and
so you didn't even mind when Keeanu said "whoa" in the middle of the
movie since it felt like the right thing (I've been waiting for him to
say "dude that's so non, non, non heinous" throughout the series... no
luck yet). The second movie decided to dump the plot and jack up the
special effects (but there are only so many Agent Smiths you can see
before you go "um, so what"). As far as I'm concerned, there were
better action sequences in that Matrix-like Gap commercial (Gap Khakis
I think it was) than in the entire 3rd movie. I think the culmination
of crap that was this movie was the Trinity death sequence. It felt
more artificial than silicone breast implants and I was waiting during
the entire sequence for some sort of major catastrophe to take place --
an earthquake, a UFO landing, even having the video projection unit go
haywire
would've been fine --- anything to end the agony that we were all going
through. Portions of the movie were so bad that people couldn't help
laughing -- I know that probably was not the intended response, but
it's either laugh or walk out... maybe walking out would've been the
best option.
Pictures
We went to Namur to visit Christophe and Stephanie De
Vleeschouwer. Puneet met, and had the honor of working with, Christophe
while he was a visiting researcher at the VIP lab in Berkeley.
Christophe and Stephanie were very gracious hosts and spent the entire
weekend showing us around Namur, all while Stephanie was in the final
stages of her pregnancy (baby girl expected soon -- we wish them the
best).
An ode to the local cuisine.... we are very grateful to
Christophe and Stephanie for the wonderful meals they provided and for
showing us several wonderful local food places -- Chez Gaby serves up
tasty Belgian frites (somewhat-thick french fries) with all kinds of
sauce (including mayo... uh, I'll pass on that one), We also went to
Villeroy's which cooked fresh, sweet, Belgian waffles outside the store
to entice passersby with the delectable aromas of this local delight.
During a walk around Christophe's house, he showed us an
old stone quarry that offered some amazing views of the town. We took a nice long walk through the
quarry and then along a path that used to support train tracks across
the forest. Christophe shared with us the piece of Belgian history
concerning the trains; apparently, until mid-20th century train travel
was the main mode of transportation between Belgian towns, but later on
long-distance buses and especially cars won over the travel market, and
nobody used the trains any more. Train lines were cancelled and
forgotten, in many places the tracks were dismantled. In the recent
times, however, enterprising people reopened some train lines as
tourist attractions for short-distance trips on man-powered carts,
because the setting of old tracks is often highly picturesque. Namur
took a different approach and paved over the old tracks, making them
into pedestrian/bicycle paths in a lovely park-like environment. I
thought both the paths and the old quarry were great places for kids to
play and ride their bikes in.
One of the highlights of Namur is an old
citadel which has helped defend the region for the Spaniards, the
French and finally the Belgians. While the citadel is quite well
positioned and appears impregnable
to the human eye it suffers from its position right on the watershed,
which
means that plains extend on two sides of the fortress, hence it was
easy for the enemy to bring many troops and massive guns to attack the
citadel, not to mention blockading the fortress from needed
resupplying. However, it is also quite possible that the citadel was
never conquered but changed posession because of peace treaties signed
elsewhere during the course of many wars that happened on the current
territory of Belgium. Nowadays the citadel grounds provide a wonderful
natural
playground for kids who have the entire ruins (and accompanying
gardens) to run around in. It also offers nice views of the city as
shown in the pictures.
We went to Namur to visit Christophe and Stephanie De
Vleeschouwer. Puneet met, and had the honor of working with, Christophe
while he was a visiting researcher at the VIP lab in Berkeley.
Christophe and Stephanie were very gracious hosts and spent the entire
weekend showing us around Namur, all while Stephanie was in the final
stages of her pregnancy (baby girl expected soon -- we wish them the
best).
An ode to the local cuisine.... we are very grateful to
Christophe and Stephanie for the wonderful meals they provided and for
showing us several wonderful local food places -- Chez Gaby serves up
tasty Belgian frites (somewhat-thick french fries) with all kinds of
sauce (including mayo... uh, I'll pass on that one), We also went to
Villeroy's which cooked fresh, sweet, Belgian waffles outside the store
to entice passersby with the delectable aromas of this local delight.
During a walk around Christophe's house, he showed us an
old stone quarry that offered some amazing views of the town. We took a nice long walk through the
quarry and then along a path that used to support train tracks across
the forest. Christophe shared with us the piece of Belgian history
concerning the trains; apparently, until mid-20th century train travel
was the main mode of transportation between Belgian towns, but later on
long-distance buses and especially cars won over the travel market, and
nobody used the trains any more. Train lines were cancelled and
forgotten, in many places the tracks were dismantled. In the recent
times, however, enterprising people reopened some train lines as
tourist attractions for short-distance trips on man-powered carts,
because the setting of old tracks is often highly picturesque. Namur
took a different approach and paved over the old tracks, making them
into pedestrian/bicycle paths in a lovely park-like environment. I
thought both the paths and the old quarry were great places for kids to
play and ride their bikes in.
One of the highlights of Namur is an old
citadel which has helped defend the region for the Spaniards, the
French and finally the Belgians. While the citadel is quite well
positioned and appears impregnable
to the human eye it suffers from its position right on the watershed,
which
means that plains extend on two sides of the fortress, hence it was
easy for the enemy to bring many troops and massive guns to attack the
citadel, not to mention blockading the fortress from needed
resupplying. However, it is also quite possible that the citadel was
never conquered but changed posession because of peace treaties signed
elsewhere during the course of many wars that happened on the current
territory of Belgium. Nowadays the citadel grounds provide a wonderful
natural
playground for kids who have the entire ruins (and accompanying
gardens) to run around in. It also offers nice views of the city as
shown in the pictures.