On to Belgium!

This morning we woke up, got packed and hopped in a cab on our way to the Istanbul airport.  I will miss Istanbul, but it is good to see my family.  Check in through the Istanbul airport was smooth and we had a nice flight to Brussels, Belgium.  When we landed, a driver (and his wife) were waiting for us, and he drove us to my grandmothers house:

The cat is almost feral

Here are pictures of my Aunt and Grandmother:

After settling in and checking my facebook:



And eating some lunch, I took a walk to De Mick, which is a beautiful house surrounded by trees and a lake:

The house was built in the 1700s by a prominent merchant named Henry Stier.  The man and his daughter (Rosalie) actually moved to America during the French Revolution to avoid paying tribute to the French Government and built Riverdale, in Maryland, near Washington DC.  He moved back to Belgium, but his daughter stayed in America as it turns out (My Dad actually played a role in making the connection between Riverdale and Stier's house in Belgium).  She and her father wrote many letters to each other, which are all in a book called Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert (If you are interested).

After the walk, we went home and settled in for the night, ready for another exciting day tomorrow.