NEW YEAR'S EVE

We spent New Year's Eve day in France taking care of some business. We are only about 1/2 an hour away from France. We did some grocery shopping there as food is cheaper in France. We believe it is because of the high taxes in Belgium. There are also many things we can get in France but not in Belgium.This is one of those items - you can get about a dozen frozen escargot in these cute little aluminum tins for about 1 Euro. You just cook them in the oven for about ten minutes and voila - instant snails.They come packed with garlic butter and parsley (maybe some other herbs too). You just pick out the meat and sop up the garlic butter with a baguette.It is a little work but Arnold doesn't mind. These were for our New Year's Eve dinner. Arnold enjoyed them very much. JoAnn actually likes the taste but still has a hard time getting over the thought of what she is eating.

We stayed home where it was nice and warm and safe. Around midnight we heard loud bangs and booms outside our apartment. They were shooting off fireworks all over town but because of the tall buildings, all we could see was the reflection in the windows of the apartment across the street.

We are not sure what the typical Belgian does on New Year's Eve but we did get several text messages on our phone wishing us Bonne Annee, so we figure they were celebrating somewhere.