Passport Fiasco

So after the Crescent Club left early Sunday (March 20th), I called Mom and Aunt Barb to see what they were up to in the mystical Brussels. They were heading off to mass at St. Micheal's cathedral, so I quickly got dressed and met up with them. I had visited the Cathedral earlier and it was just as pretty as I had recalled! But when we were trying to enter for mass these women stopped us and told us no tourists inside, and we simply scoffed saying we were there for mass making the women turn red and apologize. After mass, we went to Grand Place and walked through a flee market. Once I finally pried the two away from the market we found ourselves at the ever so wonderful Musee de Cocoa et Chocolat.

Ma Mere aime le chocolat!

Janice and Mom with the chocolate Manneken Pis

 Learning about chocolate and tasting chocolate gave us quite an appetite, so found some lunch at the Cafe Vaudeville. From there we walked to the store where Aunt Barb had seen a shirt in the shop window that she admired, but alas as it was Sunday, it was closed. We turned around and walked to the museum in Grand Place which is home to Manneken Pis's costumes. Every time a diplomat comes to visit Belgium, they honor Manneken Pis by bringing him a new costume. Today, he has over 300 costumes!

Manneken Pis in his St. Patrick's day garb

Manneken Pis in his Disney gear

After the museum, we returned to Vaudeville for they were putting on a show that night, but by the time we got there they were sold out, so we walked around to the Theatre Monnaine to see if they had any shows, but they just had an orchestra concert and Aunt Barb didn't seem to keen on that idea. Instead of seeing a play, we had drinks and saw the King's Speech in the movie theatre, to give Mom and Aunt Barb an idea of how the theatres are different than the ones found in the US. They seem much cleaner and classier if you ask me. Plus, the English movies have Dutch and French subtitles found, whereas in the US, you have to look pretty hard to find a movie theatre with any subtitles at all. Following the movie, we went out to dinner, then returned home.

Monday (March 21st), I went to my Econ class then met up with Mom and Aunt Barb for lunch. From lunch, we went to Congress, then to the Comic Museum only to find that it was closed! Boo. Instead we went to the store that we had tried to visit the previous day that was closed, but was now open and Mom and I sat while Aunt Barb shopped. After some shopping, we went back to the hotel to drop off their goodies, then went out to dinner at Grand Place in this basement restaurant for one final Belgian dinner. Or at least, we thought this would be their final dinner in Belgium. After dinner, we walked around Grand Place admiring it at night, then walked to Manneken Pis, walked to the train station to check times for the following day for them to take the train to the airport, and returned the the hotel.

Meow Meow

Mom and the Comic Museum

When the two began packing Aunt Barb came to the sudden realization that she was without her red passport holder case. Inside said case was everything of value to Aunt Barb, aka her passport, social MN driver's license, security card, 2 credit cards, 1 debit card, 200 euro, and 150 USD. What was supposed to be an easy night of packing and getting ready for the flight in less than 12 hours then became a frantic night of searching. Tearing apart all her packed items with no success, we went to the front desk of the hotel who called the restaurant. Then we set off to retrace our steps, we did the entire night over in reverse. Sigh, again with no success. We asked the restaurant and they told us to go to the police. We walked back to the hotel, who told us the same thing, then we walked back to the Grand Place to the Police Department. At 2am, my ideal place to be is not to be in the Brussels Police Department. Poor Aunt Barb, she had lost everything, her money and all forms of ID.  After the police filed out a report, we returned to the hotel where I slept on the floor and Aunt Barb called to cancel her cards and flight.

At dinner before the drama of the night began.

One last time with Manneken Pis!

 The next morning (Tuesday, March 22nd), I was awoken to the shouts of "Get up, we're going to the US Embassy." Awesome. There's nothing I love more than sleeping on the floor than getting up to go to the US Embassy in my clothes from yesterday to explain that my aunt has lost everything. Sweet. Well, Mom and I ate breakfast and Aunt Barb continued to call people canceling people and changing this and that, letting everyone know, making sure to cover the bases.  After about 4 hours at the Embassy, we finally got a temporary passport and we were good to start rebooking everything. We left the Embassy with Aunt Barb's new passport securely zipped in her purse and we returned to the hotel, where they luckily had an opening so they got a room for that night. Since they had missed their flight, Mom and Aunt Barb had to call their travel insurance and the airports to figure out how this would all work, luckily they got a flight for the following day (Wednesday). After lots of calls and emails we had lunch, then I left to go interview a fellow student for a french project. During this time, Mom and Aunt Barb actually made it to the Comic Museum. After the interview, I returned to their hotel and we had dinner at a restaurant right next to it so that there would be no losing of items again! Then, I waited for them to pack, and said goodbye before they went to bed. Despite, the hot mess that those two are, they are my family, and I miss them. I was truly sad to say goodbye!

DEAR MOM AND AUNT BARB, THANKS AGAIN FOR COMING TO VISIT ME!