Last week I took Hayden for his first trip to Italy to spend a few days with my parents in Venice before they embarked on a month-long Mediterranean cruise. I was a little bit nervous about travelling alone with Hayden, but he continues to be a very relaxed little voyager. He was happy to hang out in the arms of the airport security agents while I put all his bottles and baby food and stroller through the x-ray machine, and also with fellow passengers as I stowed my luggage in the overhead lockers. I had a bit of anxiety when his stroller wasn’t at the carousel at our final destination, but an airport employee saw me waiting and carried it over from oversized luggage. I am constantly amazed how kind and understanding people are when they see us travelling with an infant.

We boarded Hayden’s first vaporetto, and the small boat was buzzing with excitement, full of foreigners so thrilled to be in their dream destination. I could easily spot the honeymooners (the men playing with their wedding rings, and the women still sporting wedding manicures and perfectly waxed eyebrows). There were also older couples, returning to Venice to relive the romantic locations of their courtship. Once we arrived on the main island, I converted the Kelty backpack to a stroller, and the two of us ambled along the edge of the canal as we enjoyed our first taste of sunshine in weeks.

(Sadly I only have mobile phone pictures for this trip, as the DSLR was too big to fit in the backpack)

A few hours later, we were reunited with mum and Josef. They hadn’t seen Hayden since he was four months old, so he was very excited to show off his new skills that included crawling, clapping, and eating solids. We all traipsed off to find dinner, and Hayden sampled a Caprese mozzarella and tomato salad while I caught up on news from Australia. Hayden seemed really happy to see his grandparents again, and even scored some complementary cookies from the waiter.

We spent the next day visiting the quieter islands of Murano and Burano. We admired the delicate stitching of lace in Burano and explored the canals lined with colourful houses. On the glass-blowing island of Murano, we watched three brothers working together to create a beautiful floral chandelier, then visited the showroom for a sampler of all the different pieces from the island. Mum bought me a striking blue and silver glass pendant for my birthday, a unique souvenir of our holiday.

After three nights in our delightful apartment amongst the rooftops of Venice, it was time to say goodbye with one final stroll along the Grand Canal. After their cruise, we will meet up with them again in Spain for a week in the foothills of the Sierra Blanca.

During the long weekend, the Hasselt Japanese Gardens celebrated o-hanami, the Cherry Blossom Festival. It is the one day of the year where one is permitted to sit on the grass underneath the sakura trees. Kim and Adrian colluded in order to create a suprise picnic for me that was accompanied by bubbly, green tea, and sake. The sun even came out for a few hours to we could sit in the warmth and watch Hayden enjoy some colourful hard-boiled eggs. (Interestingly, in Belgium, they seem to celebrate Easter by eating actual eggs rather than gorging on chocolate like we do in Australia.) After Adrian had peeled one for him and Hayden had taken a few mouthfuls, Hayden decided it was a lot more fun to just crumble his up and roll around on top of it until both he and the picnic blanket were covered in tiny specs of yolk.

The Hasselt gardens proclaim themselves to be the largest Japanese gardens in Europe, however at 2.5 acres by my research they come in fourth, after the 39 acre Valley of singing stones in Lithuania, the 29 acre Parc Oriental de Maulévrier in France and the 3.3 acre Kaiserslautern in Germany. Still, it was a fun way to mark the time of year in which Spring is supposed to arrive, and I hope that the sun will decide to spend some more time in Belgium sometime soon.

Last week the three of us took the train up to Oxford. We stayed in the Visiting Fellow’s snug one bedroom apartment at Corpus Christi College, curling up in front of the fireplace during the crisp cold evenings. Early on Thursday morning we had a tour guide from Oxbridge tours take us on a personalised walk through the colleges. It was really fascinating, so different compared to my university experience in Australia, from the climate to the buildings to to the admission procedure to the academic structures.

Our guide Jonathan emphasised that Oxford is more a collection of colleges rather than a single unified entitiy. A student must be accepted into a specific college to take classes. Although the lectures and the final exams are shared between all students, the individual tuition and tutors are each determined by the college of the student. There are large and small colleges, right-wing and left-wing, modern and ancient. As I read through the history book that was left in our apartment, I learnt that Corpus Christi College was founded in 1352. New rules in 1573 required that Latin was spoken at all times, on the pain of being beaten at the buttery hatch. In 1906, in order to bring in more funding, the admittance policy is broadened to include lay students, not just clergy. In 1960 women were allowed into the college to dine, and in 1983 the college admitted its first female matriculates, causing quite a furore.

Jonathan told us of some of the hundreds of academic traditions. Academic dress is worn during dinners, during exams, during chappel, during progress reports, and during formal lectures. Students are often given a white carnation by friends to wear in their buttonhole for their first exam and a red for the final exam of the semester. If one does very well during ones exams, one wears a fancier academic dress the next semester. Interestingly, we were told that when professors attend graduation ceremonies, they wear the academic dress of Oxford, not of their alma mater, a practise that is very different from most everywhere else.

I was scolded by a custodian for entering Christ Church through the exit, and ate at The Bear on Bear Lane. We visited The Eagle and Child pub where J. R. R. “Tollers” Tolkien, C. S. “Jack” Lewis, and other members of the Inklings read their work out loud to each other. We had lunch at the Turf Tavern, where Australian ex-Prime Minister and Rhodes Scholar set the 1953 world record for drinking a yard glass (1.4 litres) of ale in 11 seconds. We finished up of exploration of Oxford by walking through many of the areas used in the filming of Harry Potter, including the grand stair-well, the dining room, and the the cloisters at New College where an ersatz Mad Eye Moody transfigured Draco Malfoy into a ferret.

When Hayden’s parrain JT flew over from NYC, we took him to the quirky towns of Dutch Baarle-Nassau and Belgian Baarle-Haartog, all tangled up within each other like a jigsaw puzzle. Located across the Dutch border, twenty Belgian exclaves can be found here, with seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves. This meant that Hayden could stand with one foot in the Netherlands and one foot in Belgium:

There is a “front door rule” that means that the position of the front door determines whether a house is classified as being in Belgium or the Netherlands. The nationality of the home is also indicated by a flag next to the house number. We visited the house in which the border goes straight through the middle of the door, and thus has two addresses (and two doorbells):

Loveren 2
2387 Baarle-Hertog
Belgium

and

Loveren 19
5111 Baarle-Nassau
The Netherlands

There was even a divisive border across my lunch, separating the savoury cheese and potato pancake from the sweet cherry crepe. I ate each in isolation and they were delicious.

Plus, JT hand-delivered to us a delicious Black & White cookie, all the way from New York City. Hayden is still too little, so I ate it for him.