My damaged car

Today I returned the rental car from the assistance and afterwards dropped at the garage to check the status on mine. The workshop is closed until Jan 3rd so nothing happened but at least I could show the car to Wolfram and take some pictures.
The damaged side (guess where the fence is):

From the back:

The other side, not a scratch!

Once again, standing in front of my damaged car, I realized how lucky I was. Lucky I was not driving too fast and lucky I didn't hit another car.

Walking the streets of the center of Brussels

While my uncle has been to Belgium in the past, it is the first time for my aunt. Therefore, we kicked off their stay in Belgium by Brussels and its center, namely:
- the palace which as you can see the king doesn't remove the snow and ice either in front of his porch... no comment

- Monts des Arts and the Museum of Musical Instruments. I discovered today a spot where you can sit and listen to music via your cell phone. Amazing, just need good weather.

- typical Belgian food: croquettes, carbonade and stoemp with Belgian beer naturally
- Grand place and its Christmas tree

- Manneken pis... no picture there. I was disappointed to see him naked and not in his Christmas outfit.

10 long hours

10 hours. It took us 10 hours to drive from Brittany to Belgium. That's 1 hour more than normal.
The first third was easy with nice and almost sunny weather in Brittany.
The second third was harder as we had to drive through fog. It was one of those fogs where you don't see anything. You know the exit is coming but you can't see it, until really the last 20m. We nearly missed one if it wasn't for the GPS insisting on us taking the exit.
The third third was the hardest as we were tired of driving 100-110km/h max, tired of the fog and once in Belgium the conditions of the roads were far from being ideal: the third lane was only partially cleaned from the snow and the emergency lane was somewhere under more snow. Not to mention I was super stressed the whole Belgian part of the trip, especially each time we were passing under a bridge, and even more on the A7 at km 71.
The two positive notes of this trip were that I had company in the car: my mum first, then my dad, then my aunt which made the trip much more pleasant; and Mokka only pooped once... just before the Belgian border. This story will become a legend when my aunt goes back to Lebanon and tell people she had to have an emergency stop to change a cat :)
Note for myself: I really need to look into those diapers for animals.

Vigilance Meteo

While the picture looks ok on the French side of our trip, half green half yellow, i.e. everything should go smooth;

on the other side of the border, it's all orange. I find it amazing how the whole country without any exception is considered at risk. At least the sea side should be in better shape, but what do I know.

We'll leave soon.
Wish us luck for the long drive (and keep your fingers crossed Mokka will not poop in her box this time).

Post accident paperwork

I called the garage to inform them my car was coming. 1 hour later they told me the car arrived.
I made the declaration at my insurance company via email (I'm so glad she didn't ask for a fax or a registered letter).
Garage will estimate the damage and the insurance company will send an expert to have a look.
Now, I all I can do is wait for the outcome of the expert's visit hoping it will be soon and not too bad.
Patience...

Iceberg cake

I tried this new recipe today. It's a chocolate and nut cake, that's for inside. For the outside, the idea was to cut stars of different sizes and pile them up. Quickly we understood that cutting stars with only a knife was challenging, especially for the biggest ones.
We gave it our best shot but sadly it does not look like the picture at all. It does remind me of a iceberg game though. Seems the ice is melting :)

Cake tastes good, just doesn't look good. Next year we'll cut easier shapes (like a triangle maybe) or we'll get star cutting tools.

Merry Christmas!