Gallo-Roman Museum

In learning about Belgium, I learned that one of the Roman cities here was where modern Tongeren is.  Although the original Roman city is long gone, I was anxious to go and see what little was left.  I learned that there is a museum there covering the history from prehistoric man to the invasion of the Germanic tribes in about 400 AD.  Even better, it had a reasonable price for families.  We packed a picnic lunch and set out!

Here we are at a rest area enjoying peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches.

At the museum, they also had a traveling exhibit about prehistoric man with cool workshops.  We got to try to use a granite rock to chip off flint.  The kids also had fun striking flint on iron pyrite into dried toadstool to make sparks for a fire.  Here is Abraham giving it a try.

I succeeded in getting an ember from the sparks.  After we all tried for a while, the demonstrator made a great fire in some kindling.

The upstairs was really neat.  We got to see a model of how the Roman city probably looked.  There were all kinds of artifacts from Roman times, including a beautiful mosaic floor under glass so you could walk over it.  I never knew they used glass bottles in Rome, but there were lots on display.  They say that part of the wall and aqueduct are still visible, but we couldn't find them as we left.

Abraham had kind of a hard time, but that's to be expected from a four-year-old at a museum.  I think we'll be doing this kind of thing a lot, though, so I hope he gets used to it.  There is so much history here and so many neat things to see and do.  I think next weekend we'll target the boys' interests a little more.  I really enjoyed our trip today in spite of whining and tantrums.

On another topic, I have decided that learning to cook in a foreign country is almost like learning to cook all over again!  So far nothing I've made here tastes the same as it did in the States.  It's not bad, though.  The glass cook top has also taken some getting used to.  I miss my gas range where the heat turned up and down much faster.