A 4-day-3-night Summer Trip to Oostende

Day 1: 19 July 2010

Our day started early, busy and quick, for today we left for Oostende. After eating breakfast and packing everything up, we headed for the beach.

At around 2pm, we arrived at the area but could not find a close-by parking spot near our hotel.  Oostende was packed with tourists!

When we were finally able to find one...it was an expensive one but at least we can unload right infront of the hotel and just look for another parking spot after we've checked in.

The friendly hotel personnel led us to our room and we dressed up for FUN!  Niels with his toys and swimming pants, and papa with his digging tools and swimming pants (hehe) and I brought my brand new pop-up beach tent, some snacks and camera :-)

As Niels and Papa headed to the water, I started setting up my tent...supposed to be a pop-up...but went belly-up!  It was broken...so...what else can I do but to hide under the shadow of the buggy and call the store to let them know we will bring the tent back the next day against a refund.

The father and son started digging up for their sand castle close by the water line.  I stayed at the shore of course taking pictures :-)

After a while, with such wind coming in, came in a GIANT wave into Papa and Niels' castle ruining the castle and its walls and frightening Niels to go back to the water again :-( Too bad but we dont want to force Niels back again to the water when he didnt want to...to avoid traumatizing him of the beach and waves.

So what Papa did, he just made another sand castle and our very own swimming pool right beside where I was sitting, meaning a little bit far from the water, at a distance from the sea where Niels is comfortable.

Of course Niels helped built another one up.

...and once it was done, he enjoyed making Papa wet with cold water!!! But Papa strikes back and made Niels wet too!

After some time, the tide came back and the water started entering the walls of our castle gradually.  We stayed a little bit longer to show Niels there is nothing to be afraid of about the sea and left when the castle has almost disappeared.

"Papa! De zee komt!" Niels kept on saying.

It was a memorable start of our trip to Oostende.

Till tomorrow!

Neri