The sun was shining this morning, the first time in a long time, so my son and I decided to check out the Oostende Kite Festival. It was recommended on SHAPE Families Facebook page, and I am, again, so thankful for that page. What a great time!
Oostende is about a 2 hour drive for us, maybe a bit more, and since spring means road construction, we decided to take the train. We drive for 15 minutes, tops, to our favorite little train station in Soignes and catch it there. From Soignes, we went up to Brussels and then switch trains. It's very simple and easy to understand, as long as you know where your final destination is. In this case, Oostende was the final destination, so it is easy to find on the departure screen.
Our trains were very nice today, it made me look, more than once, if we were on a first class car instead of second class. The bathrooms were even clean! Clean bathrooms on public transportation isn't always a given, if you can imagine.
The total trip today was 2:38, and I didn't have to worry about taking a wrong turn, getting behind an accident, road construction, finding parking, paying for parking OR finding my parking spot when we were done.
The first order of business for us today was to get some food, specifically, ice cream. I convinced my son that he had to wait to get some until we could see the kites. It worked, and after our 1/2 mile trek to the right part of the beach, he had his ice cream. He was perfectly happy sitting on a bench, eating his ice cream and watching the kites. The North Sea didn't seem to impress him as much as I thought, he didn't even want to get close to the water.
The kites were really quite spectacular. There were some huge kites, bigger than I could have imagined. We were able to catch the stunt demo with some of the smaller kites, smaller meaning about 8 foot across. The stunts were choreographed to popular music and could possible be compared to watching the Blue Angels of kites.
We walked up and down the beach looking at all the kites and displays. The only complaint I have is that there was only one vendor tent open today. I was ready to drop some money on a cool kite or a yard ornament, but only one vendor and they didn't have anything I couldn't walk away from.
Oostende was also having a Family Day Festival, so we got to listen to some live music and play in a variety of bouncy castles, airplanes and oceans. There was the prerequisite creepy puppet/comic show for children, where the adults just babble in a made up "language." The kids here love it and my son just stands back and watches with a freaked out/puzzled look on his face while the other kids laugh hysterically and chase the actors while they try to escape. Of course, there was a beer tent, it was a family day after all.
Other than my son sneaking away from me out one end of the airplane and missing for about 10 minutes, it was a beautiful day. I'm so glad we made the train trip to the coast to see the gorgeous kites.
Oostende Kites
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