Vredefeesten in Sint-Niklaas

Our second big balloon journey in 2008 led us again to Belgium, to the balloon meeting at the peace festival in Sint-Niklaas. The first night we traditionally spent in the "Hotel De Wulf" in Deinze. And the sign at our hotel room door is no coincidence... ;-)

After sauna, swimming pool and a delicious dinner, Matthias and Basti got their guitars and sung with Luc De Wulf until late in the evening.

After the rain had made any balloon activities impossible on Friday, on Saturday afternoon at least the sun came out and the model balloonists could present their balloons. Twelve teams from Germany and Belgium were present - with two Penguins, Sheep and Cat, pinguballon.de made up one third of the model balloons!

Matthias and Bastian tamed the two Penguins in front of the historic city hall of Sint-Niklaas.

The "Lord of the Penguins" at work amidst his beloved pets.

Strong gusts of wind made the pilots go to extremes!

Finish - once the paracute at the head of the Penguin is open, there's no more pulling and dragging.

After the model balloons, the big special shapes took over the market place - here the "Wish Cake" from the U.S.

Chick in danger! The most spectacular special shape this year was the giant T-Rex from Canada.

From Saturday there's even a short video on YouTube: Click here!

After the special shapes, it was the model balloons again. This time, winds were blowing a little less, and so the pilots could take a walk around the market place with their balloons.

While Basti was controlling the sheep, the second Penguin was mastered by Wouter Geurs, while the Cat was flown by Jakob Kaiser.

Panda, Fox, Fire Bunny and the Cube from Belgium.

Chill out with Belgian beer - Matthias, Basti and Jakob Kaiser (who had to be satisfied with a coke) *g*

Later on, the city hall of Sint-Niklaas again became the stage for an impressing fireworks display with music.

Party on: Matthias and Basti celebrated the evening with some Belgian balloonists and a Team from Spain.

On Sunday, some of the balloon teams were invited to have a drink at the house of the family Sax, who are into ballooning for several generations by now and who organise the balloon meeting in Sint-Niklaas every year. The model balloonists also had the honour of being invited.

In the afternoon, we had to wait quite long for the weather to become dry... but finally, we were able to put up our model balloons once more between two showers of rain.

As you can see, we never lost our good humour despite all the bad weather!

On the gala dinner on Sunday evening, the balloonists celebrated the end of the meeting.

Our heartfelt thanks to the families Sax and De Wulf for their hospitality and to the many many photographers for their efforts while we were fighting with our balloons.

See you next year! :-)

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