From Mike:
Now that we’ve had time to readjust to daily life and have sufficiently come down from our vacation high (I know we went to Amsterdam, but I’m not speaking literally) it’s time for a not-so-exciting blog update!
Shockingly, (or maybe not) the week we returned from our trip already had a full schedule. The day after we returned home I had the day off. Kelly, however, wasn’t so lucky. While I stayed home and recovered from jet lag, Kelly begrudgingly played the role of the bread winner and spent the day at the office. The next day we returned to Blake Street Tavern for another round of trivia with James and Jamila. Unfortunately, we didn’t do as well as we had hoped, and since it got started late because of technical difficulties, we cut our losses and left after the second round; still feeling the effects of jet lag.
Friday night we went on a double date to Adventure Golf with Katey and Alex where we enjoyed a fun round of mini golf. Alex and I were also brave enough to try their new drag race attraction. We were essentially strapped into two adjacent cars, pulled backwards, and released like Wile E. Coyote in an ACME slingshot. Feeling the effects of 3.6 G-forces, we went from 0-60 miles per hour in 1 second! It was exhilarating, but short-lived. After our round of mini golf, we all went to the Olive Garden and enjoyed some great Italian food and a little lively conversation. Saturday morning, I met up with Daniel and one of my favorite students from my middle school volunteer days, David Gaskins (who is now a Junior in high school!), for a matinee showing of Terminator: Salvation.
Sunday morning we met up with Carter for church at Pathways. After the service, our friend Kenny asked if we were interested in going to the Rockies game that afternoon. After our initial decline, and subsequent acceptance (after some coaxing by Carter), we took the tickets, ate some sushi, and went to the game. The weather was gorgeous and the seats were even better! We were sitting 6 rows from the field along the first base line. Unfortunately, our good fortune didn’t last. The clouds rolled in around the 6th inning, and when the tornado sirens started going off, we knew it was time to leave. We ran through the rain back to the car and made a quick getaway before the exodus of drenched Rockies fans could clog the streets. We found out later that there was a funnel cloud over the Pepsi Center that day and that the evacuation of Coors Field had been on the national news.
Last Tuesday we celebrated my parents’ birthdays by inviting them over for a home-cooked meal and some European fare we had brought back with us. I managed to cook Kelly’s famous Taco Soup for dinner, along with green chili cornbread muffins, and some home-made chocolate ice cream. We also served the Gouda cheese we bought in Holland, Belgian beer, and topped off the dessert portion with an assortment of Belgian chocolates. We concluded the evening with a slideshow of the pictures we took during the trip.
Thursday night we went to see The Hangover with Carter and Justin Zuiker at the Denver Pavillions. I can honestly say that I haven’t laughed that hard in a movie theater in several years. The movie, while having its moments of complete inappropriate-ness, was great and we all left the theater with a smile on our face, quoting our favorite lines.
Friday night we returned to Coors field for yet another Rockies game. Before the game we went to happy hour and met up with our good friends Mike and Vince, who were visiting from DC, as well as Justin, Carter, and Bobby. Vince also brought his girlfriend, Saranga, whom we hadn’t seen since the Inaguration in January, but were delighted to catch up with, and his brother Max. After the game we all went to the Ginn Mill and chatted until Kelly and I were sufficiently exhausted. On the way home we were among the lucky cars to pass through a DUI checkpoint, where Kelly got through without a hitch, but apparently I was being shady, so they made me get out of the car and do a few field sobriety tests and take a breathalyzer. After proving my worth as an upstanding (and sober) citizen, they let me continue on my way.
Last Saturday, while Kelly went to a housewarming party for our friends Stephanie and Lloyd, I went camping with some buddies for Stephen Milburn’s bachelor party. We drove up to Allenspark, through some 4x4 terrain, to an area full of large climbing rocks. Stephen loves to rock climb, so he brought all his gear and set up a short course for us newbies to try. Four of us got up and down, but soon the clouds rolled in and we were all huddled under a make-shift shelter (which was really just the rain fly from a 2-man tent), trying to stay dry and not get struck by lightning. It was under that cozy “shelter” that Thomas, Stephen’s brother, realized that we forgot the rest of the tents. Luckily our old youth pastor, Jack, owns a cabin nearby so we packed up the gear, hopped in the cars, and made our way there. Jack was nice enough to let a bunch of rowdy guys stay there for the night. He even let us use the grill, dirty the dishes, sleep in the beds, and smoke cigars on the porch! We spent the rest of the evening drinking beer, smoking cigars, and giving Stephen questionable advice on how to be the perfect husband. It turned out to be a great night.
After I returned on Sunday, Kelly and I rode our bikes to my parent’s pool and spent the day lounging poolside, reading, and enjoying the sunny, warm weather. After awhile it started to get cloudy, so we rode home, changed, and returned to my parent’s house to celebrate father’s day with some family time and a few delicious grilled steaks.
Tuesday night was Kelly’s first bible study of the summer. They’re studying the book of Daniel, but that’s pretty much all I know about it…except that Kelly also gave up red meat because of it. Yesterday we stopped by Kelly’s Dad’s house to drop off his father’s day gift and see the house before they sell it and move to Wyoming. The house was completely bare inside, and I laughed when Kelly told me that her dad and Crystal have been sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the garage. Apparently that’s where they’ll be sleeping for the next six weeks!
That’s pretty much it for now…it’s been a busy few weeks, and it’s looking like that’s how it’ll be for the rest of the summer! We’re excited for all the warm days ahead that we get to enjoy, and hope you’re enjoying them as well. Until next time! God Bless!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Part 3: Amsterdam's Beauty
I know you are all waiting on pins and needles for the last installment of our blog about our trip to Europe, so I will keep you in suspense no longer. . .
On Friday, we rode the train into Amsterdam not sure what to expect. We’d had many a poke and jest about us even going to the pot-ridden, sex-selling capital of Europe and I was a little worried that us suburbanite Christian kids from Boulder would be totally overwhelmed. Luckily, that was not the case!
When we arrived we carefully followed our directions to take the tram to our hostel. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find a very cute, clean, safe-feeling hostel. We had chosen to stay in a Christian hostel because they didn’t allow drugs or alcohol and I figured it would be easier to sleep there than the “party hostels” or “house boat hostels” that were advertized. We get a friendly introduction from a guy that looked a lot like Tony (Mike later had a long conversation with him and they ended up getting a picture together, so you can judge for yourself).
After checking in we headed to lunch and then went across the street to the Westerkerk (West Church), which is the site of Rembrandt’s unmarked grave. We then took a trip down the block to the Anne Frank house. I was very excited to see the house since I had been re-reading her diary in preparation for our trip. It was really cool to see where they lived and be able to picture it better when she was talking about things in the book. It was disappointing, though, that they didn’t have any furniture in the house at Otto Frank’s request.
It was pretty cold out, so we decided to head inside to a cafe to have a pancake treat (actually it was more like a crepe- with strawberries and ice cream- yum!). Afterward, we browsed through some shops and then went to the main square where we toured through the Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church"), which is a 15th-century church that is used for royal coronations. We then did a boat tour, which was good because the weather had cleared a bit and it was nice to see the city from the point of view of one of the many canals that run through Amsterdam. One interesting site was a Chinese restaurant that was modeled after the original in Hong Kong. It was floating on the river and seats 5,000 people! We heard the food was not very good, though, so we never ate there. After that, we walked around along the beautiful canals and went to dinner at a pub along one of the busy streets and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.
On Saturday, we got a bit of a late start (it was Saturday afterall!) and then went to see the Oude Kerk (“old church”—sensing a pattern here?), which is the oldest church in Amsterdam. They were having a World Press Photo exhibit there, though, so we didn’t want to pay the $12 or so to get in and see it. On the way to the church, however, we did see a bit of the red light district- Mike was navigating us there and didn’t even notice all the seedy shops/people/women in the underwear in the windows. Needless to say, Beth and I were anxious to hurry him along and get out of there quickly. Luckily it was Saturday morning, though, so there really weren’t that many people out on the streets.
That afternoon, we took a bus tour to see more of Holland. I love taking tours, so I really enjoyed this part. The bus drove us first to a tiny little fishing village called Marken that used to be an island. There are only about 2,000 people in the village and they all had their laundry hanging out and their houses were all perfect little Dutch houses all painted the same—it was a bit Stepford-esque actually now that I think about it. . .Then we took a boat across the lake to another village, Volendam, which was a bit bigger—20,000 people living in this one. While in the villages we did some shopping and had a snack at a pub. I ordered an ice cream treat and they accidently brought me the wrong one—a Smurf treat with blue sprinkles and blueberry sauce and Smurf gummies. The Smurfs are very popular there because Amsterdam is the “comic book capital of the world” and several comics were developed there, including the Smurfs.
After the break, the tour bus took us to a cheese maker where we saw the process they go through to make their cheeses. The cheese was absolutely delicious and we bought two wheels to bring home (which turned out to be a bit of a hassle coming back through customs, but not too bad.) Then, we went next door and saw a wooden shoemaker at work and browsed through the enormous collection of wooden shoes they had in the shop. Next stop was a great view of some windmills. It was really interesting to hear about all the different functions windmills have had there—including pumping the water out of their many lakes to make more dry ground for farming. When the tour was over we headed back toward the hostel and ate at a very yummy Indian food restaurant.
On Sunday, we had planned to do a day of museums. So, we headed out after breakfast for the Van Gogh museum. It was especially cool because they had a special exhibit going on called “The Colors of the Night” and it included a free audio tour. We walked around and saw a lot of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, a lot of which are not always on display in that museum—including Starry Night, which was amazing to see in person. When we went upstairs to see the standard exhibition we also got to see his sunflowers painting, his bedroom painting, the potato eaters, and his many self-portraits. The museum was incredible and we enjoyed his art very much—it has so much movement and beauty, like Mike said “it’s like the paintings are dancing—they are so active and exciting” but his stuff is also very peaceful since he spent a great deal of time painting ordinary people in ordinary settings. After the museum we decided to defy the weather and eat lunch outside. It was a bit chilly, but nice to get some fresh air. After lunch we decided not to go to the other museum we had planned to see (admission was around $20) and instead went to see a free diamond exhibition, which I enjoyed quite a bit J After that we wandered around the streets and shopped until Beth had to part ways with us and head back to the hostel to collect her stuff and go meet her train.
After we bid Beth adieu, we browsed around the flower market, which was incredible. There were stalls and stalls of flowers in every color and variety—very pretty! And the stalls were all floating on the canals, which made it even cooler. We then went to the one place Mike had been wanting to visit the whole time—the Torture Museum. There they had every type of medieval torture device you could imagine. It was pretty crazy to see all those things and read about how they used them. I was pretty ashamed to realize that the majority of the most brutal ones were developed and used by Christians who were usually witch hunting.
As soon as we left the Torture Museum it started raining. Of course it did because this was the first day that I had decided to stop carrying around my rain coat with me everywhere. Luckily I had on a hooded sweatshirt, but I still got pretty wet on the 30-minute walk back to the hostel. When we arrived there, we took some time to warm up with hot chocolate in their café and then headed out to find our bus that was taking us to London.
That’s right—I said bus. From Amsterdam to London. A 10.5 hour bus ride. My initial plan was that we would sleep on the bus and save ourselves the (more expensive) plane ticket as well as another night’s hotel room. Well, we certainly did save money, but we did not necessarily sleep. What I didn’t factor in was that on this ride from 8pm to 6:30am that A. the driver would stop and make everyone get off of the bus for “breaks” and that B. the other people on the bus would have no desire whatsoever to sleep and would talk all night! Needless to say, we were pretty tired when we got to London. We went straight to the airport since we had our bags with us and waited for our plane for the next 5 hours while trying to stay awake (I did not succeed and took a nap for about two hours while my vigilant husband kept watch).
Overall, I really liked Amsterdam—the cobblestone streets and beautiful canals far outweigh the yuckiness of the rest of the stuff that goes on there. And all in all, it was a wonderful trip that we will not soon forget.
I am already excited to get back to London and explore more of the rest of Europe as well. Every time I’m there I discover something new and have a totally unique experience—I love that! Oh well, for now it’s back to work so I can save up enough to pay for the next adventure!
On Friday, we rode the train into Amsterdam not sure what to expect. We’d had many a poke and jest about us even going to the pot-ridden, sex-selling capital of Europe and I was a little worried that us suburbanite Christian kids from Boulder would be totally overwhelmed. Luckily, that was not the case!
When we arrived we carefully followed our directions to take the tram to our hostel. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find a very cute, clean, safe-feeling hostel. We had chosen to stay in a Christian hostel because they didn’t allow drugs or alcohol and I figured it would be easier to sleep there than the “party hostels” or “house boat hostels” that were advertized. We get a friendly introduction from a guy that looked a lot like Tony (Mike later had a long conversation with him and they ended up getting a picture together, so you can judge for yourself).
After checking in we headed to lunch and then went across the street to the Westerkerk (West Church), which is the site of Rembrandt’s unmarked grave. We then took a trip down the block to the Anne Frank house. I was very excited to see the house since I had been re-reading her diary in preparation for our trip. It was really cool to see where they lived and be able to picture it better when she was talking about things in the book. It was disappointing, though, that they didn’t have any furniture in the house at Otto Frank’s request.
It was pretty cold out, so we decided to head inside to a cafe to have a pancake treat (actually it was more like a crepe- with strawberries and ice cream- yum!). Afterward, we browsed through some shops and then went to the main square where we toured through the Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church"), which is a 15th-century church that is used for royal coronations. We then did a boat tour, which was good because the weather had cleared a bit and it was nice to see the city from the point of view of one of the many canals that run through Amsterdam. One interesting site was a Chinese restaurant that was modeled after the original in Hong Kong. It was floating on the river and seats 5,000 people! We heard the food was not very good, though, so we never ate there. After that, we walked around along the beautiful canals and went to dinner at a pub along one of the busy streets and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.
On Saturday, we got a bit of a late start (it was Saturday afterall!) and then went to see the Oude Kerk (“old church”—sensing a pattern here?), which is the oldest church in Amsterdam. They were having a World Press Photo exhibit there, though, so we didn’t want to pay the $12 or so to get in and see it. On the way to the church, however, we did see a bit of the red light district- Mike was navigating us there and didn’t even notice all the seedy shops/people/women in the underwear in the windows. Needless to say, Beth and I were anxious to hurry him along and get out of there quickly. Luckily it was Saturday morning, though, so there really weren’t that many people out on the streets.
That afternoon, we took a bus tour to see more of Holland. I love taking tours, so I really enjoyed this part. The bus drove us first to a tiny little fishing village called Marken that used to be an island. There are only about 2,000 people in the village and they all had their laundry hanging out and their houses were all perfect little Dutch houses all painted the same—it was a bit Stepford-esque actually now that I think about it. . .Then we took a boat across the lake to another village, Volendam, which was a bit bigger—20,000 people living in this one. While in the villages we did some shopping and had a snack at a pub. I ordered an ice cream treat and they accidently brought me the wrong one—a Smurf treat with blue sprinkles and blueberry sauce and Smurf gummies. The Smurfs are very popular there because Amsterdam is the “comic book capital of the world” and several comics were developed there, including the Smurfs.
After the break, the tour bus took us to a cheese maker where we saw the process they go through to make their cheeses. The cheese was absolutely delicious and we bought two wheels to bring home (which turned out to be a bit of a hassle coming back through customs, but not too bad.) Then, we went next door and saw a wooden shoemaker at work and browsed through the enormous collection of wooden shoes they had in the shop. Next stop was a great view of some windmills. It was really interesting to hear about all the different functions windmills have had there—including pumping the water out of their many lakes to make more dry ground for farming. When the tour was over we headed back toward the hostel and ate at a very yummy Indian food restaurant.
On Sunday, we had planned to do a day of museums. So, we headed out after breakfast for the Van Gogh museum. It was especially cool because they had a special exhibit going on called “The Colors of the Night” and it included a free audio tour. We walked around and saw a lot of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, a lot of which are not always on display in that museum—including Starry Night, which was amazing to see in person. When we went upstairs to see the standard exhibition we also got to see his sunflowers painting, his bedroom painting, the potato eaters, and his many self-portraits. The museum was incredible and we enjoyed his art very much—it has so much movement and beauty, like Mike said “it’s like the paintings are dancing—they are so active and exciting” but his stuff is also very peaceful since he spent a great deal of time painting ordinary people in ordinary settings. After the museum we decided to defy the weather and eat lunch outside. It was a bit chilly, but nice to get some fresh air. After lunch we decided not to go to the other museum we had planned to see (admission was around $20) and instead went to see a free diamond exhibition, which I enjoyed quite a bit J After that we wandered around the streets and shopped until Beth had to part ways with us and head back to the hostel to collect her stuff and go meet her train.
After we bid Beth adieu, we browsed around the flower market, which was incredible. There were stalls and stalls of flowers in every color and variety—very pretty! And the stalls were all floating on the canals, which made it even cooler. We then went to the one place Mike had been wanting to visit the whole time—the Torture Museum. There they had every type of medieval torture device you could imagine. It was pretty crazy to see all those things and read about how they used them. I was pretty ashamed to realize that the majority of the most brutal ones were developed and used by Christians who were usually witch hunting.
As soon as we left the Torture Museum it started raining. Of course it did because this was the first day that I had decided to stop carrying around my rain coat with me everywhere. Luckily I had on a hooded sweatshirt, but I still got pretty wet on the 30-minute walk back to the hostel. When we arrived there, we took some time to warm up with hot chocolate in their café and then headed out to find our bus that was taking us to London.
That’s right—I said bus. From Amsterdam to London. A 10.5 hour bus ride. My initial plan was that we would sleep on the bus and save ourselves the (more expensive) plane ticket as well as another night’s hotel room. Well, we certainly did save money, but we did not necessarily sleep. What I didn’t factor in was that on this ride from 8pm to 6:30am that A. the driver would stop and make everyone get off of the bus for “breaks” and that B. the other people on the bus would have no desire whatsoever to sleep and would talk all night! Needless to say, we were pretty tired when we got to London. We went straight to the airport since we had our bags with us and waited for our plane for the next 5 hours while trying to stay awake (I did not succeed and took a nap for about two hours while my vigilant husband kept watch).
Overall, I really liked Amsterdam—the cobblestone streets and beautiful canals far outweigh the yuckiness of the rest of the stuff that goes on there. And all in all, it was a wonderful trip that we will not soon forget.
I am already excited to get back to London and explore more of the rest of Europe as well. Every time I’m there I discover something new and have a totally unique experience—I love that! Oh well, for now it’s back to work so I can save up enough to pay for the next adventure!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Part Two: Belgium, Here We Come!
Belgium, Here We Come!
From Mike:
Well, since Kelly talked about London, it’s up to me to talk about the next phase of our European journey: Belgium!
June 2nd - We got on a Thalys train from King’s Cross Station in London to Brussels, Belgium for a quick two-hour ride through the Channel Tunnel (commonly referred to by locals as the Chunnel). Upon our arrival we were immediately greeted by signs in French and Dutch directing us to who knows where. Somehow we managed to buy Metro tickets and get on the correct train towards the Louisa stop where our friend Kacy greeted us with smiles and hugs. She directed us through town towards her apartment nearby and after a steep climb up several flights of stairs, we were settling cozily onto the couch in an adorable 1-bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a typical Belgian building. After a short breather and bathroom break, we made our way outside and Kacy led us to one of her favorite hangouts beside a small pond surrounded by trees. On the way we stopped in a grocery store to buy picnic food and munched on bread, salami, cheese, hummus, olives, and carrots as we soaked in the sun and enjoyed the scenery. After awhile we made our way to a nearby pub where I had my first authentic Belgian beer. We sipped beer and played Uno while we waited for Kacy’s partner, Tara, to get off work and join us.
Tara met up with us and we stopped by a frites stand (fries, to us Americans) and bought a large paper cone full of delicious potato goodness. We all (except Kelly, of course) enjoyed them as we walked back to the apartment and got ready for a quick tour of the town and some dinner. Kacy and Tara led us through the back streets of Brussels and we made our way towards the tourist center of town, Grand Place. On the way we passed by the Manneken Pis, a famous fountain of a small peeing boy. After our short tour, we stopped at Kacy and Tara’s favorite Greek restaurant and grabbed a table outside. After a delicious dinner of Gyros and Falafels, we lazily made our way back to the apartment to sleep off a long day.
June 3rd – We had this day to ourselves since Tara had to work and Kacy had to write a paper for school, so we took a train to Brugge, a small Belgian town east of Brussels. Upon our arrival, we took the advice of our travel book and ate lunch at the Hotel Erasmus, a quaint, quiet little restaurant beneath a hotel. We then took a boat tour through the canals to see the town without having to walk everywhere and to get ideas for some of the other sights we wanted to see. We wandered through town afterwards and stopped in random stores and churches, and museums. We even visited a church that has a phial of Christ’s blood! Unfortunately, the phial was behind a giant stone basilica, so we didn’t actually get to see it, but they had pictures of it, and the church itself was extremely cool. We had our first Belgian waffle, which was delightful, and we also got an exclusive VIP Belgian chocolate tasting! Okay, maybe not, but it’s a funny story. Kacy and Tara told us to visit this particular Chocolatier in Brugge called Dumon, so we were really excited to actually find it while walking around town, until we discovered that it was closed. We decided that they must be out for lunch or something, so we would come back later. Upon our subsequent visit, the doors remained locked. Fortunately, the shop owner, a small elderly Dutch woman, appeared out of nowhere and opened the doors for us, and allowed us five minutes to sample and buy her tasty confections! At the end of the day we took the train back to Brussels and stopped in an Italian restaurant for dinner and then made our way back to the apartment for a late-night card game and a good night’s sleep.
June 4th – We woke up this morning with the intention of taking a train to Antwerp (another small Belgian town), but Kacy decided to shirk her paper-writing duties and lead us on a more detailed tour through Brussels, which we eagerly accepted! We set off and stopped for a delicious brunch at this charming restaurant near the apartment. Afterwards, Kacy showed us important government buildings too numerous to list (and only half of which I remember the names of). We saw the King’s palace and the adjacent park. We strolled through the park and wound our way through bus-loads of children on a field trip, and enjoyed the shade of the tall trees. Then we walked through another tourist area near the Grand Place full of shops, pubs, and restaurants to see the female variant of the Manneken Pis, the Jeanneken Pis. This little lavatorial monument stands in an alleyway adjacent to a famous pub called the Delirium Café which boasts a selection of over 2000 beers! We walked through the Grand Place again and stopped at Kacy and Tara’s favorite pub, which is right next to the Manneken Pis, and sampled some of Belgium’s finest brews while watching the tourists gawk at the fountain, which had been dressed in a shimmery golden jacket with matching pants. Afterwards we treated ourselves to more Belgian waffles, which I managed to spill all over myself, leaving a giant messy trail of melted chocolate down the front of my shirt, onto my pants, and even managed to get a little on my shoe…it was quite a feat! We met up with Tara after she was done with work, and stopped by the grocery store so she and Kacy could make us a home-cooked meal! We relaxed in the apartment for the rest of the evening, and were treated to some delicious food, and a friendly card game, then we were off to bed a little early so we could get up in time to catch an early morning train to the Netherlands.
So that was our trip to Belgium in a nutshell. Next stop, Amsterdam!
From Mike:
Well, since Kelly talked about London, it’s up to me to talk about the next phase of our European journey: Belgium!
June 2nd - We got on a Thalys train from King’s Cross Station in London to Brussels, Belgium for a quick two-hour ride through the Channel Tunnel (commonly referred to by locals as the Chunnel). Upon our arrival we were immediately greeted by signs in French and Dutch directing us to who knows where. Somehow we managed to buy Metro tickets and get on the correct train towards the Louisa stop where our friend Kacy greeted us with smiles and hugs. She directed us through town towards her apartment nearby and after a steep climb up several flights of stairs, we were settling cozily onto the couch in an adorable 1-bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a typical Belgian building. After a short breather and bathroom break, we made our way outside and Kacy led us to one of her favorite hangouts beside a small pond surrounded by trees. On the way we stopped in a grocery store to buy picnic food and munched on bread, salami, cheese, hummus, olives, and carrots as we soaked in the sun and enjoyed the scenery. After awhile we made our way to a nearby pub where I had my first authentic Belgian beer. We sipped beer and played Uno while we waited for Kacy’s partner, Tara, to get off work and join us.
Tara met up with us and we stopped by a frites stand (fries, to us Americans) and bought a large paper cone full of delicious potato goodness. We all (except Kelly, of course) enjoyed them as we walked back to the apartment and got ready for a quick tour of the town and some dinner. Kacy and Tara led us through the back streets of Brussels and we made our way towards the tourist center of town, Grand Place. On the way we passed by the Manneken Pis, a famous fountain of a small peeing boy. After our short tour, we stopped at Kacy and Tara’s favorite Greek restaurant and grabbed a table outside. After a delicious dinner of Gyros and Falafels, we lazily made our way back to the apartment to sleep off a long day.
June 3rd – We had this day to ourselves since Tara had to work and Kacy had to write a paper for school, so we took a train to Brugge, a small Belgian town east of Brussels. Upon our arrival, we took the advice of our travel book and ate lunch at the Hotel Erasmus, a quaint, quiet little restaurant beneath a hotel. We then took a boat tour through the canals to see the town without having to walk everywhere and to get ideas for some of the other sights we wanted to see. We wandered through town afterwards and stopped in random stores and churches, and museums. We even visited a church that has a phial of Christ’s blood! Unfortunately, the phial was behind a giant stone basilica, so we didn’t actually get to see it, but they had pictures of it, and the church itself was extremely cool. We had our first Belgian waffle, which was delightful, and we also got an exclusive VIP Belgian chocolate tasting! Okay, maybe not, but it’s a funny story. Kacy and Tara told us to visit this particular Chocolatier in Brugge called Dumon, so we were really excited to actually find it while walking around town, until we discovered that it was closed. We decided that they must be out for lunch or something, so we would come back later. Upon our subsequent visit, the doors remained locked. Fortunately, the shop owner, a small elderly Dutch woman, appeared out of nowhere and opened the doors for us, and allowed us five minutes to sample and buy her tasty confections! At the end of the day we took the train back to Brussels and stopped in an Italian restaurant for dinner and then made our way back to the apartment for a late-night card game and a good night’s sleep.
June 4th – We woke up this morning with the intention of taking a train to Antwerp (another small Belgian town), but Kacy decided to shirk her paper-writing duties and lead us on a more detailed tour through Brussels, which we eagerly accepted! We set off and stopped for a delicious brunch at this charming restaurant near the apartment. Afterwards, Kacy showed us important government buildings too numerous to list (and only half of which I remember the names of). We saw the King’s palace and the adjacent park. We strolled through the park and wound our way through bus-loads of children on a field trip, and enjoyed the shade of the tall trees. Then we walked through another tourist area near the Grand Place full of shops, pubs, and restaurants to see the female variant of the Manneken Pis, the Jeanneken Pis. This little lavatorial monument stands in an alleyway adjacent to a famous pub called the Delirium Café which boasts a selection of over 2000 beers! We walked through the Grand Place again and stopped at Kacy and Tara’s favorite pub, which is right next to the Manneken Pis, and sampled some of Belgium’s finest brews while watching the tourists gawk at the fountain, which had been dressed in a shimmery golden jacket with matching pants. Afterwards we treated ourselves to more Belgian waffles, which I managed to spill all over myself, leaving a giant messy trail of melted chocolate down the front of my shirt, onto my pants, and even managed to get a little on my shoe…it was quite a feat! We met up with Tara after she was done with work, and stopped by the grocery store so she and Kacy could make us a home-cooked meal! We relaxed in the apartment for the rest of the evening, and were treated to some delicious food, and a friendly card game, then we were off to bed a little early so we could get up in time to catch an early morning train to the Netherlands.
So that was our trip to Belgium in a nutshell. Next stop, Amsterdam!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Part One: England
Ok, I am totally cheating on this blog and using a lot of when Beth wrote in her blog (we did do the same things afterall), so thanks Beth!
A couple of days before we left I started getting really sick (bronchitis). I was so sick in fact that my boss made me take off of work the day we left so I could relax and get better. This was a great thing (even though I used an extra vacation day that I wasn't planning to use) because not only did I get to relax, but I was also able to prepare for the trip and get a lot of stuff done, which is always a good day as far as I'm concerned!
We left for London that night and had an easy flight. I slept most of the way (thanks to my friend "the sleeping pill"). When we arrived we found our hotel fairly easily, which was amazing since I had no clue where I was going. Staying in the hotel was SO amazing as compared to hostels. I was very glad we had decided to stay there instead of somewhere where we'd be in bunk beds and sharing bathrooms with strangers. . .While we were in London the weather was great the whole time. Hannah and Simon thought we were getting spoiled because it's not always so beautiful!
Friday, May 29th After checking into our hotel we headed to the Thames for a boat cruise. It was nice to see the city before we set out to explore it the next day. The driver was really funny and i twas nice to just sit and look at the sights. We walked around a bit and then headed to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with Hannah and Simon for dinner. We decided to get some authentic English food, so after following the 'blip' on Simon's iPhone we arrived at The Chippy, a fish and chips restaurant near Soho. The food was great and it was fun to begin to catch up with Hannah and Simon. We walked around a bit after dinner and then got some ice cream at Rendezvous, a really cute place we had ice cream at the last time we were in London. We were pretty tired after all of our travels that day, so we said our goodbyes to Hannah and Simon and went back to the hotel.
Saturday, May 30th: We started the morning at the Tower of London. We went on the audio tour, which was cool because it had accounts from prisoners and the Beefeaters. The tour was beautiful, but nothing was quite as impressive as the jewels! It's amazing to think of the history each crown and jewel holds. And it's so crazy to see diamonds as big as baseballs. Eventhough I had seen this stuff before, I was newly amazed. Our tour of the tower lasted about 3 hours, so by the time we were done we needed lunch. We walked the streets of London and stumbled upon a fun pub called the Walrus and the Carpenter. After lunch we walked to St. Paul's, which was my request because hte last time I was there it was undergoing restoration, so I was anxious to see it without the scaffolding. The the dome there is the second largest in the world. There is a balcony way up in the dome called the whisper room--you can whisper to the wall and a person across the dome can hear you. We of course, decided to make the climb, and I do mean climb, to the room. It was a GIANT spiral staircase that went on for what seemed like forever (since the dome is something like 800 feet, I am assuming around 6 floors). It was fun to try out the whisper, though you did feel a bit silly talking to a wall. :) No dome climb would be complete without a few more flights of even smaller, steeper, spiral stairs, so we went all the way to the top. Despite being completely out of breath by the time we reached the top, this was my favorite part. The top of the dome is outside and you can walk all the way around to see most of London. It was beautiful! From atop St. Paul's we were able to see our next destination: walking across Millennium Bridge to visit the Globe theater. Apparently our bird's eye view didn't help us too much though because we accidentally started walking parallel to the Thames instead of straight towards it...whoops. :) Our diverted journey did take us by some beautiful buildings though. Once we were back on track we walked over the bridge to the Globe Theater and then went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. They had an interactive exhibit there that was pretty cool. There was all this unfinished wood and you were supposed to climb it or balance on it or do other things based on the instructions. It was neat. Our feet were beyond tired at that point, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel to eat dinner at the restaurant nearby and to play cards. It was a long, but fun second day.
Sunday, May 31st: Leave London, head to Benton (Hannah and Simon's house).
We left our hotel and took the tube to Paddington station to catch a train to Diddcot. Hannah picked us up from there and we set our exploring their cute village and surrounding areas. We had a mini 'pub crawl' (that's what I am choosing to call it) along the Thames, starting in Benton at a grill for lunch then heading to Henley-on-Thames, a cute little town on the river with shops and pubs. It was so nice out that we relaly couldnt think of much better to do but sit in pubs and drink cider. Well, everyone else had cider and I mostly stuck to bacardi breezes and sprite since I was worried that alcohol might mike my bronchitis even worse. We stopped at the Angel on the River and then headed to Wallingford where we had another cider at the Boat House. I liked this place best because it had a really nice patio right on the river. It was absolutely beautiful the whole time we were there, so sitting outside was awesome! After our cider we had excellent Indian food at another cute place across the street from the pub.
Monday, June 1st: Oxford
Beth, Mike, Hannah and I went to Oxford on Monday and it was so beautiful! Unfortunately simon woke up with the flu and couldn't join us :( But, we toured the area and did a little shopping. Highlights included going 'punting' on the Thames and getting a delicious milkshake. I was pretty sick this day, but I still really enjoyed it. Mike was our "driver for punting and he did a great job of navigating that little boat with such a big stick! There were a couple of detours through some low-hanging trees and a couple of minor collisions with other boats, but in general it went just fine. It happened to be graduation day for some of the Oxford-ites, so that was prety cool to see them in cap and gown. I bought a t-shirt and talked for the rest of our trip about "my time at Oxford". It was jolly good fun.
On Tuesday we left EARLY from Hannah's to go to Brussels, but I'll tell you about that later. Cheers!
A couple of days before we left I started getting really sick (bronchitis). I was so sick in fact that my boss made me take off of work the day we left so I could relax and get better. This was a great thing (even though I used an extra vacation day that I wasn't planning to use) because not only did I get to relax, but I was also able to prepare for the trip and get a lot of stuff done, which is always a good day as far as I'm concerned!
We left for London that night and had an easy flight. I slept most of the way (thanks to my friend "the sleeping pill"). When we arrived we found our hotel fairly easily, which was amazing since I had no clue where I was going. Staying in the hotel was SO amazing as compared to hostels. I was very glad we had decided to stay there instead of somewhere where we'd be in bunk beds and sharing bathrooms with strangers. . .While we were in London the weather was great the whole time. Hannah and Simon thought we were getting spoiled because it's not always so beautiful!
Friday, May 29th After checking into our hotel we headed to the Thames for a boat cruise. It was nice to see the city before we set out to explore it the next day. The driver was really funny and i twas nice to just sit and look at the sights. We walked around a bit and then headed to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with Hannah and Simon for dinner. We decided to get some authentic English food, so after following the 'blip' on Simon's iPhone we arrived at The Chippy, a fish and chips restaurant near Soho. The food was great and it was fun to begin to catch up with Hannah and Simon. We walked around a bit after dinner and then got some ice cream at Rendezvous, a really cute place we had ice cream at the last time we were in London. We were pretty tired after all of our travels that day, so we said our goodbyes to Hannah and Simon and went back to the hotel.
Saturday, May 30th: We started the morning at the Tower of London. We went on the audio tour, which was cool because it had accounts from prisoners and the Beefeaters. The tour was beautiful, but nothing was quite as impressive as the jewels! It's amazing to think of the history each crown and jewel holds. And it's so crazy to see diamonds as big as baseballs. Eventhough I had seen this stuff before, I was newly amazed. Our tour of the tower lasted about 3 hours, so by the time we were done we needed lunch. We walked the streets of London and stumbled upon a fun pub called the Walrus and the Carpenter. After lunch we walked to St. Paul's, which was my request because hte last time I was there it was undergoing restoration, so I was anxious to see it without the scaffolding. The the dome there is the second largest in the world. There is a balcony way up in the dome called the whisper room--you can whisper to the wall and a person across the dome can hear you. We of course, decided to make the climb, and I do mean climb, to the room. It was a GIANT spiral staircase that went on for what seemed like forever (since the dome is something like 800 feet, I am assuming around 6 floors). It was fun to try out the whisper, though you did feel a bit silly talking to a wall. :) No dome climb would be complete without a few more flights of even smaller, steeper, spiral stairs, so we went all the way to the top. Despite being completely out of breath by the time we reached the top, this was my favorite part. The top of the dome is outside and you can walk all the way around to see most of London. It was beautiful! From atop St. Paul's we were able to see our next destination: walking across Millennium Bridge to visit the Globe theater. Apparently our bird's eye view didn't help us too much though because we accidentally started walking parallel to the Thames instead of straight towards it...whoops. :) Our diverted journey did take us by some beautiful buildings though. Once we were back on track we walked over the bridge to the Globe Theater and then went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. They had an interactive exhibit there that was pretty cool. There was all this unfinished wood and you were supposed to climb it or balance on it or do other things based on the instructions. It was neat. Our feet were beyond tired at that point, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel to eat dinner at the restaurant nearby and to play cards. It was a long, but fun second day.
Sunday, May 31st: Leave London, head to Benton (Hannah and Simon's house).
We left our hotel and took the tube to Paddington station to catch a train to Diddcot. Hannah picked us up from there and we set our exploring their cute village and surrounding areas. We had a mini 'pub crawl' (that's what I am choosing to call it) along the Thames, starting in Benton at a grill for lunch then heading to Henley-on-Thames, a cute little town on the river with shops and pubs. It was so nice out that we relaly couldnt think of much better to do but sit in pubs and drink cider. Well, everyone else had cider and I mostly stuck to bacardi breezes and sprite since I was worried that alcohol might mike my bronchitis even worse. We stopped at the Angel on the River and then headed to Wallingford where we had another cider at the Boat House. I liked this place best because it had a really nice patio right on the river. It was absolutely beautiful the whole time we were there, so sitting outside was awesome! After our cider we had excellent Indian food at another cute place across the street from the pub.
Monday, June 1st: Oxford
Beth, Mike, Hannah and I went to Oxford on Monday and it was so beautiful! Unfortunately simon woke up with the flu and couldn't join us :( But, we toured the area and did a little shopping. Highlights included going 'punting' on the Thames and getting a delicious milkshake. I was pretty sick this day, but I still really enjoyed it. Mike was our "driver for punting and he did a great job of navigating that little boat with such a big stick! There were a couple of detours through some low-hanging trees and a couple of minor collisions with other boats, but in general it went just fine. It happened to be graduation day for some of the Oxford-ites, so that was prety cool to see them in cap and gown. I bought a t-shirt and talked for the rest of our trip about "my time at Oxford". It was jolly good fun.
On Tuesday we left EARLY from Hannah's to go to Brussels, but I'll tell you about that later. Cheers!
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