Brussels

Wednesday July 4 Happy Birthday America!  Brussels is much more modern than I thought it would be. Every other city has seemed so old. Brussels has a square with majestic old buildings, but most of it is very modern and feels like any city in America. So today I was excited to meet up with Emily again. We got up and went to breakfast at  La Brouette, our server was very funny, he had lived on a ranch in Nevada for 8 months when he had run out of money while touring the states. We had a traditional Belgian breakfast. Croissants , ham and cheese. I had a waffle and Robbie and Jill had an omelet. Robbie and I got in trouble from another waiter for moving our cups off the little serving tray. " it is really much better if you leave this here" said in a snotty French accent. Oh well, the other guy was nice enough that it made up for it.  We then shopped around a bit, there are so many Belgium chocolate shops, it's crazy. Robbie and I drove to the bus station to pick up Emily, and driving in Brussels is crazy! We get there , finally get of hold of her only to learn is bus is still far away stuck in traffic. We told her to take a cab so we could ho check out of our hotel.  Jill had been saying she wanted to drink some beer all morning so that was next up on our list. I had my first beer in the beer Capitol of the world. Jill had a cherry or kriek beer In Brugge that I had liked, so I got one. Robbie and Jill were taking bets on whether or not I would drink it.  I did, it wasn't bad if I had peanuts with it.  Emily finally arrived and met us at the bar. I was getting worried about her, Jill said to give her until 3. She arrived at 2:58. Emily's friend Sandra from Spain came along with Emily to help her with her luggage, what a sweetheart.  It is fun to ask her about cultural differences.  We rode the metro to see the Belgium Parliament  buildings.  Brussels is the capital of the EU. We then went and got checked into our hotel. I think I'm getting the hang of driving in Brussels and all of the round a bouts. I would rather drive in the city, it makes Robbie grumpy.  We went to dinner at a tavern by Emily and Sandra 's hotel. I had some pretty good pasta. I was hoping for a really cool last dinner in Europe night together but we were all so tired and hungry by 9 when we finally ate. It was fine, just not as I had hoped. We dropped the girls back at their hotel. ( the Marriott it was not) . We then went back to our hotel to play musical luggage and try to get the bags under 50 lbs each. We bought some stuff and Emily has a lot. Now if we can just navigate the London tube with all of this!

Germany

Tuesday July 3rd Today we set off to find more castles. I wanted to go to Germany. Robbie kept making jokes about going to the dachshund mother land. His german accent is really funny. We left Ghent and headed to Germany. It's seems so weird that going from country to country is just like going state to state here. Our little Renault Magena  gets really good gas milage so we haven't really spent that much on gas even though it's around 6 dollars per gallon I think. It's hard to convert the liters to gallons, then the euro to dollars. While on our way to this castle Jill had looked up we ran across the Nubrugring race track. Jill and Jason are top gear fans and she had heard a lot about it and was excited to see it. We stopped by there and had lunch at Subway and watched the cars fly by for a bit. I guess you can pay to take your car out on the track. We then headed to the Castle Eltz, it has been in the same family for 33 generations. It has been updated throughout the years because the family still uses it. It has a lot of furniture and artifacts. It is so majestic , sticking out of the hillside. It is in the middle of no where though. On the way to the castle we saw a man walking two dachshunds, we were so excited. They were beautiful with long hair. Jill has been saying she wants a German dachshund  girl for Walter. We headed back towards Belgium, not sure of where we would stop for the night. We stopped in a little town for some dinner. There was a round about when we got into town that was covered  in bunnies. They were all just sitting around with the traffic whizzing by without a care in the world. We are still not used to the European way of eating . I don't really want to sit at dinner for two hours. But dinner was good. I had these potato pancakes covered in cheese, tomatoes and sauce. We ended up driving all the way back to Brussels, Im not sure, i guess we were on the autobon, cars were sure flying past us! We were trying to get to the hotel we had reservations at for the next night, but Ken ( our navigational system) had a different location in mind. So it was crowded and we were tired so we just found a room where we were. It was fine, a Novotel, very expensive and not that nice, bit it got us out of the car.

I love Ghent

Monday July 2 Waffles! We slept in and headed out for breakfast, we had Belgium waffles of course. It really was the best waffle I've ever had. I also had fresh squeezed orange juice, it was so good. We  looked around the shops in Ghent, then toured the castle Gravensteen. It had a lot about torture and had a guillotine. We then had some frites with frite sauce and headed to Brugge. while in Brugge we looked around the shops, took a brewery tour at the Half Moon Brewery, then walked around some more and found a market in the town square.  We ate dinner at a place called Tavern Green, looked like maybe a man and his wife ran it.  The man was very funny when he translated the menu for us and gave me a hard time because I ordered water to drink. I had something called boem-boem, it was a ham and cheese grilled sandwich covered in spaghetti meat sauce, it was very good. We then headed for the shore of the North Sea, I just wanted to stick my toes in. It was very cold.  We headed back to Ghent for the night. Had an adventure getting the car parked. The parking spaces are soooooo small! We got some awesome ice cream and went to bed. I was up half the night, I could not shut my mind off. Next up castles in Western Germany.

3 countries in one day!

Sunday July 1 st We slept in and then went out to lunch at Les 3 Brasseurs, Jill had a beer sampler. We had a lunch and tried to buy Emily some new shoes but the mall was closed so we headed to Rotterdam, for Emily to take a train back to Amsterdam to get her stuff and close her bank account and stuff. The navigation system was trying to re route us a bunch we finally said no, Big Mistake! We have been sitting in traffic for an hour now going no where. We are supposed to see the windmills in Kinderdijk today and spend the night Ghent, we will see if that happens as it is already 4 o'clock .  We got Emily dropped off for her train back to Amsterdam and we headed ro Kinderdjik. We found the windmills and right in front was some police on the road. Robbie had to blow  for a breathalyzer! It was pretty funny, he hadn't drank all day, the policewoman then gave us directions to the parking lot. We walked around and took pictures of the windmills, it was very pretty, we got some great pictures. It was windy and cold, hard to believe it is so hot back home. We then drove to Ghent, Belgium. We are staying at the Marriott with our points. The hotel is gorgeous and the fanciest place we have stayed. We then walked around Ghent , it's looks like a baby Amsterdam.  There is a castle right by our hotel that we will tour tomorrow. It's almost 11 and we can still walk around in the light. The world cup soccer match ended tonight, there were fireworks and singing in the streets.

Main Square Festival

Saturday June 30th Today we left Beauvais in our trusty rental car and headed for our hotel near Arras, France where the Pearl Jam concert is. We stopped again at the yummy patisserie, Angelique & Benoit. Going to a pastry shop was one of my top do to lists while in France, this one exceeded my expectations.  We then went to look at this Gothic church , the Beauvais Catherdral. It was a very beautiful, but I still find it odd to but gargoyles on churches. We then went to our hotel. The French country side doesn't seem much different than home.  We got to our hotel and laid around a bit,  then went to the mall so the girls could shop at H&M. The mall was a lot like home. We then decided to go get dinner , it was only 4:30 and dinner is not going to happen in France that early , so we went to Ikea for meatballs, but not even Ikea serves dinner before six in France, so we had a snack and left to go to the concert.  Walked out of ikea to a rainstorm, I was sad, we haven't had rain since Amsterdam and I didn't want it to cancel the concert Robbie has been looking forward to.  We had a problem with the language barrier and Tom Tom took us to a citadelle, but unfortunately that means town square and every town as one. So we went about 30 min the wrong way in the rain. We got turned around and finally found it. I dropped my family off and headed back to the hotel. I got lost, of course but went back to the mall. I love going to grocery stores here. I spent about 20 min. In the extensive cheese aisle.  I found my way back to e hotel after cursing the navigation man, Ken, several times. I watched The bachelorette on iTunes and skyped and emailed. Around midnight I headed back to get my family, my very drunk family. With stories to tell of naked men rolling in mud, Robbie being kissed by a French guy and of a really great time. Their feet were covered in mud and we threw out there shoes. Then bedtime, with lots of drunk snoring.

Paris

Friday June 29th Today Robbie and I got up and got in the car to find breakfast. We found this adorable little pâtisserie, we got some pastries and eclairs for breakfast. We then went to what we refer to has the French SAMs club for some orange juice. We thought it was a grocery store, but it was huge. They had self check out with an English option so that was good. After hanging out in the hotel lobby so I could find a train station ( stupid wifi doesn't work from our room) we headed for the train station. Jill said she didn't want to go to Paris, she didn't feel well. We didn't want to leave her at the hotel all day and she had said all along she didn't want to go to Paris. She did come along. We found the train station and parked the car and hoped on a very nice train for the station Paris Nord. Immediately after we arrived Jill said she was going to be sick, we rushed for the bathroom and paid our 50 cents and Jill lost her breakfast.  We waited a bit and she thought she was okay, so we got on the next train. It was crowded and miserable and Jill needed outside.  I was ready to find her a hotel to hole up in for the day. We sat outside for awhile and then when she was feeling better we started walking. We walked along time through a neighborhood that made me uncomfortable. Poor Jill.... She tripped on a board covering a whole and fell down, scrapping both knees. So back to the underground metro. Finally, we make it to The Louve. We saw the Mona Lisa and some beautiful sculptures from Greece and Italy. We didn't stay too long we had to keep moving to see Paris in a day After that we looked for a tour bus, but it was very expensive, so we took a regular bus to the Eiffel Tower. While we were in the square in front of The Louve we saw a bicycle police chase we some guys selling little Eiffel towers. It was pretty funny, they were hiding in the bushes and jumping out and running. The police didn't seem that interested in catching them as in running them off.  We made it to the Eiffel tower, Jill wanted ice cream, so I knew she was feeling better :)  I was more impressed  with the tower than I thought I would be. It is really beautiful. I wanted to see it at night but we had to catch our train back by 1020 and it doesn't get dark here until around 11!  We then rode a boat on The Seine river to the Notre Dam Cathedral. We got to go inside, they were having mass, so we had to be silent. It was so beautiful and so big. We didn't see the stairs Cindy had suggested we take to the top. They closed right after we left . We got the dinner at a place Emily had been before bak in high school. It's called Flam's. We had made flamkutchen one time at home too. It was very good. We then headed back to catch our train. We made it back to our hotel and we all sat in the car with our phones and I pad to use the Wi fi close to the main lobby. We kept losing the connection though. I'm sure we all looked pretty funny sitting in the car. Oh well. Then off to bed. The day ended much better than it had started. Jill has sore knees but her stomach was fine.

Travel day

Thursday June 28th So the plan was take a train to La Spezia, then another train to Pisa, sight see there and then catch out 1900 plane to a town north of Paris, called Beauvais.  We also needed to print boarding passes for our flight or be charged 60 € extra per person, yikes! I was told I could do it at the information desk, Wrong! So we tried the train station, nope! Then we were sent on a wild goose chase, we ended with Emily and I running around the streets of La Spezia. Finally got it done and ran back to the train station and got the train. I'm pretty sure I now smelled like one of the stinky Italian men. It is so hot and sticky. We got to the Pisa airport, we were told we could store our bags and that the leaning tower was in walking distance.  The man at the luggage storage only spoke Italian and wasn't pleasant, so we decided to take turns seeing Pisa. Robbie and I headed out first. Turns out it would have been one hell of a walk, so we took a cab. We had lunch and a cannoli by the tower, took some quick pictures and a cab back to the airport. The girls decided it probably wasn't worth the cab fare to go see the tower so they spend all day inside the Pisa airport. We then finally got to Beauvais, spent way too much on a rental car and found our hotel.  It's not the Marriott for sure, no a/c, Wi-fi doesn't work unless your outside , and we drove around forever looking for a place to eat. This town rolls up it sidewalks at 11. We finally found a pizza place , ate some pizza at midnight and went to bed. We are going into Paris tomorrow, I'm not sure if we will drive most of the way or just take public transit. Jill wants to stay at the hotel. She is tired of being on the go. Yesterday is the first day I really just wanted to be home. I miss the familiar and the language barrier is getting harder. Tomorrow should be interesting!