O.k….. we have been in Germany for 6 months now, officially in our German home for around 4 months and I feel remiss that I haven’t given everyone who keeps asking a peek into our new home. So here goes…. but first a little about what goes on in my head with each move.
Whenever we move, which is often these days, I look forward to hearing from each house on what it wants to be…. And I’m usually sweetly surprised. (I know some of you are quietly laughing at me now…especially you, John)
No, I don’t really hear voices. But each house definitely speaks to me …
They speak with their floors and walls and windows and ceilings and natural walkways, they speak with the direction the sunlight shines in, and the placement of the porches and doors and how the rooms all relate and spill into each other. They speak when the sun sets and the house is dark and calls out for illumination. They have moods from bright and cheerful to shadowy and serene.
And then when my furniture and the house get together they speak to me again and help guide me on the next steps to take. Where are the empty spaces? Does this arrangment work for our family? What needs to be cozied up? What needs to be added? Where are the dark corners? What is too cluttered looking?…and on and on it goes….
This new house has been quite the puzzle for me. I feel like my whole life is one great big “White Box Challenge” on HGTV! The moving van arrives and all 18,000 lbs of our “worldly possessions” hit the ground and I start digging in! (or digging out… from under it all!) The race is always on in my mind to try and get my “nest” set up as quickly as possible so we can start enjoying living in our new location.
This new German home is very sturdy, modern and square. The walls are made of solid white concrete and the floors are white marble and light yellow pine. While it has some beautiful elements like tons of picture windows and wooden ceiling beams, it begs for more natural elements that are imperfect and rustic and architectural. I know just enough about design to know the space is much happier if I have just the slightest touch of “rustic-ness” to draw attention and play off of the modern straight lines. This house also did not like it when I put anything too muddy or beige in it, because of all the stark white walls and crips shiny white marble floors I had to keep my new palette much more bright and modern. So I embraced the white and added new drapes that have a wonderful soft grey Ikat pattern on a white background, and it all began to sing! I added soft grey velvet throw pillows to my mocha leather couch and Tada!… Happiness!
Quirky combinations and opposites that are in complete juxtaposition to each other are some of my favorite design tricks to play with. Like pairing a crusty old workbench pulled out of a barn with a sleek gorgeous Venetian glass mirror over it. Or mixing an old French table made from an iron scale with a modern art piece and a huge flower arrangment . Both of these quirky new combinations are in my house as I sit and type this… And (surprise) I have already started collecting treasures to bring home from Europe! I have found an amazing French buffet from the 1880’s and it is now in my kitchen storing my cake stand collection, I also bought an old wooden ladder from an apple orchard to hold blankets, and a German woodworking table from 1858 that is now a popcorn and coffee bar for guests in our den. And my newest treasure is a gorgeous antique Mora clock from Sweden circa 1808 that is now gracefully striking the hour in my entryway! We’ve only been here for six months, and already Brian is telling me that I better start selling off some of the things I brought over to make room for the new goodies I’m discovering, or I need to pray he makes General before we leave in order to be allowed to take it all back to the states!
So for everyone who has asked me for pictures of our new home in Germany this post is for you. I hope you enjoy my latest “white box” challenge; and I hope you start making your plans to come and see it all in person soon!
Love, Ella
a view out the back of my house towards the countryside when it was empty…. Josh modeling! haupstairs in the empty man cave.. Josh, again, hamming it up!One more just so you get the feel of my “white box challenge”! ha haThe incredible view out my kitchen window!
The dining room! Note the amazing wooden bead chandelier…thanks to Sissy for mailing it to me! What a view!The new living room with the grey Ikat curtainsBrian’s gorgeous bar finally made it to the living room.A wider shot of our main living roomMy incredible antique buffet from France! I love it!The orange champagne cart with my Korea prints overtop!Our Master bedroom this time around…Our “Man Cave “upstairs… cozy and very comfy!The antique German workbench from 1865, out of an old barn. It’s now am amazing bar and coffee station for guests…The views out the main cave window, greatest spot for morning coffee and a book!
So there you go, a few pics of the new digs! I didn’t get around to all the bedrooms and bathrooms, you’ll just have to come visit to see it all in real life!!!
So we have been here officially now for a little over six months and we are all feeling much more settled. I must admit that this move was hard for me and I hadn’t really expected that. I guess I just got so caught up in romanticizing my time here…the food, the travel opportunities, the adventure, that I forgot to factor in the overwhelming adjustment it would be to live in a foreign country. No one warns you about the bat shit crazy driving test, house hunting in unfamiliar terrain and needing a translator, the paperwork you must sign that is all in German, navigating the Autobahn, menu’s you can’t read, road signs you can’t read, and shopping in the German grocery stores! I admitted to my mom about 2 weeks in that every time I saw the planes taking off from the Ramstein runway, it made me tearful. I just wanted to pack up and head for the familiarity of the good ole’ U.S. of A.
But we have managed to acclimate now for the most part, I have my German drivers license and quite enjoy ripping down the autobahn at over 100 mph!, we are all moved into our German house in our German village and it is really lovely (I even have fluffy white sheep in the pasture behind my house…really I do!), I just ignore the road signs I don’t understand and hope for the best, and when in doubt in a new restaurant I order the Ramschnitzel,… it’s always good! I mean how bad can a breaded fried pork chop smothered in bacon and mushrooms and cream sauce be??? (except for your arteries)… As far as the grocery store goes it is still an adventure trying to figure out what everything is and not embarrass myself like a junior high kid laughing out-loud at some of the foods I encounter…. I literally hear my dad’s voice in my head as I try and pronounce some of the items…. shrinkendorf…. shrankeltrocken….frickadellans…!!! I kid you not! When Mary Lauren was here we actually bought a package of frickadellans and we had ourselves hysterical before we made it to the checkout. I can’t repeat what she was calling them by the time we reached the car… ( FYI, they are dark colored patties of some unidentifiable meat…) Now if I get really angry here I just yell, “Frick…….adellan” and it makes me feel better and I’m not actually cussing, it would be like getting mad in the United States and yelling, “Hamburger patty!”
And don’t even get me started about the German washer and dryer we were given to use here……It is about half the size of a washer in the states, so you have to do twice the loads and the dryer appears to suck the water out of the clothes and deposit it into a plastic container inside the machine. You must then MANUALLY empty this container of water periodically throughout the drying cycle or the machine stops! So you literally have to pull this big, hot, plastic container full of boiling water out of the dryer and empty it into a drain in the laundry room floor. You should have seen me trying to figure all his out with my German instruction manual. I never thought I would be the type of woman who would actually long for a clothesline!!! ha ha I even tried to use google translate to decipher the controls on the machines but gave up when it told me my dryer had settings for “burn”, “cook” and “catapult”…..? What the Hell Germany! I thought in the beginning it just might be easier to buy new clothes each week! ha
But all in all it has been a grand adventure and we have managed to keep our sense of humor and our sanity through it all! And I keep telling myself just think of all the stories we are making here!
So, when you all come to visit, I’ll strap you in and rip you down the Autobahn for a giant Ramschnitzel and we’ll top the experience off a Super Dickman for dessert…and if the thrill of me driving you over 100 mph in my Toyota Camry yelling ,”Frick…addelan” makes you soil your clothes in anyway, we’ll just throw them in my German washer on Catapult and hope for the best!!!!
Love, Ella
My washer… I wish this made sense to me!? “Abpumpen” sounds like something you do in a gym… and please tell me what’s a Schnell mix?
My dryer…note the Koch/Bunt cycle..translates to Cook/Burnt ???!!!! and I think extra shrunken….. Ok..Ok.. I know this is soooo Jr. High, but when we saw these on the shelve we all busted up laughing, then we bought a box as a family and proceeded to hurt ourselves laughing as we ate them!The glorious go to… Ram schnitzel and Pom Frits! Just a heart attack waiting to happen, but delicous!silly ole’ salt and pepper…..Check out the elevator buttons I was faced with leaving the mall…..I may or may not have had to go to UG and EG and OG and finally P2 to find my car!!!!!!And lastly, I just passed the magazine rack last week in the grocery store and saw this….. America’s Next President?… oh geez!
Brian and I decided that this would be the perfect Fall weekend to have a romantic getaway and drive the famous Alsace wine road through France. Since I moved here this summer I have been hearing about how gorgeous the little villages are that border between Germany and France. Josh was gone for the week-end with the football team playing his game in London, so we packed our bags and headed out on Friday afternoon. Our first night we decided to stay in Strasbourg, France and begin our adventures there. When we woke up Saturday morning, it was a beautiful crisp day and we set out on foot for the “Petite France” area of downtown. The first thing we came across was a carnival set up at the foot of the massive cathedral….the music from the carousel and the setting took my breath away! There are so many moments here that just seem like we have stepped onto a movie set… We of course bought our tickets and hopped right on! Next, we walked on toward the cathedral and took a tour of it. I know I can be descriptive…but I actually have no words for the scale and grandeur of this church. It is beyond massive and ornate and it boggles my mind how it was ever constructed. Inside the opulence continued with stained glass for days… and huge stone gargoyles and incredible ivory and gold carvings….. One of the most interesting things inside to me was a huge “celestial” clock dating from the 1400’s that is still working! We stood there for a few minutes and watched all the gears and clock hands moving and even got to hear it chime the half hour….fascinating!
Next we walked on around the little town and stumbled across…..wait for it… Yes, an outdoor flea market!!!! Yeah!.. I was thrilled. Brian took off to look for guy stuff (books and humidors and war memorabilia) while I pawed through trays of vintage jewelry and cool French antiques. It was so much fun. I ended up buying an incredible vintage lucite magazine rack that I adore, and a few small pieces of jewelry.
After enjoying Strasbourg, we decided to head on down the wine trail for the rest of the afternoon. We had no agenda and no timeline except that we knew we had a hotel reserved for that night in Colmar, France. The scenery along the drive was magnificent, acre upon acre of vineyards growing up the mountainsides, combined with the vibrant yellow and red fall foliage of the trees it was a living postcard the entire way. We stopped at a few wineries along the way and went in and tasted. The wines from this area are definitely right up my ally… yummy and delicious! They are known in this area for their Gewurtztraminer’s and Rieslings, both really sweet, easy drinking wines.
We woke up on Sunday and started our morning off exploring the little town of Colmar. It is a darling place that actually has a section that is called “Little Venice” the streets are lined with flower boxes and life-size dollhouses along the canals. It is “cuteness” overload! …Seriously, you feel like you stepped into the town from Beauty and the Beast! …little cheese shops, and fresh baguettes in all the bakery windows, and bicycles leaning against the stone walls…. We walked around Colmar for a few hours and then decided to head back along the wine trail and see a few more towns on our way home. Our favorite stop as we ended our day was in a town called Riquewihr, France. Your actually have to park outside the city wall and walk in through a huge stone gate that still has a drawbridge. It is a fairy tale come to life!…. the cobblestone streets, and narrow alleyways between the shops, all set on a mountainside in the vineyards. There was an artisanal market going on there for the afternoon as well, and I started my Christmas shopping for a few people..who shall remain nameless! ha ha
We then bought a crusty french baguette, a bottle of wine, some cheese and fresh foie gras and drove up onto a hillside overlooking the village and had a picnic late in the afternoon on a blanket right in the vineyards …. We sat and ate and looked over the valley and pinched ourselves that we were there. It was a picture perfect week-end that I won’t soon forget.
A heart~shaped grouping in the catecombsan eerie stone plaque…Brian and Josh in the Paris underworld…I finally made it to the Paris Flea markets!So much gorgeous vintage jewelry!and more jewelry….swoon…And old venetian mirrors…and crusty skeleton keys…and boxes of treasure…yes, those are Chanel and Hermes bags in the distance…old suitcases casually stacked…and don’t forget Parisian crystal chandeliers..dripping in crystals!…sigh…and French Bombe chests…even the tattered old chairs had amazing style and grace….my view from the park bench of the Eiffel tower as the sun set….Josh on the way to dinner that evening…The Louvre was incredible!My personal favorite at the Louve….”Winged Victory”..truly breathtaking in person…..
So the weekend had FINALLY arrived that I had been dreaming of….we were headed to Paris! Brian and Josh and I were going to spend Labor Day week-end in the “City of Lights”, and I was beyond excited. We decided that riding the Ice Train from Kaiserslautern, a town about 30 min from us, was the best way to travel. The train ride was a speedy 2 hours as we traveled over 300 kilometers, and we quickly arrived at the Paris station. We then figured out how to buy our Metro tickets to navigate the city and find our Airbnb apartment. We arrived early to check in so we went and had the most delicious French lunch at a very iconic sidewalk cafe. It was truly delicious! I had to pinch myself that I was actually in Paris eating creme brûlée. Then we headed over to our apt. and that’s when things started to go a bit South….We arrived at our “Luxury Paris Apt. near the Eiffel Tower” to discover that the owner was not there to greet us as promised and give us the key, instead a very harried cleaning man who spoke no English was there and we discovered that we were all locked out of the apartment….. So, we sat in the stairwell with our suitcases while a locksmith was called. Said locksmith arrived and after a heated discussion (all in French) with the harried cleaning man, he determined he was NOT going to open the apartment for us…. then the cleaning man shouted a few loud expletives (in French) and looked like he was going to throw himself out the 2 story balcony window beside us!!! Actually he had gotten fed up with the whole situation and decided to try and jump out the window of the stairwell and land on the balcony of our apartment and let himself in through the window!…. The whole episode was frightening to say the least…..However, his daredevil acrobatics actually worked and we were finally let in and could put our bags down…. The apt was O.K., not exactly as “luxurious” as billed but the location was wonderful and it was in a beautiful French neighborhood about 10 minutes from the Eiffel Tower. We were able to head out then to enjoy the rest of our day. We shopped in a darling open air food market and bought lots of fresh goodies for our breakfast: baguettes, smoked meat, and pastries. We booked a 3 hour French wine tasting class near Notre Dame before we left Germany and that turned out to be one of the highlights of our whole trip. Our instructor, Thierry, was really fun and super informative and we all learned a lot. Now instead of picking a bottle of wine just because I like the pretty design on the label, I think I actually understand what the labels all mean and can choose a bottle for how its going to taste instead! Imagine that! ha We ate dinner at a little bistro and had a delicious traditional French meal…including Duck Pate, French onion soup, Beef Borginone, and Chocolate Mousse. Tres’ Delicieux! So, we managed to find lots of bright spots in the remainder of the day to turn lemons into lemonaid and forget about the “check-in” mishap!
The next day was Sunday and the guys had graciously agreed to go with me to the Paris Flea Market!!! Yippee!! I chose the flea market that was advertised as the largest one in Paris, it is located on the outskirts of the city and is called the Marche Aux Puces De Saint Ouen. I envisioned streets lines with baskets of flowers, and old linens and crystal and silver on trays, and hopefully vintage costume jewelry piled high in boxes….heavenly! I was like a little child on Christmas morning on the Metro ride there. We found our station and began to follow the crowds towards what looked like a small tent city in the distance. However, as walked closer and closer, through lots of trash and men hawking their counterfeit wares, I could see into the tents and I was disappointed. It looked like little Tiajuana… sweatsocks, tennis shoes, knock off purses, and lots of China made plastic trinkets…. where was my gorgeous Parisian flea market?…. We walked further on and thankfully discovered that there was a small section of incredibly lovely shops and booths a few blocks over. We spent most of the afternoon exploring through these amazing little booths and saw stunning displays of French antiques, from huge crystal chandeliers to collectible artwork to antique designer jewelry …however I couldn’t afford to really shop in any of these booths…..the prices were so high!…… and I thought the market would be so much larger in scope that what we found…. As we boarded the Metro, and left the flea market empty handed, I was disappointed to realize that the fantasy I had of actually shopping in the Paris flea markets was going to be exactly that……just a fantasy.
We headed out next on a tour that Josh had selected to see the famous Catacombs of Paris and to take a tour of this macabre underground world. I must admit I was not prepared at all for what we saw. There are miles and miles of underground tunnels below the city of Paris where they have “relocated” the bones of over 6 million people from their former resting places in cemeteries above ground in the city. They have “artfully” arranged the bones along the walls of these tunnels to pay their respects to the dead. It was totally surreal… we walked and walked and walked thought these incredible bone “monuments.” It was eerily quiet in the tunnels, dark and damp and cold. Along the way you would find a plaque carved into the stone written in French, they were haunting in their sentiments…One I photographed translated, “They were what we are, dust in the wind, toys. Fragile like men, weak nothingness.” It was actually beautifully ethereal in an otherworldly way… and Josh thought it was awesome.
Our final stop this day was to the Eiffel Tower! I was thrilled, I felt like I had waited my entire life to see it! We thought it would be amazing to end our day there and sit on the grass and sip champagne and have dinner nearby and watch the lights on the massive tower illuminate. However, as we got off the Metro at the Eiffel tower station, there was a uniformed man standing on the platform randomly stopping people…we didn’t know what he was doing so we innocently approached him. He was a Metro official checking to make sure that you had legally paid to ride and that you could produce your ticket stub to prove it. We were shocked, we had been using our tickets every time we rode and then after boarding the train we had been throwing them away so we didn’t mix our used tickets up with our unused ones. At this point if I had kept them all, I would have had about 18 used stubs floating around in my purse. Lets just say the confrontation that took place at that point was ugly…. he was abrupt, and snide, accusing us of jumping the turnstiles etc.. (really!!!?… I’m a mom with my husband and young son?… I was wearing a short dress and sandals?, I couldn’t jump a turnstile if my life depended on it!)…. it was horrible! Brian tried so hard to make him see reason but it was useless… he informed us that we owed the city $50 euros each….over $170 dollars in fines!! or he would call the police and then the fine would be $180 per person…. it was unbelievable… At that point Brian lost his temper and called the man a few choice names that were on the tip of my tongue to call him, and I just knew we were going to be hauled off to a French jail! It was awful, I could see the Eiffel tower in the distance through my tears. Brian eventually paid the fine and we were given our I.D’s back and released, but my first moment at the Eiffel tower was pretty much ruined, I felt like a criminal. After many tears, I tried to recover and not let the incident tarnish this moment but it was hard. We did eventually sit on a bench in a park at the base of the tower and watch as the lights came on and it was beautiful. We ended up taking a few pictures, none of which I like or have posted of myself because raccoon eyes are not pretty! Then we had dinner nearby and headed to bed. Who says there’s no crying in Paris?…
We woke up on our last day in Paris sort of solemn after the “Great Eiffel Tower Debacle”…. and decided to go see the Louvre before we headed home. We rode the Metro right into the basement of the museum itself. It is incredibly large, I don’t think I was prepared in my mind for the magnitude of the structure itself. It was a palace in its former life and it just goes on and on… with marble and stone and archways, and statues. Josh told us that he learned if you spent 8 hours a day inside and looked at each piece of art for no more than 30 seconds, it would take you 30 days to see it all…and I believe him! We chose to try and see the most recognizable pieces first and then work our way around from there. We saw “Winged Victory”..(my personal favorite for the day) and several of Leonardo Da Vinci’s pieces to include The Mona Lisa, and two amazing red halls of French paintings and on and on… it was all breathtakingly beautiful. It day was almost incident free, except for the Asian gentleman who decided to use my head for a tripod as he was photographing the Mona Lisa…. I thought it was just an accident the first time he rested his Nikon on the top of my head to get his shot, but after telling him in no uncertain terms to “back off”…and he did it AGAIN, I was ready to go home!… or punch someone!
All in all, we enjoyed our first trip to Paris but there was definitely a sharp learning curve. As we travel back for future trips, we will understand how to navigate the Metro (keep those stubs people!), we will know which are the best neighborhoods to stay in, and we will know how to ride the metro and get around, and we will be better prepared for the people we encounter along the way.
As a side-note to this circus exerpt, we discovered later that the large flea market that we went to is in fact made up of over 3,000 vendors and that we just scratched the surface! We just didn’t walk far enough down through the tiny streets to find the BIG marketplace. So the dream is still alive! Hooray!… Paris Flea Market ~Part Duex coming soon!!! … and Brian and I have pinkie promised to take a romantic “re-do” trip to the Eiffel tower and make a new memory of that as well! So maybe the only tears shed next time will be tears of joy!
what a view!Brian and his kids on the mountain top!Brian and I at the waterfall where Sherlock Holmes met his nemesis…
Mary Lauren posing with one of her hero’s, Sherlock Holmes at the museum.Mary Lauren at the waterfall where Sherlock Holmes battled with Professor MoriartyMy own 007!
We have been in Germany for about 3 weeks now and the summer heat is really sweltering at almost 100 degrees every day. The Germans don’t have air conditioning in their homes or public spaces and to our family this is a definite hardship! So we spend our days in the public library on base (where we can get internet) perched in front of their oscillating fans trying not to sweat so much! I told someone that Southern girls don’t sweat, we glow….but this is getting ridiculous! I passed glowing along time ago!
So we decided to travel to Switzerland where it promised to be cooler for the weekend. We chose a little town high in the Swiss mountains called Wengen. This is a village that has not allowed cars up the mountain for over 100 years. It was probably the most charming place I have ever seen! I really mean that, from the winding cobblestone streets, and the houses and hotels covered in blooming flower boxes, all set against the huge mountains rising up in every direction you looked. It was amazing, it literally took my breath away. We stayed in a wonderful family run hotel called the WengerHof and were treated like royalty. We had a family suite with two rooms and a living room full of Swiss antiques. Our rooms many windows opened up to the most amazing views of the huge mountains and blue skies and puffy white clouds….it was surreal. We all took turns going to the windows and announcing, “You gotta see this view!!!” every time the day changed. On our first night there the town was celebrating its own version of Independence Day and we were treated to a surprise fireworks show over the mountains as we were going to bed! It lasted for over 30 minutes….I felt like we were at a Walt Disney theme park and they were doing it just for us!!! The next day we took a tram to the top of the mountain range and hiked through countryside that reminded me of being in The Sound Of Music, there were even cows grazing alongside of us with bells around their necks. Again, I continued to look for hidden signs that we had just stumbled onto some sort of theme park…it just all seemed too perfect! On our last day in Switzerland, we decide to visit another town nearby called Reichenbach and the falls where Sherlock Holmes fought his arch enemy Professor Moriarity. Mary Lauren may or may not have had a key role in this outing being planned?…wink wink.. She was thrilled about hiking the trail and seeing the waterfall in person. We also toured the Sherlock Holmes museum and we all thought that it was really well-done.
From the pure mountain air, to the delicious Swiss food, the fun excursions, to the mountain views that went on forever, Switzerland was an amazing get away we won’t forget! I’m actually going to go on record and say it was my favorite trip yet! Stay tuned for more adventures!
Trier is an ancient town about an hour away from where we live in Rehweiler, Germany. So Brian and the kids and I decided to take a day trip and go and explore. Trier is the oldest city in Germany, and the best known feature of the city is the large Roman city gate called Porta Nigra or the Black gate that stands at the entry to the town square. It is a beautiful huge limestone gate that has weathered through the ages to a deep black color, it dates back to 186 AD! I don’t think my brain can truly even comprehend how long that gate has been standing there…the history in this country is mind boggeling. This town was beautiful and interesting, we saw Roman bath houses, a coliseum where the gladiators fought, and several huge cathedrals. As we walked inside one of the cathedrals to look around we noticed a modern art exhibit going on, so we strolled through out this ancient church looking at incredible modern art pieces…the juxtaposition of the two was stunning. We took a short train ride around the city and enjoyed learning about all the history, and then we decided to take a longer walking tour where we continued to hear all the amazing history of this incredible city. There is a large market square in the center of town where we ate lunch and enjoyed live music and people watching. There is a giant fountain in the center of the square that has ornate carvings on it meant to symbolize the people and what virtues the church leaders at the time thought they should have. However, he was displeased with them and so there are several “naughty monkeys” also carved into the fountain to represent their bad behavior. The monkeys are mooning you and doing other unmentionable things…. it was hysterical, talk about “not my circus, not my monkeys”! We all had a big laugh….In the middle of all the serious stuff we were seeing we also found the people back then had a great sense of humor too. All in all another great day out exploring together!
The whole gang on a bridge with Heidelburg castle behind us!Brian “monkeying” around in the village…
Josh giving me his best “Blue Steel” face….
Castles, castles, and more castles!! It really is true here in Germany, there are so many huge castles everywhere…you start to almost get a little jaded…”Oh look a giant castle….look over there another castle…. hey kids, look out your car window another castle”….. ! But seriously, each time you see a new one or better yet you get to explore inside one, it is still awe inspiring. We decided to take a day trip and go to Heidelberg and see the castle and the gardens and explore the town. Heidelberg is about an hour from our house and it is a really pretty drive over there. We drove into the town and headed up the largest mountain where you could see the castle perched over the river below. We parked and had lunch and a quaint little biergarten beside the castle and then took a tour. The castle itself is huge and the setting is like something out of a movie. The vines growing up the walls, the moat, the river, the statues and gardens… After our tour we just wandered around the grounds and enjoyed the day and then walked down a hiking path into the village below the castle. We shopped in the local stores and then had dinner at a cute little Thai cafe and people watched as the sun was setting. It was magical.
Mary Lauren and I at dinner our first night in Brussels.On a cruise through the canals in beautiful Brugge!Look at all the sweet sweet treats in Brugge! Heaven!M.L. and the boys in the square in Brugge!
The boys in the Grand Place in BrusselsThe kids at the welcome sign at the Atomium in BrusselsOur magical trip to the canals of BruggeThe atomium in Brussels… really cool museum left over from the Worlds Fair..
I am trying to take some fun notes as we go on our family trips and outings and keep a journal to look back on of our adventures. So far the universe has not disappointed me…… We took off our first weekend here in Europe and headed to Belgium. We wanted to see Brussels and Brugge. Mary Lauren and I did our research and thought a whole weekend dedicated to cities that are celebrated for their chocolate and wine sounded pretty great! So off we went! Our trip to Belgium was really fun, but I will say it started out a wee bit rocky in Brussels. Well, apparently the neighborhood I had booked us in, through AirBNB, had a large population of Arabic people. Brian became very vigilant when we parked the car and he began to notice all the turbans and women in full birkas on the streets around us. Brian and Josh were on full bodyguard alert. And to make matters worse, when we arrived it was 98 degrees in the shade and our apt. was yes…. Un-airconditioned!!! Hello Europe! get with the times and install some air conditioning!!!!! We tried to make the best of it, went out sightseeing until it got dark hoping for some relief and then returned to try and sleep. The only way to survive was to open all the windows (we were on the third floor) and try to get a cross-breeze. It was about then that we realized that this particular neighborhood was celebrating Ramadan…which loosely translates in my book to, “stay up and be extremely loud all night!!!” “Good times” for the little Benton’s that night doesn’t even begin to cover it!…… I swear I heard them sacrificing live goats and having cock fights at around 3 am and Brian will testify under oath that several stray cats were walking around our apt at around 4 am, along with a strange woman..!!! (I think the cat probably did wander in, but the woman was probably a hallucination due to heat stroke)! ha ha It went on all night! We were never so glad to stagger out of there on Sat. morning and head to Brugge to check into our hotel and just lay on the beds and crank the AC as low as it would go!!!! But, from there on out the rest of the weekend was smooth sailing! ….and Brugge was truly a wonderland! It is like a miniature Venice with swans floating on the canals and darling little shops and lots and lots of chocolate! I think I stress ate about 5 lbs of it myself before we got back! ha
So our first adventure is Europe was just that… here’s to the next three years of this beautiful circus!
my beautiful Circus 