Last few days in Europe

Day 8

My Christmas present from Matt was a trip to Brugge, Belgium.

On our train ride there, not only did we see all of of these bikes in this picture, but we also met 2 girls who spoke english that we hung out with for most of the day in Brugge. It was fun to have some travel buddies with us!

This is the cute little town of Brugge

And here we are on a bridge going over a river through the town

And this was also the site of Matt's re-proposal to me! Since he never had the chance to officially propose again after we had decided to get back together, he did it while we were in Europe. He proposed with a white teddy bear, since I already had the ring and you all know how much I love stuffed animals! It was super cute! A Chinese couple was so happy for us...they even stopped to take pictures of Matt and I!

A random statue in the town

Doesn't this look like it should be inside a snow globe?!

Random cool looking building

In Brugge there was a chocolate museum, so of course, we had to go in it! Here is how they make chocolate...

These are some of the machines that get used during the process

This was a famous lady in history that was involved with chocolate, but I don't remember who it was.

Some of the original chocolate molds

This dog is made completely out of chocolate!!!!!!!!

This is a fountain located in a part of Brugge that has many different statues on it. It looked pretty cool when it was all lit up

Day 9

At Matt's church on Sunday, the kids performed their Christmas play. It was really cute...and 2 of the kids that we were staying with for the week were in it also. The play is called "A King is Coming to Town"

The kids singing and dancing...they all did a great job!

The little girl playing Mary is the 3 year old that I was staying with, and in the background is the 11 year old I was staying with. He played the cop of the town in the play.

After church, we went over to another family's house for lunch. I played HSM2 uno with their 6 year old while lunch was being made. She LOVES HSM and was very excited for me to come :)

Lunch was a traditional Indian meal...it was delicious!!!!

After lunch, Matt and I went back to babysit the 4 kids of the house we were staying at so the parents could get some time to themselves with no kids. It was a good time. The next day we headed back to Brussels where we started our trip and hung out with Chris and a few others for the day. Then on Tuesday it was time to come home. It was a LONG plane ride, but both Matt and I made it back safely. He is in Missouri and I am back in Michigan, but on January 18th, Matt will be moving to Michigan for good until the wedding :)

Overall, I had a great time in Europe and I think it will be a good experience living over there for a few years. But ya never know what God has in store for us....

Europe-Days 6 and 7-PARIS

I took sooooo many pictures in Paris, so I put most of the good ones into a slide show for you!! Enjoy!!!

Europe-Days 3,4,and 5

Day 3

We relaxed!!! Chris and Londie helped with a friend's proposal all day so Matt and I just hung out in the apartment and watched movies and such. It was a good day to help me continue adjusting to the time change too.

This is pretty much where we were all day...on the couch watching movies
For dinner, Matt and I went to the grocery store and bought some food to make dinner. We made a chicken teriyaki stir fry kinda thing with garlic toast. It was soooo good!!!!



Here is me and Chris...we took about 6 or 7 pics looking very similar to this one


Day 4

We traveled to our next stop and the place Matt stayed all summer...Jurbise, Belgium

This is the train schedule that I have now learned to read...

And here is the train that we took!

Once we got there, we stopped at the house Matt lived at all summer and hung out with that family for awhile. We also watched a movie. Then I got to see what Club Beyond was all about...so we hung out with middle school and high school kids for a few hours. After Club, we went to the house we are staying at for most of the rest of our stay here...the Kolver family!

They have 4 kids, Casey (11), Bryason (7), Jenna (3), Elysia (8 mos)...here is Jenna and Elysia...aren't they adorable?!!?!?

Day 5

We visited Mons, Belgium!!

waiting for the ever popular train to arrive

This was our lunch...they are called durums. Since we can't speak french and the people in the restaurant we wanted food from didn't speak english, we had a difficult time telling them what we wanted. We ended up with these things...shredded meat and stuff in a tortilla type wrap...which were super tasty :)

This is what the town looks like
Here is the Gran Plaz of Mons

And this is the famous little monkey statue in Mons...apparently when you rub his head, you have good luck/fertility, hahaha

This is the cathedral
And me singing with the statues :)

This is the front of a church/building for university classes

On the way to Mons, we didn't have a chance to buy our ticket when hopping from one train to the next so we were just going to buy it on the train (which you can do) but the conductor was apparently upset at us or something because we didn't tell him we needed tickets on the train, so he charged us a fine!!! But on the way home, we got our tickets on the train and this conductor was nice and let us buy our tickets like we should have been able to do before. It was a happy end to a fun day!!

I made it!!! Europe...Day 1 and 2

I made it to Europe!!!! It was a long trip, but I survived. The long plane ride from the US to Amsterdam was cool cause I could watch movies and play games on this cool little tv screen in the seat! I watched Kung Fu Panda...it was alright. My stomach got a little sick after landing that first time, but I had a 6 hour lay over after that, so it helped. In Amsterdam, I put together a 300 piece HSM puzzle...there's a pic below...

After waiting in the airport for a delayed second flight, I had a 30 minute flight to Belgium!! That one went super smooth...and much faster than the 7.5 hour one! Once getting there, I saw Matt and his friends Chris and Londie in the airport. Then we met up with two more friends, Mistrel and Sam and we went out to eat.

Here is a pic of Matt and I in the restaurant. I look kinda tired...for obvious reason. I got about 2-3 hours of sleep in about a 24 hour period. :)
This is Sam and Mistrel...they got mussels in Brussels!
After that, they insisted that I had to go to Delirium...its a pub that is in the guiness book of world records!! They have over 2000 types of beers!!
They got me a raspberry beer...it was ok, but I only had a few sips and I was done with it.
After Delirium, it was bedtime!!! They kept me up till 12:30, so I was exhausted.
Oh...and this is what we walked by on our way...these are everywhere!!
The next day after church, we went out to another restaurant for lunch. Here is a pic of the town
And this is in front of the restaurant...it was so tasty!!!
Here's a pic of some of our food. Mine is on the right hand side...it was noodles and chicken in this amazing sauce
Then we took the metro to the Grand Plaz.....
It was very festive! There were musical light things and a big tree right in the middle of everything. (There is a video posted below...I couldn't seem to get it to drag to this spot...so when you reach the bottom of this post, you can watch the video!!)
Here is one of the buildings surrounding the Grand Plaz
Matt and I in front of a building
Oh, and this is Chris, Matt's friend from the UK. He dressed up in his Scottish attire for a youth group picture scavenger hunt. He was one of the things the kids had to find. Matt and I hung out with him...we got waffles!!

Here is a pic of one of the many waffle places. They put all sorts of different stuff on their waffles, even chocolate sauce. It was great.

At the end of the day, we went back to Chris' place and all (me, matt, chris, londie (chris' gf), sam, and mistrel) watched a movie. Here I am at 1:30 am Belgium time...its time for me to go to bed now. Good night...and I will post again soon!