Ambassador Antwerp

Every two years, the weather man declared, there are strong gales in the south of England, the type that disrupt train services, housewives lose their laundry drying on the line, umbrellas get blown inside out - and even trees are blown down. This was the day that we chose to fly to England. It's OK, the gales will die down sometime in the afternoon, said the same weather man, but not after we've flown over to ...

... by train shortly (within 30 mins) for the inauguration of the unveiling of the new section to the Antwerp train station. I wanted to stick around to see the Prince and possibly snap a photo or two of him but I was informed he really wasn't worth it by Ann. So we just continued on our journey. <br><br>Before lunch Ann said she wanted to treat us to a glass of champagne at a very ...

... flair to the speed and intensity of it. Belgium, as I was familiar, is a chocoholic kind of location. Milk chocolates, truffles, pralines, and the like are their specialty. Dark chocolates were much better in Amsterdam, but I was happy to change up my palette for a couple days! I visited no less than 10 chocolate shops, and found my favorite, which I visited and purchased chocolates from at least 3 times! First it was 2 fancy chocolates for myself ...

... These Youth Mansions are all over Belgium (one for each town) and it's where the youth goes to hang out every Wed, Fri, and Sat. No adults! We ended up playing cards with the locals and having a real good time. The next day Jelle took us to Brussels. We wandered a lot, saw a lot of cool buildings, saw the little guy peeing, and after being lost for awhile went back to Jelle's house. While we were gone, his mom did our laundry so I'm fresh ...

Happy Father's Day! The kids got up around 8 and had a bowl of cereal. I got dressed and took Eliza to the bakery to get some special pastries for father's day. Emma made a card and Abigail made some wrapping paper to wrap his new water bottle up (the metal kind; he was the only one without a water bottle). We were all out the door and on the bus a little after 10am. At the train station we bought our tickets (6.80 euros each for Jonathan and I) and made the mandatory ...

... we thought were girls, in little red figure skating skirts, with red leg warmers and massive red and black feather contraptions for hats. They were dancing and a shakin and were followed by a marching band. They were actually quite good, but once they got closer, they weren't 18 year old dancers at all, they were 50-60 year old ladies. Needless to say we were all quite impressed. Take a look for yourself... After we hit the main square a ...

... was along those lines. I am just incredibly excited to be in Paris again and try to speak French. I think that it will be a fun two days, but I know that we will all be exhausted. I am already up too late tonight, but hey, that's what being a student is all about. Well, our train is about to pull in and I should prepare myself to jump off. We are in Paris!! Oh man...what will I do first? I'll let you all know in my next blog. Which will be soon. Enjoy and take care!

... wouldn't let us board, which sucked. Fortunately, we were able to trade our tickets for the next departure which was like an hour later. The weird thing was, they made it like it was a big deal, even though the next train had so many empty seats it was ridiculous. We boarded, and through the Chunnel we went! Upon arrival in Brussels, we caught a cab (btw, the "cabs" there are BMW's, Mercedes, and the like). I got to practice my French ...

... Belgier in die Tankstelle einbog, wurden sie von einem Autofahrer angesprochen, der sie schon am Morgen gesehen hatte und dann Richtung Norden mitnahm... Ich wurde von "meinem" Belgier an der Grenze ausgesetzt. Keine Autos in Sicht, ich lief zu einer Auffahrt. Keine Autos in Sicht. 20 Minuten später fing es an zu regnen. Ein guter Start in Belgien, zum Glück erlebte ...

... for all ages. So it seemed as if almost everyone was on his or her way to a Sinterklaas celebration. This created a major obstacle which could not be overcome...it took over an hour to get to the Ringroad (8.5 KMs from our apartment) and out of A'dam. Once we were out of town, we made good timing - the entire drive took 5 hours including the hour spent in A'dam. We listened to some good music...Bruce Springsteen and my b-day present, the "Kill Bill" soundtrack, as well as the ...