Bruges

Quickly before bed here are some pictures from our second day in Belgium. We went to Bruges, and is was BEAUTIFUL!

Here we are standing in what we found out later was a round-about.

Crazy picture (Taken by David Gomez <-He wanted credit for his pictures)
Belgium beer with Belgium waffles, yes!!!

Here is the church..or castle, not sure, but it was beautiful. If you saw the movie "In Bruges" you should recognize this tower.

A palace...maybe?

All of the restaurants and shops around the square. Don't the look like little gingerbread houses?


Here in Belgium they take their beer very seriously, so when you order a beer, the glass matches your beer. But in this restaurant they took it to another level. The coke, and even the water glasses matched their bottles.


They also take french fries seriously. Here they are in the silver bowl the waiter served them from. Also, there is never any ketchup, everyone in Bruges ate them with mayo.


After Bruges we drove back to Amiens where Daniel's father works. Here is their tower, and best way to figure out where you're going.


Jasmine found wild dasies outside Daniel's dad's apartment. She made a daisy chain for Daniel during the drive back to Paris.


OK now everything is up to date. we are back in Paris, and today we did nothing but relax. It was wonderful! Tomorrow we are off to see all the big sights, the Arc, Notre Damn, and the Eiffel Tower!

Brussels

The next morning we left Holland, and drove through Amsterdam one more time to get ice cream!


In Amsterdam everyone, and I mean EVERYONE rides bikes. Here is a two or three story parking garage..for bikes!

Then it was off to Brussels!

Here is a picture of typical Dutch country side. There are little canals through all of the fields. Daniel and I were wondering if the farmers ever get sick of walking all the way around to get across, and just jump over the water. We decided that's what we would do if we ever become Dutch farmers.


On the way to Brussels the traffic was terrible! It took 1 1/2 hours to go 30 km! Jasmine is still not quite sure what that is in miles. Shes also still adjusting to people telling her it's 10 degrees outside so maybe she wont need a coat.

We stopped at McDonald's, which is surprisingly interesting here in Europe. In Holland they eat these amazing things called krokets, or croquettes... something like that. They are meat and this kind of creamy gravy, then covered in bread crumbs and fried! Yum! Well at McDonald's in Holland they have something called a McKroket, a croquette flattened in a patty on a bun with mayo. It was one of those things that was so full of fat, yet so so delicious.


So, after about an hour, or maybe more, of searching, and turning around, and asking about 10 people for directions, we FINALLY found the center square of Brussels.

Here is a church we found along the way.


And once in the square there was a beautiful light display with a giant Christmas tree!


During the light show this building was glowing all different colors!


Then Jasmine realized that all of her favorite beers, Stella, Hoegarden, Duvel, Leffe, were all over every bar! Just like bud light is in America. It was AMAZING.


After that we walked to the Manneken Pis, a little fountain of a small boy peeing. The legend is that there was a fire, and this little boy put it out, by peeing. Why do Europeans seem to really enjoy traditions and stories involving pee and poo?


Then we attempted for over an hour to find this old bar called the Lop Lop that Jasmine's dad used to go to when he was working in Brussels. The only thing is, it closed 4 years ago!

Then we walked down these streets filled with restaurants. A big thing in Belgium is Mussels. Outside of almost every place there were piles of mussels on ice in nicely arranged patterns. Here is one with the manneken pis in the middle.


After all of that walking we were very hungry, so we stopped for Belgium waffles...in Belgium!!! Here's Stef eating her chocolate waffle. Jasmine got one with cream, and ended up with about half of the cream on her face.

Amsterdam Day 2

On the second day in Amsterdam we took a boat tour! What better way to get a taste of the city. It was about an hour long. There were a lot of row houses some of which were tilted to the side or forward because of the unstable foundation.
Here is a picture of seven bridges all in a row!

There are so many people in Amsterdam that some of them actually live on the canal in their own little boat house.
Later that night we took a wrong turn and found this again...
Jasmine finally found some snow....
kind of... How it got there we have no idea.

We had a good dinner, typical dutch meatballs and gravy

We found an interesting sign in the bathrooms... Apparently this needs to be mentioned, you know since it is Holland.

After dinner Nicole, Ronnie, Jasmine and Stefanie went out to what we later found out was the best voted bar in the nation!!! It was amazing. Daniel didn't go because his back and leg were acting up. But of course Jasmine made sure to drink for two.

Random picture of Daniel because he wasn't in any picture this post...

thank you followers!

We are both glad that you all enjoy our stories. As requested we will post up santa pictures so that everyone may see where he has been... and also what he has gotten himself into :0
Im sorry we will not be travelling through Ireland, that will have to wait for another trip. We will however end up in Ljubljana, Slovenia for new years! So for those followers nearby, go to Ljubljana!!

Holland!

Today we saw so much. Patricia had the day off of work so she took us out to this place where they have all these little Dutch shops. We watched them make wooden shoes, and looked at windmills.


They were actually very warm and comfortable!

Windmills!

Then Patricia took us to a Castle!!

Sadly, the inside was closed for the winter.

Then tonight we went out with Ronny to Amsterdam.

We drank some beer

Walked around Dam Square

And then we saw some very 'unique' things, like coffee shops. You do not buy coffee in coffee shops, you buy something a little bit different... something that is smoked...




And he is another unique Ansterdam atraction... with a red light... we found a closed window for this picture...


There santa in the picture is part of a contest for the newspaper back in Tampa. They are going to give a prize for the santa picture in the most interesting location. We really want to win, so we thought this would be a unique photo opportunity. (I'll post more of our Santa pics later, we have about 15 or 20 now)

Thats it for now, tomorrow we will go back into Amsterdam to go on a boat tour, an art museums, and maybe to the house where Anne Frank and her Family lived while they were hiding during the Holocaust.

Goodnight!

In Amsterdam!

What a long day of traveling!
Last night we were up until 5 or 6 am trying to recover our lost pictures.
Then this morning we got up, packed, and went back to Sagrada Familia to take some more pictures and buy a few things.

Very quickly here is one of the weirdest stories we have ever heard...

So in Barcelona, there are a lot of Catalan people. They have their own language, goeverment and interesting traditions. While in the market the other day near the Sagrada Familia we found all of these dolls for nativity scenes. At first we were confused because a lot of the little dolls looked like they were crouched down, almost like they were going to the bathroom. After we saw this about 20 or 30 times, we finally realized that's exactly what they were doing. From the side of the dolls we could see they all had their pants down with a little pile of poo under them!!! We also saw these strange logs with smiling faces and santa hats. Later at dinner we asked Mariana about the pooping dolls. She said that the Catalan people celebrate with big gifts and festivals on the 6th of January instead of December 24th or 25th. They have the 3 kings day and that is who brings them the gifts not Santa.

So anyway... they like to do something for the children on December 24th or 25th, but something smaller. So everyone buys these logs...

The children 'feed' it, by bringing it fruits and treats. On December 24th, the parents cover the log with a blanket (and replace the food the children left with small candies and gifts). Then the children beat the log and yell "Cagate, Cagate, Cagate!!" which means "make a poop!". They lift up the blanket and it is like the log pooped out their small gifts. They put the pooping doll in their nativity scenes to represent this tradition.
I cannot tell you how hard we laughed during this story. It was so amazing, today we went out and had to buy a mini log and our own pooping doll.

And as for the rest of today...
After buying our log and pooping doll we rushed off the the airport, where it turned out our flight was delayed for over 3 hours! It was not too bad, we played cards, and they gave us a ticket for a snack, which I used for a little bottle of Catalan wine and pasteries.
Then in Amsterdam Patricia picked us up. Traffic was so bad at one point it took us over an hour to go 3 km!
But now we are here, and have to get to bed. Tomorrow we are going to look at all of the Holland things, like windmills, the little wooden shoes, and cheese!
Good night from The Netherlands!

leaving barça...

Going to Amsterdam, but not before we buy the traditional Catalan Christmas decoration, more on that later...
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