April 2011

(This post contains 65 photos, as well as some riveting text [smirk] so, only keep reading if you have some time. You're welcome.)

 Okay, enough messing around. This year is almost over and it would be great if I could get the rest of our adventures posted before it ends. Blogger has made it easier to upload photos, and the connection here is so much better than it was in England that I do believe I will be able to achieve that goal. So on to the photos. Grab a drink. There are 65. 

Right before Spring Break, Brandon went to Barcelona for an Ortho meeting. Sorry about your trip all alone to Barcelona, Brandon. Don't try to make me feel better by saying things like "I really wish you could have come with me." I had already been to Barcelona, so I didn't miss much.

 Clearly, Brandon really liked this building. Although, I must admit, I like a lot of the architecture there.

This is one that really impressed me when I went: The Sagrada Familia. It's been under construction for quite a while.

Columbus, pointing toward the New World.

After Brandon got back, we turned around and left again for our Spring Break trip. We rode the Eurostar train through the Chunnel, which was kind of exciting, well the thought of it at least. There's not much to see in there. We took the train to Brugge, Belgium. The first thing we did was head out to see the chocolate shops. They have the greatest window displays.

We took a canal boat ride, which was a great way to see the city.

Belgian Waffle, of course. They put all sorts of deliciousness on top of these.

A windmill alludes to our next destination on the trip, but this one is still in Belgium.

After a few hours on the train again, we arrived in Amsterdam. The ride on the train was a lot of fun, especially when we would pass the flower fields. We spent all of our time in the city, but I think a few days in the rural areas of the Netherlands would be beautiful.

We checked out the flower market, which was beautiful, but not as loaded with flowers as I expected. They had lots of bulbs for sale, but not as many fully bloomed flowers. But I thought these arrangements were pretty.

One of our outings was to the Keukenhof Gardens. This place was amazing. I took about a zillion pictures, but I won't make you look at all of them. Here's just a few.

The flower fields look like huge carpets. It's really fun to look out and see these fields of color, when I'm so used to seeing just green.

We also went to the Van Gogh museum, where I was not allowed to take pictures, of course, but we got this one outside. Thanks to Disney's Little Einsteins, the boys even kind of enjoyed this stop.

We took a canal boat ride here, too. 

And we went to the Anne Frank house. The boys really enjoyed this stop as well. This museum is very well done, and although the reason for its existence is tragic, it was extremely interesting.

After our few days in Amsterdam, we headed home by way of Brussels, where we had a few hours to kill before getting back on the Eurostar. We mostly kept to the main historic square.

Believe it or not, in this crowd of people, we actually ran into some people we know, who are also stationed at Lakenheath!

This is the original Godiva Chocolaterie.

 And this is the famous mannequin pis statue that they have made the unfortunate decision to dress up in costumes. On this day he was wearing some ghetto gear. Nice. Can I just get a picture of the statue without the lame costume, please? Or at least a better costume than this one?

One more waffle. A word to the wise. If you are on your way out of Belgium and want to take home some chocolate and maybe some delicious pastries as well, buy them before consuming an ice cream, chocolate, strawberry and whip cream laden waffle. I was so full after this that I didn't even want to think about buying more to eat, even if I was planning on taking it home. And so, we left Belgium with no chocolate. A true tragedy.

We came home just in time for Easter.

And just a funny thing. We've all heard that joke about Star Wars Day being on May the fourth, but I guess it's a real thing because LEGO has a sale!

So there you have it folks. Our April. Here's to hoping I can get May, June and July done in the next ten days. I'll be away from my precious iMac for a few days, so I don't have a full ten days. Although, this post really didn't take too long. But, as you can imagine, as we got closer to the end of our time, we tried to pack in a lot, so there's lots to write about and lots of pictures. In May we went on a cruise and I took 1000 pictures. A thousand! I figure the narrowing will take as long as the uploading because we saw A LOT of beautiful things. But you'll just have to check back in a day or so for that.