Mediterranean Cruise, Days 1 & 2 (July 12 & 13)

Embarking the cruise in Barcelona, we had a full day on Sunday (anchored until about 7 p.m.) to PLAY! The slide and pool remained favorites all day since the weather was hot. J's getting ready here with Daddy.

Like polar opposites, the slide water was as warm as the pool water was cold!

R is a little advanced in his slide technique as you can see below. He's learned how to get the ultimate fast experience by leaning back.

While eating outside on the ship, my son's food was pestered by a fly which he ended up catching by the wing. Do you think that could make David Letterman's "Stupid Human Tricks"?

"My Mom Told Me" is a song R started to write while we were on the ship. The title is as far as the song went even though I kept asking him all week what it was that I told him??? I'd love to know...maybe someday I'll find out.

Sidenote: R loves to sing...especially when he's in the restroom washing his hands for some reason. I remember one day last year at school when he was in my classroom waiting for me to get off work and he needed to go to the restroom. I sent him down, and then a student of mine needed to go as well, so I sent him down too. My student, Dustin, came back to inform me, "I didn't know R liked to sing in the restroom." I thought it was a family secret and maybe he chose not to display his talent in public, but I guessed wrong and I have to admit I was a little embarrassed.

Barcelona, Spain (July 11th)

After dropping my aunts off at the airport early Saturday morning, K proceeded to come home and get the remaining family (my parents, his parents, and the kids) to fly to Barcelona. We only had a short visit as we embarked on the Mediterranean cruise the very next day.

Antoni Gaudi worked on the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) from 1883 to 1926, and it remains unfinished today. According to the handout, the inside is to be completed in 2010, and the exterior by 2030. I hate to be a pessimist, but I personally don't see the end in sight. If by chance it does happen by then, I thought it would be neat for my children to return as adults and compare these pictures with the finished product. The inside of the Sagrada Familia (below).
The picture below is the more recent additions to the church by other artists since Gaudi's death.

Right in front of the Columbus Monument is where the kids posed for these pictures, which is the end of the Ramblas (the entertaining walkway).

We strolled down it visiting the markets set up around the area looking to find some dinner and start our people watching when we witnessed something that bugged our eyes out. This is when we saw the Naked Barcelona Man. Not only him, but the front of him, which stops people in their tracks. Supposedly he's famous and well known around town. I described him earlier in another post, but I'll fill you in again (just a little) in case you didn't see it. He is completely decked out in only his birthday suit except for some underwear tattooed onto his body with other various tattoos as well. I'm not sure if it's by nature or not, but he's well endowed - like halfway to his knees. (I have to watch my language in case any former 4th graders are reading this.) Even though I didn't point him out, my children had to witness this, which I do regret, but it's diversity for you! He came up later in a conversation and my son reminded us by saying, "Oh yeah, when we saw that guy's wiener?" Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. We decided the people watching could become pretty fascinating that evening! Fortunately we didn't witness anything else quite up to that standard.

Here's a picture of our meal of paella - rice with chicken and veggies.

Our group eating dinner while people watching.

Is this in the Guinness Book somewhere as being the world's largest vending machine? I couldn't believe the size of this thing! I guess lots of things are just bigger in Barcelona.

Just Being a Belgian Tour Guide (July 4th-10th)

I have never been a tour guide, but definitely felt the stress of taking everyone around and being responsible for them having a good time. I desperately wanted my aunts and parents to believe they had experienced the trip of a lifetime, particularly because my aunts were only here for a week and were new to the whole traveling abroad thing. Where to go? What to do? They didn't care, but mentioned seeing Paris.

Despite getting into a hit and run accident in the parking lot of the Neuhaus Chocolate Outlet Store (if you come here, you have to get chocolates to take back, right?) on Monday of our big week, I believe the trip was perfect. (Sunday we had visited Brugge, a city in Belgium.) My car was hit by Anonymous causing my parents, the kids, and one aunt to head home with the TomTom. I needed to find the police station and report it for insurance purposes. I thought it'd be pretty simple since I had a sweet chocolate outlet lady helping me, but I did have the not always reliable GPS in my car.

After asking for directions from about 5-6 people, some of whom spoke perfect English, Aunt Susie and I never found the police station in that commune even after driving around for 2 hours. It had supposedly been moved recently to a different location, but after calling K at work and telling him I was just going to have to wake up early the next morning and go to our local station, he said, "Well, I guess that's what happens when we're living in a foreign country, not really speaking the language." (Neither one of us has been great at learning French.) I'm so thankful to have an understanding husband. He didn't raise his voice or act like I was a complete idiot, but agreed with my decision and realized I had tried my best to make the situation right. Luckily, I never did break down and cry during that "dent" in the day...I came pretty close though!

After reporting the crime at the police station on Tuesday (very nice people I might add), we were in the car for a 3 hour ride to Paris. We spent Tuesday through Thursday there, mastering the metro system and visiting many tourist sights you just have to do while you're in Paris. Friday was spent running around getting ready for the cruise, visiting the Butte de Lion where the Battle of Waterloo occurred, and making a quick trip to the Beersel Castle (You have to see a castle when you're in Europe!).
I realized I've adjusted to some European ways that my aunts got a kick out of seeing such as men peeing on the side of the road, the not so apparent toilet flushing systems (sometimes you have to stare at the toilet for a few minutes to figure out where the flusher is), always carrying spare change just in case you need to go to the restroom in public, screenless windows, and much more. My Aunt Susie took great notes to report back to Grandma.

Below are pictures of Brussels on the Grande Place with the kids, my aunts and dad before heading to the Neuhaus Outlet.


Eating Belgian waffles with powdered sugar for dessert. What was my son doing??
The evidence:

I will never forget it raining when we ascended the Eiffel Tower producing a rainbow my children are so blessed to have witnessed (even though they don't realize it).

At the top of the tower, you can see how far away other tourist sites are located. See how far away from home we are?

The left side of the rainbow was much more visible.

If you click on this picture and look really closely, you can see the rainbow on the right near the buildings. Priceless!

Metro Masters!

This is what my children thought of the whole sightseeing thing...one is fake smiling and the other is exhausted from all the walking. They're such troopers!

Aunts Sally and Susie were people watching and eating lunch at my favorite restaurant that has a killer Greek salad, Cafe di Roma, on the Avenue Des Champs-elysees in Paris. It doesn't get any better than this!

July 4th - Keeping Four Adults Awake

We had been waiting for this day for a long time. My grandma was to arrive with my two aunts and my parents to head off our summer of visitors! Although my grandma (86 years old) got pneumonia and couldn't make the trip, my aunts and parents came to celebrate with us. K's parents would be arriving next week.

In case you haven't noticed from the blog, we (and I mean other expats as well as ourselves) don't tend to get many visitors on this side of the pond, so when we do see company arriving in the near future, we get REALLY excited. Since family was arriving on the 4th of July, I tried to talk my aunts into packing some fireworks in their luggage so we could celebrate in style, but probably because one of my uncles is a police officer, that just didn't fly. Instead, they found some table decorations, necklaces, and other toys colored red, white and blue to make our celebration complete.

My sweet friend, Amy, went all out and for some reason has more hours in her day than I do...I'm not sure if it's because she lives closer to the main road in Waterloo or what, but she came up with so many festive ideas you'd think it was her family coming from America instead of mine! She bought wonderful beef patties for hamburgers (to grill out of course) at a shop in Brussels (because trust me, American beef at the grocery store cannot be from America), found the only few American decorations in stores around here to hang and display, found corn on the cob, baked and decorated an American flag cake, put together a 4th of July trivia game complete with prizes (and good ones too!), and painted her daughter's nails with the festive colors all in a few days. I'm convinced she doesn't sleep - ever.

When my family was making the haul over here, the flights usually happen over night, so you snooze from about 6 or 7 at night until you wake up and you're in Belgium around 8 or so in the morning. You're not supposed to think about the fact that you only slept for about 4-6 hours (if you're lucky), but stay awake at all costs so you can head to bed early here and sleep all night to fight off jet lag. We had a job to do - keeping 4 adults awake until bedtime. I'd say Amy's party planning was just what they all needed to war off the nods.

Here they are arriving at the airport.

Check out those nails!

With sunglasses it can be tricky - is Nana asleep or awake?

You can see their mouths moving...they're definitely awake!

Antwerp Zoo, Belgium (July 3rd)

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the character of the Antwerp Zoo, but now that we're home and looking at pictures, I guess we didn't quite capture that in the photos. We'll just have to go again.
The Antwerp Zoo was here long before much of the city was built around it. The train station (a beautiful one I might add) is right near the entrance. We glanced inside, admiring the beauty of the architecture and were astounded when we witnessed this event out of the clear blue. Just click on the link to see what we saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k

We found all the normal zoo friends here and I even spotted some animals that live at my house.

As we turned a corner, we found these penguins out in the near 70 degree weather instead of the freezing atmosphere we're used to seeing them nest at home. I wondered out loud why they were in the warmer climate and my son said, "Well, Mom, they are supposed to be out here...they're probably from Argentina." What? Where did he gain that knowledge because according to the zoo sign, he's right! Remember, he's my child that reads for about an hour each night in bed. So, I'm thinking he's read some animal books from when I used to teach second grade when in reality I find out that when you pick a team for soccer on the XBOX, (Argentina for example) you see some facts about the countries, like there are certain penguins residing in the warm climates near Argentina.

Smiles kept coming when the kids felt the nibble of fish on their fingers in this petting zoo area.

Petting the fish is allowed, just as long as you don't try the action below.

Luckily, we didn't witness any of that happening!

Unbelievable Belgian Sunset

I caught a picture of this sunset a few weeks ago from our back patio, but forgot it was on the camera. How amazing! I haven't adjusted a single thing to the colors or photo. I promise!

A Day at the Movies

J eating candy before the movie started. (above)
R trying out his 3D glasses in between 2 friends. (below)

When a movie comes out in English in the theaters, it only shows for about a week, so you can't wait around too long or you'll just plain miss out. Ice Age III came out in 3D this week at a local theater so today we joined a few other moms and kids to watch the flick. There are only a few of us left in Belgium since most families headed back to the states for the summer.

I was surprised to find that the concession stand was not outrageously priced like the US. The prices were a little high, but not nearly as steep as back home. The kids picked some candy and drinks before we headed to theater number 6.

We each were assigned a seat like on the first day of school, so there were no arguments. The movie theater chairs were extremely comfortable and each wore the assigned number on the back with a drink holder by the side. Just look at the padded armrests!

As we were all engulfed in the show, the lights came on about 3/4 of the way through and the screen stopped, displaying the words, "We'll be back after the break." There was a 10 minute intermission for the movie. How nice since we had all finished our drinks and needed to empty our bladders as well.

We enjoyed our Belgian movie experience, and the next one we're waiting for is Up. Unfortunately we'll have to wait until October to see it since we're not going back to the states this summer. Some of the movies release at the same time as the US here, but other times it's delayed. On my calendar under October will be a reminder to keep my eyes peeled for Up showing in English so I don't miss the 1 week it's out. That would be a bummer!