Yum! Waffles!

We had our first Belgian Waffle on Sunday morning. Probably the most expensive waffles we have ever had, but they were wonderful. As you can see from the picture above it's not like a Waffle House waffle or an IHOP waffle. Syrup is not standard here. I don't even think they have syrup for waffles. Here, waffles are usually topped with fruit and whipped cream or in Scott's case, ice cream. They are not doughy as you would expect a waffle to be but these are more flakey. If you're wondering, our 2 waffles cost $15 dollars + $6 for our bottle of water.
We drove to Zeebrugge on Sunday afternoon. This is the closest beach to us. It is about 10 minutes away. During the summer, families rent the little building out and keep all of their beach items in there so they are not hauling it back and forth everytime they come. You can't really see the water but it's the North Sea. There were about 20-30 windsurfers out yesterday. It was probably around 68-70 degrees yesterday so it was pretty windy.

I drove to HOLLAND! Yes, me. I finally made it to the "bigger" roads. We started right outside of Brugge and headed to Holland. Is the picture above what you expect of Holland? Goats! Brugge is about 20 minutes from the Holland border. Amsterdam is about 2 hours away so we basically just got to see the Holland countryside.

Spreekt u Nederlands? (Do you speak Dutch?)

Were are in about week 5 of our lessons and there are no words to describe this language. Scott and I both know Spanish but Nederlands is absolutely nothing like it. Our teacher will say "wat is koning" and Scott and I will just stare at each other. Then she'll try and act it out and we still don't get it. It's easier once you see it and put it to memory but here is a little taste of Nederlands!

koning = king

hond = dog

alstublieft = please

verpleegster = nurse

uitsekend = great

boom = tree

krant = newspaper

koffer = suitcase

Gelukkige verjaardag = Happy Birthday

Aangenaam kennismaking = Nice to meet you

Hetzelfde = The same to you

I wouldn't even try to pronounce it. We'll save that for another lesson!

We are off to Heidelberg, Germany next weekend to see my cousin. More European pictures next week!

Tot Ziens! (See you later!)

Weekend in London

Who needs a cell phone when you have a cute telephone booth?

The British parliament and Big Ben

The White Cliff of Dover

Scott and Lacy's London Top 10

10) The Channel Tunnel: riding via train,underneath the North Sea, while sitting in our car for 30 minutes.

9) British Royalty and English History: We visited the parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, Kensington, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, St. Paul's Cathedral and much much more!

8) Everything is Backwards! Props to Scott for doing a fantastic job driving in England. It's not as easy as it looks. We just worked together and I kept saying "tight left" or "wide right" or watch the round-a-bout. The slow lane is on the left and the fast lane is on the right. The exits are on the left side. What else is backward: the money - we found out the hard way - the larger the coin the smaller the amount. Even when you are walking you walk on the left . I can't tell you how many times I ran into people in the tube!

7) The TUBE: London did an excellent job with their underground train system. Everything is color-coded and takes you everywhere you could want. Very easy to navigate though we still managed to make mistakes that would have cost us on the Amazing Race. We used the TUBE all weekend and wouldn't have made it without it.

6) Mamma Mia! Scott is no longer a Mamma Mia virgin. He saw it for his first time and loved it. More risque than the American version and more British humor. Everyone enjoyed the encore of Waterloo!

5) Our Hotel: We knew when booking our hotel that hotel ratings in Europe are different. You can't go lower than a 3-star or you'll be sharing bathrooms and bedrooms with others. We chose a 3 1/2 star and we might as well have been staying in jail or the local hostel. The room was smaller than the smallest room on a cruise ship. At least the cruise ship gives you a dresser and a nightstand. The phone was just sitting on the floor. Our bed had a metal frame with one lumpy mattress (where was the box spring?) that we both barely fit on. I refused to shower in the tiny stand-up shower. (Don't worry, I bathed in the sink - with a TOWEL - b/c they didn't supply washcloths. Good thing I brought my own soap!) It's 4 1/2 stars or higher for us from now on!

4) American Food - Sure when you're in England your suppose to have Fish n Chips and Meat pies and stuff but when you haven't had American food in so long you just gravitate toward it. Here's was our selection of restaurants for the weekend: McDonald's (sure Belgium has McDonald's but this was the American menu), SUBWAY, TJI Fridays (Boy, were we in heaven!), Burger King and Pizza Hut. Good thing we got our exercise while we were there!

3) The White Cliffs of Dover and The Dover Castle: Probably my favorite part of the trip. Completely Breathtaking!

2) THEY SPEAK ENGLISH! We're coming along in our Flemish/Dutch lessons but it's so good to speak English and have people understand you without hand signals or speaking very sl-ooo-www-l-yy. Oh, and to be able to read the road signs - what a relief!

1) KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS: Thank you Harrods for putting the kiosk in your store. It doesn't matter that we paid $4.00 for 2 doughnuts - they were just so good. Even the HOT light was on!

Click HERE to view all of our pictures. Comments are added if you scroll down on the picture.

Charming Brugge!

We decided to stay in Brugge this weekend and explore what our city has to offer. Friday night we went out to dinner at a quaint Italian restaurant around the corner from us and then on to the local British Pub and a local Brugge bar. We had quite an experience at the local bar so if you want to hear about it give us a call.

Saturday night we stumbled upon a restaurant that ranks in our "top 3" of European restaurants. The food was outstanding. I had oven baked chicken and Scott had Flemish stew(kind of like pot roast with a brown gravy sauce.) We can't wait to take visitors there. Check it out here : www.curiosa-brugge.com. Click on the left to change the language to English and be sure to read the history. Our neighbors from New Jersey, had friends in town on Saturday so we met up with them after dinner and had drinks at the local Irish pub.

The pictures above were taken on our walk home Saturday night.

There's two things everyone in Europe owns: a coffee pot and a tea set. We owned neither up until now. I thought I was doing good to just have a tea kettle! After the local British ladies educated me in tea pots, I now know the tea pot is the most essential piece when "having" tea. I had been looking for the perfect tea pot set and finally found one. We found it at the local antique fair that was going on. After researching it on the internet it is authentic and dates back to the 1950's. I bought the little sugar cubes the other day. So, in my best British accent, "Would anyone like a cup of tea?"

We are off to London next weekend. We should have lots of good pictures and stories for you.

Until next time......

Oh, for those of you keeping up with my driving.....I've made it out of the parking lot to the country back roads of Belgium yesterday with no tears or stressful moments!

Road Trip to Paris

It started out as just another average Saturday. We had our first Dutch lesson at 9:30 that morning. Let's just say that the southern twang and the harshness of the Dutch language do not mix. I can't say the letters Q and U in Dutch to save my life. I can successfully introduce myself, however : Ik been Lacy Eichenberger. No one in Europe has a problem pronouncing our last name. You should ask us to say it in Dutch/German for you sometime. It sounds like we're choking on something when we say it!
After the Dutch lessons, we were off to get trash bags and curtains for our living room. We had not had lunch yet so we stopped at this little town called Damme for lunch. It's about 4 miles from Brugge. We drove this time but we hope to bike there next time. We took a few pictures of the one windmill there and me with a metal figure. We then decided to drive to the France IKEA for curtains and we would get the trash bags on the way back. Brugge has specific trash bags that you have to use and you can only get them in Brugge. 40 minutes later we make it to our exit in France and we make a split second decision to keep driving and follow the signs to Paris.
We are off to Paris with no map or no tour book. We only have Friedel, our handy car navigation system. (That was the best European name we could think of) We type in Eiffel Tower and Friedel leads the way. With car navigation systems you have to be careful b/c they will say turn NOW when they really mean turn IN JUST A FEW SECONDS. As we are arriving into Paris I tell Scott that hopefully Friedel will lead us the back way toward the Eiffel Tower because we had both heard that going through the center of town is an accident waiting to happen because of the largest round-a-bout at the Arc de Triomphe. Friedel then says turn NOW and of course we turn now and we are on the wrong road so we are on own own until Friedel recalculates. All of a sudden, the Arch de Tiomphe appears in our view. We are heading straight for it. I take a moment to take a picture of it while Scott prepares for the round-a-bout. The round-a-bout has about 16 entrances and exits. It is mass confusion with everyone because there are no lanes, you just cut people off. Friedel then tells us to take the 7th exit off the round-a-bout. Back to my picture that I was taking (the one above) after this picture of course, my camera batteries went dead! (Don't worry, we bought more and have extras since this seems to be an ongoing thing with me.) We survive the round-a-bout, successfully park in a parking garage and find the Eiffel Tower. It's about 6pm at this time. We didn't get to go up in the tower because the lines are so long but I'm sure we'll be back a lot during our stay here. Paris is very large and spread out so we really only saw the Eiffel Tower side of town. We did take a boat tour and saw the Louvre and the Norte Dame Cathedral. We had dinner at a restaurant that overlooked the Eiffel Tower and then headed home. We arrived about 12:30am. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive. I guess we'll get the trash bags next weekend!

Click HERE to see our Damme and Paris pictures. If you scroll down on each picture, I added comments to these.

Click HERE to see our Atlanta-Albany-Antwerp pictures from last week. No comments added these pictures. These are un-edited and there are a lot of the Cathedral talked about last week.