Happy 30th Birthday Scott!

It appears to be a tradition in Belgium that if it's your birthday, you bring in some sort of treat for your group. We didn't realize that was the case last year so this year we planned ahead. I brought back two cake mixes and two icings from the U.S. and made about 40 cupcakes yesterday. Cupcakes are a normal birthday treat in the U.S. but they don't have them here. They have muffins but no cupcakes. Even if they did put the batter into a muffin tin, Belgians would never, ever frosting the top with icing for fear of too much sugar. Scott took his cupcakes to work and I just called and he said they were a big hit. They liked the chocolate frosting better than the vanilla. Go figure!

Scott, I hope you have a wonderful 30th birthday!

It's a holiday here on Thursday and Friday so we are headed to Barcelona, Spain to celebrate Scott's birthday. We weren't to impressed with southern Spain so I hope Barcelona is better. They have a Hard Rock Cafe...so at least we'll eat well!

Random (really random) thoughts:

I like soft toilet paper and I'm not afraid to admit that I have a slight Charmin addiction. We recently used our last role from our commissary visit in January. (Yes, I stock up) So, that meant I had to breakdown and shop for toilet paper here for the first time. After reviewing my 5 choices I went with the Scottex DOUBLE roll brand. I put the new roll on and glanced back at the package to make sure it said DOUBLE roll. It was the same size as a U.S normal roll. I'd hate to see what a non-double roll is here. Gotta have everything bigger in the U.S I guess! If your wondering....the Scottex brand wasn't soft. 4 more brands to try or I'm headed back to the commissary!

Halloween has become a bigger to-do here this year. Lots more decorations and costumes. Last night our door bell rang while we were making dinner and 4 teenage boys dressed in their "Scream attire" came to the door. Scott is telling them that Halloween is Wednesday not Monday and they told him they'd be out of town so they are trick or treating now. Scott says, oh well nothing here and I didn't want our house to get egged so I found the emergency stash of starburst and grabbed some for him to give them. They all just looked at the candy like what is this? Scott and I went on and laughed about the fact that we gave out American candy. Then, about 30 minutes later it hits Scott that he thinks they give out money here instead of candy. No wonder they looked at us weird. MONEY? Who gives out money? Scott's suppose to ask people at work today what the tradition is for Halloween. Our lights are off if it's the money!

Back in the good ol' USA

This week Scott needed to be in the U.S. for work and used sky miles for me to go too. While Scott worked I was able to spend some time with my parents and get my typical shopping and errands done. Shannon and Josh came up on Friday night and we all went to Dave and Busters. We had yummy IHOP the next morning. We stayed over the weekend so on Saturday drove out to see John, Nicole and family. Saturday night we took Scott out to a steak house to celebrate his upcoming 30th birthday (the end of Oct). But the most exciting part of the weekend was taking our nephew (who is a little over 3 1/2 years old) to the ice rink. Scott and John were both out there with him while I watched and took pictures from the sidelines. Here are some of the pics.

Paris / Belgium / Cologne / Amsterdam

Yes it was a very busy week. Scott and I flew back from Spain on Saturday night and got to bed around 1am to wake up at 8am and drive to Paris. We picked up Dan and Pam (Scott's dad and stepmom) in Paris and brought them back to Brugge for the week. They flew to Paris Saturday morning from Dublin. I was hit with some bad migranes this week and couldn't do my usual tours. However, they did excellent finding their way on the bus and train to Brussels and Gent. Pam owns and boards horses in Minnesota so a carriage ride through Brugge was a must.
On Saturday Scott drove us three hours to Cologne, Germany. This is a very tourist friendly city on the water but known most for the Dom Cathedral. The Dom cathedral is the world's largest Gothic church and has a shrine to the three wise men (it is believed to hold the bones and remains of them in the gold chest pictured below). The Dom was the world's tallest structure until the Washington monument was built back in the 1884. In WWII it was hit by 14 air bombs but never collapsed. As beautiful as this church is it still dosen't compare to the Duomo in Milan. Below are some pretty good night photos of the cathedral.






So the week wouldn't be complete with some wierd story. Well can you believe we had another flat tire (that's two in less then a week)! This time it was with our car so we did have a spare and Scott was able to swap them out. With a twenty minute delay we were on our way to Amsterdam.

Sunday morning we drove to Amsterdam and gave our standard tour of the Anne Frank House, Dam Square, the Red Light District and the flower market. This time we did find a great Chinese and Noodle place which we will definately return to. After a day of touring we said goodbye to Dan and Pam and dropped them off at the airport in Amsterdam. We hope they had a great Euro Trip and we see them again next year.

Dan and Pam arrive in Europe

This week we were entertaining once again. but instead of sticking to somewhere we knew, we decided to meet Scott's dad and stepmom in the Southern coast of Spain. We all met up in Malaga Spain for the first half of the week; then on Wednesday Dan and Pam flew to Ireland for a couple of days while Scott and I stayed in Malaga. As with many of our trips this one was full of mis-adventures. It started out that Dan and Pam almost didn't make it to Malaga. Their flight was never comfirmed by Travelocity so when they arrived at the airport in London (after an over night flight from the US) there was no seat for them. They scrambled to find a flight but did not arrive at the condo in Malaga until around midnight. Even though they were jet-lagged we headed to Gibralter the next morning. Gibralter is an island owned by the UK which is famous for it's apes. Ever heard of the "rock of Gibralter"? One other thing, to get to the island you literally have to walk over a live runway!

We took a cable car up to the top of the rock where the ape habitat was. When we got there I was thinking to see some cute monkeys in a cage but oh no, they were all running around free! They were very friendly and photogenic though.

The next day trip was to Granada were we went to the Alhambra. The Alhambra is a huge palace and fortress built by the Moorish Monarchs of Granada. This was lived in by the Muslim kings and their court. Since we didn't book ahead (who knew?) we could only walk through the grounds and not the palace. Below is a picture of the grounds.

The next day we decided to hit the beach and tour Malaga. It was a day full of mis-adventures. First off in the water (which felt like 60 degrees) I was hit by a jelly fish which stung my knee, then it also hit and stung Scott's leg. We had lunch on the beach where no one spoke English and we all ordered something without knowing what we would actually get. Later that day as we were driving back from Malaga Scott blew a back tire on the highway. We pulled off and called Avis. Scott was all set to replace the tire until he opened the trunk and found there was not spare. When the highway helper came he wouldn't do anything because we didn't have a tire. After an hour of arguing through a translater the car was towed back to Avis for a new one.

Later in the week we only made one more road trip which was to Sierra Blanco. It is a small town filled with your typical white pueblos. Although the weather was nice and it was great to be at a beach, both Scott and I rank this at the bottom of all the cities we have seen in Europe so far. It was a nice relaxing week but a place we don't need to see again.

I haven't forgotten about the blog. I've just been a little under the weather today and don't have enough energy to put out a decent blog. Check back later this week!