Good-bye Europe

Well, we're all packed up and ready to go. Just waiting for Pieter to show up so we can check out.

This whole trip has been nothing short of spectacular.  We have both been out of our comfort zones on more than one occasion. From speaking on the phone in French (very little french, mind you).  To getting on a train where you really aren't sure where it's going.

Thanks for following along. Maybe in the next week or so after getting settled back at home, we'll post some more pictures. We took over 2000 pictures.

Next stop, Minnesota, don't 'cha know.  

10 years. 10. 10 YEARS!!!

Today Jared and I celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. In Europe no less! We have worked hard and saved hard for this trip! Today was our last full day in Amsterdam.

We took a canal cruise and then aimlessly wandered the city.

I believe there are 15 bridges,

For our anniversary dinner, we stumbled upon a Szechuan style restaurant. It was way fancier than we wanted but it was delicious no less. I think there may have been a dress code but they let us eat there in what we were wearing.

We have had an amazing trip. The fourteen days have gone by so fast yet we are both ready to come home.

Van Gogh

We started off the day biking to the museumplein and then continuing around the city. We are definitely not used to riding bicycles. This is the most bicycle friendly city I have ever seen. Salt Lake City wishes it were this awesome!

The Van Gogh museum was amazing, Along with his paintings, there are paintings of Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Bernard, Manet, Rodin, Delacroix, Monticelli, and other artists that Van Gogh was inspired by.

 One of my personal favorite pieces by Van Gogh- The smoking skeleton

A piece from Monet that I haven't seen before 

We grabbed a bouquet of flowers from the flower market. I wish I could grow flowers. There were so many tulips and other bulbs for sale.

I certainly feel as if we aren't gaining normal vacation weight. I think we are burning all of the calories we are consuming by walking and biking. It is too bad we forgot a pedometer. It would be interesting to compile the mileage on our feet.

We found a brouwerij that is a stone's throw from our place. We were about to leave Amsterdam without having really great beer. It is called Brouwerij 't ij. They had a White IPA that was incredible! A barley wine that was different than any I have tried before, and a Bock that was off the charts!

A couple of my observations while being in Europe:
Everyone plays American music. Everyone. The hole in Bruges we spent all of our time in played bad 80's and 90's music like it was his anthem. All of the shops play crappy pop music. I think Jared and I are the only people on the planet that don't understand the obsession with Bruno Mars.
Everyone smokes. Incidentally, I've picked up a smoking habit by just being outside.
Large vehicles are scarce. Everyone either drives a Smart car sized vehicle, motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle.
Most people are multi-lingual. The girl who worked the B&B in Bruges said that in Poland, if you speak more than one language, that is incredible but in Bruges, if you speak four languages, they want to know what else you can do.

Today we bike!

A map of the city

I've decided that walking is for the dogs. Cycling around the city is much more efficient. The only exception is smaller alleys where there are loads of people. Although our bums are sore, we had a great time getting lost in this city.

We went to the Red Light District. It was as advertised. I'll tell you that if you are easily offended, this city is not for you. Every tourist shop has sex and marijuana related items. It is like Vegas on steroids.

A photo of the Red Light District

Chris, I tried to touch the whorehouse and the church at the same time. My arms weren't long enough.

This city provides so much charm. You don't get enough of the photos by the canals.

On the ride home,  we happened upon the Heineken Brewery. We chose not to tour. Even here, Heineken is terrible beer.

This is the city center

Monday is museum day (Van Gogh) and the flower market.  The small shops are located inside a row of floating barges – a holdover from the days when flowers arrived in Amsterdam every day from the countryside by boat.

Welkom in Amsterdam

We were a bit sad to leave Brugge. But excited to see another part of the world. But off we went with our nearly 50 lbs packs ready to go.

We had a train layover in Antwerp for about 2 hours. We didn't want to stray too much from the station. So what little we saw was real cool. They aren't kidding when they say it's the diamond capital of the world. In the area we were, there were more diamand shops then cafés.   We did find a café for a bite for the obligatory fries. Our server was nice enough to help us with our Dutch pronunciation.

See all of the diamond shops......

Now on to the train to Amsterdam. After we kicked some people out of our assigned seats, we finally got situated. It was a pretty nice ride. The free wifi turned out to be a bigger hassle than it was worth. 

After getting to Amsterdam we loaded up our ever expanding packs, got our bearings and headed what we hoped was the correct direction. Well, it was. We made it. We are on a boat!!!  We are going to go check out the local area in a few minutes. We were told that "anything goes in Amsterdam".  Thus far, we haven't seen anything but pedestrians and cyclists. Nothing crazy... yet. 

Here's David's boat

Here's our Cozy room.  The panoramic photo makes it look waaaayyyy bigger than it really is.

Last full day in Bruges

Friday was our last full day in Bruges. We both decided that three full days here is probably enough to do everything you want to do. We could have done more, like go to Dammes or Ostende to see the coast, but with the realization we have spent so much money thus far on vacation, we opted to just take it easy and wander the city. Without a map.

We did make reservations to eat at an amazing place. Cambrinus, named for the original King of Beer. They have over 400 beers there and the food was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

After dinner, we strolled to our favorite watering hole and spent the evening making new friends. The owner of 't Poatersgat is coming to the States in the summer and happens to be stopping in Salt Lake City. We gave him our info and hope he contacts us when he is there. We also met some new English friends.

 Hannah and Rob were so much fun and talked us into staying much later than we really were planning.

This is what we saw on the way back to the hotel.....(we counted 16 total swans on the canal)

On to Amsterdam!

Lost in Bruges

Today we spent most of the day lost or completely turned around. While we still had a good day, we are having a hard time finding our bearings here. We had just a few destinations on our agenda today and it took us forever to find them! All of the buildings look the same, the sky looks the same. We couldn't even tell which way the sun was going down. (We wouldn't know which direction to go if we could see the sun)

This picture is on the roof of De Halve Maan Brouweij

We purchased the most expensive cookies on the planet today. 

Sucked in by the tourist scheme, we purchased cookies right off of the Markt. Four tiny cookies cost us 8 euro. Look up the conversion rate, you'll be shocked! I ate one. There were four.

We went on two separate tours today. We learned that things are much easier now than they were more than 500 years ago.....

We also learned that the English soccer/football supporters are hooligans. The Wigan Football club.  They made such a mess of the main square here. It made me angry. They went through town chanting and scaring the carriage horses. No wonder they lost their spot from the Premier League and were moved down to the Championship League. Go Belgium!!!

Tonight, we're thankful for tea kettles so we can eat our oriental noodle cups in our room because we have no kitchen.

 We found these at the supermarket today. If you know Jared, you know that we HAD to get them!

Having our never seen this in the States, I assumed it was Peanut Butter. Boy, was I wrong! Imagine a ginger snap crushed up into a paste. Yeah, it is pretty awesome! Speculose. Incredible, is all I can say. 

Sorry folks.  Nothing exciting today.