Jenni and John Guest Post #1

Thursday January 7th  - ARRIVED
After our surprise upgrade to Business Class, we arrived in Belgium Thursday morning.  We arrived to Aalst with no difficulty and checked into Matt’s hotel.  We had some time to kill before Matthew was through with work for the day so we took a nice long (much needed!) four hour nap.  Once Matthew was off from work, he drove us to Ghent for dinner.  Ghent was really cool – the canals were frozen and snow covered. 

We went to Amadeus (the all you can eat rib place)…and it was really good.  First time I have had ribs!  I also discovered that there is a beer out there I can drink – lambic (fruity) beers are very well known here.  Yum. Kreik is cherry flavored and the easiest to find. 

Caption: Hennis double-fisting!  But they gave her one for free...

After dinner we stopped in for a drink at the bad with stuff everywhere.  (Mom and Dad have been there as well as Matthew).  The bar is unreal – saying there is stuff everywhere just doesn’t describe it.  John asked the owner if he would take a picture with us and he said, “I will take one with her” in an almost creepy voice. 

Caption: Told you the owner was old!

Then he gave us his email address so we can send him the picture for him to post on his website.  After this we went to the genever bar.  Got my picture with the owner of this bar as well…although he wasn’t too willing.  Good times.

Caption: Owner of Dreupelkot

Friday January 8th   - BRUGES
Matthew dropped us off at the train station and John and I went to Bruges for the day.  It was COLD!  We maneuvered the trains and headed for the central of Bruges.  We stopped at The Laurent for breakfast.  We each had our first Belgian waffle.  The menu wasn’t in English but we guessed that we ordered a waffle with butter and sugar.  We realized that syrup is not used here with waffles – so we ate brown sugar on our waffles dry.  May sound strange, but it was delicious – the waffle was super airy and crispy.  After breakfast we walked into the center of town and headed for the Bell Tower.  It is 336 steps to the top….and we did all 336!  The higher we got the tighter the spiral staircase became…it got tot be too tight for people to go up and down at the same time.  The views of the city were amazing. 

We both agreed that it was much harder going down the stairs…very narrow!  We walked around the town square and side streets – we even managed to get ourselves very turned around and took a very long detour around the city.  On the way back towards the train station I did some window shopping and John took lots of pictures.  We really liked this city – it was very quaint and cute.  Only downside was that it was VERY cold.

Friday night Matthew picked us up from the train station and we came back to the hotel and packed for Germany.  Friday night we drove to Dusseldorf, Germany for the night.  We got into Dusseldorf around 10pm and decided (against Matthew’s will) that we would stay in and get some rest. 

Saturday January 9th  - SNOW
Saturday morning we got around and looked out the window to see it started to snow.  We knew the forecast was calling for snow, we just didn’t know how much snow!  We headed out to find some breakfast and found a McDonald’s first.  John thinks that his McMuffin in Germany was better than in the US – less greasy.  After breakfast we headed to the ‘Ko’ – the most beautiful blvd in the world (according to the tourism website).  Think Magnificent Mile in Chicago and add a canal and trees – it was really pretty…all snow covered. 

Caption: Konigsallee, on each side of this is a street lined with shops

We went into a few shops to warm up, but didn’t do any shopping.  We wanted to walk to the harbor and go up in the tower so we went towards the harbor.  On our way we found a market and in about an hour over an inch of snow fell.  By the time we made it to the harbor, we could barely see the tower…it was blizzarding.  We decided we should probably get on the road before the snow got any worse and headed back to the hotel.  We were disappointed we didn’t get to see more of the city…and of course Matthew reminded us several times that we should have gone our Friday night!  :-)

The roads weren’t too bad and we made it to Cologne without any trouble….other than it taking us 4 tries to get the road with the parking garage.  I learned that Matthew does not like it when I am laughing so hard I can’t tell him which direction to go.  Once we got situated in the hotel we went out for some lunch.  Matthew took us to the market and we picked a pub to go to.  He had sausage and John and I had pork roast….with some spongy potatoes…interesting.  After lunch Matthew and John wanted to scale the Dom Cathedral spire.  I wasn’t too thrilled about climbing 533 steps – but they didn’t really give me a choice.  So up we went…and up…and up.  I must say it was worth it. 

Captions:
Top - Three of us on the top level - which is open so you can see some snow!
Bottom - Jenni's gift for going up, I only brought ONE bag of goldfish for the entire weekend and she wanted them - so I made her climb the Dom for them!

The snow finally stopped and we could see the views.  We spent some time walking around the inside of the Dom and then headed for the Chocolate Museum.  That was really cool – and we got to eat chocolate!  :-) On our way back towards the hotel we stopped at a wine bar in a museum.  Based on the price of the wine, I ordered a carafe for myself.  I thought it was strange when the waiter looked puzzled at me when I said I only needed one glass…until it came to the table and it was enough wine for everyone!  Needless to say – we had a lot of wine to drink. 

Caption: That was all Wheels, he's a bad influence! :-)

It was nice to get out of the cold, snow and slush for awhile!
We went looking for a place to eat dinner and came across a little pizzeria – I think we walked in just as he was about to close.  Thankfully he let us stay and eat.  We each ordered a pizza…and it was FABULOUS.  Thin, crispy, not sure what else made it so good, but it was amazing.  After dinner we walked back over to the Dom to take pictures of the cathedral at night.  Very cool city!