October 2011

We are home…safe and sound…and possibly even on this time zone. I think we slept for like 12 or 13 hours last night…but I feel refreshed and will work on getting caught up around the house. The last 24 hours of our trip were probably the worst…but honestly, if those are all of the issues we had, then I’d say we had an outstanding trip! Let me explain:

Amsterdam was exactly as expected…very touristy and packed with people. I’m not sure I’ll ever need to go back there again. Our hotel was very nice, but old…very old…and because of that, there were no elevators. Typically this would be fine…especially at this point because we’re so used to walking and stairs. Our room is up on the 2^nd floor (that’s actually the 3^rd by Europe standards) and the stairs are, well, how do I explain this? Ummm…almost straight up and definitely not to code! That was fun…NOT! But the view from our room was outstanding (as you saw in the picture on my last post). The downside was that there were a ton of people walking around on the sidewalks below, so it was noisy and Lord knows we were getting a contact high from all of the marijuana smokers! Ugh. Somehow we slept okay (a good 4.5-5 hours) and made it out the door on time to get our taxi. After wandering around the airport for an hour and a half, we made our way through the long lines, the pat downs in securtiy and to our gate where we immediately were able to get on the plane. At this point, we realize our original seat choices were changed and we had the front row seats. Good news here was we had a ton of leg room. Bad news was, we had nowhere to stow our stuff under any seats! The storage space above our seats were “for emergency equipment only” so we were screwed! Keith had to find a place for both of our suitcases somewhere down the aisle (fighting all of the people getting on the plane!) and then after we tried to hide our other stuff under our legs…the flight attendants were onto us and took our other stuff away to stow underneath somewhere else. I was very nervous that our stuff was not right there near us…but it was all accounted for in the end.

Now that we’re settling in for our long 11 hour flight, we realize that the TV screen on the wall in front of us was only showing in 2 colors (orange and black) instead of full color.  Our trays popped out of our armrests…but were made for size 2 people so we had to eat on our laps (which was NOT easy). Somehow, we had a smooth flight and made it home on time. The best thing about the flights were these little things my Dad told me about…”Ear Planes.” I’m telling you, I’m never flying without those again. I have major ear issues when flying and on both flights, I had hardly any pain! Thanks for that Dad!!  So, we get off the plane in Portland and have to go through customs, security, etc.  We declared all of our stuff, but apparently, my tulip bulbs were contraband and taken away from me!  All of that work to hand pick all of my tulips (not to mention the price we paid!) were all gone in a matter of moments.  The customs agent was really nice and sympathetic…but I was really upset about getting ripped off in Amsterdam.  No one told me I had to have “official” bulbs!  Ugh.  I guess I’ll know for next time.

So…that’s it.  Our Europe experience was an overall success.  I think we both agree that we enjoyed Germany MUCH more and our favorite place to visit was Monschau (the place that had the castle ruins and the glass blower).  Over the whole trip, we experienced the European culture…got to visit some really awesome places…learned some historical things…and enjoyed being on vacation.  And really…isn’t that what it’s all about?

Thanks for keeping up with our blog.  I enjoyed creating it for you…I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Until our next vacation!   🙂

It’s time to say good-bye to Belgium.  It was a good week, but we’re on the final countdown now for our trek home.

First things first.  It’s 10am and Keith is enjoying a Corsendonk on tap at the bar in the station.  That’s livin’ man!

We’ve been on the train the last 2 hours (overall) and just pulled in to Antwerp Station.  How beautiful is this place?

Honestly!  So, so pretty!  Anyway…we change trains here for our final push to Amsterdam.

Hahahha!  Keith is showing me how done he is with all of this picture taking.  😛  Here we are on the train.

We’ve made it…Amsterdam Central Station!  Good-bye Belgium…hello Netherlands!

Boats on the canal.  These next few pictures are what we saw as we were hiking a mile and a half to our hotel….with all of our luggage in hand.  Can you say HELLO!!  I’M A TOURIST!

Interestingly enough..the architecture is a bit different…but somewhat the same.

I’m not sure what any of these buildings are but they sure are pretty.

Hooray!  More construction…but interesting architecture next to it.

Here I am picking out tulip bulbs in the flower market!  I can’t wait to see how these bloom in my yard come springtime.  I wish I had more room in my luggage.  I would have bought much more!  I’ll be lucky if I can find room for what I already got.  🙂

Final picture for tonight….the view from our hotel room.  It’s so lovely.  We have the windows open and we can see the night sky.  We waked around a good part of Amsterdam (with the very limited time we had)…though I can tell you that with the throngs of tourists, bikes, trams, taxis and buses…we’ve avoided places like the Red Light District and the main drags.  It’s going to be a long travel day again tomorrow…but at the end of it, we’ll be home.

When we left the USA, we had a large list of what we were hoping to see on our trip.  I don’t think it matters how long you are on vacation…you probably won’t have enough time to see everything.  This is definitely true for us. Some cuts need to be made for time constraints, but you do the best you can to see as much as possible.  Then, there are situations completely out of your control. This was the case yesterday when we were in Brussels…

Not having good internet connection, and not understanding the language in Belgium…we were quite cut off from what was happening in the world.  Well, we hit quite a number of places in Brussels (as you saw by yesterday’s blog) but the last thing we wanted to see before getting back on the train was this park.  It’s no ordinary park (as you can see in the pictures on the link) and would have been amazing to see.  Well, we got off the train and as we went upstairs to the street level (through a TON of construction), there was a maze of things to maneuver through to just try to get across the street to the park.  Well, as soon as we walked about a half a mile through the maze (where we could SEE the park entrance), we were stopped by the police and asked if we had a badge!  Now imagine this…here we are…carrying a bag full of belgian chocolate, a backpack and a camera bag (can you say tourist?)…and you ask if we have a BADGE?!?!!?  Come on now!  All we wanted to do was to go across the street to the park!  At that point I was done.  We had been walking for 4-5 hours and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.  I looked at Keith and asked, “…what the hell is going on??  I don’t care if the heads of states are here…I just want to see the park!!!”  Well, apparently we were right next to the European Union Headquarters where the heads of all participating countries were in town trying to deal with the Euro “crisis”.  Nice.  Who knew!!  So, the point of this story is…we didn’t get to see all we wanted to.  But that just leaves more for next time…whenever that will be.  🙂

Now…let’s get on to the pictures!

So…in Knokke-Heist…how do you move your furniture into these tiny entries?  Apparently, like this!  It was really cool to see from our window.

Nuts!!  But that answered my first question when we arrived .  😛

Anyway…because it was our last full day, we wanted to stay closer to Knokke-Heist so we had time in the evening to get everything packed up.  We wanted to explore more of Bruges, so we decided that would be a good place to go.  This time we wanted to explore the less touristy area, the lace museum and walk the back streets.  Thankfully, we got exactly what we wanted.

Hahaha!!  Keith found this in the beer store…FBI = Famous Beer Inspector.  🙂

Along the side streets, the trees are all grown like this.  Flat like a wall and trained to grow along those wires.  It looked really cool!

This is the church across from those trees.

Here we are along the canals.  It’s just like a fairy tale land!

Here’s Keith checking the map to ensure we’re going the right way.  The area he’s standing in is a flea market type of place set up in a square with pre-made areas set up for vendors to show their wares.  It’s covered too.  I think every city that has farmer’s markets should have one!

Well…look at that…Keith found a local pub.  Hee hee!

The next place we went to was the lace museum and this church…the Jeruselemark.  It’s much simpler and smaller than all other churches we’ve seen.  But it’s a neighborhood type church steeped in history.  The item Keith is looking at is a family crypt.  We are unsure as to who it was but it had a man and woman shown on the top, along with their dogs.  There are very old family crests lining the crypt which we’re guessing has a strong tie to the church.

The view from the other side of the church.

Keith captured me just sitting and taking it all in.  There was so much to see all around.

In another area of the church there was a little room (that I was looking into) that was a memorial to Jesus.  There was a life sized statue of Him lying down as if he just came off  the cross. Interesting.  From there, we went to see the lacemakers creating lace.  What a process to do it and watching how they create the designs were fantastic!  I couldn’t take any pictures in there though.

Now just take a look at the brick work on this building.  Especially above the windows in the archways.  Those were just some great masons!

Here is the famous Belfry in Bruges.  We were going to climb up the steps (all 353 of them) to the top but apparently there were a lot of people in line with a ton of squirly teenagers so we decided to avoid it.  From here we said good-bye to Bruges for the last time and felt like we explored all we wanted to see.

And for the final funny pictures of the day…on our walk back to our apartment, we came across this sign.  I’m sure you can guess what it means.  It was sitting next to this:

Hahahahahahaa!!!  That’s for my pet loving friends.  🙂  Until next blog post!

I have spent the last hour writing up my blog (seeing as how we’ve had so many wi-fi issues…gee, I didn’t know we were in a third world country!) and it all of a sudden disappeared!  Grrr!!  Anyway….yesterday we went to Brussels to visit some of the things we scoped out a few days before.  As soon as we got off the train at the Central Station, this is the first thing we came across:

It’s Galeries St. Hubert.  A pedestrian only set of shops covered by this gorgeous glass ceiling.  My picture doesn’t even do it justice.  This is the best shot out of all of them I tried.

Keith found the mecca of beer.  Decent prices too.  It’s too bad we couldn’t ship any home.  Oh well.

Next up…this building.  Not sure what it is, but it’s massive…and beautiful!

And here we are.  I know you know what we look like…but we’ll be home soon…and I didn’t want you to forget.  HA!   Here we are in The Grand Place in Belgium.  You’ll see what I mean in a minute:

This is what the place has looked like for over 500 years!

The square is full of little shops, restaurants and museums.  Please note the building on the far right of the picture.  It’s in the middle of being renovated…but has a picture of it in front so you know what it’s supposed to look like.  Hahahaha!

Among all of these museums, there is a beer museum.  We learned all about the history of beer in Belgium.  Did you know that around 1900, there were 3,223 different breweries here in Belgium!?!?!?!  NUTS!

Next to the beer museum was the Ommegang restaurant.  It was a swanky place that had really nice food.  After our meal, I was outside the restaurant taking some pictures when Keith got this shot of me:

Hahahaha!  Hilarious.  🙂

Now we’re starting our long trek around the city.  Boy have we walked a TON on this vacation!!

Here is a typical street in Brussels….away from the tourist areas…just normal every day living.  I like it!

This is a Tryptich from inside the history of Belgium museum.  It is one of 3 that were on display and was so beautiful to look at.

These are old fashioned taps made out of porcelin.  Here is the back of them:

Now in Brussels there is a famous statue called Maanekken Pis.  Many people go to see him…what he does…and what outfit he’s wearing at the moment.  We had no interest but in this same museum, there are several of his outfits:

This outfit is from 1952.  And yes…he is holding what you think he’s holding (there, in the middle of the picture).

This is his Cyprus outfit!  OPA!

Oh yes….these are every bit as good as it looks.  These kinds of shops are EVERYWHERE in every town we’ve been to!

And now, the Notre Dame Cathedral…and all of it’s glory:

It was…as all churches were…just…breathtaking.

And finally…me really enjoying a lovely piece of handmade chocolate.  Mmmmm!

I have to post about today’s adventure…but will wait on that until tomorrow…when I am sitting on a train for hours heading to our final destination…Amsterdam!!  So, until then……..

Sorry I didn’t post in the blog yesterday.  We’ve had issues with the internet here…not sure why the Wi-Fi is such a problem in this country, but it is.  Sigh.  Anyway…we took yesterday as a rest day here.  Not much happened….but we wanted to share a couple of pictures from the grocery store:

This is the most disgusting milk we’ve ever tasted.  In fact, we didn’t think it was milk at all…buttermilk was more of the guess…and we ended up throwing it all away.  Ick.  And then there’s this:

Hahahaa!!  Who names their company this?

That’s about all for this day.  More coming up…

Today was a recon trip.  The weather was going to be good, so we decided that it would be a good day to head to Brussels.  We have special passes to get us into all of the museums and onto any buses or trams so today was going to be figuring out where we needed to go.  We only have our map in our travel book (which by the way, is not very good) and I have a bad sense of direction when I’m in a city.  Darn it…why can’t my Google GPS work on my phone in Europe!  Anyway…the first place we came across when we got off the train was this GIANT thing:

This is Porte de Hal…the last surviving gate of the 14th Century medieval city walls that once surrounded Brussels.  This picture does not even begin to show how massive it is (along with EVERY other building we saw all over the city)! Next up…this:

Apparently, when we go on vacation, we run into all kinds of renovations.  You cannot see the scaffolding or cranes in this view…but on the other side of the building, it’s very apparent.  This is part of the Justice building.  We even saw a judge getting out of his car in his judgy outfit!  😛

This is Belgium’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (side view).  It’s really a nice memorial.  From here, we could see that we were up on a hill and can overlook the entire city.  Here’s the view…So beautiful!:

That is an English Garden below…here is a closer picture:

Crazy right??  I know my Mom will appreciate it.  🙂  (See the crane to the left?  These are all over the place.)  You know who this is:

From here we walked a bit and came across this:

This is Notre Dame Church (not THE Notre Dame…but that’s the name of it here).  It was built in the 14th Century and seems to have the same type of detail work as the Cologne Cathedral…right?  We didn’t go inside because I don’t think it was open today.  Monday’s are the day to be closed here.   By this point, we’re starving…so we found a little cafe with a beer name (Leffe Cafe).   By far, this was the most expensive meal we’ve had so far in Europe, but it was really good.  I’ve never had one of these:

I know we can get these in the states…but I think it was my first time having one…I really enjoyed it!  Keith had this:

As you can see on the bottle…this beer has been brewing since the year 1240.  This particular one is a 9% and Keith definitely approved!

Now, you might be looking at this and wondering what the heck?  Well…this is for my parking peeps at Pacific Cascade.  I couldn’t get this thing in action (because only 1 car had passed), but apparently, as the car pulls up,  and the thing on the left senses it’s there (maybe reading a card in the car?) then the thing in the middle sinks into the ground to let the car go through!  Neat, right?!!?

So, after passing the parking thing, we entered here…I believe this is all part of the Royal Museum but it was closed today, so we couldn’t really tell.  These are just massive.

And for the final picture of the day…we saw this ad in a newspaper while sitting on the train on the way back and I had to take a picture! You got that right!  Hahahaha!!  Cracks me up!   It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I’m not sure what we’ll do…but I’m sure we’ll explore something…

Ever since we started talking about going to Europe, we had always wanted to go to Bruges.  If you’ve ever seen the independent movie “In Bruges” you would understand what we mean.  “It’s like a fairy tale land…” as said in the movie.  And it really does not dissapoint.  We walked down to the train station, boarded the train and headed off.  Bruges is only about 15 minutes by train from where we are, so it was a no brainer.  The first thing we had to do was find a bar so Keith could get some beer.  As we walked into town, we were inundated with so many gorgeous old buildings, churches, etc. that we didn’t know which way to look first.  We did our best to take it all in.  Down one street and through another brought us here:

The Market Square.  The entire thing is lined with buildings just like this.  And it’s been pretty much this way since the 12th or 13th Century!  It was pretty crowded today…I can’t even imagine what it’s like here in the summer!  There are horse drawn carriages taking tourists around the town on a tour and buses taking others.  We found a bar/eatery to get a snack.  Keith looked at the menu and they had local beer on tap…he was happy.  Today was going to be my day of indulging what you should indulge in while in Belgium.  First up…this:

Oh yes people…that is a true Belgian Waffle!  It’s covered in Strawberries and has a side of chocolate sauce.  Now what’s interesting here is the fact that the waffle itself wasn’t really sweet at all.  What makes it sweet is what you put on it.  It was good though…I enjoyed it.  Keith also had a waffle…and 2 beers.  We had some energy now and were ready to take on more of the town.

It was a gorgeous day…cool, but clear and sunny.  Definitely can’t complain about that!   Shortly after this, we went into one of the old buildings that were holding a photography exhibit.  I know I should have been looking at the photographs, but all I could concentrate on was the architecture:

Beautiful!  But I could say that about a lot of things here. Just look at this window for example:

Or these doors:

Honestly!!  It’s just amazing to me to see that kind of craftsmanship.  I appreciate that kind of stuff.

Next up, we went into the Basilica of the Holy Blood.  Notice the ornate details of the building.  On the lower left is the entrance to the original 12th Century chapel.  Simple in style inside but very well done.  The upper part was destroyed by the French in the 1790’s, then rebuilt in the 19th Century.  Just take a look at these:

This is the inside of the upper chapel.  This picture doesn’t even do this place justice.  The ceiling is all wood and then hand painted.  The walls are hand painted and stenciled and the wood is all carved and ornate.  We sat in here for a while just to take it all in.

This is the room off of the main chapel (pictured prior to this).  Under the cross is the priest who is in charge of the Blood of Jesus.  Keith and I each went up there to pay respect and say a little prayer.  Both of us also got to touch the glass vial.  It was very moving.

Here I am next to one of the many statues.  🙂  From here we decided to go on a canal ride:

We went all over Bruges and got to see a good part of town.  Here is an example of what you’d find along the canal:

It’s interesting to see how the old mixes with the new.  While on the canal ride, we saw one of the original brewery buildings.  Keith said we had to find it.

So we did.  And he had a couple of beers here too.

They only had 2 beers on tap…a light and a dark…of course, he had to try both.  🙂

Here’s a beautiful view of the canal and part of the town.  As you may or may not know, Belgium is known for several things…beer (of course), handmade lace (which is gorgeous by the way…but did I get a picture of any?  No, not yet)…and my favorite thing:

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!  I can’t even begin to tell you how many of these little chocolatier shops we came across.  Each one is different and everything is definitely handmade.  No fake stuff here!

So you know what that makes me:

Hahahahaa!  I crack myself up!  Anyway…as our day wound down, and our feet started hurting, we headed back towards the train station.  On our walk, we came across this lovely gate:

No idea what it says, of course (it’s in Flemish!) but it is very interesting.  Now, for my most favorite picture of the day:

The Roman Church along the canal.  Just breathtaking…isn’t it?

Not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow.  Maybe go to Brussels.  All I know is, it will involve my flat shoes.  🙂  Let me know how you’re enjoying the blog…I love reading your comments.  Hugs to all of you!!!

Today was a day to relax.  We slept in, took a nap and walked all around Knokke-Heist.  We found a farmer’s market and picked up a ton of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, bread and meats.  We also found an oil & vinegar store and picked up some wonderful lemon infused olive oil.  It’s amazing!  You know what they say…”when in Rome…”  So, while we’re here…we might as well live like a European…here was our lunch:

As promised from yesterday’s post…here is our “apartment” for the week.  Not as nice as the place in Germany…but simple enough for us to sleep in.  First, the living room:

Next, the tiny kitchen.  It does not have an oven…but enough of everything else for us to make food at home.:

Next, here is our bedroom.  There is a second bedroom here, but we aren’t using it.:

The bathroom in our room:

It’s a good sized bathroom….but no shower.  That’s in another room:

What is interesting about Europe is that the toilet isn’t typically in with the shower.  Crazy.  Anyway, the sun was out and we didn’t want to waste it, so we went out exploring.  We walked along the beach.  It was very brisk, but beautiful:

And Keith found something:

Mmmm…Belgian Fries.  🙂  We found a lovely place to eat right along the beach.  Keith wanted a beer and I wanted something warm:

He’s never heard of this beer in the states…but said it was very yummy.

The hot chocolate was heavenly.  I think there was a touch of almond in it…which took it to the next level.  they serve it with a little cookie!

Keith’s second beer was on tap and this time he had a Grimbergen Dubbel….with a side of the famous Belgian Fries.  Notice the side of mayo you get with it.  These fries were very good…not greaasy at all and hardly salted.  They give you salt at the table so you can salt to your taste.

Famous here (because of the proximity to France) are either waffles or crepes…so I had to have crepes…with chocolate, of course.  Oh my…they were heavenly!

On our way home, we came across this lovely piece of art outside of an art gallery.  It’s all mosaic tile!  NUTS!

Tomorrow, I think we’ll head to Bruges.  Until then…

We left our little haven in Germany and headed off to our next destination…Belgium!  It was quite cold when we walked outside.  This is what we saw on the car window…pure ice!:

We left close to on time and had grand plans to see things in Aachen before we headed to the train station, but we hit a snag and couldn’t find our way around all of the one way streets.  Our GPS wanted to take us down the wrong way half the time, so we just gave up and found our way to drop off the car.   The car we had the whole time was a pretty darn good car.  Got great gas mileage, had a lot of really cool features and quite the get up and go!  It was a 6 speed too!

It was called a Renault Scenic.  I can’t believe we only had to fill it up once.  Nice!  Anyway…we dropped off the car and made it to the train station.

Pretty on the outside…C-R-A-Z-Y on the inside.  It’s like Grand Central Station in there!  🙂

Here’s Keith getting our tickets from Aachen, Germany to Brussels, Belgium.  It was a very nice train…comfortable and easy to be on.  Didn’t take us long to get to Brussels.   I am sure we were going over 100 mph.  We were passing tons of cars on the freeway very quickly…and Lord knows they drive really fast here.

This is one of the stations before Brussels.  I really wanted to show what the homes looked like here.  What’s also interesting is the amount of homes that have solar panels on top of them.  I think the US needs to step up their efforts for saving energy.  Europe is killing us on this subject!  We switch trains in Brussels and get on the next train to Knokke-Heist…our destination.

This is the end of the line here….our stop.

As soon as we get off the train, the first thing you see is their version of a park and ride!  We walked about half a mile to our timeshare and it’s in a neighborhood with a bunch of other apartments.  I’ll have pictures of it soon.  All I can tell you is, this place is not even half as good as our place in Germany!  We are about 3-4 blocks from the sea though:

By this time, I am very hungry and cranky.  I need food.  We cannot understand the language here like we could in Germany so trying to find a place to eat was quite an adventure.  Not to mention the fact that we are located in a touristy area (which I HATE, by the way) and everything is overpriced.  Ugh.  After wandering around for about an hour (mostly because either places don’t take credit cards or they close at SIX PM!) we found something that looked okay.  Keith looked at the beer menu and was happy.

Keith’s first beer in Belgium…a Grimbergen Blond.  He said it was good.   As for me, I had this:

Not sure what it was, but it was orangey and lemony…and since I had something like it the day before…I knew I was good.  Instead of getting bread after you order, this is what arrives at your table:

CHEESE!!  It was very good cheese…and helped ease my crankiness.  😛  I can tell you that Keith and I looked over the menu for like 15 minutes and had no idea what the heck any of it was.  We saw something that looked familiar, so we ordered it….Lasagne:

It was very, very cheesy.  So, we are both in a cheese coma tonight.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring better things.  We have nothing in our apartment because all of the markets close at like 7pm…hopefully we can figure out a good breakfast.  We’ll see.  Until then!!

Today was our final, full day in Germany.  We started out with an amazing breakfast.

This is milk.  What’s weird about this is that it’s not in the refrigerated section!  We are pretty positive it’s milk…it tastes like milk…it’s just a little odd:

Now…here is the best invention EVER:

These little goodies make ANY baked good into something spectacular!:

See what I’m saying?  This is a fresh croissant from the bakery truck (yes, there is a bakery truck that comes to the resort every morning!).  I just took it to the next level by adding chocolate to it.  Oh man…it was amazing!  🙂    We did have fresh fruit and eggs this morning too…see, healthy!

After this, we wanted to stick closer to home so we could get back pretty early.  It was very brisk outside, but another perfect Autumn Day:

You can see for miles!!  Just beautiful.  Anyway, we headed to a small town called Bad Munstereifel.  It’s surrounded by a wall and has been around since at least the 12th century:

The entire town is like this and there are about 19,000 people living and working here on any given day.   One thing I’ve noticed here is how many amazing doors you will find in this country:

And this one:

This is the church from the 12th cenury.  Apparently, they were much smaller back then since the door woudn’t even fit my height:

This is more of the old architecture:

Here is the inside of a GORGEOUS church found in the middle of the city:

Of course, Keith found a brewery:

Here, he’s drinking the locally brewed Schwarz Bier (dark beer).  He thought it was pretty darn good.

It’s been really hard for me to figure out what to drink here.  They don’t really have a lot of things we’re used to (iced tea?  HA!) so I found an Orangenlimonade…which I figured was an orange lemonade thing.  Apparently, it’s some kind of carbonated drink.  Who knew!  It was good though.

This is your typical meal in Germany.  It’s got potatoes, sauerkraut and a sausage type thing.

This right here is what they consider a salad.  Hahahahahaaaa!!!

So overall…it was a really nice day.  Here we are at the edge of the walled city and getting ready to head home.  Now, we’re packing up things to ready ourselves for the next part of our trip:  Belgium!    I’m not sure what our internet will be like in Belgium but I’m hoping it will be good.  Sending hugs from Deutschland!!  Guten Nacht!  (Good Night!)