Belgium

So we left the Netherlands and went to Belgium. My main comment about that country? Waffles. That is all anyone needs to know about Belgium. I thoroughly enjoyed them plain, with chocolate, and with strawberries.

Our first stop was in a very cool little town called Brugge. Belgium is known for it's lace and chocolate, so of course people spent what little time we had there shopping for lace and chocolate. I am not so much a shopper, so I walked and walked and walked and just explored the cool side-streets. They were little narrow cobblestone streets with old building all around, and towards the back near the river/canal (I never really know the difference) we found a lace sewing factory place and some huge windmills. In our explorations we also ran across a church with a crowd of people around it, so of course we thought there must be something cool at this church and we went up to check it out. We joined in with the crowd but then a bride and groom exited the church and everyone around us started to clap...turns out we'd ended up in the middle of a wedding party with our cameras out and backpacks on. Needless to say we did not blend in. We tried to back slowly out of the group to avoid bothering them anymore than we already had, but it turned out that they were all going the same direction we were. So there we were (one friend had her giant, digital, SLR camera hanging around her neck) walking down the street with this wedding party as they were on their way to a pub for some sort of afterparty. We felt slightly like stalkers or paparazzi but the bride didn't seem to notice us so it was alright. The rest of the group didn't seem to mind the dumb American girls too much either.

After leaving Brugge, which we LOVED, we arrived in Brussels. Our bus driver had to take the back way in for some reason, so we drove through what felt like murder city and when we arrived at our hotel there was a fight going on near the entrance. It was not the best welcome and that definitely tainted our view of the place. The hotel was nice but had a strange style of decor....pictures of moldy food adorned the halls and the lobby. Seeing a giant picture of a moldy orange (see left) is not exactly what you want to look at as you're on your way to breakfast.

Despite our first impressions of the city, we did decide to explore the next day. So, after meeting with panel of expatriots working in Brussels, we went down to the main square and changed our minds, at least slightly, about Brussels. A big group of us started at the main plaza and then made our way to what is apparently Brussels' most famous tourist attraction.

It's title sort of speaks for itself...it's called Manneken-pis. We heard two different stories explaining the title: One was that some important building caught on fire, so this little boy tried to do his part to put it out by relieving himself on it. The second story is that relieving yourself in public is illegal in Brussels, but one little boy disobeyed and was found making designs on a wall. Well, a witch came up to him, and as punishment, turned him into stone. Whatever the story...there is a statue of a little boy creating a fountain of water. Strange thing to have as the main tourist attraction in your city, very strange. Kind of typical of my experience in Brussels though...something's a little off. We heard there was a girl version of the statue somewhere too but didn't look to hard for it.

Beyond eating waffles probably the funnest thing we did in Brussels was laundry. About ten of us walked around the corner to the laundromat, struggled mightily trying to figure out the system and which detergent to use, received assistance from the non-English speaking owner, and just sat and talked in there until we had nice clean laundry. It was a fun hangout and it was wonderful to have clean clothes again.

That was a long summary of Belgium...but I will say again, all you need to know is waffles. Next up, the best city in the world, Paris!

London & Amsterdam

We've been in London and then Amsterdam for the past few days, here's an update on what's happened:

Here I am taking two embarrassingly touristy photos in London, one with Big Ben and the other in one of the many phone booths (kind of cool that those haven't gone away in London yet). What can I say, I got caught up in the moment, gave into peer pressure, swallowed my pride...and I liked it.

That's me at the Tower of London. I have no idea why they call it the Tower because it's practically a village in there. We saw the crown jewels which was amazing but also disgusting in a way. The extravagance was shocking, there was a Grand Punch Bowl made of solid gold and big enough to hold more than 100 bottles of wine! I cannot imagine needing a bowl that large unless you planned to bathe in it! We also saw the many suits of armor which belonged to Henry VIII. He was either extremely well-endowed or....he had his armor made to over-compensate for an area in which he was lacking. Either way, I've never seen anything quite like it.

We ate Indian Food (chicken tiki masala and naan bread... mmmmm) and all 31 of us saw Les Miserables together. It was pretty incredible and we still have the songs stuck in our heads.

Here Bitt, Ainsley and I are standing on the dock in a little village in the Netherlands. We have no idea what the village was called, our bus driver is Dutch and he kept saying it but we couldn't ever quite catch it. I do know it has 'dam' on the end of it, but what city in the Netherlands doesn't?We missed out on taking a picture with one of the Buckingham Palace guards but this was definitely the next best thing. When Brits refer to 'beefeaters' they're referring to these, not consumers of beef.After arriving in Amsterdam we stopped at a little Dutch shop called Cheese and Clogs where they made just that, cheese and clogs. We watched a demonstration on cheese-making, complete with delicious samples of seven kinds of cheeses including Gouda (apparently correctly pronounced 'how-duh'), Stinging Nettle Cheese, and Garlic & Onion cheese. I of course couldn't resist and bought myself a wheel of Gouda. We also got to watch a demonstration of how wooden shoes are made, Hans made it very entertaining. Then we were left to explore the shop and the many different sizes of wooden shoes laying around.


In Amsterdam we visited the Van Gogh museum, as evidenced by my bag, and the Anne Frank House. Both were well worth it, and seeing the secret annex where the Franks and four others hid was very interesting and made me want to right out and read the Anne Frank diaries. We also walked through much of the city and were surprised at all of the canals, they were everywhere! We heard that there are more canals in Amsterdam than in Venice and after being there we believe it.

Our last visit in the Netherlands was to a flower auction. Apparently every day at 4am buyers gather to bid on flowers from around the world. The sheer volume of flowers was amazing, and the efficiency with which they are bought and shipped is incredible. Apparently the flowers can be bought and arrive at the nursery within 24 hours. We walked through this flower warehouse, probably a mile long, and it was just packed with pallets and pallets of flowers like these.

Next up: Belgium!

Update from Europe

Ok so I've been a negligent blogger...but I'm keeping up on email so if you want to ask anything or give any advice on what to see while here shoot me an email! I can answer them on long bus rides and when there is no internet access.

So after the hiccup with the arrival in Spain, we've just been going, going, going. Rather than attempting to describe everything that's happened since then, here are some highlights:

So we spent two of our evenings in Madrid sitting in the Plaza Mayor, a sort of town square where people come to eat or drink and enjoy the fabulous ambiance of Spanish Summer evenings. Here we are having drinks in the plaza, I ordered a chocolate shake which turned out to be chocolate milk, Ainsley ordered water, as she has done the entire trip...not the adventurous type. Other highlights in Spain include the Prado, visiting the little town of Toledo, and just walking the streets of Madrid.


We went from Madrid to Edinburgh, Scotland which was a dramatic climate change - from hot and dry to cool and humid. Our first evening there we hiked up an extinct volcano where we had great views of Edinburgh (see picture at right with Edinburgh castle in the background on the left) and also met three new friends who invited us to stay, drink, smoke, and sing with them. I was tempted...but my companions were not so we declined.

Other highlights from Scotland include touring the highlands and running into a bagpiper in the middle of nowhere, seeing Loch Lomond, the cute and fabulous bed & breakfast we stayed in, and walking up and down the Royal Mile (the central street in old-town Edinburgh. In this picture I am spitting on a heart in the street. It is apparently the only place in Edinburgh where spitting is legal and it is supposed to bring good luck. However, we spend a good ten minutes standing there while waiting for everyone to get a good picture, and after seeing/hearing all the various wads of spittle fly onto the sidewalk, or in one case, splash up onto me, I was ready to forfeit my spitting rights and vacate the area.

We spent two days in Preston, England, going to the temple on Saturday and church in the morning on Sunday. It was a fairly relaxing stop but we were all ready to get to London.

Monday morning we started the long drive to London, taking detours to the Wedgewood factory, a famous pottery company, and Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. We loved visiting the Wedgewood factory, the boys were less impressed, but even they had to admit that seeing the way it was made and painted was interesting. I think almost every girl bought at least one thing, I was proud of myself for buying only two items, a cup and saucer, that were very inexpensive. Here Ainsley, Sarah and I are eating at the Wedgewood cafe, which was delicious, off of Wedgewood dishes. All-in-all a fun little sidetrip that helped break up the drive.

When we arrived in London the first night we were all starving so we set out for Picadilly Circus and found a great little Italian restaurant. We were all thrilled to finally have a good solid meal, where we actually felt full. Plus the waiter was great...he told us the nights he's on while we're here so some of us may be going back :)

We decided to do a little bit of walking around aftet dinner, so, guided by my trusty Rick Steves book, I lead the group towards Trafalgar Square. We ended up in a few dark alleys, and at the end it took us a half hour in the rain to find a Tube station, but we were not lost at any point, despite what some may have said or thought. It was a fun way to spend our first night and at the very least we'll have great memories of being soaked in dark London alleys...post-walk pictures and a description of today's edition of 'Lost in London' all coming soon so stay tuned!

Greetings from Spain!

So we arrived in Spain this morning at 9:30am, after a very very long flight. However, thanks to the miracle of drugs, with a little help from an accidental overdose it flew by. I managed to procure some Ambien for the trip so I could sleep on the plane. I could SWEAR I was told to take two...but upon further inquiry that was incorrect.

So, there I was, on the plane out of Atlanta thinking how long the 8-hour flight was going to be and just hoping the meds would help...little did I know. Apparently about forty minutes in I started getting fairly loopy, insiting that Ainsley and I watch the same movie, but not quite being able to navigate the buttons on the TVs in the seats in front of us. Thankfully I kept to myself this trip as I have a history of becoming a little too outgoing when on sleeping meds, but I am sorry Ainsley had to deal with me. I barely remember asking for the chicken dinner option and then I was out, next thing I knew we were landing in Madrid and the breakfast Ainsley had gotten for me was sitting on her tray, as it had been for at least an hour.

I have never had a flight go by so quickly and I was thanking my lucky stars for this mircaulous sleeping drug...but then I had to sit up. I quickly started to feel sick, and the only thing that helped was leaning over to go back to sleep on my tray table. Of course this was not in line with the 'seats and tray tables in their full, upright, and locked position policy' so that didn't last long. By the time we were exiting the plane I knew what was coming. As we shuffled past the first-class seats I struggled with all my might to refrain from exploding all over them but as we walked up the exit ramp I couldn't help it, and made a bit of a mess all over my hand and sleeve. Luckily I hadn't had much to eat so the volume was limited, but the smell is the smell and it was highly unpleasant.

After cleaning up a bit we met my uncle who drove us out to his house, I struggled to keep up with his numerous questions but it was a long drive and I was regretting every bite of food I had eaten. When we arrived at their awesome house, large backyard, pool, and all, I said a quick hello to my aunt, and after they showed us our room I pretty much hit the bed and slept for three hours. Ainsley meanwhile was stuck playing with my energetic young cousins while I tried to sleep of my overdose and made periodic trips to the bathroom.

I did make an almost-full recovery though, enough to join my cousins for dinner and then make a trip into the city for the evening. We walked around Madrid for three hours and enjoyed the fabulous weather (almost exactly like Salt Lake Summer evenings), the amazing architecture, and the fascinating people-watching. Unfortunately no pictures of the airport/bed scene, but here a few from our evening walk.This is me in front of the Royal Palace, which we hope to enter tomorrow. The post was supposed to communicate a feeling of belonging, and say 'one day wealth and power will all be mine'. Didn't quite come off that way though...but hey, it'd been a loooong day.
We thought this sign was funny, we wondered if it was just ice cream with an 'n' added on, or if they just thought there cream was nice. Then my uncle explained that it was probably named for Nice, the city in France. We hope no one overheard us discussing that...one of many culturally/geographically ignorant moments I'm sure.Last, and probably least, I just thought this lampost was cool, is it just me or does that look like a soccer ball? Overall, the time we've spent sightseeing has been great so far. I'm off to bed...my stomach isn't quite back to normal, hoping it's all fine by tomorrow we can start sampling some real local cuisine!

Subjects Not To Discuss Until Age 7

While I am home for the Summer I have been asked to help with the primary kids at church. My initial reaction was excitement because my memories of being in Primary were all of treats and singing and games...much more exciting than sitting around with women twice my age in Relief Society. (For last week's lesson the teacher put up a big quote on the board which said something about remaining faithful lest we be 'cast down to Hell'. Uplifting yes? But it got better, one woman told a story about evil spirits sitting in the back seat of her car, I kid you not. Now I'm not denying the existence of evil spirits/negative karma/bad juju or whatever, but it was a little awkward.)

Anyway, I had my first Primary assignment yesterday, teaching the 4 year-olds. The lesson title was I am Grateful for Food & Clothing but could have been more accurately titled Subjects Not To Discuss Until Age 7. The first problem was that this food lesson fell on Fast Sunday, so talking about food at 3:30pm when I had been without since the night before put me off my game a little. Second, the lesson manual focused on teaching about where food and clothing comes from (animals and plants). I thought this would be pretty easy, I brought some examples of various foods (carrots, cheese, bread, etc. - edible object lessons to keep their minds and mouths occupied), and we talked about where each came from. Then I asked the three kids what their favorite foods were, the first kid, Van, yelled, "Chicken Nuggets!"

In response to his outburst, I continued the theme of discussing where food comes from, I asked them if they knew where Chicken Nuggets came from, they said no. Well they actually stared blankly back at me, which I took to mean no, so I explained that they came from chickens. This turned out not to be such a good idea. The follow-up question, which I should have seen coming, was, "How? From the eggs?" "No," I explained, "From the meat of the chicken." "Where's the meat?" Van was staring up at me, honest curiosity radiating from his large brown eyes, a very rare occurence in my experiences with this hyper-active child. Then I was trapped, was it really my job to communicate the brutality involved with the creation, or rather compilation of Chicken Nuggets to an innocent 4 year-old? How could I show this kid's favorite food for the disgusting amalgamation of leftover parts that it really is when he was staring up at me like that? I didn't think this dilemma was one that I, a 20 year-old subsitute teacher with no children of my own, should have to deal with. But I also couldn't lie in reponse to such an honest query, so I brushed it off by saying, "The meat is all over the chicken. Who wants to play a game?". I silently congratulated myself on the stealthy avoidance of a serious issue. But then, the game I had thought up went awry.

I had the kids point to different items of clothing and then explained where the materials of each came from. (I'm no expert on that subject, so my answers were basically restricted to cotton or sheep's wool, I'm fairly sure that did not cover every item they pointed to but I was not about to explain where one child's leather belt came from!)

However, I did make the mistake of asking the question, "Why do we need clothes?" Clearly, I should have known from my experiences with four brothers, that this question would inevitably lead to a comment about nakedness, apparently one of the most hilarious words on earth to 4 year-olds. I should have avoided asking the question for that reason alone, I could not however, have predicted the unfortunate response given, again from Van. He started with the simple statement, "So we don't have to run around naked in the house," but then it got uncomfortable, "Sometimes me and my dad run around naked when my mom's not home." While the other two students laughed uproariously at the word 'naked', I had an unfortunate image run through my mind of Van and his dad, who I know a little bit and who had in fact, been sitting in front of us in Sacrament Meeting that morning, strpping the second his wife left the house and running around in some sort of strange, male-ritualistic free-for-all. (I thought it would be inappropriate to post a picture of the image I had in my head, but I thought this summed it up pretty well.)

There was no recovering, at that point I just resorted to crowd-control tactics for small children, I pulled out the markers and paper and we colored for the last ten minutes. Thankfully, they were so excited about the candy bar they each got to help them remember to be grateful for food, that they forgot about the 'naked' discussion and kept their drawings to a series of unfathomable scribbles that they claimed were innocent items like strawberries and batman pajamas.

Next Stop: Senior Citizen Discounts

I turn 21 in October. I realize it is far too early to start talking about and/or planning for this birthday, I only bring it up because this fact is important in providing some perspective on my experience today. I have really been looking forward to being 21 because I will finally be able to go to bars. The bar atmosphere is probably not really my scene, and drinking isn't really my thing either, however, the fact that I am not allowed to enter certain buildings just beacuse I have not reached a certain age pre-decided by some legislators somewhere...well that really gets me. I hate being limited in any way by my age, it's just a number! But after age 21, there's really only one more age barrier to cross...that being age 65 when I'll be allowed to get Senior Citizen discounts. Sweet! The point of all that is to say I have never been afraid of aging, I embraced it, whenever I got asked that 'If you had one wish...' question I would answer, without hesitation, that I would like to fast-forward my life, TiVo style, to age 55. Today though, today might just have changed my entire outlook on the slow process of decay we call aging.

As I was walking out of Harmons, the grocer in my neighborhood, a blonde, high-school-senior-looking guy was walking in pushing several carts. (I have included a rough depiction of said guy here. I couldn't find an actual picture that quite matched his look so I created this approximate but well-done representation.) He had quite a load from his chore of cart collecting so I moved all the way to one side to let him pass more easily. As we made eye contact he smiled, always a nice thing, especially from a fairly attractive guy, and then, it spoke. "Have a wonderful day ma'am," it said. I smiled back thinking "That was a nice of him." But when I reached my car, I paused, "I believe he just called me ma'am. That boy, that nice-looking one who I made eye contact with and with whom I exchanged smiles, he called me ma'am." I spent the entire car ride home attempting to wrap my mind around the fact that I had just been "ma'am"ed. At first I attributed his confusion to the fact that I had just come from work, and was looking fairly professional. But while I was dressed for work, I was wearing jeans...so I couldn't have looked professional enough to merit a 'ma'am'. I looked in the mirror, "Is it my hair?" but I couldn't find anything in my hair that merited a 'ma'am' either. I checked for wisdom lines (wrinkles), "I know I get some creases after I've been making my concentration face for awhile, maybe they stuck longer than usual," although after inspection I could see no signs that the creases were becoming more permanent.

I'm utterly puzzled, and I would ask for ideas on why I might have been mistaken for a 'ma'am', but I don't think my self-esteem can take it. The conclusion I have come to is that this boy somehow made a terrible mistake, and I don't want it to happen again anytime soon. No senior citizen discounts for me thanks, no wisdom lines, no golden years, at least not yet. I'm no 'ma'am'. I'm 20! And I like it that way.

A Gem of a Book and Its Average Cover

If you haven't heard of Susan Boyle or seen her performance you've got to check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Her story is at once both a representation of triumph over preconception, and disturbing evidence of the lack of depth currently existing in humanity. No one who saw Susan Boyle was expecting what came out of her mouth, no one. We took our opinions about her external self and extended them to a judgment and dismissal of her as a human being.

Now why did this woman become a worldwide sensation, over 50 million views on Youtube, virtually overnight? Because she conquered the obsession with packaging. People like Susan Boyle give us hope in the idea that good is good, no matter what form it's in. She gives us hope that being good is good enough, that beauty and charisma are not necessary to succeed when every day we are presented with evidence to the contrary. She reminds us that we need to be willing to see positivity and goodness wherever it is, without some preconceived notions of what it should look like. Susan Boyle was and is a symbol of something we all want to believe in...that covers really don't have anything to do with the quality of the books, you never know what ugliness an attractive cover is hiding or what beauty an unappealing cover is protecting.