Itinerary

SO. Here is my last blog from Belgium, and potentially my last legitimate blog for the next 20 days. lance and i will be heading out in a few hours to start our Backpacking through Europe tour. Please say prayers for me because you all know i like a hot shower and a clean bed - and apparently there will be a shortage of those throughout this trip. My bag is a little heavy, so pray that i wont die from that either. haha.


here are the places we are planning on going, in this order:

Amsterdam (festival of tulips and anne frank house)
Prague
Poland (Auschwitz)
Salsburg (Sound of music tour)
Venice
Athens, Greece (5 days here)
Back to Venice, Italy
Pisa
Milan
Bordeaoux, France
Nice, France
Barcelona
Paris
Belgium

Like I said, pray for me.... this will be such an adventure! i'm so excited!

Lunch Time at Obelis

One of the best parts of the work day is our one hour lunch break. Because there are so many of us with such a small kitchen, our lunch day is broken into two parts. Our "lunch crew" was Shayly, Eric, Paulina, Ivan, Me, Lance, and Tarun. From the very beginning of our time here, lunch time has always been a time of educating for all of us. The Europeans taught us about Europe, the Mormons/Americans taught them about our ways. Conversations were always interesting and guarunteed to induce laughter. I really wish all of you had the opprotunity to get to know my friends here at Obelis.

Here's a look at what a very typical lunch period is like for us:

These are the devil's chips. Eric and Shayly, after some trial and error, found these amazing chips. Soon, everyone in our lunch group was cleaning out Aldi's (the grocery store next to work) weekly stock. Since all of us ended up buying the same things for lunch, we had to start initialing our food like kindergarteners!

 Again, after trial and error, this is the cheese of choice. It is cheap and SO good.

 There werent many juices to choose from at the store - luckily this one turned out to be my favorite and SO amazing.

This is a typical Paulina lunch - the only thing missing in this picture is ketchup.

 OH the Pizzas. Along with the Guapa's chips, pizza was usually on everyone's menu.

 Tarun started the trend of hot sauce on the pizza. Then Eric took it to another level and got a sweet and spicy sauce that Lance used every day for two weeks.

 Sometimes they would eat a whole pizza, sometimes just a half. (my lunch usually was 2 mini sandwiches)

 Our little lunch family!

 This is Tarun telling a story. He's one of the most animated people EVER

I will miss our daily chats!!

Lance is 24!

This weekend, we were supposed to fly to Scotland...all week we were planning on going. We even brought our packed bags to work on Friday, because we were supposed to leave straight from work. However, we found out an hour before that Lance had booked the tickets for the last weekend in March (whoops!); therefore, we wouldn't be spending his birthday in Edinburgh (bummer!).

 I had to scramble.

I didn't have any plans.  I decided we'd string it out into a weekend event.

Luckily, we're great friends with the people we work with, and the boys were going out for a boys night -  let Lance go have fun with them. 

The next day, Saturday, we slept in till 10, then rented bikes. We've been itching to rent these (1.50 euros per hour....pretty cheap!) since we got here -  I figured now would be the best time to do it...We rode all over Brussels... from the inner city, to downtown, to the park, through the Arab shopping district (and accidentally past the red light district. SICK! There should be a warning somewhere about this place!). The bike system is really cool here because there are kiosks that dot brussles where you can return them at will. 

We found a place near our favorite fritery downtown and indulged in the most amazing frites to ever exist  - Fritland - where Lance bought a heartattack  sandwich with meat, onions and frites on them, and since i was there, i HAD to go ahead and get some frites for myself. It WAS Lance's birthday...I didn't want to be rude :).

(not my images here - i forgot to take pictures)

 

(Fritland)

Next, we walked around the gorgeous Grand Place looking for "hot chocolate in a 'super legit, old building' with a fireplace with a real fire going" - exact request from the birthday boy. So, we went 'missioning' for said place. Luckily we found one, and the hot chocolate was fabulous.

Then we came home and watched movies for a while  - then he went and had another boys night with our friends.

Sunday, the actual day of his birthday, was a little uneventful. We went walking around Brussels because the sun was brightly shining (a rarity this time of year) and the temperature was tolerable. Then we came home, I made him Heather's yummy chicken pesto pasta (not as good as yours though!). For dessert I made brownies. He also had the option of sliced strawberries with nutella and icecream (obviously, he sprung for both. haha!)

 Thank goodness for the self-timer setting.

 (Below is the birthday dinner that almost was. It was di-sgu-sting.)

Over all, it was a lovely weekend. I have one last thing in store for him - i'll show pictures tomorrow. :) (good thing  i know he doesn't read my blog frequently!)