On Thursday, we ventured up Germany’s tallest mountain, the Zugspitze and it was absolutely amazing. We did not climb it as it is still covered in snow and even through from the peak we were warm in short sleeves, there were plenty of people still skiing. If only Abe wasn’t 2! Before I tell you about the day, late me start by saying that none of the pictures I took saved to my camera. When we got home last night, I was heart-broken! So for my story, I will use other people\’s pictures to help illustrate the day.

We got up and decided to go hiking around a lake called Lake Eibsee. This lake is an alpine lake and it was just beautiful. The water was crystal clear. It was mating season so we saw plenty of wildlife which was just awesome to watch. The boys loved the lake and loved seeing so many animals.

Here is the lake with the Zugspitze in the background:

After about 90 minutes we decided we wanted to go to the top of the mountain. So we rode this lift up to the bottom and saw the most incredible views. Because we were on the highest point in the bavarian alps, we could see everything. It was Ian’s favorite part of the vacation. Here is a view of the lake from above:

and a view from the top:

After all of that, we decided to go down these alpine slides. You sit in a toboggan looking thing and it takes you to the top of a hill and then you control how fast or slow you go. If you to too slow, it generally pisses off the people behind you, but at first it’s scary! Ian and I went together and Drew and Abe were behind us. The slide takes you through all of these twists and turns. It was so much fun. For the second time, Drew and Ian rode together in front of Abe and I. Ian apparently told Drew, “Mommy screams like a little girl!” He left off the part that he does as well! We rode that about 10 times that day. It was a blast.

Being that we live in Europe and we are within reach of so many great places, I decided that we needed to get out and explore… and explore we have! We decided to fly to Salzburg, Austria for our trip. The airfare cost less than $300 for 4 round-trip tickets. How could we NOT go?!?! Now when we arrived in Salzburg at 8am today, we rented a car and drove to Germany. We wanted to go into the Alps for some fresh mountain air. If we left today, I would feel content. It was a 2 hour drive so when we got here, we had plenty of time to kill so we decided to go hiking and playing in the Alps.

Here is the view from the car on the way here (yes I held the camera outside of the window!):

Luckily we had prepared ourselves for the Alps by watching the Sound of Music this weekend. The mountains were sprinkled with edelweiss and when we reached the top it was gorgeous. At first we all sat down at the top and just looked around. We didn’t have a whole lot to say as the sight was incredible. Words wouldn’t do it justice. That lasted about 3 minutes when Abe decided he needed to find some sticks. So boys being boys decided to have a sword fight while I watched it all

Here is another picture of the view. The building on the left is a beergarden which we visited before heading back down!

I’ve mentioned before that since arriving in Belgium, we routinely stumble upon parties and parades here! Well, this past St. Patrick’s Day was no exception.

We looked for any festivities in the area, but we couldn’t find anything so we decided we wanted to explore a city that we hadn’t been to yet, Tournai. Tournai is the oldest city in Belgium and really doesn’t get much attention from foreigners or travelers which is a shame. Tournai is considered to be one of the most important cultural sites in Belgium. The mixed Romanesque- and Gothic-style cathedral of Notre Dame de Tournai and the belfry, the oldest in Belgium, have been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

As soon as we leave the car, we start hearing music playing and at this point we are about 1/8 of a mile away from the city center. As we get closer, we can see people are dressed in costumes and it’s ironic that the first group of people are dressed up as Smurfs, considering the smurfs are a Belgium creation. And yes, that is beer in their hands.

At this point we still have no idea what is going on, so we just decide to make our way to the Grand Place which is the city center. There is confetti all over the street and people adorned in various costumes. The food and beer is plentiful! As we’re walking, we come across the gorgeous cathedral. This building is just overwhelming in size and presence.

The streets are getting more and more packed as we wind through the cobblestoned streets to the Grand Place.

We finally make it to the square and it is just one huge party. People of all ages are there and we are in the minority because we don’t have costumes on!

The boys had a blast and so did we. It was quite an unexpected surprise. We didn’t even get to really explore the town or the sights as we were too busy having fun!

There was a huge parade which was great to watch.

And here is another view of the town:

Tournai is only about 20 minutes away so we will go back one of these weekends.

Little Mister “E” and I recently went to Euro Disney for a school trip. As the title of my post demonstartes, it actually isn’t called that. It also isn’t called the big name I gave it, with my stunted French comprehension. I will say one thing about Euro Disney… it’s huge.

I actually felt bad for Ian and the other kids as they trudged across the park and its expanses. I felt like I had been walking through the woods all day by the time we went back to the buses. But, all in all, it was a good trip.

Ian beagn his photographic career by taking this picture of me in the Grand Mall (pronounced ghrannd! mahl)

I hope he keeps with it.

While at Erou Disney, we got see the most important thing ever… Buzz Lightyear

The head moving around and the talking in multiple languages freaked me out, but Ian was happy as could be. We shot up Zurg, although it is important to note that I won on the points tally.

Finally, we rode the tea cup ride. Three times. The last time Ian said he was going to barf. It’s great being a dad.

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The next couple of days we spent experiencing the city and all it had to offer; at least we attempted to. There is so much to see and do it is impossible to see it all. I’ll try to walk you through the city as we saw it.

Prague gets a lot of attention for its architecture; and with good reason.

This is the astronomical clock in Old Town Square

Below are a few pictures of Old Town Square

This is Charles Bridge which is pretty famous:

and some more pics:

I still have a ton more but I have to edit the pics. To be continued…..

I think most of you know that in January we went to Prague. Yes, that was 6 weeks ago and you’ve all been waiting to hear about it!

Well, we decided to drive to the city. It is an 8 hour drive and we figured it would be cool to see europe that way. We left bright and early and it took us about an hour and a half to get into Germany. It was really cool driving through cities like Copenhagen and Nurenburg and over the Rhine river. These are places that I heard about in school and are so important in our history that it was neat to see them even if we didn’t spend any time there. The drive was beautiful. When we entered Germany we were definitely in another country. Belgium is hard to explain, but you don’t find the rolling green hills that Germany has. The boys were somehow great on the way there. No whining, no fighting, it was a good ride!

Once we got to Prague, the sun went down. It was neat to see the city, but we did get lost driving in downtown. It took us about 2 hours to find the hotel and we were thrilled to find it. Once the house sells we are getting a GPS with both Europe and the US installed on it. The hotel was pretty. We didn’t get an elaborate room because we were on a tight budget, and I had actually brought sleeping bags for the boys, but they were kind enough to give us a couple of cots for them.

The room was really nice actually and once we got in and got settled we decided to head out for dinner before coming back for the night. Right around the corner from our hotel there was this awesome italian restaurant which we ate at a couple of times. They had the most awesome soup which was perfect because it was chilly!

We woke up bright and early the next day and the hotel offered a full continental breakfast. They had the traditional european fair: cheese, breads, sliced meats; but they also had what we as americans would expect: tons of cereal, fresh fruits, yogurt, eggs, bacon, sausages, etc. I had read it was pretty pricey to eat in Prague so I made everyone eat until they were full each morning. I’m the budget girl this trip! After breakfast we started our day!

We left the hotel and walked towards Old Town Square which was just a beautiful area. It is cloudy and drizzling, but the atmosphere is so alive. The buildings are so old and beautiful. I was entranced by the city. I will post pictures of the buildings in the next post

I suppose this living in Europe thing has it’s perks as it seems I am getting cultured. During some of our Grown-Up Time we’ve managed to get out and sample some of the local foods and local shops.

We recently went to a production of Oliver! (which was great) a little while ago we went to a museum in Lille, France, called the “Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille.” I’m not much of an art museum person, so i knew I wouldn’t be able to spend all day there; Drew appreciates that kind of thing more than me. But we spent about 90 minutes there and for me, it was perfect. We got to see some works by Raphaël, Donatello, Van Dyck, Goya, Rubens, and Picasso (just to do a little name-dropping there). Alot of the paintings were pretty neat, although I think I was most impressed with the building itself.

This sketch by Picasso was my favorite.

Now, I realize alot of you will think I suck for saying this but to me, Paris just isn’t all that. Last week, the schools were closed here in Belgium and Drew took leave so we decided to take a couple short trips. One of these was to Paris. Paris is only about a two hour drive from our house (we live about 10km from the French border) so getting there was pretty easy.

When we decided to go we thought we wouldn’t really prepare because well… surely there would be signs pointing us to places we wanted to go. That just wasn’t the case. So we got off the exit in the not-so-nice part of town. That was interesting :). Once we got back on the highway we drove around some more until we saw the Eiffel tower. We did have part of our trip planned out though. There is a boat called BatoBus that goes up and down the canal taking you to many stops along the way. An all day ticket for the four of us was actually pretty reasonable, about 30 Euro or $40.

So our adventure began. We parked kind of close to the Eiffel tower. I was really intrigued by the buildings. For some reasons I find shapes of buildings and things like that pretty fascinating so I’m totally overlooking the Eiffel tower. So I take this picture of this row of houses with the ET in the BG:

Then we walk to the ET. It was pretty neat to look at. I would have loved to have gone to the top, but not that day. That day was just about walking around and checking things out. I took tons of pics, but here is the obligatory shot:

At the tower we see an ice cream shop and we decide to get a cone for the boys. The ice cream tastes like they don’t use any milk in it and the simply froze a yoo hoo. but the boys like it. I read somewhere that Paris has tone of carousels set up around the town and sure enough, we spotted one. So we took the boys to ride one.

After the horsey rides, we go to board our boat. The kids seem to dig this which is great. The canal is beautiful and so are the bridges.

We see lots of great monuments along the way and check out some things here and there but our major venture was to Notre Dame. The cathedral was just gorgeous.

We walk around and decide to go inside. You can really just feel the mood and get wrapped up in the serenity inside….until your two year old finally looks up and notices all of the candles and starts yelling FIRE FIRE much like beavis. It was just too damn funny I couldn’t help but laugh. Bad mom.. i know

At the end of the day I asked Ian what his favorite part was and he says, “getting ice cream and riding the merry-go-round.” ahh.. to be a kid.

The city is pretty neat, but it’s massive. I am more of a small-town girl. I like having access to city life but its nothing I would want to experience every day. When we lived in the Baltimore/DC area I preferred to go to Annapolis or Alexandria rather than the cities.

There are so many things to do in paris though, we will definitely go back. I think next to do on my list is the Air and space museum. Now THAT would be cool!