Biking through Brugge

Brugge is probably one of those places that if you asked where we were going on this trip and we said Brugge, you may have said, "Where's Brugge?" Brugge is a smaller town on the Dutch-speaking end of Belgium. My family took a trip to Europe five years ago and this was one of the places we stopped. Last time it was my favorite location and so far it is again my favorite! I mean we've only been to two cities, but I really love this one! 

I can do my best to describe it, or you can just look at the pictures and fill in the blanks with your imagination. The streets are narrow and are all cobble stone, there are shops and restaurants everywhere, there is a canal running around the city, large windmills at one end, narrow, crammed houses, and lots of delicious food! When you think Belgium you probably think waffles and chocolate. Well you are correct! There is no shortage of chocolate shops and pastry shops with waffles topped with fruits and cream and more chocolate! 

Before I list off just all of what we ate (it's a really good thing we are walking so much!) I will describe a bit about our train experiences. First we flew from London to Brussels and once we made it to Brussels we had to figure out which train to take to get to Brugge. At this point all the signs were in French (I think!) and we had just found out that there was a train strike among Belgian train conductors so many of the trains were cancelled and delayed! So that was a little concerning! After one train was delayed and then never came, and then another moved platforms twice, we finally got a train to Brugge! We probably looked absolutely ridiculous staring at the screen in confusion, attempting to read the board of train details with our huge backpacks on. Thankfully another person who was going to Brugge spoke English and was filling us in on the details of what was happening. So we made it safely to Brugge and found the home we would be staying in for two nights! For about half of the places we are visiting we booked with a sight called airbnb.com which finds houses in your city that you can rent a room in. You can sometimes even rent just a couch or the whole house depending on what the owner offers up and what you want. So we stayed with a woman named Jacqueline right in the city. She was so welcoming and friendly! English was her third language but she still did a great job showing us around and giving us directions. Her house was very narrow, but our room itself was quite spacious. In the mornings she set the breakfast table with an assortment of breads, drinks, spreads, and meats, it was so awesome! And each plate had a yogurt, cheese, and chocolate next to it so she made sure we were filled up going into the day! 

Our first night there we pretty much just wandered the city and took some pictures. We grabbed dinner from a place with assorted paninis, and Jeremiah got a Belgian beer called Rodenbach. He thought it was delicious; better than his first beer in London. We also got gelato from a shop that my family had gone to. It was delicious!! Jeremiah and I both fell in love with it I'm pretty sure. The next day, the first thing we did was to rent bikes and bike around the city. We rode the perimeter of the city and saw some old windmills and just enjoyed the nice day. For lunch we got a famous Belgian waffle and another gelato! Both fantastic, and in case you don't know, Belgian waffles are very sweet here, more along the lines of a dessert than a breakfast. 

We also went to the "Friet Museum" to learn about how French Fries came to be! They actually were created in Belgium, but since half of Belgium speaks French apparently some Americans once tried the fries from some Belgians who spoke French and thought they were from France so they called them French Fries. It was very cool, and of course we had to try some "Friets" at the end of the tour. Yum! 

The rest of the day was really windy and rainy and cold!! So we ended up just wandering in and out of shops trying to stay warm! We also grabbed a couple chocolates to taste some true Belgian chocolate! Belgium has so many things they are famous for and I'd say we took advantage of all of those things on our short stop in Brugge. What a cute city, and quite the change of pace from London! 

Next stop - Amsterdam! 

London Done Proper

Ironically, "London Done Proper" isn't even proper English. But I'm American, not English, so I believe I reserve the right to say that it is at least proper American.

Well, it's our first post from Europe, and I'm happy to report that we made it three days in a European city without any major mishaps! Granted, it's not until today that we're traveling to a non-English-speaking country, but since the English have a few of their own quirky sayings and a unique accent, I'm still proud of how we navigated the city.

Actually, the hardest part of the whole thing has arisen not from our specifically American upbringing, but rather from our upbringing in any first-world country of the 21st century:  non-constant Internet access. Even several days into our journey, I'm still having trouble adapting. Every single time Hannah and I have a question and no answer, I think, "No worries - I'll look it up!" And then I can't. I'm more annoyed at my inability to adapt to this change of lifestyle than I am about the actual lack of Internet. Because despite its consistent frustrations, it's actually kinda nice to be forced to depart from the Internet... Until we get back to the hostel (both of ours so far have had free WiFi) and we both spend a good thirty minutes reconnecting to everything.

That's enough of a digression on my #firstworldproblems. Let's get to what we actually did!

After a smooth ten hours in the sky, a fifteen minute train ride to Victoria Station, and a quick Tube ride to a stop just two minutes walking from our hostel, we dropped our bags off and hit the streets to find dinner. My cousin Carly spent two months last summer studying abroad in London, so she gave us lots of recommendations on where to go and what to eat; her single favorite UK restaurant was Nando's, and there was one just down the street from us, so we went there for some delicious grilled chicken!

After dinner we still had a couple hours of light (it doesn't get dark till like 9 pm here!) so we walked to Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens for a brief look around. It was a very pretty place, and it was also fun to walk through the city to get there. Hannah and I were shocked at how seemingly ancient buildings could be found literally right next to modern ones built probably in the last fifty years! But I guess that's what you have to do in a booming city with so much history!

Our first full day, we started at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was absolutely beautiful. I don't think Hannah was moved quite as much as I was, but I was just in awe of how detailed and ornate everything was - all built to glorify God. We took a headset tour of the whole cathedral (we couldn't take pictures on the inside but Hannah took a few anyway) including a trip to the very top, where you could step outside and get a great view of the whole city. Though not as tall as the London Eye, we felt it made a great substitute!

After St. Paul's Cathedral we went to Borough Market for a delicious lunch: authentic meat pies from a food truck called the Pie Minister. (No, not minster, and no, not meister. For whatever reason, it's minister.) If we had endless wallets and endless stomachs, we probably could have spent all day there!

From Borough Market we walked up the Thames to see three of London's most famous bridges: the Millenium Bridge, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge is by far the most impressive, and contrary to the belief of many Americans, London Bridge is actually this rinky dink little concrete bridge that appears to serve primarily functional, rather than aesthetic, purposes.

We finished the day with a tour of the Tower of London, which, as you might have guessed, is on one end of Tower Bridge. It had a very interesting though very gory history, and we even got to see the Crown Jewels! For dinner, we went to a pub by the name of Windsor. I had my very first plate of fish and chips, and also ordered my very first beer!

We did not, however, get to see the Crown Jewels of the current Queen Elizabeth II due to the fact that she needed them for an event the very next morning: the State Opening of Parliament. Apparently Parliament goes through a lame duck session each year kind of like the US, and it's up to the Queen to reinstate them (along with their newly elected members). To do so, she must travel from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament, and the English celebrate this brief and perfunctory journey with all the unnecessarily proper pomp and circumstance you might expect from the country that had its military dress in bright red uniforms and form nice, neat rows from which to fire simultaneously at rebellious American soldiers. Point is, it's quite a grand ceremony, and it's open to the public! So, the following morning, Hannah and I went to Buckingham Palace to watch this ceremony, and we even got to see the Queen herself - from a good distance - ride out in her royal carriage. Pretty neat, and quite auspicious since it happened to overlap with the single day of the year we intended to go to Buckingham Palace!

After the ceremony, we walked up to Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery and those iconic lion statues. Then we walked to Leicester Square, then to Piccadilly Circus, and then to the Marble Arch at the corner of Hyde Park. On our way, we stopped and got a lunch my brother Nathan would be proud of:  a waffle from Wafflemeister and a big cookie from Ben's Cookies. Both were suggestions from Carly, and both were great! Thanks again, Carly!

After finding our new hostel that we'd be staying in that night, we walked across the Thames again to find Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, which is attached to the Houses of Parliament. Though we didn't go into either, they were all impressive sights to see. All that old, ornate architecture is so interesting!

For dinner, we went back to Picadilly Circus and ate at this little Italian cafe called Caffé Concerto. It was, again, a delicious meal! Then we took to Tube to Apollo Victoria Theatre to see an absolutely wonderful performance of Wicked. Hannah's family bought us tickets for my birthday back in January, and they were spectacular seats in the fourth row! The music was incredible, and the musical itself is a really fun story, so it was a really awesome way to end our time in London.

In short, London was a spectacular beginning to our four-week backpacking trip around Europe. We're in Bruges now, but I'll let Hannah talk about that for our next post. So for now, I'm signing off! As they say in England... Cheerio!

... Come to think of it, I never actually heard anybody say that in London. Maybe that's a dated term. Or just not proper English.

A Flight Away!

We're closing in on Europe... and schoooool's out for summer! We survived!! I have to brag on behalf of Jeremiah a little bit here. Not only did he wrap up the semester with straight A's once again, maintaining his 4.0 (amazing!!), he was also offered an internship with Medtronic. Medtronic is a company that makes pacemakers primarily and Jeremiah will be interning in their failure analysis department. Basically, he will be helping test the things that could go wrong so that the don't go wrong when they have to actually be used. How awesome is that? Jeremiah was a little concerned about going to Europe and wasting a summer that could be used to have an internship. But Medtronic liked him so much that they were willing to push back the start date of the internship until we got back from Europe. Jeremiah is so talented and I'm so excited that Medtronic recognizes that and offered him this internship! So now he can go to Europe and not worry about "wasting his summer." So awesome. As for me, I finished off my semester very well as well! I have to admit I did not get straight A's (that is very hard for me to admit to), but I still have a 3.9 overall, so I am very proud of that! Also, I found out that I received a Kinesiology Program Scholarship for next year! I apply to so many scholarships every year, it's nice to finally win one, even if it's not a big amount, any amount helps! So anyway, that's enough of the bragging, sorry! We are happy to be done with another school year and now I can officially call myself a Junior in college (what??) and Jeremiah is a senior! Time is flying!

Since our last post, I was in the wedding of my friends Stephanie and Kyle! I was a bridesmaid and Jeremiah attended as well. They are some of our very good friends that we have known since high school, so it was especially exciting to be at their celebration! The wedding was at a place in Florence, Arizona called the Windmill Winery and it was a beautiful location! It was actually a beautiful day, weather-wise as well. AZ has been having some unseasonably cool weather for this time of year and we Arizonans are very grateful! Stephanie looked beautiful, the reception was a blast, and it was just a really happy day. 

Jeremiah and I with Stephanie and Kyle right before they left!

Another happy day was this past Thursday when Jeremiah's younger brother, Nathan, graduated from high school! He graduated in the top 10% from Mountain View high school, the same place Jeremiah and I went. Since my mom works at the high school she was able to get us tickets for field seats (graduation takes place in the football stadium), so we had a great view! Their grandparents flew in and his aunt and uncle and cousin came, so it was a fun celebration as well. Nathan will be going to ASU next year and majoring in Mechanical Engineering. We are both very excited for him and his future!

Also on Thursday morning, Jeremiah and I hiked Camelback Mountain with our friend Antonio and some of Antonio's other friends. It was a great hike with of course a great view from the top!

So today is the day we've been waiting for! We are flying out tonight for London!! We both can't believe it. A month in Europe has finally come? What?? But you better believe we are so excited. In the past week or two we have checked and double checked reservations, created packing lists, purchased some last minute items, and have packed our bags. Yesterday morning we met up at his parents house, loaded the car and left for Los Angeles. Jeremiah and I booked our flights out of LAX because it was the cheapest we could find, and at only a six hour drive from home, we figured it would be fine. Also, it worked out because his family is making a vacation out of it! So now we are sitting in the LA airport with our bags ready to go, just waiting to check-in! We have a direct flight into London so hopefully we will be able to sleep on the plane. We are arriving in London around 1 pm, which means we'll pretty much hit the ground running. We plan on updating the blog primarily on our train rides between countries, so we will keep in touch with everyone. With that, we say goodbye to the U.S. And hello to Europe! Check back periodically over the next four weeks to see where our adventure takes us! 

Squeezed in the tight back seat!

We look a little tired, but here we are with our bags ready to go! 

T-Minus Three Weeks to Europe!!

Welcome back, everyone, from our six-week hibernation as bloggers! Our last post was from spring break, which feels like ages ago. And actually, it was anything but a hibernation. The last six weeks have been some of the busiest of my life, and I think Hannah would agree. For me, it's consisted primarily of meetings for the four different group projects I've been working on, in addition to an individual project for another class. It also resulted in my very first all-nighter back in late March. On a Saturday night, no less. #engineeringlifeisnolife

But here we are, having just finished our last week of classes for the year! I have two finals on Monday and my last group project due on Thursday, and Hannah has all of her finals done by Tuesday, so within just a few days we'll be completely done with our academic year. I've scheduled myself an hour-long appointment at Massage Envy for next Friday using the $50 gift card Hannah gave me for my birthday back in January. It should be a very nice way to decompress after this crazy semester.

One of the hardest things about the past six weeks has been balancing our school and work responsibilities with planning for Europe! Originally we had decided to not book hostels more than a few days in advance so that we could maintain flexibility on our trip. But after evaluating current prices with respect to our tight budget, we decided we needed to book further in advance to even have a shot at staying under budget (and it looks like that won't happen anyway!).

So, Hannah called me up one afternoon and said, "In two weeks, we need to have all our sleeping arrangements booked. You take half, and I'll take the other half." I was like, "But Hannah, I'm so busyyyyyy..." and she said, "Suck it up, Nancy!" Okay, maybe she didn't phrase it quite like that, but she got the point across. Little did she know the tables would soon turn.

I took my assignment - as I do all my assignments - and ran with it! Within a couple days I'd booked sleeping arrangements in three of our cities, and was anxious to finish the rest. This time Hannah pushed back, asking if we could postpone further bookings to next weekend since she was busy with school. I obliged, and by the end of the following week we'd finished booking our sleeping arrangements for our entire trip, all at prices that met our budget.

The next big hurdle came upon learning that the EuroStar - the train we'd be taking to get from London to Belgium and from France to London - cost over $130 for a one-way ticket. That was quite a blow to the confidence we'd built in making such conservative bookings for our hostels. We always knew that the Eurail didn't travel to the UK, but we had no idea that it'd cost so much to make up for that. So, we started looking at plane flights instead, eventually finding some pretty great deals from easyJet. Looks like our one-way travel cost for those legs of the journey will average around $80 instead of the $130 we'd pay for a train ticket, and even though that's still quite a bit of money, we're satisfied to be saving about $100 apiece in those travel costs!

So yes, our backpacking trip to Europe is becoming more rigid as we proceed, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do if you intend to stick to a tight budget. Flexibility costs a lot of money. But we're still quite happy with our plans; we believe the time we've allocated to each stop in our itinerary will be just about right. Kinda crazy to think it's only three weeks away now! Seems like just yesterday I was FaceTiming Hannah from my apartment in Orlando, when we originally came to the decision to travel to Europe this summer...

In other news, Hannah and I experimented with a fun new activity in Downton Phoenix called Social Bicycles. It's a system they've recently implemented where you can go up to a set of bikes at one of probably a dozen different stations around the city, and rent a bike for just $5/hour. They're just casual, cruising bikes - nothing fancy - but it gave us a fun opportunity to explore the area and enjoy the nice weather. We finished with a ride down Roosevelt Row, a strip of the city known for its murals that decorate the sides of small buildings. It was a fun afternoon! And apparently this isn't a totally novel idea: other places around the country do this same thing, including Orlando and some other coastal cities.

Creative pictures, right? This was Hannah's idea!

Hannah and I also had a lot of fun on Easter Sunday, and not just because our families make AMAZING food! We got to play our instruments with the worship team at RMCC for all three services, and it was really uplifting and rewarding. Jessica, the leader of the worship team, sent us an email afterward that included kind words she'd received from some who attended the services, and it was really neat to think that we played a part in connecting others to God through our music. I hope we get to do that more frequently in the future!

Two weeks ago we drove down to that "school" down south to hear my little brother, Nathan, perform at the Arizona All-State Music Festival. It's an annual event that consists of three groups - band, orchestra, and choir - and it's a real privilege to be a part of; you have to audition to get in, and in the case of trumpet (Nathan's instrument) it ultimately consists of just the top 15-or-so high school musicians in the state. Nathan's been a part of it for three years, so as you might assume, he is indeed quite a talented musician. They put on a wonderful performance, as did the orchestra and choir, and afterward we grabbed dinner at this cute little restaurant whose name eludes me... It had the word "garlic" in it, so naturally, it was delicious food.

Then, last week, Hannah and I joined her family for an afternoon of roller hockey to take advantage of the beautiful weather. We played for a solid hour, and at first glance, the teams may have appeared quite lopsided. Her dad and her brother, Brian, were on one team, and the other five of us played against them. About halfway through, two little kids from elsewhere in the neighborhood came and joined our team, so eventually it was seven-on-two hockey - and they still gave us a run for our money. We eventually won on a "next goal wins" ultimatum, but honestly, I think they may have been a goal or two ahead of us at that time. But every time I play I get a little more adept at the sport, so maybe one day I'll be able to keep up with them. Maybe.

I think that's about all there is to share from the past six weeks! Should be a really great next few weeks before we leave for Europe. Our friends Stephanie and Kyle are getting married in just two weeks, and my little brother, Nathan, will be graduating high school just a few days after that! In fact, today is his 18th birthday, and we're celebrating with dinner and a movie this evening. So yeah, should be fun! Hopefully we can fit in another blog post before we leave, to wrap things up here before we start blogging about our Europe adventures!

Until next time!