Friday, August 29, 2008

Being Social

Well most of you who know me know that I love to socialize and Dave not so much.

Well this past week has been very active for me :)

Last Saturday I went to the Church for a Womans Night Out type event. We met at the church and had a healthy supper and shared stories and tips. The Pastors Wife (Dorothy) had a lot to talk about and it was a good night out.

Then on Wednesday night one of Dave's co-workers (kinda manager like) wanted to know if we wanted to meet in the hotel bar for a drink. We though sure a drink is fine. It was 9:30 pm and sounded good. He ended up buying me a bottle of wine and had one glass and then I had the rest! I don't think I have ever drank more then 2-3 small glasses of wine at a time. This was a lot more. We had some lovely cheese and the guys had a few beers. We ended back up to the room at 1:30 am!! wow- its been so long since we stayed up that late or drank that much. Not that it was over excessive - but still!

Thursday we got up at 8am (so not much sleep) and got ready for the day. I was picked up at 9am to go to a weekly Womens Bible Study on the NATO base. This was the kick off and I met many people (cant remember names though!). During the ice breaker (find people who match the criteria like whose an only child etc) I found a Canadian who gave me her card. I emailed her when I got home. She replied with an invitation to the Canadian section of base on Friday for a "Beer Call"

Friday Dave will be getting off work early to pick me up to go to SHAPE(base)for 3:15. We will be meeting that Canadian at the front gate where we will be signed in. Since its summer time, there are a lot of changes and new people coming and going from base.

So my social calendar is filling up.

Friday, August 22, 2008

eating out this week

Well last night Dave and I were thinking about what we had ate this past week. Since we eat out a lot it was a bit of a struggle to remember what it was this week.
I'm sure you don't care- but I'm bored and this is my blog :P

Monday - we went to the Carrefoure in Soignes. Its about 15 minutes down the road. Its a small town but nice to go to for dinner. The Carrefoure is the wal-mart type store and we got some groceries there for my lunches. We went to the cafeteria type store attached to it. Its called the Lunch Market and is quite good. Since its a cafeteria we get to choose what we want by pointing. Once you order your main meal you get as much vegetables as you like. Its also quite cheap for meals around here.

Tuesday - We headed back to Soignes to get some Chinese food. We went to the buffet place there for the first time. Its not cheap but it does have the Chinese food we are more used to, unlike the one that we have been to in Nimy. This place also had a tapinacki(sp?) bar. This is where you take the raw ingredients and give them to the cooks. They then boil, fry and add sauce to them. Dave tried it and said it was good. I will have to do that next time.

Wednesday - We went to a church meal at a nearby hotel. This hotel is for Americans so we had to be signed in by an American. The church that we have attended make a meal there once a month (twice a month in summer) for the Americans when they are in transit. They were kind enough to invite us as well. But- this time they just did salads (we missed the BBQ a couple weeks ago.) we got to meet some new people but most were kinda clique-ish or worried more about their kids.

Thursday - We went to Chi Chis again. Its been a while since we went downtown to the Grand Place for dinner. If I haven't mentioned it before Chi Chis is a Texas/Mexican type restaurant. I have nothing special to say about it but that it follows the typical 2 hour Belgium meal. Once you order you get your drinks and then wait. Your food comes so piping hot (on a plate thats been in the oven) that you have to wait a few minutes before you can start eating. Then you wait and wait and wait and wait. They come and take your plates away, ask if you want anything else and then they are content to let you sit longer. You have to ask for the bill when you want to leave. Most of the time there is only one or two waiters for the whole restaurant. This makes waiting even longer but for most Belgium's thats normal. Its a social thing to go out for dinner, unlike North America where you go get food and thats it.

Friday- We ended up going out with Dave's co-workers to TGIF. This is a regular Friday night thing. They pick a bar/pub and go drink for a while. We went to a restaurant where we sat out on the patio. We moved at least 5 times to get closer under the umbrella as the rain started to pour harder and harder. It was quite a good time though. I had a Strawberry beer. I know that sounds gross- but theres not much of a beer taste. They don't have much for things like Bacardi Breezers so they have different flavours of beer. The most popular is the Cherry flavour (kriek). I also tried Raspberry last time we went out. They also have banana,pineapple, plum,apricot, exotic and many other flavours. After a few beers were consumed the group moved over to the McDonald's for some quick food before heading over to the cigar bar. This is not our cup of tea so after McDonald's we went home.

And that was our week of eating out :)

Monday, August 18, 2008

Pics from a friends camera

http://picasaweb.google.com/helixblue/DaveAndDebbiesFirstGeocache

Luxembourg Photos





Well we decided on Wed that we were going to go to Luxembourg to see what that place was like. It was soo nice, beautiful day as well.
The city is a Fortress and so beautiful to go to. I would recommend it anyone who has a couple days in Europe. Very Pretty.

We left the hotel at 8 am to get to the train on time. We had a transfer in Brussels and arrived in Luxembourg around 12:30pm.

We got on a hop on hop off bus tour right away to get a feel of the city and to learn about its history. This was a great thing to do since we found out a bit more about it.

When we got off the bus we headed off to find some lunch. After this we wandered through some squares on the way to fortress wall. We found some neat statues and fountains.

We took a leisurely walk along the wall and headed into the town again to have some ice cream before we went home.

We got back on the train at 5:30pm. It was a nice day out. We arrived home at 10:00pm and were tired but happy from the day.


Today its raining out after a nice sunny morning. So I will be watching Tv, knitting, and walking the stairs :)

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

a mini vacation

well first off this week has been pretty good. I had a good long phone call last week. Some one from church called me and we talked for 4 hours!! Her name is KC and we just seemed to click. She is now in the hospital having her 3rd child!

so this weekend we went on a mini vacation. We have 4 days left on our train travel pass and have to use them by the 20th. We decided to go to Berlin. We left on Friday morning and arrived after 9pm. We went to bed knowing we were getting up at 9. When we were at the train station in Brussels with 20 min left to our train it was raining. Dave all of a sudden realized that he didn't pack any shirts. I couldn't believe it! Here I am wanting to buy a new shirt or something (too expensive and dont fit the same)and he doesn't but we now had to find something. On the way to the hotel I noticed a store for big men. But Dave was wearing a quick dry one so we rinsed it and it dried over night.

Saturday morning we left the hotel in search of food. The breakfast at the hotel was 17E. Thats very expensive so we got sandwiches and headed off to a meeting point. We were taking the free tour offered by New Europe Tours. We have taken the tours offered by them in Amsterdam and Paris. It was a very good tour taking us to many places important to the history of the city. Heres a list of the places that we visited:
Brandenburg gate
Jewish Memorial
Berlin wall (by the section that hides WW2 history)
Checkpoint Charlie
some different squares
the square where the Nazis had their book burning
a war memorial representing all boys lost in war
Berliner Dome
and ended our tour on the Museum island.

We went back to the hotel and stopped at the store and got Dave a new shirt on the way. We left the hotel after a brief rest and headed for a canal cruise. it was a nice hour to spend. After the tour we took a bike taxi to the Reichstag. Its the parliament building. It was free but had an hour or more wait to get in. Its a big dome that you can go up to the top and get a view of the city. The city doesn't have a great skyline. This is where I should mention that this city is more like an American/ Canadian city then any other we have been in. This is due to the war where 95% was flattened.

We walked over to the main train station and remembered seeing sand sculptures on our canal trip. We decided to go over and see what that was about. We didn't see where to pay but we did see prices. no one stopped us from walking in and looking around. 10E each not spent! There was some cool ones and others we just didn't understand. Too artsy!
Then it was home to sleep!

On Sunday we went to the same meeting place to go on a tour of a concentration camp: "Just outside the city limits stands a reminder of the darkest days of Berlin’s history: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Built in 1936 by slave laborers, Sachsenhausen became the model that all other camps followed. It was a school of brutality, training guards for positions in other camps. By the end of WWII, over 50,000 people had died there.

Sachsenhausen’s tragic history continued from 1945 to 1950 when the new Communist occupiers secretly followed the Nazis' footsteps and used the camp to detain political enemies. Thousands more perished during this period.

Visiting the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial is one of the most important things you can do on your visit to Berlin. During our six hour tour, we tell the story of Sachsenhausen’s infamous history with the sensitivity needed to examine how something as horrible as the Holocaust could have happened."

that was a very sobering and tiring day. It rained the whole day and made it even more real. After we made it back to the square near our hotel we decided to go to a movie. We went to the theater in the square and discovered that all English movies are at the sony center about 20 min away on subway. After a rest at the hotel we headed out the watch the movie one that we were wiling to watch - the 3rd Mummy movie.

After the movie we walked back to the Brandenburg gate and then went home via subway.

Our hotel was the Park Inn at Alexanderplatz. You should look it up and see the pics of the rooms. I will post some too. The shower is all glass and is in your room. To make it look more spacious they do not have a separate bathroom. so it goes (starting from window to the door) chair, side table, bed, side table, curtain (to pull around the "bathroom") sink, glass shower, toilet. The toilet is behind a glass wall and has a door. The glass is also frosted so you cant see everything- but its close enough. and then its the hallway. i forgot to take a pic of the chairs and table at the end of the room but i do have a pic of the kind of bathroom I'm talking about.

Monday morning we got up and had a bagel at Dunkin' Donuts! Its been a long time since we have had a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. We then walked to the fountain that Andrea told us to go to . We were there for almost 45 min and it didn't get turned on. We had to return to our room to check out and catch our train. The fountains apparently start at 10 am for anyone who wants to get an early look at them. Our hotel is also by the TV tower. This looks like an early attempt at the CN tower that just didnt work. But we could see that from our hotel room.

So we are home and have to do some laundry- but Dave doesn't since he still has shirts!
We discovered after booking our holiday that this coming weekend is a Long weekend with the Friday off. So Dave only has 3 days of work. the poor boy!
We have 2 more days on our train tickets and are trying to figure out that to this weekend since it expires on the 20th.
any suggestions?

Monday, August 4, 2008

weekend

well Sunday was a good day.

We got to go to church for the first time since we left home back at the end of may. We were mostly traveling on Sundays to get to each place that we wanted to go to.

The church is an English Baptist church. http://www.ibc-jurbise.org/Welcome.html
and they were very friendly and welcoming. The person who first greeted us said that she "is expecting to have a baby this afternoon!" that kinda took us back until she
said her due date was Tuesday. So I will email her and thank her and wish her luck.

We then went for a drive and ended up in Soignes again and ate at the Carrefour (The store was closed).

We came home to have a very very lazy day. We had supper in the hotel (to lazy to go out to eat) and came back up to watch a movie on Dave's computer. This brought us to 10 pm and Dave wanted to watch a show on TV. At the same time there was a thunderstorm coming in. The Station was cut out so while we were waiting we pulled back the curtains to watch the storm curled up on the bed. It was kinda nice even though it was an exciting part of the show that was cut out. The TV was cut out for 15 min. Then it was to bed.

We woke up this morning to a bright and sunny day. now to think what to do today.


You know- I miss having home cooked meals the most right now. There are a lot of things to miss- but thats the biggest one right now. Others include: English, Tim Hortons, and my own space (appt. or house)


Oh- i have created a quiz on Facebook based on this blog. Check it out.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

pictures

belgium 3

Dave to the rescue

Friday night we went out for TGIF in the Grand Place where i met 3 of daves coworkers.

Well today was an easy day. It started out with sleeping in and going for breakfast around 9:45. Then it was back to the room to hang out for a while. I uploaded some more pics to the computer so I will upload them to the internet soon. I am running out of space so I may need to use my debbieschilstra@gmail account to post more. But for now I should be fine.

We then headed out to the mall to see if we could get a new case for daves blackberry but there was none to be found.

From here we headed into town to do an hour walk geocaching tour of the town. That was a lot of fun!!
We got to see some things we haven't see before.
We also saw 2 weddings and 2 more processions. They drive through town honking their horns and screaming out. This is after the night before where many of the brides to be come out and try to get money and pictures of themselves with single men. They are usually dressed as witches or other crazy costumes.
I will post some photos of these things.

When we finally got to the location of the cache we hear meowing. It was coming from the tree that it was hidden in. Looking up we finally saw a white kitty bum. The kitten was scared and little. We only had 15 min before our parking ran out. The kitten had a hard time getting to a place where we could help her. She was very unsure of her footing. She got to a place where Dave could finally reach her with only 5 min left on our parking. The kitten was very cuddly and was purring so loud! she was so thankful for being helped down. She was soo sweet that I wanted to take her home! But since she looked so healthy and friendly I guessed that she was someones cat. So we had to let her go. She did follow us for a few feet until something distracted her.
I didn't get a pic of her rescue but i did just as she came down.


so i will go post the pictures now... ttyl

Friday, August 1, 2008

end of another week

well this week again passed by with out anything special happening.

We did go to Soignes for supper and to the Carrefour (wal-mart type store)This is a pretty little town about 10-15 min down the road from us. We also discovered that there is a McDonalds that has a parking lot (for when we crave something like home) haha- nice eh?

This week is a lot hotter then every other week. We even had some muggy weather. because of this I have not been biking at all this week. I was spending most of my time in the pool! That has been great!

Besides this there hasnt been too much exciting. I am planning on meeting a high school foreign exchange student that visited for one semester. We probably will be going to his home town in a couple weeks from now.

I have taken photos from around the hotel but Dave has the cable to I cannot load them up and post them. soon you will have some more photos.
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