Europe Trip Day 1

For the next week and a half Mark and I will be updating the blog daily while we are here in Europe so our kids can see the things we are doing each day (and also to make everyone else jealous).

I started out my day today bright and early.  I left for the airport at 7 am.  The girls shed a few tears but I managed to keep control of my emotions.  I was sad that my girls were sad that I was leaving, but I was still excited to go, if that makes sense.  Téa asked why I had to go which was hard to answer since the answer was because I wanted to.

I met up with Myrna at our gate for the first leg of our flight to Washington D.C.  Dulles airport.  I was excited to see that Elder L. Tom Perry would be on our small flight and that his seat was just three rows up from mine.  It’s pretty cool to say hello to an apostle face to face and have him say hello back with a big smile.  After our 3.5 hour flight to D.C. we boarded our second, and final flight for Amsterdam.

We landed in Amsterdam at 6 am local time and…it was raining.  I know, raining in the Netherlands never happens.  Mark and Scott arrived at the airport shortly after Myrna and I landed and off we went.  Our first stop was at the airport hotel where the boys stayed the night before.  I had a  nice, hot shower and a change of clothes to reenergize me so we could start the road trip. 

Before we headed off I took my first picture of the Netherlands…the view from our hotel we stayed in for about an hour so I could clean up.  It’s flat.  And green.

Our first stop was Kinderdijk.  Some old school windmills along the canals in the Netherlands.  The GPS, aka Groovy Nuvi, had some issues and instead of leading us over a bridge to Kinderdijk, it led us to a ferry crossing.  Not free, of course. 

When we finally arrived at Kinderdijk it started to rain harder.  But we managed a few good pictures of the windmills and canals.

I really loved the area and the beautiful windmills.  My only wish would be to have had more time to explore and take it all in.  The weather, unfortunately had other plans. 

After leaving Kinderdijk we headed to Antwerpen, Belgium.  Mark had been there before so it was nice when we finally got to the square we wanted to go to we knew exactly what to see in the limited time we had there.  Of course when we started walking around Antwerpen it was raining.  We found an open market and bought two more umbrellas so all of us could have our own then we walked to try and find some lunch.  We found tons of Italian restaurants so instead of walking forever to find something else we stopped at Da Giovanni.  It was freezing so I ordered yummy hot chocolate.

Then our food came and Mark and I shared a margherita pizza and a lasagna.  It reminded me of Italy.

After our bellies were full we headed to see a famous statue that tells the story of Brabo, a Roman soldier, who once killed a giant who was terrorizing the local town and those trying to cross the river Scheldt.  Legend says he cut off the giants hand and threw it into the river which is where the name of Antwerpen comes from.  It means hand-throwing.

I love the architecture everywhere in Europe.  The buildings have such character and a total different style than in the U.S.

Nest stop…Belgium Chocolates!  We probably bought way more than we needed.

As we were leaving the town square Myrna suddenly stopped and said “what is that smell?”  We all stopped and looked around and realized that her nose had found a Belgium waffle stand.  We had almost given up on finding one before leaving the city.  Thankfully, we had the opportunity to try one.  It was delicious.  Here were our choices of toppings. 

After Antwerpen it was time to head back to Dusseldorf, Germany to stay the night.  Before coming to Europe we found that our good friend’s town of Best was on our route back to Dusseldorf so we made plans to make a quick stop to say hello.  I am still kicking myself for not taking any pictures of our quick one-hour stay.  Aaron and Vanessa moved to the Netherlands over 3 years ago so it had been a long time since we’d seen them. 

While we sat and chatted Scott and Myrna took a short walk to a local market to get some food and stretch their legs.  We then headed the rest of the way to Dusseldorf for my first night stay in Germany.

I’d say our first day of our trip was a success!