Leprechauns, Monsters, and Wizards

We just arrived back in Belgium after three weeks spent touring England, Ireland, and Scotland!  When the car leasing company indicated that we would be allowed unlimited miles, I'm not sure they bargained for the odometer reading they'll see when we return it in August!  We began our journey with a ferry from Dunkirk, France to Dover, England.  The views of the white cliffs were impressive as we arrived, but nothing compared to some of the gorgeous countryside we found ourselves in over the course of the three weeks.  We spent two nights at a great little, family-run campsite on a farm in Canterbury and used that as our home base while we visited the city and acquainted ourselves with all things British (like driving on the left-hand side of the road!)  From Canterbury we traveled to London where we camped as close to the city as possible.  As we were setting up our camp, the wardens came and asked if we would be willing to participate in the filming of a segment for a British morning show the following day.  We didn't really know what the show was or any other details, but we agreed.  The following morning the host and the producers showed up and explained that we'd be setting up and reviewing a variety of tents.  Turns out the host is a well-known Irish TV celebrity (we only discovered that once we Googled him when they'd all left).  He was very nice and gave us great tips for our trip to Ireland.  He even gave us his cell phone number and asked us to give him a call when we arrived (we didn't end up contacting him).  I'm still trying to get my hands on a copy of the episode, but we've been told by the locals that we "looked fab and got quite a lot of air time".  I'm sure it's an experience that we'll always remember!  We spent a couple more days in London trying to figure out all that GIANT of a city has to offer.  Brad was feeling quite adventurous with three whole days of British driving experience and decided to drive us right to the London city center and we spent a lovely evening walking around seeing the sights!  The drive in was a breeze...getting back to our camp was a little more difficult.  We blamed Eloise (the GPS) and her confusion with switching between countries!  After seeing Hampton Court and feeding my curiosity about Henry VIII and that whole time period, we decided that there was far too much to see and far too little time.  We made the decision to leave London for a break from the city, but planned to return before ferrying back to France.  From London, we traveled to Bath with a stop at Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is an impressive and mysterious place, but the chain link fence and highway that runs alongside it sort of takes away from the experience.  We decided that the view from the inside of the fence wasn't worth the money that we'd have to pay, so we enjoyed it from a little bit of a distance (even if we'd paid, visitors can't get very close to the stones).  We ended the day with some Geocaching near the ancient burial grounds in the fields surrounding Stonehenge.  We spent two nights on another farm/campsite near Bath and really enjoyed some beautiful weather in a beautiful city before heading west through Wales to a ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare, Ireland.  Ireland was amazing...very green, very natural, and with some of the friendliest people we've ever met!  We camped in an area that is famous for the many movies that have been filmed there (Braveheart being one of the most popular).  The setting was enhanced by the nicest camp host ever...Jim O'Shaughesy (such an Irish name, I'll never forget it!)  We did quite a lot of hiking/Leprechaun hunting during the days and enjoyed hanging out with the locals in the pub at night.  After a couple days in the Wicklow region, we headed north toward Belfast with a quick stop in Dublin.  While in Dublin, we visited a great museum about the Viking settlement of the area and then took a walk past some of the major sites (Christ's Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, etc.)  Dublin was nice, but it's a busy city, and we were anxious to get back to nature!  Connor and Gavin told us about a place on the northern Irish coast that they learned about on The Simpsons (seriously) called the Giant's Causeway.  After seeing some brochures, we decided to check it out.  So glad we did.  It's a very rocky portion of coast made up of the most impressive geologic rock formations that date back 50-60 million years.  Though we really wanted to visit Belfast and try to learn more about the history of the area and the issues between Ireland and Northern Ireland, we ran out of time before we had to catch ferry to Scotland.  The five days that we spent in the Scottish Highlands were not near enough.  It must be one of the most peaceful places on the face of this Earth.  We camped near Avimore in the beautiful Cairngorm mountains and traveled north to Inverness to try our luck at spotting the Loch Ness Monster; after a long hike through the forest and across a few log bridges over the river, all we got were some beautiful views of the Loch...no monster!  I think the scenery was a much better reward than a mythical creature anyway.  Our last couple days in Scotland were spent on the coast just south of Edinburgh where we enjoyed yet more beautiful scenery!  We traveled into the city in the late afternoon and had a great time wandering through the medieval city.  As we walked, Gavin excitedly pointed across a busy road at a coffee house that he insisted was where JK Rowling wrote much of the early Harry Potter Books.  We humored him and crossed the street only to discover that he was correct!  So, we stopped in to The Elephant House and had a cup of coffee while the boys marveled at the idea that some of their favorite books were written at the table next to us.  We topped off the evening with a "haunted" tour of Edinburgh's underground...seems it's a city with some incredible history.  Definitely a place we'll return to...someday.  With only a few days before our scheduled ferry back to France, we decided we better head south, back to London, so we could see a few more of the sights from our wish list.  On the way, we stopped at Alnwick to see the castle that was used to represent Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films.  We enjoyed a great tour and the boys took some broomstick lessons at the very sight of Harry's first training in the first movie!  The castle grounds were beautiful and we ended up spending far too much time exploring the magnificent treehouse, tunnels, maze, poison garden, fountains, and trails which left us very little time to get settled in to a camp site for the night. After several hours and with no daylight left, we got lucky and found a place near the northeastern English coast to pitch the tent...disaster averted; I was sure we'd be sleeping in the car!  We packed up quickly and headed back to the campsite we'd stayed at on part one of our London trip.  With our rail passes in hand, we set out with a hefty list of things to see and do and only two days to do them in.  Day one started out with a vicious rainstorm that left us absolutely soaking wet as we waited to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  We were so wet, we were forced to make the hour subway/train/walking trek back to camp to dry off and wait out the storm.  When we arrived back at camp, we were thrilled to find that everything in the tent was dry as a bone.  Unfortunately, the contents of my backpack, which included my purse, was were all quite soggy.  Gavin had to use the hand dryers in the restroom to dry out his book, while Brad and I laid out all our passports, money, tickets, etc to dry.  Luckily nothing important was ruined and the sun decided to shine in the late afternoon!  So, we decided to head back into the city to try to get our money's worth out of the rail passes we'd purchased for the day.  We'd read in the newspaper that morning that the World premiere of Harry Potter was taking place in London that evening, so we headed in the direction to see what we could see.  At first, all we saw were thousands of people and tall barricades.  So we decided to move on and try to make our way to the nearest underground station so we could go get some dinner.  On the way, we found an area that was far less crowded and had some pretty good views (from Ben's and Brad's shoulders) of the red carpet and all the stars!  The boys were thrilled to have been present, even if it was from a distance, of such a big event!  What started out as a rough day of sightseeing, ended up being lots of fun and very memorable.  We spent our last day in London visiting The Tower of London...an amazing place with a very sordid past...I LOVED it!  Later in the afternoon, we headed toward the Natural History Museum to let the boys explore for a couple hours.  That place is impressive...we could have spent days there...and it was free!  We ended the day with a play (Anne Boleyn) at Shakespeare's Globe Theater standing in the yard like the commoners would have hundred of years ago!  We rested our chins on the stage and enjoyed every minute of the 2 1/2 hour show before we took the lat train back to camp.  We all have things in the UK that we want to see again, or things that we just weren't able to fit in...On the list: more of the Scottish Highlands, more of Ireland (maybe the Dingle Peninsula), another play at The Globe (maybe something from Shakespeare), Westminster Abbey, The Abbey Road Crosswalk for a re-creation of the Beatles album done Thorud-style, and more Edinburgh!  Plans for a third Europe trip are already in the works!  We plan to leave Belgium on Tuesday and will then make our way east to Prague.  We plan to stop in Luxembourg for a couple days because Grandma Engebretson says the bridges and buildings there are sights to behold.  From there...who knows!  We'll have to see which way the wind blows us.

Heading Across the Pond...

Yesterday we decided to travel to the southern Walloon (French speaking) region of Belgium and spent the day exploring small villages along the river and Geocaching with Ben, Davy, and Daan (Ben and Davy's friend).  Geocaching is a great way to explore off the beaten path and we get great exercise too...I think we walked several miles yesterday.  We returned home to the Verbeeren family just in time for another delicious meal and our last night's sleep in a real bed.  Davy has been more than gracious to give up his room to Brad and I this past week.  Our home for the next several weeks will be the tent that we brought along with us.
We've been busy getting everything ready to go to England, Scotland, and Ireland (hopefully) for the past couple days.  It seems we overpacked for our trip here, so we had to "weed out" some non-essentials...I hate making decisions about what to pack!  We have tickets for the ferry from Dunkirk to Dover this afternoon and we plan to camp somewhere near Canterbury tonight.  I can't help but think of my senior English class where we made a "pilgrimage" to Canterbury right before we dove into our English literature unit (specifically the collection of Canterbury Tales).  We're not sure how accessible an Internet connection will be while we camp, so we may be "disconnected for a while".  If that's the case, we'll have plenty of catching up to do when we return to Belgium in a few weeks.

En Bruges...

A great movie, but, more importantly, a beautiful city.  We made a quick trip to Calais, France yesterday to pick up our car and decided that today would be a good day to go for a drive.  We ended up in Bruges, a city that we visited three years ago, but one that we still enjoy.  Despite the rain, we had a wonderful time strolling through the medieval alleys and buildings, snacking on some delicious chocolates, and exploring some of Bruges many treasures.  Our car and Eloise (Gavin's name for the sweet British voice of our GPS) got us there and back, safe and sound!  We're grateful to have Eloise along for the rest of our trip...she's very helpful!  We plan on spending the next couple days getting ready to leave for England on Monday.  Everyone seems to be over the jet lag and we're excited about the coming adventure.

Seattle to Iceland, Iceland to Belgium

I think we've finally oriented ourselves to this time zone...it only took two days!  We left Seattle on Sunday afternoon and arrived in Iceland at the Keflavik airport (near Reykjavik) on Monday morning.  We decided to spend our ten-hour layover at The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.  What a treat!  We spent the day relaxing in the naturally heated lagoon, covering our faces with Silica rich mud, and trying to stay awake.  After a good soak, a shower, and clean clothes, we were ready to head back to the airport for the second leg of our journey.  After a quick bit of lunch, the boys fell sound asleep on a bench and woke only long enough to board the plane (I think I might have fallen asleep for a few minutes as well).  After a short three-hour flight, we arrived in Brussels where the Verbeeren family was waiting to pick us (and all our luggage) up.  As excited as we were to see everyone, sleep had to be the top priority.  Brad was able to sleep on the plane more than anyone else, so he was ready to "party" at 5:30 AM.  I, on the other hand, was not even remotely coherent until 1:00 PM the next afternoon.  It took me most of the day to feel human again.  After resting most of the day yesterday (Tuesday), we were ready to head into Brussels today.  We enjoyed a short walking tour (courtesy of Ben's dad, Michel, and Ben's brother, Davy) which included the Palace of Justice, The Little Peeing Boy, The Little Peeing Girl, lots of shops (Brad LOVED Beer Planet), The Grand Place, and a public restroom that Gavin claims was "just like a nightclub" complete with a strobe light.  Brad has made it a mission to try and write about as many different beers as possible on our trip, so we ventured out to the "beer store" to choose a nice selection of Belgian beers.  We topped off the day with a quick soak in the hot tub at Joke's house (Ben's cousin) and a delicious BBQ that included sausages, beef, pork, bacon, ham, and chicken...along with some non-meat products!  We're feeling rested and relaxed as we plan the next phase of our trip...next stop: Calais, France in the morning to pick up our car!  Looking forward to a trip to the Belgian coast this weekend for a beer festival then off to England/Ireland/Scotland on Monday afternoon.

Icelandic Volcanoes & German Cucumbers

In just a little bit more than a week we will be off to the land of erupting volcanoes and E Coli infected vegetables...I can't say that it won't be an adventure!  

It looks like the volcanic ash has passed, so we'll cross our fingers and hope that no further eruptions happen between now and then and that our flight plans (including a layover in Iceland) will be unaffected.  At this point, I’m much more concerned about the breakout of a mutant strain of E Coli than a little bit of ash!  On our last trip, we lived on fresh vegetables, bread, and cheese while we camped (It’s not easy to cook much on a tiny backpacking stove!)  It looks like vegetable might be taken off the menu for the time being...Connor is delighted! 

Perhaps more concerning than volcanoes and E Coli is the fact that we still are not packed.  We have exactly 6 ½ more school days standing between us and vacation; it’s difficult to see past those days at this point.  I have visions of late nights and last minute packing once we finish up with school.  Originally, we planned to leave around the 16^th, but flights on the 12^th were so much cheaper that we couldn’t pass them up...In hindsight, those extra days may have been worth the extra airfare.  Brad still insists that all we need are airline tickets and passports; the rest “will work itself out.”  We shall see!

No Time For Planning...

(Take 2...My first version of this blog disappeared mysteriously!)

We will be embarking on our 75-day European vacation in just 4 short weeks!  This is such a busy time of year for all of us and there is just no time for planning.  My type-A self gets a little nervous thinking about all the plans we haven't made (At this point, we only have plane tickets!)  Thank goodness for Brad and his easygoing nature.  He assures me that everything will be ready (enough) and we'll figure the rest out when we get there.  These trips really force me to let go and go with the flow!  As I write, Brad is trying to decide if the tent and cots he bought will all work with each other...because of this sweet Oregon rain, the whole operation is set up in the middle of the living room (Talk about needing to go with the flow!!)  The good news: It looks like everything will fit and we will be comfortable and dry!