The day I saw Adele concert at the O2 arena. This was by far, hands down, the BEST CONCERT EVER. Not only does she have an amazing voice, several brilliant albums, but she is hilarious and just so awesome.
Christmas Holidays in Germany
Castles, christkindlmarkts, gluhwein, and more gluhwein.
Becca and I flew to Munich on Friday night and met Mom and Dad on Saturday December 19. We arrived pretty late and had to get a taxi into the city to our flat – 80 euros, 50 minutes and one cab driver who may have been falling asleep at wheel later, we arrived at our destination. This was the first time we’ve done an AirbNb, and we got pretty lucky with our choice. It was a one bedroom flat (with a pull out sofa in the living room) and was within a short walk of Marienplatz and the center of town.
Munich has over 20 Christmas markets throughout the city and they are all selling handmade crafts and gluhwein – hot mulled wine that comes in decorated Christmas mugs – you can return the mugs and get a partial refund for the mug, or you can keep the mug as a souvenir. We had quite the collection at the end of each day and even scouted out our gluhwein stands based on the best looking mugs to add to our collection! The markets also serve some delicious street foods, lebkuchen (traditional German baked Christmas treat that resembles gingerbread) and everything is decorated for Christmas.
After everyone arrived on Saturday, we walked to Café Frischhut that Mom had found which was well known for its delicious pastries. Well, really just one pastry that they were known for (the Schmalznudel – basically a fried piece of dough with sugar). The menu was in German, but we just asked for the “best-seller” and several cappuccinos for breakfast and they were very delicious. After breakfast, we headed to some of the markets in Marienplatz and had our first mug of gluhwein (Becca ordered her first within minutes of entering the market). From there, we shopped, browsed and checked out the Christmas decorations that were hung throughout the city before going back to the flat to take a nap. We walked back to Marienplatz before dinner to see the Christmas markets at night which is much more festive than during the day with all the lights and decorations lit up all over the city. For dinner, we ate at Augustiner am Platzl and ordered traditional German food and beer for dinner and then apple strudel with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Very delicious.
Schmalznudel at Cafe Frischhut.
Gluhwein!!
Feasting at the market.
German dinner.
Apple Strudel
Marien Platz Christmas Markets with the Glockenspiel.
Glockenspiel at Marienplatz.
Christmas Markets
Walking around Marienplatz
On Sunday, we visited the Munich Residenz – the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs and is the largest city palace in Germany. The Residenz also is home to the Treasury which has a display of jewels, gold, crystals and ivories and other pieces collected by the various rulers of Bavaria. We toured the Treasury and then the Residenz museum. Lots to see and by the time we finished, we were so hungry that we didn’t make it out of the palace grounds before we were diving into the snack bags in Dad’s backpack. My family is definitely never boring. After a quick snack, eaten literally within inches of the doors to the palace grounds, we walked to the English Gardens as we thought there was a Christmas Market in the park. The park is so big it could have been anywhere so we turned back around and stumbled upon another Christmas market right near the Residenz. We popped in for lunch and more gluhwein and also made a few purchases of some handmade crafts and Christmas ornaments as well. This is where we got ambitious in our touristing. After the market, we decided to head to Deutsches Museum as we had several day trips coming up and wouldn’t have much more time in Munich to visit the museum. The Museum is the world’s LARGEST museum of science and technology with approximately 8 floors of exhibits – its so large it actually sits on an island. We started on the ground floor and then decided there was so much to see that we would pick certain exhibits and only see those. I picked the computers exhibit as I’d heard they had an actual Enigma machine in the museum which was pretty neat to see (see my earlier post to Bletchley Park for more about the history of the Enigma machines). After this and a couple more exhibits, we tried to keep going, but we were so tired from walking that we gave up and went back to the flat. That museum requires a full day and fesh legs.
Treasury jewels.
Just some more glitter at the Treasury.
Treasury higlights.
Treasury jewels.
The Munich Residenz
The Munich Residenz
Bedroom at the Residenz
The Munich Residenz
Christmas Market at the Residenz
Christmas Market at the Residenz
Christmas Market at the Residenz
Christmas Market at the Residenz
Christmask Market at the Residenz
Deutches Museum – Enigma Machine
Tired legs!!
On Monday we did a day trip to see the royal castles of King Ludwig II – Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. Our first stop was Linderhof Castle built by King Ludwig II during the 19th century. It was built as a hunting lodge in the French Rococo style. This palace was gorgeous and is one of my favorite castles ever. Next we made a short stop in Oberammergau for some shopping – it is world famous for its woodcarvers, richly painted houses and also home of the Passion Play. Finally, we made it to Hohenschwangau, a small town at the base of the Neuschwanstein Castle and the rest of the day to explore the town and the castle (Neuschwanstein Castle is said to be the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle). We ate lunch in one of the hotels in the village, and then started the trek up the mountain to the castle. It was pretty steep as the castle it really sitting on the top of the mountain. The castle is gorgeous and the views from the top are breathtaking. We waited in line for our tour group, and finally made it into the castle. You wear a headset as you move from room to room in the castle, and rather than pressing buttons or numbers into the base, the castle has sensors that know when you’ve entered the next room and automatically starts the next part of the tour (I’ve done these a lot, and that was a new one for me). I’ve always wanted to go see this Castle, and this day definitely was incredible. After arriving back in Munich we went to the Haxnbauer for dinner which Mom had received a recommendation to go to – a German restaurant with traditional Bavarian food. We split two meals between all of us which was definitely the way to go as the portion sizes were very large. I had the schnitzel and chips and it was delicious.
Linderhof Castle
Outdoors at Linderhof
One of the rooms in Linderhof Castle
Wooden clock
Shops in Oberammergau
Town of Oberammergau
Shops in Hohenschwangau Village
Shops in Hohenschwangau village
Shops in Hohenschwangau village
Hohenschwangau Castle
First sighting of Neuschwanstein Castle – way up on the hill
Neuschwanstein!
Selfies in front of the castle.
Decorations in the entrance to Neuschwanstein.
Entrance to the castle
Inside the castle
Neuschwanstein Castle
4d creation of Neuschwanstein
View of Hohenschwangau village from the Castle terrace.
The next day we visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. I had visited there 10 years ago when I studied abroad but we had just walked around on our own and didn’t have a guided tour. This time we signed up for a guided tour and the guide was very informative and helpful and it was pretty incredible to hear about the history and background and stories that he had picked up as a guide. After we made it back to Munich, it was time to head to the Hofbrauhaus for beer and pretzels. The place was so crowded we walked around for a bit trying to find a table, and ended up sharing a table with another family. We lucked out into a good spot right in the one of the first rooms to enjoy our afternoon snacks!
For the last day of the trip, we headed off to Nuremberg for a walking tour of Nuremberg’s Old Town and the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, and then an afternoon in the Nuremberg Christmas markets. We arrived in Nuremberg a little early and didn’t have to meet our tour group for a while so we headed to the center of town to visit some of the markets before the tour. On our way, we walked right by a Dunkin Donuts (Dad’s lucky day as he had been craving some DD’s ever since he left the US). We had already eaten breakfast, but that didn’t stop us from getting more coffee and a cup of munchkins – it was heaven. We met our tour guide outside Central Station and off we went on our tour of the Old Town, included the Craftsmen’s Courtyard (we returned here later and I purchased an authentic German Nutcracker), St. Lawrence Church, Town Hall, and the Imperial Castle courtyards. After lunch, we continued on to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds and took a bus outside of town to get there. We visited the Great Street which was designed to be the central axis of the rally grounds, and also the half-finished Congress Hall of the Nazi Party. Our tour guide was really amazing and really had a passion for giving these tours and was so knowledgeable of this period of history. What made this part of the tour even more interesting are that he had pictures of this period of time in which the rally grounds were used and you could stand there as it was now and see the actual pictures of history taking place right there more than 50 years ago. After the end of the tour, we went back to the Nuremberg Christkindelmarkts and did more shopping, eating and gluhwein drinking for the last time (our mug collection at this point is out of control). The markets in Nuremberg are very similar to Munich, but they were still fun to walk around and check out the different stalls and handmade crafts.
Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally Grounds
Nazi Party Rally Grounds pictures
The next day is Christmas Eve, and we flew back to London and then headed to the Doubletree Hilton hotel to check in and drop off everyone’s bags. After we headed to the grocery store to buy some groceries for the next several days as the stores would be completely closed for Christmas and then walked back to my flat to drop off my bags and to show Mom and Dad my flat. I’m sure my flat looks just fine through FaceTime, but probably looks better in person. We planned to do the Christmas Eve service at St. Pauls Cathedral, and left a little early as they don’t give out tickets for this service and its first come, first serve. Well, I was definitely not expecting us to arrive several hours early and the line already be almost fully wrapped around the church. Guess I should have done more research. We stood in line anyway (that is, once we were able to find the end of the line), and hoped we would be able to get in. It was freezing that day, but we made it into St. Pauls Cathedral for the service. Our seats were on the left aisle, and the massive pillars throughout the church didn’t allow you to see what was happening in the center of the church at all. However, the service was very nice and I’m glad we were able to go.
Merry Christmas!! I woke up and headed over to the Doubletree for Christmas morning breakfast and presents. Becca bought Christmas crackers before we left for Munich, and this was one of the best things ever. Christmas crackers are a cardboard tube wrapped in Christmas paper with a prize inside (like an oversized sweets wrapper). Its called a cracker because when you pull the ends of the cardboard tube there is a popping sound (like a cap gun). I don’t even remember what our actual prizes were, but our crackers also came with paper hats and costumes, which was one of the best things ever. We proudly wore our costumes for pictures at the hotel (and later at tea). As the city’s public transportation shuts down on Christmas, I booked us reservations for Christmas Tea at The Dorchester. Only a 55 minute walk from the hotel in our fancy Christmas outfits….or surge-priced Uber! The Dorchester really knows how to do Christmas. They have Santa, a huge gingerbread model of their hotel, lots and lots of Christmas trees, a Candyland room where you can fill bags and bags of handpicked candy, and of course, really fabulous Afternoon Tea (with champagne, of course, because its Christmas). The food was amazing, the scones were delicious, and the desserts were decorated for Christmas (and also delicious). We decided to walk back to the hotel so I could show everyone how London does Christmas with all its decorations (see earlier post on Christmas in London). One of the best Christmases ever.
As there isn’t much open the day after Christmas, we did the walking tour of the city – Buckingham Palace, the Mall, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, etc. And the next day we went to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels and then walked across the Tower Bridge and along the Thames. Too much to do in London and not enough time, so they’ll just have to plan another trip.
WB Studio Tour – Harry Potter
I bought tickets for Becca and I to go to the WB Studio Tour for Harry Potter. I actually bought the tickets several months back as with anything in London, you have to know what you want to do several months in advance and buy the tickets, or it will be sold out. Luckily I thought very far in advance for this one, as the studio tour is awesome. Pretty much any HP fan’s dream come true as there’s memorabilia from every single movie. And when its decorated for Christmas, its that much more magical. We took the tube to our pick-up point in London and waited for the bus to show up – a double decker Harry Potter themed bus.
Harry Potter bus – our ride to the Studio tour.
WB Studio
Entrance to the WB Studio Tour
The tour starts off in the Great Hall with the tables decorated as if you’re coming in for dinner and at Christmas they actually have flaming puddings they light as you come in.
Great Hall Christmas Dining
Then the rest of the studio tour you can walk through the other sets, including the boys bedroom at Hogwarts, the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore’s office, the Weasley’s house, Diagon alley, etc.
Harry’s bedroom under the stairs
Gryffindor boy’s room
Gryffindor common room and fireplace
Hagrid’s hut
Diagon Alley
Weasley’s Magical Wizard Shop
Weasley’s Magical Wizard Shop
Hogwarts Express train car
Platform 9 3/4
Platform 9 3/4
Hagrid’s motorbike and sidecar
Hogwart’s Express
They also have the hair, makeup and costume department sets showing how the goblins were outfitted and how the creature characters were made.
Goblin masks
Aragog the giant spider
I even made Becca take pictures with me in the flying car, and I tried my hand at riding a broomstick (Becca refused). One of the best things is definitely the model replication of Hogwarts at the end of the tour which is covered in snow (for Christmas).
Its Christmastime in the City (of London)
Christmastime in London is definitely one of the best times of the year. And my love for this holiday season has made living in London that much more awesome by getting to experience this. Decorations start going up at the beginning of November, and everything is decorated – every storefront, street, restaurant, its all decorated. They also have Christmas markets all over the city, a Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, and ice skating rinks set up around the city. Some of the events, like ice skating and visiting Santa’s Grotto at Harrods, need tickets and require booking far in advance. I wasn’t prepared this year, but I will be for next year.
Oxford Street, Regent Street and Carnaby Street
London Bridge City Christmas Markets and Tower of London Ice Skating
Christmas at Kew Gardens
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Covent Garden
Borough Market and the City
Eton and Windsor Castle
Only 10 more months until the City starts getting ready for next Christmas!!
Krakow, Poland (November 27 – 30, 2015)
Krakow – my first venture into the world of Christmas markets! But first, I had to make it to Poland. On an 8:45am flight. Leaving out of London Stansted airport (1 hour away from my flat). The day after Thanksgiving. So a 5am wake up call. At least I made it.
First thoughts of Poland – It is freezing. I know its November, but I wore two jackets, hat, gloves and scarf the whole time I was in the country. One night it was cold enough there were snow flurries as I was walking back to the hotel. Also, Krakow is much older and less modern than any other European city I’ve been in before.
I check into my hotel, a Holiday Inn, which turned out to be one of the best hotels I’ve stayed at in Europe this year. The city may not be modern but the hotel definitely was. After checking in, I walked around the city and got pierogis for lunch. Pierogis are filled dumplings (wrapped pockets of dough around a sweet (fruit) or savory (meat) filling) that are a staple of eastern Europe/Polish cuisine. I went to a restaurant that is one of the top rated pierogi restaurants in Krakow and ordered the potato and bacon pierogis. They were served with panfried onions and were quite delicious. Other frequent “savory” fillings included cabbage, mushrooms and cottage cheese, so while my lunch was tasty, I don’t know if this would be a diet staple for me if I lived in Poland. I also later tried the “sweet” pierogis in the Christmas market several days later and got the strawberry filled pierogis. Despite sounding like they would be delicious, they were actually disgusting and I threw them away after eating one. The dough mixture and frying technique mixed with sweet fruits was a terrible combination.
After lunch I continued on my tour of the city and walked through Market Square where they were setting up the Christmas markets (this was the first day/weekend of the markets) so I left and decided to come back later after the stalls were up. The Market Square is actually a really pretty square, but it was hard to really appreciate it with all the Christmas decorations and stalls. On one side of the square is St. Mary’s Basilica and in the middle of the square is a Cloth Hall that houses shops and stalls selling souvenirs. I walked around the rest of Old Town and up to the Wawel Castle. It was free to walk up and into the castle grounds as they were closing for the day, so I did that as I probably wouldn’t be coming back later.
Later that evening I went back to the Christmas markets and they were in full swing. And they were absolutely amazing. The markets always seem more festive in the evenings when its dark and the Christmas lights are shining and lighting everything up. Krakow only has one market in the Main Market Square, but it had plenty of food stalls and gluhwein (hot mulled wine) stands. The food looked and smelled amazing – polish sausages, potatoes, vegetables, etc. all on display as they are cooking it.
Gluhwein stand
Gluhwein!
Look at all that food.
Kielbasa polish sausage. Yummy.
Making the food.
Decorated food stalls.
The food was so delicious I ate several of my meals in the market during this trip. I also got a fried doughy thing – they wrap it around a cone to cook it so it hardens that way and then they add toppings (sugar, powdered sugar, cinnamon, sprinkles, etc.) on it while its still hot. They were so delicious. However, the menu wasn’t in English and the girls making them also didn’t speak English, so it was more of a point to an item on the menu and hope for the best. The first time I ended up pointing to a plain version with only sugar on the outside. It was alright, but next time I studied the pictures on the menu better and was able to figure most of them out and got the powdered sugar one next. And that one was delicious!!
The stalls mainly sell handmade crafts and food and there is a stage with live entertainment – singing and dancing, etc. I loved everything about the Christmas market.
On Saturday I had booked a guided tour of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. The tour group picked me up at my hotel and we drove the hour to the site of the concentration camps. Auschwitz is the most infamous of all the Holocaust concentration camps, where its estimated that over 1.5 million people were killed during WWII. We first visited Auschwitz I (the original camp) and a large number of the original buildings are still standing. That surprised me as I thought most of the camps had been destroyed. Our tour guide was really good and very knowledgeable about the history of the war, the concentration camps, and everything. I cant imagine taking this type of tour without a guide to help you understand what you are seeing. I wont be going into the details of the tour here, but it was fantastic, very educational and emotional to see firsthand this history of WWII.
Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work brings freedom”). The motto displayed on all the gates of every concentration camp.
Shoes
Luggage
Eyeglasses
Dishes and cups.
Auschwitz II – Birkenau is a few miles down the road from Auschwitz I so we had to drive down the road to get to Birkenau. Birkenau was set up as a combination concentration/extermination camp (there was also an Auschwitz III – Monowitz (a labor camp to staff the IG Farben factory) and also 45 more satellite camps). Not much remains of the Birkenau camp as most of it was dismantled and torn up by the SS when Russia was coming through Poland at the end of the war (Birkenau was the site of the 4 crematoriums so this couldn’t be left behind for the Allied Forces to find). The SS removed as much evidence of the killings as they could by destroying records, and burning and demolishing the buildings.
Main entrance – railways coming into camp.
Guard watchtower, security fence and railway.
Ruins of crematoriums.
Remaining prisoner barracks.
Bunks in prisoner barracks.
Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory – The next day I visited the former metal item factory, which is home to the history museum of “Krakow under Nazi Occupation 1939 – 1945”. Mom and Dad told me about the factory/museum which had been featured on Amazing Race. I wasn’t sure what to expect – whether it was a history museum on WWII, or a museum on the Schindler’s List story. Well, it was both, and was a really good museum too. The museum shows the history of Krakow’s Polish and Jewish citizens before and during the war, and of Oskar Schindler, who ran the enamel factory in Krakow and the prisoners of the Plaszow Concentration Camp he saved.
Oskar Schindler’s desk with a list of Jews he saved, and a wall map in his office.
Enamel items from the factory.
A few more pictures from the town of Krakow.
The French Riviera (November 12 – 15, 2015)
I left the cold weather of London behind and jetted off to the south of France for a long weekend (it sounds so extravagant to say that, but that’s essentially what I did – the perks of living in Europe). I picked Nice as my home base for this trip as it was in the middle of some of the other towns I wanted to go to, and it also had a direct flight from London. I landed in Nice in the early afternoon and took a taxi to the hotel and checked in and dropped my stuff off before setting out to explore the town. I thought a coastal town would be a perfect place to eat gelato and had googled several gelaterias to try. Unfortunately almost all of the gelaterias were closed for the season – bummer. It was only mid-November, still quite warm by my standards as I was wearing short-sleeved tops and flip flops (and was coming from London). Finally found one gelato shop that was still open and it delicious. Looking forward to my next trip to Italy where I plan on eating lots of gelato every day.
Next I headed to the beach and walked along the Promenade which has some amazing views up and down the coast. The “beach” is not a sand-filled beach like I am used to, but rather very large pebbles or small rocks. Needless to say it is not peaceful to walk on the beach, more like painful if you take a wrong step on the rocks. Headed away from the beach and down the Promenade and noticed a lot of people climbing a steep hill taking them up to a park overlooking the city. As it was nearing the end of the day, I decided to go up there as well to watch the sunset. Absolutely gorgeous.
Each city has a port/harbor where all the yachts are docked. I’m not sure if there were more yachts in port at this time of year since it was almost winter, but there were a lot. Once you see the large yachts that look almost like floating houses, some of the smaller (and I’m sure very nice and very expensive) boats almost look like life rafts. Some of the larger yachts that were in port were so large that they had smaller boats, jet skis, and other water equipment in a storage area (almost like a garage) onboard the yacht. Very impressive. Almost makes you wonder who can afford this type of luxury.
Monaco
Another day, another country. But first, breakfast. Having been to France before, I know that the country has amazing pastries and found a coffee/pastry shop that made the most amazing apple pastry. It was so amazing I went back each day for breakfast until I left. After a short train ride (maybe 30 minutes), I entered a whole new country. And a really small country at that. I was able to walk from one side, up on the hill where the palace is located, out to the harbor and the Monte Carlo Casino on the other side in maybe 30 minutes. I started my tour of Monaco at the harbor admiring the yachts again.
After a short tour to see what yachts this port had to offer, I started the trek across the harbor and up the hill to the Palais Princier. The palace was actually closed for the season so I couldn’t go in, but it was impressive, and the views from the hill the palace was on looking out over the city and into the harbor were absolutely fantastic. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but I took the panoramas and selfies anyway. It was nearing lunchtime so after wandering up and down the streets near the palace and into the touristy shops, I found a delicious Italian restaurant for lunch. The theme of this trip became long lunches with a bottle of wine as I ended up doing this every day. With views this amazing, who really wants to finish lunch.
After lunch, I headed back down the hill and across the harbor and to the Grand Casino. The casino has valets and doormen, so I felt a little underdressed in jeans and flip flops, but I went inside to check it out. I made it to the lobby, but from there you have to pay to get inside the playing rooms, so that was it for me. I headed back outside and then wandered around the Place du Casino for a while before heading back to the train station. Monaco was a cute little town for a short day trip, very prominent and lavish.
Cannes
Today I headed west on the French Riviera to Cannes – approximately 50 minutes by train. And similar to the train ride to Monaco yesterday, the train runs along the coast, and stops at every town. Slow moving, but gorgeous views. Made it to Cannes and walked down the Rue de Antibes which is the main shopping street. It was a mix of exclusive, high-fashion stores and the normal stores that are everywhere. I wasn’t interested in shopping, so I headed directly to the beach. And the beaches in Cannes have sand! Spent almost an hour sitting in the sun with my feet in the sand and it felt wonderful. I don’t see the sun much back in London like it was shining in Cannes that day, so I enjoyed it as much as I could. Made a quick tour through the harbor again of the yachts that were in port. More of the same, but still impressive. The waterfront is lined with restaurants directly on the beach, however, as it is the off-season most of them were closed. It would be interesting to be here in the middle of the summer with all the crowds and everything up and running. I eventually found a restaurant that was open (and with a menu in English) and had another long lunch with a bottle of wine! It just never gets old, especially when you are sitting so close the water with a view like this.
After lunch I headed towards the Palais des Festivals area where they hold the Cannes Film Festival each year. Its just a plain building where they hold a lot of activities. So its hard to imagine what it would look like with the red carpets out and all decked out for the festival. But maybe now that I’ve been there, I’ll be able to picture it when I see pictures coming out from next year’s film festival. On the way back to the train station, I stopped by Laduree (famous French luxury bakery and sweets maker that makes the most delicious macarons) and picked up some macarons for dessert.
Villefranche-sur-Mer
Last day of town-hopping. I wanted to go to St. Tropez, however, after some research, learned that its actually pretty complicated to get to St. Tropez as you have to take the train and then take a ferry. As it’s the off-season, it just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, on the way to Monaco I noticed a couple really pretty towns right on the coast that seemed worth a visit. After taking the train to the first town and getting off, I realized there was not much there and that everyone was wearing hiking clothes and heading towards a path. Should have done more research, as the town was actually a very long, steep, windy hike away through the mountains. Given that I was not dressed for hiking steep trails and had a plane to catch that afternoon, this was not going to happen.
So I hopped back on the train and headed back to the other town, Villefranche-sur-Mer. The town was gorgeous, with boats floating in the harbor, and people sunbathing on the beach. A perfect town to wrap up my tour of the French Riviera. The town was quite small and took all of 10 minutes to walk down the beach and back, but since it was lunchtime anyway, I started looking for a restaurant that would seat me right on the water. Found one, ordered a bottle of wine, a pizza and sat there for over 2 hours before it was time to head back to Nice and then on to London.
Belgium – Ghent, Brugge, and Brussels (October 10 – 12, 2015)
Belgium = the land of Waffles. Really delicious waffles.
After a short trip through the Chunnel I spent a long weekend touring through the towns and cities of Belgium. The Eurostar through the Chunnel is awesome and saves so much time than traveling through the airport. I miss being able to drive 20 minutes to get to the airport and having short security lines. Living in London it now takes approximately 1.5 hours (or longer) to get to the airport via multiple tubes, buses and trains and then once you get to the airport there are much longer security lines. After arriving in Brussels I took another train to Ghent and checked into the hotel. Ghent may be a small town, but it has some of the most delicious waffles. And who knew there are different kinds of waffles to choose from in Belgium – the Brussels waffle and the Liege waffle. My first waffle was at a restaurant called Max and it may have been the best waffle I had ever tasted up to that day. This was a Brussels waffle – a lighter and crispier waffle (made with a yeast-leavened batter). I ordered mine topped with layers of fruit and a little bit of whipped cream. A few hours later I would try my second waffle of the day – the Liege waffle which is made from a thicker batter (similar to bread dough) and pearl sugar is mixed in the dough. These are much richer and chewier than the Brussels waffle and equally as yummy.
After eating waffles for lunch, I walked through the town square and around the canals in the town and admired the lace and chocolate shops that exist on every street. One of the top sites to visit in Ghent is at the Sint-Baafskathedraal (a church) which has the “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” – an altarpiece with 12 panels. The Ghent Altarpiece was one of the pieces of artwork featured in the movie “The Monuments Men” as panels of the piece were stolen during WWII (most panels have since been returned, but one panel is still missing).
For dinner, I went to Amadeus, which is known for its all-you-can eat ribs menu. The meal also comes with a baked potato covered in a curry butter sauce and salad. There are several restaurants in the small town of Ghent (obviously, it is quite popular) and when I showed up at the first restaurant I was not-so-kindly informed that they had no tables for the evening and I should have made a reservation. So I went to the next restaurant on the other side of the town and was told they had a table at 9pm (a 3 hour wait), so I went back to the hotel for a nap and then headed back to the restaurant. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t even finish one plate of ribs. The waiter was surprised when he asked if I wanted another round of ribs – I don’t think many customers say no. A delicious meal but they got their money’s worth out of me.
The next day I took a train to Brugge and did a repeat of the day before. Walked through the streets of the town and the town square, ate more waffles and admired the chocolate and lace shops. I stopped at a tea room named De Proeverie and ordered a “hot chocolate” – which is essentially a cup of steamed milk that is served with a spoonful of chocolate and some whipped cream. You stir the spoon in the milk until the chocolate melts and then add your whipped cream. Very delicious! After my chocolate adventure, I took a boat ride through the canals (I sat in the back of the boat so it was very hard to hear the driver as he was telling the history of the town and what we were passing, so it was mainly a scenic boat ride with amazing views) and also visited the Church of our Lady to view the “Madonna and Child” marble statue by Michelangelo (the only sculpture by Michelangelo outside of Italy).
On Monday I checked out of the hotel and took the train back to Brussels. I was catching the EuroStar back to London in the evening, so I only had a few hours to look around. However, Brussels was my least favorite city of the three, so it was plenty of time. One of the biggest attractions in Brussels is the “Manneken Pis” which is a tiny bronze status of a little boy peeing in a fountain. Yep, that’s right – one of the main sights. When I went by in the morning, the little boy was dressed up in a janitor costume and when I walked by later in the afternoon, I was just in time to see them remove the costume (they change the costumes every week or so) and this time they left him naked. The other big tourist attraction is the Grand Place – the city square which is surrounded by very elaborate and ornate buildings. As there wasn’t much to do in Brussels, after I walked through the city, purchased my souvenirs of lace and chocolate, I ate lunch at one of the outdoor cafes in the Grand Place until it was time to go. And of course, on the way to the train station, I ate one last Belgian waffle!!
American Football @ Wembley Stadium (October 4, 2015)
In NFL tradition, each year several teams fly to London to play a game of American football in Wembley stadium. Several coworkers and I attended the first NFL football game featuring the New York Jets vs. Miami Dolphins. The game was a sellout and there were approximately 85,000 American expats at the game, as well as some British people who wanted to see what real football is all about:). Even though the teams on the field were the Jets and the Dolphins, the fans must have thought this was the day to wear their favorite NFL jersey. We could not find an NFL team not represented in the stadium, and we tried hard, listing out every team we could think of, but each time we found someone wearing the team jersey. We even had Carolina Panthers fans sitting in the seats directly in front of us (what a coincidence). While it was an awesome experience to attend an NFL game at Wembley and experience that will fellow expats who also love American sports, this was not the best game of football. The Jets beat the Dolphins 27-14 and we left in the middle of the 4th quarter to catch the tube back to London before the rest of the stadium also tried to get the tube.
Bletchley Park (September 27, 2015)
That time I took a trip based on posters on the walls of the tube stations.
Bletchley Park was the location of the United Kingdom’s Government Code and Cypher School. The top secret group that worked at Bletchley during World War II cracked the German’s “Enigma” secret war communications (from the movie “The Imitation Game” which tells the story of Alan Turing and the history of the Enigma code breaking that took place here). It has been documented that the code-breaking intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years and saved countless lives.
All documents and equipment were destroyed after the war to maintain the secrecy of what they were able to do, so there’s nothing remaining of the original work that was done here, however, the park recently opened as a museum and they attempted to recreate the grounds and buildings as it would have existed during the war. Portions of the movie were filmed at the Bletchley and an exhibition at the park recreated sets from the movie. They even rebuilt a working Turing-Welchman Bombe machine (a version of the Enigma machine from the movie) that they use to demonstrate how the code-breaking system worked. They even had former war veterans who worked at the site answering questions in the museum and running the Enigma machine.
The pictures don’t really do it justice as they’ve had to rebuild everything based on memories of how the site was run and what it looked like, but this was pretty incredible what they did here. It was very interesting to see the whole park and the history that was kept a secret from everyone for so long.
Summer Bank Holiday – Edinburgh and Scotland (August 28 – 31, 2015)
Only two weeks of work and already a bank (public) holiday. Took the train to Edinburgh after work on Friday evening and it was PACKED. As I purchased tickets only a week before the holiday, there were no seat reservations left for the train and I had to stand for the first 2 hours of a 4.5 hour (long) train ride. Didn’t think it could get worse until I took the train back to London on Monday and had to stand for almost 4 hours.
NESSIE!!!! On Saturday I took a day trip to see Loch Ness, Glencoe and the Highlands on a group tour. The tour guide was awesome – he wore a kilt and had a thick Scottish accent, and had an entire music playlist to accompany his talk of the history of Scotland and the areas we were touring. We drove through Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park on the way to Loch Ness. As you drive north in that area of Scotland it gets cold, windy and rainy very quickly.
Finally, we made it to Loch Ness. We took a tour boat out onto Loch Ness to find Nessie, and the boat was even equipped with sonar equipment to show how deep and wide the loch was and that she could realistically be hiding somewhere deep in the loch:)
- Standing on the shore of Loch Ness.
On our way back to Edinburgh we made a few more stops – the first to visit and feed carrots to a Scottish highland cow. And then we stopped at a small town to get ice cream and walk around – they really do like their coffee and ice cream breaks – every tour I’ve been on stops for coffee and ice cream. The tour was fantastic, even though we didn’t get to see Nessie.
On Sunday, I went on another day trip down the southern route of Scotland and into northern England. Our first stop was to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne – a tidal island with only one road to the island. Interesting fact about the island is that twice each day the tide comes in from the North Sea and covers the road so no one can leave or return to the island during this time. The island posts ‘safe’ causeway crossing times, however, every year they have a number of people that try to make it across when the tide is coming in and their cars wash away. The island is quite small, but is home to Lindisfarne Castle and Lindisfarne Priory.
The next stop on the tour was to Alnwick Castle, known as the “Windsor of the North” and home to the Percy family (Duke of Northumberland). The castle has also been featured in numerous television shows and movies, including the early Harry Potter movies and Downton Abbey. As the family actually lives at the castle year-round, the state rooms of the castle had a family feel with large screen televisions, a fully stocked bar and family pictures around the “house”, which is a much different decor than all the other castles that I’ve toured. The castle even offered Broomstick Training for all its Harry Potter fans!! Too bad all the classes were full when we arrived.
And a few more pictures of the day touring around Edinburgh. Found the best gelato bar in Edinburgh (Mary’s Milk Bar) and enjoyed my gelato while looking up at the castle!
Ready, Set,Travel! 
