Some more of London, Heidelberg, Luxembourg, Brussels…etc.

11/03/2012
This was Andy’s first full day in London. No more studying, no more boards!! =)
We spent a lot of the day walking around different parts of London sightseeing and window shopping.

Piccadilly Shopping area

An old school double decker

a black phone booth!

The National Museum of Natural History
On the way to see Big Ben
Walked by the Prime Minister’s house
Beautiful Big Ben
Creeper randomly jumped into Andy’s picture with Big Ben.
We really wanted to go inside Westminster Cathedral but out of all days, it was closed for a special service so no tourist were allowed.
After checking out Big Ben, we headed back down to the Covent Garden area to window shop. This little area had tons of shops, markets, restaurants, and entertainment. We also had lunch there at a pub where Andy finally tried the fish and chips. I don’t know why I didn’t even take a single picture at the pub but I do remember having a great chat with an older french couple next to us over lunch.

Must try all the candy shops in every country we go to!

How do they do that?

11/04/2012
Our last day in London.
We only had a couple hours to spare before we had to head to the train station. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and nothing was really open early in the morning. The pouring rain didn’t help either.
On the way back to the airport we grabbed a box of sushi from a to-go shop at the train station for lunch – it was only £5.00 and the most delicious sushi we’ve had in awhile! (Darn you Rick Steves!)

We got back into Frankfurt-Hahn Airport around 6PM and headed to Wiesbaden, Germany to meet up with Jed & Sarah Moyer who had arrived earlier that day from North Carolina. We found them waiting at an Irish pub for us. Andy was sooooo excited to see one of his best friends from home!

11/05/2012
Andy had to work Monday and Tuesday so it was a good 2 days of just me and the Moyers.
First day in another country is always a little tough so we took it easy. I walked them over to our favorite bakery and deli cafe in our town, Sander’s, to have brunch and gave them a small tour of the area.
I know when I’m in new area or country, I always have a list of people in my head that I have to get gifts for. So I took them to Ramstein’s BX. Little did I know that they had never been to a BX before or on a military base.
We ended up spending more time there than I thought getting gifts for their friends & family back home and I lost track of time. As we headed home, I realized my phone was locked and I wasn’t receiving any phone calls all day. I thought it was weird that Andy hadn’t called! We drove up to the house and saw poor Andy waiting for us by a window. He had been waiting for over an hour. Oops?
I don’t know why but I can’t seem to find a picture from this day. Might have to update this later when I figure out where it is. I know I took one!

11/06/2012
Started this day a littler earlier and took Sarah and Jed to visit Heidelberg. Since I already took the castle tour, we separated and met back up afterwards. After their tour, we walked around the Old Town area for a bit and then headed back home to meet Andy for dinner and drinks.
Andy set up a night at ‘Big Emma’s’,a restaurant in Ramstein, with several people from his department and their families. This restaurant was just ridiculous! Everything on the menu was enormous – portion sizes to feed at least 2-3 people. Beers AND wine came in a LITER to 3 liter glasses! Jed & Andy both had about 3L of beer, with Sarah not too far behind.

11/07/2012
Andy took off for the rest of the week so he took Sarah and Jed to Trier for the day, while I went off to a photo session with a newborn.

11/08/2012
Early in the morning we headed out on our trip to Brussels, Belgium – about a 3 hour drive away from Landstuhl. On the way, we made a detour through Luxembourg to take a few pictures.

Once we arrived in Brussels and checked into our hotel, we headed out into the city.
First, Andy, Jed, and Sarah got their fix of double deep fried fries from a to-go place near the center.

Then we went for the bars along Delirium Village to make it a true Belgian night. We had our first couple of beers at the Delirium Monasterium where we met 2 men who worked for the USO helping children in military families. One of the guys bought us a round of beers and later found out that he was a pretty accomplished children’s book writer – Trevor Romain. For those who are interested, he’s done some really great work which you can check out here: http://www.trevorromain.com/
I managed to sneak a shot of him while Andy was chatting him up.

After we finished our 2nd round, we headed out for dinner at the famous Chez Leon. Had some really amazing mussels.

Once our stomachs were full of food, we went back out to the bars. Had a couple of drinks at the Delirium Cafe where they have 2500 different types of beers until we were kicked out of our seats for a band that was playing there that night. From there, we moved onto the Floris Bar – the famous Absinth bar (400+ different ones). We all took a shot of absinth and walked downstairs to the Delirium Taphouse for more beer.

On the way back to the hotel, we started getting a little hungry so we made a pit stop to get Belgian waffles.

As we were walking through the centre, a college kid getting initiated into a fraternity asked Sarah and I to sign his butt.

Since the Mannequin Piss was only a couple blocks from our hotel, we stopped by to take a few pictures then called it a night.

…more to come.
-Bruges
-Final days of Sarah & Jed’s visit