And out of nowhere...

I'm cold.

Make up your mind already, Germany.

My Sweat Glands are in Overdrive

Gross, eh? And ladylike.

Really, I have been sweatier than a whore in church.

Ok, ok...I'm sweatier than me in church.

Dear Europe:
Please jump on the a/c bandwagon.
Quickly, if you don't mind.

I Changed My Mind

If i have something to blog about, i'm going to plunk it out on this stupid ipod. So please ignore if there are any typing errors.

But, i'm limiting myself to short antecdotes, because typing with one finger on a touch screen makes me want to give up on 21st century technology, and go back to twig huts and typewriters.

So, here we go:

I bought a really nice Martha Stewart shower curtain for twenty dollars. I tried installing it today, only to realize it is a good foot and a half too short. Ugh, great, now i have to return it. So, i search the house for the receipt. I know i didn't take it out of the grocery bag.

At this point, i should tell you that we keep all our grocery sacks for kitty litter and picking up dog poo.

Damnation, i know where the receipt is. It's at the bottom of the bag i used to pick up sasha poo this morning.

Anybody want a new shower curtain?

Le Grande Poop

Hi folks.

I just wanted to let you know that I'll be AWOL for awhile. Josh is in Baltimore for a month, doing some leadership training. Unfortunately, he had to take the laptop with him. So, that means, no more blogging from me for awhile. I'm going back to Texas to visit family for a couple weeks mid-September, so it may be possible for me to blog from there. But, I may not. I just wanna keep you on your toes.

So please, don't forget about me. I'll be back soon.

xxooxx
The Aycock Adventuress

Brugge - Part 2

Josh and I woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 7am, ready to start a full day in Brugge. Ok, Josh was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. I was a bear being poked by a stick. I am NOT a morning person. So after growling at Josh a few times, he finally poked me enough until I actually got up and got moving. We were out the door by 7:30am, so I guess you can call it a success.

This early in the morning, nobody is awake yet. All the locals are getting ready for church, and all the tourists are still in bed, or eating breakfast at their hotels. Josh and I were SO NOT going to eat at our hotel. It would have been 14 euros per person for a basic continental breakfast. No thank you. Instead, our mission was to find a nice little cafe, to have some coffee and a sugar waffle. Everyone knows waffles are famous in Belgium, and I really really wanted to have a cappuccino or latte or something fancy. Coffee just seems like such a grown-up, classy thing to like. I still feel so much like a kid sometimes (which I'm not complaining about) but I also want to do "grown-up" things. (But only the fun grown-up things - like go to bars, drink coffee, tattoos, etc.) Unfortunately, I would rather lick a monkey's butt than drink a cup of black coffee. But I was determined to fake my grown-upedness, and drink some dang coffee.

Before we went in search of a cafe, we rambled thru the southern end of town, near the hotel.

We went to Minnewater Lake Park. It was just us and a few lone joggers out. Other than that, it was dead quiet. SO much nicer than Saturday, with the hordes of people.

After terrorizing the ducks & swans in the area, we went on to the Beguinage.

Make sure you click on the Minnewater & Beguinage hyperlinks - it'll give you good info on the sites.

Anyway, I really loved the Beguinage. Talk about seclusion & peace.

By this point, it's creeping on 9am, and we still haven't found a cafe. So...we keep on walking'. It's so nice how empty the city is, even past 8am. We took full advantage of it.

Since we can't find any cafes that are open, we decide to check on the canal tours. It's not raining, and we figure we can get on the first boat. We walk to the canal tour operator (one of several in the city). The first boat is at 10am. It's 9:15. Wait a minute. What's this next door to the canal tour ticket booth? A COFFEE SHOP THAT ALSO SERVES SUGAR WAFFLES!!

Not only did I get a cappuccino, but I finished the whole thing. And, it wasn't the worst thing in the world!!

On to the canal tour. The previously empty streets were now starting to come alive. Tourists come out of the woodwork as soon as the canal tours start to open up. And man, oh man, do the tour operators PACK you into those boats. Our tour operator was nice. He had to give the tour in English, French, and German, which I thought was impressive. Although, I think anyone who speaks more than one language is pretty awesome (which is pretty much everyone other than most Americans).

It started drizzling while on the boat, but that wasn't such a big deal. I WAS very chilly, but even THAT wasn't such a huge deal. What WAS a huge annoyance were the people in front of us on the boat who insisted on putting up their umbrella every single time a drop of rain even THREATENED to land on them. It made picture taking verrrrry difficult.

This is the hotel that was in the movie "In Bruges". We later walked to it, to take a picture of the front of the hotel. They had a price list for rooms up front. I really wish we could stay in this hotel some day, but I just can't justify spending $300 a night for a small hotel...I think my husband's frugality is rubbing off on me.

After the canal tour, we decided to - guess what - walk around some more. We stopped off at this awesome store - 2be. They had everything at this store - all the local beer, chocolate, snacks, souvenir things that you could want, but it was done very artsy-fartsy. I loved this store. They had a beer wall, and then a bar out back.

The next thing on my itinerary was for Josh to climb the belfry. I wouldn't have been able to climb it, but I wanted him to be able to. Well, I probably could have climbed UP the tower, but going down would have been almost impossible. My ankle was still sore from the day before, and we still had half a day ahead of us.

Unfortunately, we weren't expecting the line to be so long. It was HUUUUGE. Josh didn't feel like standing in line, and that was fine with me, because I didn't feel like waiting for that long.

Next on my agenda was a Fry museum, and a Chocolate museum. After a day and a half of looking at chocolate shops, we didn't really care too much to go to the chocolate museum. And the only reason I really wanted to go to the fry museum was because they had cutouts of fries you can stick your head thru to take goofy tourist pictures. Now, Belgian frites are things of beauty. These fries are so flippin' good. But both these museums were even FURTHER from the center of town, and my leg was angry with me. So, we cancelled the museum trips. But, in exchange for the fry museum, we instead feasted on Belgian fries from one of the many local stands.

It was 2.50 euros for a medium fry, plus 60 cents more for a topping. They had about 10 different toppings - mayo is by far the most popular, but they also had ketchup, curry sauce, pepper sauce, cocktail sauce, tartar sauce, American sauce (whatever the hell that is), mustard, pickles, etc. etc. etc. Josh got ketchup (surprise, surprise) and I got mustard. These fries were so good. We sat and ate in the shadow of the belfry, watching all the tourists. It was a good lunch.

Then came my favorite part of the day. We had to make it back to the Half Moon Brewery, which was on the south end of town. We didn't have a watch with us, and we forgot the cell phone in the room, so we had no idea what time it was (this is before we realized that the belfry had a big huge clock that we had been taking millions of pictures of...dumb). So, we asked an American couple what time it was.
Lady: "Oh, do you have a tour group you need to meet back up with?"
Me: "No, we're on our own."

HA!!! We're on our own. That made me feel good. We don't need no stinkin' tour group to go to these places. Awesome!

Anyway, it was about 2pm or so by this point, so we started heading over to the brewery. This was also on my itinerary. By the time we made it to the brewery, my leg was killing me. I had read that there were a lot of rickety staircases on the brewery tour, so I was sort of hesitant about it. Then, Josh confessed that he didn't really care about doing a tour. Well, dash it all, so much for my stupid itinerary. But, I still wanted to go to the brewery, even if we didn't do a tour. I'm kind of glad I chose not to do it, because there were a lot of people in line, and I just wanted to sit and relax. Which we did.

After a little more walking around and taking pics, we decided to rest up at the hotel for a little while.

We ran by a grocery store first, and got stuff for dinner - a baguette, sliced chicken for Josh, some cheese, and some olives. Sometimes the simple stuff is the best stuff, eh?

Now, it was almost 5pm when we got to the hotel. We were thoroughly planning on just resting up, and going out later. But....the road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. We were so tired, and it was so muggy outside. The a/c felt so good, as did the bed. My ankle felt so much better being propped up in bed. We never actually made it back out of our hotel room. Lame, right? I don't care, we were on vacation, and we're happy with our choices.

The next morning - it was time to go. Boo!! Before we headed out, we decided to stop by the windmills around the outskirts of the city.

And then, unfortunately, it was time to go home. And of course it was sunny our entire drive back to Germany. Stupid weather.

I did learn a couple things on this trip:

1. Mayo on fries is not that bad. Josh and I cannot STAND mayonnaise. But, when in Rome, eh? The restaurant we went to on Saturday served Josh's fries with real, homemade mayo. Maybe that was the difference? Anyway, it was really really tangy, and not vomit inducing, like we thought it would be.

2. I hope I don't get flak for this. Josh and I have realized that a certain nationality cannot be called a "rude tourist". Yes, there are rude Americans, just as there are rude French, and Brits, blah blah blah. But you can't single out a nation and call them bad tourists.
HOWEVER, we HAVE realized that there is a group of people that can be so over-the-top rude that it's just plain funny. And that is - old people. Now, all of my family, and all of our older friends are very culturally aware, and sensitive to others. I think maybe that's why we were both so shocked at certain behaviors presented in older people. All of the older people in our lives are awesome. But you get a group of blue-haired tourists, and you better watch out. We have NEVER been cut in front of in line by anyone other than old people. It happened at least 3 times while in Brugge. And the rude comments they make about other people...it's scandalous.
I really hope I didn't offend anyone reading this blog - like I said, our family & friends are awesome.

3. Germans apparently don't know where the hell Brugge is. We talked to our landlord about it, and Josh talked to another few Germans that he knows. None of them knew what the hell we were talking about when we said we were going to Brugge, Belgium. "Oh, you mean Brussels?" Nope, not Brussels.

4. Belgian chocolate & beer really are as good as you've heard.

5. The locals in Belgium are far more friendly than the locals in Germany. Now, I'm not saying Germans are rude - not at all. They're just more standoffish and shy. The locals in Brugge were really nice.

6. Germans really really know how to approach strange dogs, and become their friends within seconds. I know this has nothing to do with our Brugge trip, but it's just something Josh and I realized this weekend. Germans just instinctively know what to do when it comes to dogs, and it's awesome.

7. Have a basic itinerary, but don't get your panties in a wad when you realize it's all going to pot.

All in all, we had a great trip. I can't wait for us to explore even more of Europe.

Brugge - Part 1

I've decided I'm going to start using "Brugge" instead of "Bruges". The whole world uses "Bruges" except for Belgium, so I'm going to be more authentic.

Anywho, what would an Aycock family trip be without a few minor mishaps to get the ship sailing?

Here we go:
1. Josh lets me know on Friday morning, on his way out to work, that there is a dead bat on the porch. He'll take care of it when he gets home. Good, cuz I ain't touchin' it. It's mid-afternoon, so I go downstairs to do the cat litter, and I open the back door to put the litter in the trash. The bat is still there, only I notice something....it's not dead. The poor little guy is struggling, and moving his arms, basically saying "Courtney, please help me. I'm cold and dying and scared." Sad, right? Well, Josh gets home a few minutes later. The only thing we can think to do is to take a shovel, and put the bat out of its misery. I can't stand seeing animals in pain. So, I keep the dog upstairs, and Josh goes out the back to kill it. But then, Josh comes running back in. Apparently the bat isn't THAT near death. Josh tried to move it away from the wall a little (with the shovel), when the bat spreads it's wings, and lets loose a blood-curdling shriek. Josh lost about 3 years of his life with that. There will be no bat killing today.

2. After the bat cursed Josh, we couldn't wait anymore to go to town. We HAD to take Sasha to the kennel, then do some shopping for the trip. We get back a little over two hours later. As we're rounding the corner, I notice that SOMEONE (who will remain nameless in order for me to protect the guilty) LEFT THE BACK DOOR OPEN!!! (the litter box is right next to the back door)

It is at this time that I should point out that our cat, Rufus, is NOT an outside cat. He's stupid, and scared of his own shadow. We tried it once in Ohio, and he immediately hopped a fence, and hid on our neighbor's property, where I had to find, and then rescue the doofus. He is too dumb to be outside.

Josh skids into the parking lot. He runs around back to get to the door, and I run upstairs - well, as fast as I can run, seeing as how my leg is only 75%. I start whistling as I'm going upstairs - it's a surefire way to call the cat; he LOVES whistling. Sure enough, he slinks out from underneath the bed, with his sleepy little love eyes, as if to say "Hey mom, what's up?"

So I yell down to Josh that the cat is still here. And then I yell AT Josh. My language was way too colorful for me to put that little episode on the blog.

3. Josh rolled his ankle. Great, another cripple. Hey, would could start our own gang! Do you think "crips" is a trademarked name?

oy, I'm a moron.

4. I shaved the tip of my finger off with a razor. NO, I DON'T HAVE HAIRY PALMS!!!! It slipped...

All in all, a fairly smooth start to things for the Aycock Adventurers.

Ok, so it's Saturday morning. Time to go! We are actually out the door before 7am, which is so amazing to me. Growing up in my family, leaving the house usually took HOURS, because of all the "last minutes" that everybody put off.

It's only a 4.5 hour drive to Brugge. Well, it should have been, but it took us a little longer because we stopped at the Spangdahlem AFB to top off our gas, and there was construction in Brussels. But, it was an easy drive - basically just freeway driving. And of course it's drizzling almost the entire drive. But, that's fine. We made it to Brugge by noon, which I'm happy about. Thankfully the hotel (Ibis - it's a European chain) had its own parking garage, because I have no idea where we would have parked otherwise. The streets were so narrow, and twisted.

The hotel is fine. Small rooms, but it doesn't matter, because for the first time since coming to Germany in March, we had AIR CONDITIONING!!!!! It wasn't really needed, but it was SO NICE TO HAVE. Oh, how I missed that glorious, cold gift from the Snow Miser.

As soon as we dropped our bags off, it was time to go explore! I had created a beautifully mapped out itinerary. Unfortunately, my plans didn't mesh. First thing on the list was a trip to a vegetarian restaurant. All the reviews said it was amazing food, so I was really excited. Of course, one thing no one mentioned on the web was that the restaurant was CLOSED on Saturdays. So, there goes the first thing on my list. Next up, a canal tour. But unfortunately, it started raining then. So, we decided to push that off til later, hoping to beat the rain at some point. So, there goes #2 on my itinerary.

It's at this point that I start realizing exactly how touristy of a town Brugge is. I was not expecting this. I thought I would have my beautiful, peaceful fairyland. I didn't realize I was going to have to dodge people, and their umbrellas, the entire time. Josh had just bought us a brand new umbrella, which was big enough to cover a small elephant. He put me in charge of keeping us both dry, while he took photos. This umbrella is 50 pounds if it's an ounce, and there are people swarming around me, and I'm trying not to get my eyes poked out by their umbrellas, all while trying to lift this monstrosity of an umbrella over everyone else in the crowd, to prevent being sued for impaling some Japanese tourist in the face. Plus, now I'm hungry, and crabby because my itinerary has already fallen thru, and I'm sure that this is going to be the worst time ever.

Don't be fooled by the photo. That umbrella is easily twice the size as it looks.

Ok, so I have a little hissy fit tantrum, but Josh manages to calm me down. So, we continue to explore. We go into churches, see the sights...

One thing I didn't realize I would like was the shopping! I am not a shopper by nature, but it's been so long, I just went a little crazy. There are chocolate and lace shops everywhere - and yes, I bought some of both. But, there were also tapestry shops, cool gadget stores, bath shops (homemade soaps, etc). We had taken out a set amount of money that we were allowed to spend, so I knew exactly what I could buy - that is such a good idea, by the way. We save up $150 a week, and every month, we'll have $600 for a new trip. Half of that was used on the hotel, and the rest was for incidentals. See, you read this blog, you get free travel tips. :)

We finally made it to the center of Brugge - where the belfry is located.

Our hotel is on the southern end of town, and to walk to the city center is only about 15 minutes - but that's only if you walk straight there. So really, it took us 2-3 hours to get there. By this point, we were really hungry, and my ankle was screaming for rest. There are restaurants EVERYWHERE surrounding the city center. Yes, I know they're the more touristy, expensive ones. But...well, tough. We were hungry. Every restaurant had their menu posted, but unfortunately, every menu was the same. Rabbit, eel, beef stew, Flemish stew, and mussels. And, if a restaurant actually DID have a vegetarian dish, it was vegetarian lasagna. No thank you. Much to Josh's chagrin, I was in no mood for this. I think I read about 50 menus. I realize that I was probably just being stubborn and crabby, but I didn't flippin' want frozen vegetarian lasagna that came from a box. Finally, after an hour, I picked a restaurant. And I'm so glad I did - it was so good.

So - that's 2 half liters of beer, olives and feta for me, and carrot soup for Josh (as appetizers). Then, cheese croquettes (tasted like a lot of emmentaler mixed with mashed potatoes, and fried) and a side salad for me, and Belgian stew with frites (more on Belgian frites later) for Josh.

Oh yes, and then the world's best chocolate mousse. I'm not exaggerating - this stuff was amazing.

So, how much was that, you ask?? Well, it came out to a grand total of 60 euro. That's almost 90 bucks. Even though the food was really good, that is so ridiculous I can't even stand it. But, whatevs, we were on vacation. Although, I will tell you that was the only full meal we had the entire trip.

Ok, now we were full and happy, and my leg was feeling good again - so more walking!! This time, something on my itinerary actually happened! We went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood.

This is a vial containing a piece of cloth that was supposedly soaked in the blood of "Christ". The photo was taken with a zoom lens on. In order to get up to see it, you stand in line, and pay a "required donation" (insert eye roll) and then you can lay hands on it, and the priest gives you a prayer card or something. Josh and I aren't religious, but we weren't going to go see it up close so as not to be disrespectful to those who actually believe in that hogwash.

Talk about Grumpygus McGee. Although, I would be cranky too if I had to wipe sweat and lip prints and forehead prints off that cylinder all day long.

After growing increasingly uncomfortable throughout all of this religious showmanship, we finally got out of there and made it to the closest shop - which contained a microbrewery.

The guy behind the counter was really nice, and we tasted the three beers he had to offer (well, they had about 50 different kinds, but only 3 on tap - it was a tasting lounge, not a bar). We got to try a 26% alcohol beer. That's right, 26%. It was like part melted chocolate milkshake mixed with an equal part of soy sauce. Vom.

After that - more walking around, shopping, etc.

At this point, it was about 6 o'clock, and shops were starting to close up around us. My crankiness was long gone, but now we were both tired. Restaurants and bars are open late, but none of the shops. But, it was just as well, because at this point, my ankle is threatening to stop working. We stumble back into the hotel, and plop down on the bed. God, that A/C felt good.

After a couple drinks in the hotel bar (that and pita chips for dinner, and we were good for the night) it was bed time. I think I was out by 10pm, and Josh was out a few minutes after that.

Good first day.

Ik ben zeer vermoeid.

That's Dutch for, 'I'm very tired, and don't feel like blogging at all right now, so you're just going to have to deal with the fact that even though we got back from Belgium yesterday, all I want to do today is lounge in my pjs and concentrate on doing nothing."