up up and awaaaayyy (or: the london eye)

one of the first thins we did on the cloudy/rainy saturday was to go up and around in the London Eye - which was like a humongous ferris wheel - enclosed to fit 30 people. it doesn't stop either, so you had to get on and off while it slowly moved around. it took a half an hour to go all the way around. jack thought we could see all the way to the Eiffel Tower (not exactly). we did see a whole bunch of London, though, even if it was cloudy!

harry potter and kings cross

unfortunately, we did not manage to find platform 9 and three quarters (rushing for another train), but we did board a national rail train at platform 4 (on our way to York). platform 4 at Kings Cross station (in London) is where they filmed the infamous journey thru to platform 9 3/4 (for the first movie). it doesn't look much different than all the others on the outside, but then again we didn't have much time for inspection (wink wink)...

tower of london and yet another toilet

i don't understand what the draw is, but sabina and jack seem to find great interest in ancient toilets. this one is somewhere w/in the Tower of London. lucky for us it was covered...

here's a really good site w/ a virtual tour with more about the Tower of London for kids

a long weekend of train travel!

this weekend we traveled on the Eurostar train (think FAST) thru the Chunnel. couldn't see anything. just a bit of earsucking as we went underwater. but it was fun, just to say we went under the English Channel. it took only 2.5 hours to go from Brussels to London!

amsterdam and anne frank

a whirlwind of a visit to amsterdam. we did a TON of riding around on the trams. and a visit to Anne Frank's house where she hid for over TWO years with her family (a total of 8 people). it was really hot in there, with the black-out curtains over all the windows and really steep and narrow stairs. the entrance to their hiding place was through a bookcase! this is a picture of the building, and you can't even tell there was a hiding place in the back (on the third floor). we each bought books to read about her life and started reading on the way home.

more churches, and one madonna

more travel inside Belgium this weekend. Brugges (again, three spellings - Bruges, Brugge) is near, but not ON the North Sea. and very very old. and more churches. we saw one of the few pieces from Michelangelo (Buonarroti - yes, we do know his last name!) in the cathedral there. most are in Italy. this time we did NOT climb to the top (even though there were a couple hundred less stairs). the Madonna and Child was sculpted in 1505. that's really old!

and a carriage ride!

we traveled around Brugges (Brugge, Bruges) in style this weekend - horse carriages galore! its a very very medieval city with very very narrow cobblestone streets (we could touch the buildings on either side of some streets!). and not many cars in the middle. perfect for all the horses - although we can't seem to understand how the tour busses make it in and around?!

dem bones dem bones...

so we spent the weekend in Paris. sabina's favorite thing to see was the Eiffel Tower (at night) Jack's favorite were the Catacombs. hard to find, waaaaay underground, and creepy as all git-out, but well worth the trip. btw, there are 2 different links on the eiffel tower. make sure you see both of them!

the real one is much bigger

we finally get to see the real Arc de Triomphe. it certainly is much bigger than the one we saw at mini europe! not as cool as the bones, though...

Eiffel Tower day and night!

On Saturday we went TWO times to see the Eiffel Tower. In the morning we went all the way to the top (it was foggy). Then we came back at 10 o'clock at night. The tower was lit up with sparkles for a few minutes and we got pictures.

509 very narrow stairs

it was like this the entire way up and the entire way down. most of the time there were two queues of people - some going up and others going down. sabina was on her way down at this point.

more from cologne

jack and dad on the river Rhein...
see the church waaaay in the background? that's the cathedral we climbed. we've since learned it was 509 steps to the top (and one giant leap down...)

we climbed the WHOLE thing!

went to Cologne today (Koeln, for the rest of you - and if i could figure out how to put an unlaut in w/ this keyboard, i'd spell it a third way). climbed all the way to the tippy top of the Cologne Cathedral. Jack says it smelled pretty stinky near the top (it did). very close walking up (just as close walking down). funny thing is, once we got back down to the square, the kids had TONS of energy (with the little promise of an ice cream), while the adults waited for the feeling in their legs to come back!

how many steps, you ask??? no, we didn't count them, but it was waaaay more than a hunnert...

but lots of pooh!

and i mean that in the nicest way... these little reminders (and bags) are ALL OVER the park. yet they're always full (of EMPTY pooh bags). one must ALWAYS watch where they walk in Brussels - perhaps even more so on the sidewalks than in the parks. eeeuuuwww...

great parks...

we've discovered many great spots around Parc de Woluwe - lots of places to climb. these rocks are probably the coolest we've found) we're in the middle of reading The Thief and the Beanstalk while we perch on the top (there's a sheer drop on the other side - makes the mommy quite nervous!)

europe in a day? sure!

it's MINI europe!
we can cover most of the biggies w/in a few hours and head home knowing we've seen everything on the "must-see" list. ahhhhhhh... with a touch of a blue button we can FEEL Mt. Vesuvius erupt (i think that was the favorite scaled model). after this little gem, all we really needed to make our trip complete was a mcdonald's...

if it's tuesday, it must be fish day

much like the beloved ice-cream man and the unmistakable "do your ears hang low" music at home, in Brussels we have the fish guy and some *almost* identifiable little diddy. he comes on tuesday afternoons. and no. we don't run screaming after the truck.

and how do we flush it?

the kids are fascinated by toilets. we have several pictures of toilets, both public and private. this is the one they chose to share. btw, you push the silver panel at the top...

snacks

we've found a ton of them! those crazy belgians have thought of everything, dontcha thin?

we're off!

leaving, on a jet plane. with tons of luggage. and don't forget, those violins are coming with!

so, this is us.

varkenkids