Until next time Belgium!

Today I left Belgium, but not before a little more fun!! We rode bikes to a local market! This time it was my kinda bike ride - 10 minutes! Woohoo!!!



I found these gems at the market! Hahaha little naked boy angels?!? So strang!!



They had a stand on the way out where the little girls could get their hair done super cute!!

What a cutie!!

Silke getting her hair done!!

Adorable :)

My favorite part is when they added glitter!! :) her hair ended up so cute!

It was so nice to visit Antwerp/Belgium again! I was able to re-learn a little Dutch which was fun! :) I also loved staying with Kristof and Mitha! They are a blast and they have some wonderful kids! It was great to see them all grown up!! It had been 10 years since I've seen all of them, it was the first time I had seen Silke since a few months after her birth! I was surprised at how good their English was!! Daan had the best English, we were buddies and he would always fill me in on what was going on if everyone was speaking in Dutch! Stein was a bit quiet at first, but once I got him talking he was good too and Silke is the youngest, but she used what she knew :) she also was my Dutch teacher and she loved to have me speak Dutch in front of people! Even though I always messed it up! Hahaha I was sad to say bye to them but I headed to the Netherlands to see one of my sorority sisters - Birgit!! :D

 

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Haiti

Tonight we went to a fundraiser for a girl they knew who was going to Haiti! It was a delicious dinner and I sat with the kids and really enjoyed some time with them! Daan and Stein taught me a game where you punch each other and I accidentally got them in trouble for letting them punch me... Hahaha whoops! But it was really fun!!

after dinner the girls spent 30 minutes giving me a bunch of crazy hairstyles :)

They also put the table decorations in the little girls hair!! It was so adorable!! Haha she was a cutie!!

I found this sooo weird!! Beer was the same price as water!!!! Umm... Beer please!! Hahaha

 

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My Antwerp!

So for the second half of the day we walked around my Antwerp. We went and saw my old house and all the places I loved when I lived here. I didn't cry... But it's pretty emotional seeing your old home!!!! I loved it though. It looks the same!

36 Boudewijns Straat. Some of my best memories. :D

My street, my house!!

The street we used to walk down for church :)

I was so excited!!

The old Alcatel building on the left... Top right used to be a little convenient store and bottom right is Ava Papier, on of my favorite stores when I was a kid because it had lots of random things for cheap haha

 

An eclair from the bakery I used to go to every Saturday!!!! It was like eating heaven.

The main street we used to always walk down!

MY PITA!!!! This was my absolute favorite resteraunt in Antwerp. Delicious.

The Hooper! Our friend owns this bar and I haven't seen him for 11 years so I went up to a waiter and asked "Is Paul working today?" and he turned around and said "I remember you Michelle!" hahaha it was so good to see him again :)

This is Paul! :)

A Belgian buckeye!!!!

I don't remember this, but I thought it looked cool! It was a little pond outside the art building

To the left is the tram station Graham and I always took to go shopping! The top right is the art museum and the bottom right is where we used to take Dutch classes! :D

Me and my Belgian waffle and the fanta here is TOTALLY different!! It's so much better. I used to live fanta when I lived here but I never liked it back home. It's not nearly as orange haha fanta back home turns your tongue orange!

Just thought this house looked funny!

To the left is the train station, in the middle is the zoo and to the right is office buildings with a resteraunt on the bottom floor... Oh Antwerp :)

The weird art outside the Alcatel building!

Alcatel-Lucent!!! Mommy - I look like I belonggg! ;) hahaha

Overall it was such a good day! I loved getting to see everything again and even though it is all so different now, I remember some stuff! Oh I love Antwerp.

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A day in Antwerp!

Today I woke up and walked (by myself) to the train station! I didn't get lost :D and I arrived in Antwerp around 10:30. I met up with Gertjan who works with my mom. He's only a few years older than me and he is one of the guys who visited us in the states. Even though he's worked in Antwerp for two years, he's never bothered to actually see the city!! So I showed him around :) haha the first part of the day we went to museums! And wondered around the city some. The first museum we went to was Plantin-Moretus! It is a printing press museum and by far my favorite museum!! I am so amazed by how they used to print news papers and such! They also have an art portion that shows drawings with different types of writing stuff... Like charcoal and pastels and stuff! They also have super old books like a Gutenberg bible! :) it's so neat!

These are the old printing presses!!! They would make the pages first and then put ink on the little letter molds and put the paper on top and press it down to make the words :)

These are the letter molds!! They had to be able to spell backwards! They had to place every letter for every page!!! How amazing is that?! They would also print one page and have someone read over it and correct it and the go ahead with the printing! Can you imagine how long it would have taken to print 1 book that way...

America!!!!

The building has a little garden and it was so beautiful.

All the furniture was gorgeous!! And the walls were leather!! The leather had some beautiful designs... I didn't even know that was a thing! Haha

Look big! A paddle! Hahaha Erm... I mean a plaque with a handle! Haha this made me miss my beautiful big, Megan! :) I don't think I'd be where I am today without her. I've learned so much from her and I couldn't be more proud of everything she has accomplished in life. She is just wonderful! :) (miss you biggie!)

Ok, this was cool... It was to check the money! They would weigh it when people paid for books to ensure it was legit gold! So cool.

Notice anything weird about this bed??

It's for midgets!!! Haha (also, this is Gertjan!) but seriously. The bed is freaking tiny!!!

This made me laugh. It looks like a bridge but it's just a little place to walk up and look at the Scheldt river. Hahaha it is this beautiful huge bridge... That just ends!

The Scheldt is in the left picture! Top right is a museum that looks like a castle! And bottom right is just a cool ship! :)

This is the other museum we went to! It's called the Mas! It was filled with really weird stuff which we had fun looking at... Some of it we just made fun of though haha but the building was my favorite part!! It was the coolest building I have ever been in, the escalators are in like a spiral... I can't explain it but it was amazing. Idk what is the significance of the hands all over the building...

From the inside looking out.

As we were walking around - we saw this and both pulled out our cameras! Hahaha it is a narwhal horn. So odd! But the best part was a lady walked through and said "no flash" in Dutch and immediately following I took a photo with flash... I think Gertjan almost had a heart attack... He quickly said no flash! Haha I was like whoops! Sorry! I'm American! Hahaha that's my excuse for everything!

Some of the modern art... I would explain them, but I didn't get it hahaha

We liked how the museum had so many projectors!!! It had over 100 easy.. They were the coolest part haha they did some cool stuff with projectors :)

Antwerp! Recognize this picture mom?

-_- the zero dollar bill... Thanks Belgium! Hahaha

Such a great view!!! I love taking pictures from so high up.

Ahh I thought this was so cool!!! From below you couldn't tell this was anything! You could only see it clearly from the very top!!! And you couldn't even see it unless you reached your camera out and took a picture. So awesome. I felt like I found a hidden piece lol

If its not for smoking, what is the hole for? Lol I really dunno, but I think it's to take pictures out of because they looked a lot better when it wasn't covered by glass :)

Me in every direction of Antwerp :)

Part two coming soon!

 

 

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