Welcome to Europe!

Last week I was fortunate enough to go on a 10 day trip to Europe with my family. My dad took Deb and I, and we met up there with my uncle Hans and aunt Penny and their 4 boys. They went to pick up their youngest son, Kevin, from his mission. My dad's parents are from the Netherlands, so it was so awesome that he got to go there on his mission, and that we all got to go pick him up and learn a little more about our heritage. We flew into the Netherlands on Saturday, April 21st, and arrived Sunday around noon. What a long flight! I got pretty much no sleep on the plain, so I was dead by the time we got there and got settled in. We went to bed at about 8:00 because we were all so exhausted. Our hotel was called the Golden Tulip and was nestled in some beautiful little woods in a little town called Beekbergen. Pretty much all of the Netherlands is covered in trees like this. It is absolutely gorgeous! This is the view from our little back patio at our hotel. They were little townhouse lookin buildings, and we got a bottom level room with the patio. I felt like we were camping. Everything smelled so fresh and we had several birds and a few bunnies around.
I think probably about 90% of the population in the Netherlands don't own cars. (That's just my guess, it's probably a little high. hehe) Instead, they all ride bikes everywhere. You can't get a license for a car until you are 18 (you can get a scooter license at 16), and it costs about $1200 euro (about $1800) to get a license, so you can see why everyone rides bikes. That and the fact that there is very little parking. Most people just take the bus or the metro system around. Anyway, you see people on bikes everywhere. All the roads have seperate little roads on the side for bikes, and they have the right of way. Our apartment had bikes that you could rent, so one night a bunch of us rented some and rode into town. We stopped at a little cafe that me, my dad, and Deb had eaten at the first night we got there. They had the yummiest hamburgers! Here is my dad, me, Deb, Kevin, Scott, and Chris.
Here's a picture of all of us with our bikes. Aren't we cute?!
You see lots of little old people riding around, especially on Sunday, and occasionally you'll see them holding hands and riding. So Deb and Kevin thought they would try it out. Cute cousins!
After we ate at the cafe, we rode around town and then out to this really old train station. There were tons of incredibly old engines parked there. It was so cool! This is our Newsies pose.
The night we arrived, we had some time to spare, and some guys we met at the cafe suggested that we go to a little town close by called Arnhem. It was a cute little town. I just love the old buildings with all the different roof lines.

We found a big park on a huge hill that had a cool building on top (I didn't get a picture because they were doing construction on it and it was ugly with all the scaffolding). We found this giant tree stump and thought it was cool.
This is just a view of the field and the town from the park. So pretty!
Monday we met up with everyone and drove to Amsterdam. What an incredible city! We met up at Hard Rock to have dinner with some Elders and Sisters Kevin knew. That was lots of fun. Here's a picture of a few of us having lunch at a cafe. I had bitterbollen. They're these meatballs things that are fried, but there are mushy inside, like stew. Yummy! That's my cute aunt Penny on the right.

This is one of the many canals winding through Amsterdam. The streets are narrow and the buildings are right up close by the water. People have little boats docked everywhere.
Here we are standing in front of the Rijkes Museum. We went inside and it was really cool, but my dad said that when he went several years ago it was much bigger and there was a lot more to see. I think they were renovating part of it, so we only got to see a small portion.
I'm not sure what this building is, but it was gorgeous all lit up at night! All the buldings there are just so old, you feel like you are in another time in another life.
Tuesday morning, me, my dad, and Deb drove to Paris. We got lost a couple times, but we finally made it to the hotel after about 9 hours of driving. Never ever ever drive in Paris! The people there are crazy!!! There are no lanes in the roads, and people swerve in and out and cut you off. Whoever has their bumper in front has the right of way and they will just cut right in front of you, or turn right from the left lane. It is nuts! And it doesn't help that the streets are tiny and they cut every which way with absolutely no order whatsoever. And one little street will be called something, and then you go through an intersection and the same street is called something else. I think we spent an hour and a half or 2 hours just driving around the city trying to get to our hotel. We even saw a guy laying on the side of the road that we think got hit by a car. Scary! Anyway, here is a cool old church that we saw. When Deborah went to her semester abroad last summer, she used to sit near this church and sketch the rooftops of the city.

Tuesday night we went to see the Eiffel Tower. It is amazing! It is much cooler in real life than you think. We rode the elevator up to the very top.
Here we are on the top level.

Here is a view of the city from the top lever. Incredible!
Once it gets dark, the tower lights up. It stays lit all the time, but for about 5 minutes every 20 minutes or so, it starts to sparkle! They have hundreds of strobe lights attached, and it looks like there are hundreds of people taking pictures from all over the tower. You just can't capture it with a picture. It was beautiful!
The Eiffel Tower is right off the Scene river, so we went on a boat tour that took us down the river and told us all about the history of the city. It was really cool, except that our boat got stopped by an ambulence boat. We had to pull off to the side so they could take a girl off. I'm not sure what happened. My guess was a seizure of that she was diabetic or something. They took her off in a wheelchair. It was sad.

Wednesday we went to several places. First we went to Notre Dame to visit Quazi Modo (spelling???). What an amazing building! It was kind of sad though, because there were people in there trying to pray, and all the tourists were so loud and taking pictures all around them.
Here's another awesome view from the outside.
Next we went to see a bascillica called Sacre Coeur. It was set on top of a big hill and you could overlook the whole city.

Then we wound around through a few streets and found a little square where all the artists set up their artwork and paint or sketch all day. Deb and I both had our portraits sketched by a cute little lady. Here's me in progress....
.... and here's Deb.
Here's the cute lady that did our portraits.
Then we stopped to have lunch at a little cafe. There was a funny mime right next to us that kept making funny faces at us. So we stopped to take a picture and give him a couple coins. He was really good!
Next we wound down through some more streets and saw the most incredible cemetary I have ever seen. It was all above ground. Some of the little shrine building things (I'm not sure what their called) were a couple hundred years old. It was huge, and gorgeous, but it would be spooky at night!

Then we walked by the Moulin Rouge. The street it's on is not a very nice street, but we had to say we saw it and take a picture. hehe
Wednesday evening we went to see the Louvre. Deb and I didn't care too much about going inside, since it would take days to really see everything. So my dad spent a couple hours in it while Deb and I went shopping! Here are the pyramids in the center.
And last, but certainly not least, the mall!!!! Holy crap! It was like 10, no, 20 of our malls put together! It went all underground and all over the place. We went there Thursday morning before we left. We went in a few little stores, but spent most of our time in Deb's favorite store, H&M. It was 3 levels and so awesome! We got tons of cute stuff there. Yay for shopping in Paris!
Friday we joined back up with the cousins and went to my favorite place out of the whole trip, Keukenhof! It is a giant garden with all kinds of flowers, mainly tulips. I think it's safe to say that it was the most beautiful garden I have ever seen in my entire life. I could have just sat and wandered slowly all day long, every day, for a week. I took about 200 pictures just in the garden. Here we are posing in some giant klompen (wooden shoes). Just my size!

There was a cute play area in the park with a zip cord. It was so fun! You stood at a little hill, ran, and then jumped on. We all rode it a few times, and then decided we should let the little kids have a try. hehe
Me and Deb on the tire swing.
The whole gang, posing for a family picture. Top row: Chris, Scott, Deb, me, Kevin, Penny, Hans. Bottom row: my dad, Tim

Just me, looking cute under the flowers.
There was a pretty lake with these giant wooden lilly pads making a path winding through it. I loved it!
Me and Deb in front of a pretty little waterfall. Awwww!
Ok, here are a few of the approximately 150 or so pictures I took of just the flowers and garden. I couldn't stop! There were all so gorgeous!

After Keukenhof, we drove to Haarlem, which is the little town where my Oma grew up. We went to visit my dad's cousin, Ron, and his family. Everyone in town is so friendly and hospitable. When they meet people they give kisses on the cheek, like the French, only they give 3 instead of 2. We showed up and they gave us drinks and fancy fruit tarts and chocolate creme cheese cakes. Then they brought out some bowls of chips. And then... they brought out about 60 sandwiches!!! They were so yummy! I don't know what kind of cheese was on them, but I loved it! Then they brought out glasses of milk to wash it down. And just when we thought we were done, they brought out a bowl of bitterbollen (the meatballs) and some giant sausage things! Holy crap! We were all so full. And then they gave us all a box of these black licorice tasting chewy candy things. My cousins all love them, but I'm not a big fan of black licorice, so I brought mine home for Scott. Anyway, they were all so sweet, and so funny! We ended up staying there for probably 5 hours, until 9:30 at night, when we finally said we needed to drive home (an hour and a half drive) and go to bed.

Here is my Oma's sister, Tante Pietje. It sounds like tawn-ta peach-a. She is 89 (I think) and has had a few strokes, so she couldn't really say anything. She would try but couldn't really get it out. But she just sat there sweet as could be and watched us all talk and tapped her little feet to the music we listened to. Sweet lady!
This is a smart car. You see them everywhere over there. They are so tiny, they look like they should be toy cars! But they are surprisingly roomy inside. This one was owned by my dad's, brother Ron's, nephew. He is a manager for a store called Jack Jones. He let all the boys take it for a drive around the block. They all loved it!
Saturday we went to a couple little fishing towns called Markem and Volendam. They were so quaint and adorable! There were people dressed up in tradition Dutch costumes. This picture is in Markem. I had the best fish sandwich I have had in my entire life. Mmmmm!!!

Me and deb in front of a canal and the cute little buildings. I think this place would make the perfect little retirement town.

This picture is in Volendam. Look at all the cool boats!

Here was one of my favorite things about the bikes in the Netherlands. Lots of them had these little seats attached on the front and you would see mom's riding around with their babies all the time. And look at the little windshields! I want one for Jack! These 2 cute girls stopped to talk to each other, so I had to get a picture.
Sunday we got up super early and drove to Belgium, to a town called Kortrijk. We went to church in a little branch that Kevin served in for part of his mission. There were only about 50 people there, and that included the 9 of us visitors! Then we explored around the little town for a little bit.

Here is a cool bridge. I'm not sure what it was for, but it was cool.
We saw a couple amazing, huge, catholic churches there. Here is one of them. They were so beautiful inside!
Then we drove to Brussels. At the center of town, there is this big square with all these ancient buildings that are over 300 years old! These pictures really do it no justice. It is just something that you have to see for yourself. It was so old and the buildings were so intricate and gorgeous.

We also had real Belgian waffles in Brussels. Sooooo yummy! They were so thick and huge with strawberries, bananas, powdered sugar, and chocolate syrup on top. Yummy!

Well, that was the last day of my trip. I flew hope early Monday morning. The rest of the family is still over there playing hard. They will come back to normal life on Friday. I hope they bring me lots more pictures to look at!