It's Been Quite a Week!

Ed has always teased me that the week between Mother's Day and my birthday has always been a week long celebration, but I do have to agree with him this year! He really spoiled me this year! We went away on Mother's Day weekend and stayed in Maastricht Saturday night after seeing Luxembourg and drove around Belgium. We saw Bastogne where the Battle of the Bulge took place and the American cemetery in Luxembourg city. It was nice to see that the cemetery is so beautifully kept but sad to see so many young lives cut short. We also saw the German cemetery and was reminded that they too lost sons and fathers.

We stayed in Maastricht that night on the river and had a wonderful dinner.
The next morning we headed to Tongeren for my favorite thing to do - checking out flea markets!!! Ed found a great painted trunk and lamp made out of an old surveyors tool. I picked up some wooden bowls and some white stoneware potties (yes, I know that's weird.)


Thursday we headed to Amsterdam by train and checked in to our hotel. Kelly, our daughter had arrived in Amsterdam the day before with a group from her church. We met up for lunch and then took a tour of the Van Gogh museum. I think he was my favorite artist. The museum did a great job of displaying how his style progressed over the years of his life. We then went out to dinner with Kelly and then Ed and I headed down to the Red Light District. It was kind of sad actually. I couldn't look the young woman in the eye's. It sickened me to hear men making obscene remarks at them and laughing at them, but most of all I think I'm not happy with my self for going down there.

Friday was totally a fun, fun day!!!! Coffee with one of my daughters, two quilt shops, a bead shop, a canal boat tour, apple pancakes, and two English book shops, need I say more!!!!!!
This is a picture of Den Haan & Wagenmakers in Amsterdam. It is such a beautiful store! It is not a traditional quilt store, but sells mainly the traditional reproduction Dutch fabric that I just adore!!! I learned that the fabric is actually made not to far from Enschede, it would be great to go see it made, hopefully I can figure out how to make that happen.

We got back home Friday night and then Saturday morning, the day of my birthday we headed to Munster, Germany for the first big flea market of their Summer season. It's a great flea market and huge! Needless to say, I took a long nap that afternoon! Saturday night Ed took me out for dinner and boy was I surprised when several people we knew were there waiting to surprise me! I felt very honored and loved this week!!! Thank you honey!

Flea Markets

I love flea markets, especially flea markets in Europe. Most items are very inexpensive - compared to prices in the States. The above picture is from the flea market at Tongeren, Belgium that we went to a few weeks ago. It is about a 3 hour drive south of Enschede. Antique dealers or individuals selling their stuff were lined up along the old streets. It was very cool! They have the sale every Sunday rain or shine. Luckily the day we went it was beautiful! To mark the end of a fun day we had an official Belgian waffle (yummmmmm!)

This was my treasure for the day, an old antique toy horse and an old box made from lit matches!

Brugge, Belgium

Lolajasper

We went to Brugge, Belgium in November. What a beautiful little city. We stayed in an old converted home from the 17th century. And yes, I do think it was haunted, I got very little sleep! Brugge is full of lace, chocolate, beer and beautiful streets. What more could I ask for!

This is some of what we saw:
-We toured several cathedrals (one had an original Michaelangelo sculpture of Mary and Jesus that was beautiful)
-An old brewery that has awesome beer, the tour had hundreds of steps, many that had to be navigated backwards!
-Lace and Chocolate shops of course!
-Chocolate Museum (this was very stupid)
-Canal boat tour (the boat was a little too small and too crowded for my comfort!)
-Several beautiful municipal buildings
-A medieval public hospital

It was quite a full day. We went back to the hotel where we had a 6 course meal! It took 3 1/2 hours! The best part was the dessert, chocolates and coffee! They had a set menu of rabbit, goose liver and eel. I didn't want to be impolite but there was no way I could eat that. I'm pretty much vegetarian these days except for the occasional chicken when nothing else is available. The chef's were very gracious and fixed me some fish which was actually pretty good.

Sunday we left Brugge and headed to the sea. It was quite windy and chilly, but I've always preferred that to the heat of summer on a beach. Plus, no bathing suits! We then drove to Ghent; by this time, my back and feet were in agony so I really didn't appreciate Ghent as much as I probably would have otherwise.

It was a great trip, very romantic and would definitely go back again!