I'm home.

Does anyone still read this? I kind of figured that most people knew I was home... I still meant to update a while ago but things have been busy. Real busy. Good busy though. It's so nice to be home!! I'm not really doing much of anything productive but I'm just enjoying spending time with people and watching those last few Christmas movies before we pack them up until next year. I'm looking for a job... sort of. If you hear of any good opportunities, you should let me know : )

That's pretty much it for right now but maybe I'll continue to post something every now and then... it's kind of fun. Hope you had a very merry Christmas.

Still Alive!

And having a blast! I know, it's been a few days since I blogged, but we have been crazy busy! I'm only going to give you a (very) brief overview and then I really need to be getting to sleep.
Last Thursday, the three of us went into London and took a 4 hour bike tour through the city. BEST day I had spent in London yet. It was absolutely phenomenal. The weather was brilliant and we saw so so so much in a short amount of time.

Including Peter : ) We like him.

The next morning, Hilde was off to spend the day in London before heading home to Norway and Steven and I hopped on a train for Oxford. We spent the day exploring and then met up with Victoria.

Saturday morning we drove to Birmingham. We helped her family with the Christmas Fayre at her church and then went to the Birmingham City football match vs. West Ham. Followed by dinner at The Fox. A carvery restaurant (I will explain this later).

Sunday, we drove to Lichfield, wandered through the cathedral, met with Laura and her boyfriend for tea and then drove to Tamworth to see the castle. Woo hoo! Castle!!

It was a rather small castle but we had a smashing good time -- particularly with the dress-up clothes...

That night we made dinner for Victoria's family and had a relaxing evening in their home.

Monday -- Victoria took us for a fantastic fish and chips lunch, which we ate in her car while sitting at a park, and then went into Birmingham for a quick wander around before Steven and I caught a train into London. Where we saw Wicked. Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. Loved it.

Tuesday morning (today - yay -- wow, I breezed through the weekend...) we took a little ride on the London Eye. It's that gigantic ferris wheel looking thing. Before going on the Eye they send you through this real short 4-D film... somewhat unnecessary. (p.s. 4-D means they spit things at you, like bubbles.)

There we are! What a view!! Hilde, you could totally do this. I felt safe and secure the whole time. The height thing didn't even bother me : )

Hmm.... thanks Steven, that's a nice one.... looks like I'm inspecting the Tube map.... where to next? Well, we had just walked around the Parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey and we decided it was time for lunch.

Steak and Ale pie AGAIN!!! Well, only the second time at this particular restaurant but... I'll admit, we've had it at EVERY pub we've gone into -- it's Steven's fav. We also popped into the National Portrait Gallery while we were in Trafalgar Square.

We visited the Natural History Museum. I was SO excited!!! I had been saving this one to go to with Steven. I think it is the best museum in the city! Seriously. The most interesting by far. I like the animals : )

After about 2 and a half hours in the museum (not enough, we left so much unseen), we walked a couple of blocks down the street to the Radisson Hotel for an Edwardian afternoon tea experience. Can you believe I almost left the country without having afternoon tea??? We were both so so glad we decided to do this. There was so much food! Six finger sandwiches each, scones, jam, clotted cream, fruit tarts... and LOADS of tea!! We were stuffed by the end. it was really relaxing and a nice break after a long weekend.

Tomorrow is our last day in London, sigh. We're going to make the most of it though. We plan to see the Tower of London and Hampton Court and take some cool pictures of the Tower Bridge. We'll tell you all about it later!! (and if you feel like you got cheated out of the copious amount of details I usually provide do not fear! I promise to fill you in when I get the chance)

off to bed!!!

love,

Steph

Steven's Here!!!!!

Yay-yay-YAY!!!! Oh my word. I could hardly sleep last night. I woke up at 5:30 this morning (an hour before I needed to get up) thinking "can I go now? maybe his plane will be early." I was super anxious. It was SO good to see Steven!! So so good! I can't even tell you how good.

Hilde spent the day in Oxford with Victoria so Steven and I had the whole day to ourselves : ) Hilde was oh so sweet and super understanding of the fact that Steven wasn't particularly wanting to share me today so she made plans to go somewhere else. I took Steven to the lake and showed him around Virginia Water, which takes all of 3 minutes.

It was such a lovely day to be at the lake! It wasn't sunny but it wasn't raining and that's a huge bonus these days!! It still isn't all that cold here either, which is wonderful. We walked around and saw the Cascade/Grotto (above) and then found some ruins.

We were a bit disappointed that we couldn't actually sort out what had been ruined... but the old columns and bricks and stones and statues still looked really cool : )

We were both real tired by the time we got back to the house and spent the rest of the afternoon slash evening watching Friends (because I do that everyday), eating left-over chili and playing Scrabble. Then we met Hilde on her way back from the train station and we all enjoyed tea and cookies (again), which was quite nice.

Tomorrow, we're all headed into London! It's going to be wonderful!!

GOODNIGHT!

Hilde's Here!!!

There we are!!! TOGETHER! In the same country and everything!

How cool is that? Hilde came all this way just to visit me : ) I was so so so so SO excited to see her when she got off the train today. I was pretty much jumping up and down. Quite literally.

It's a bit strange to have a little bit of my Seattle life fitting in here with my Virginia Water life but I quite like it. We've just been chatting all afternoon/evening and it has been lovely.

We watched the first half of White Christmas just now while enjoying some peppermint tea (no caffeine!!!) and a plate of goodies: fudge, snowball cookies and some marzipan all the way from Norway! See the little marzipan piggies? I trapped them with cookies and fudge. Wonderful.

Steven is currently on the airplane. When I wake up I get to go pick him up from the airport : )

We're both exhausted. Off to bed!

Feeling Festive.

I had a play date yesterday. Kimberly's friend came over and brought her three year old daughter Natasha with her. We made gingerbread cookies! Natasha wasn't too into actually making the dough but she enjoyed cutting out the shapes and she really really enjoyed decorating the cookies. I just made a little bit of icing and and she used that as "glue" to stick Smarties all over the cookies. She gave them purple eyes and blue buttons and orange shoes... it was very exciting.

Today, I made fudge. Like most things I make here, it doesn't taste quite right. The ingredients are just different. It drives me nuts. BUT I also made snowball cookies (while listening to Christmas music, of course) and they taste wonderful! So that's good. I'm excited to do some baking when I get home where everything will taste the way it's supposed to. I'm thinking about trying to do home-made marshmallows this year. I've never done it before but Laurie (the alto from my caroling quartet) makes them every year and she used to bring us some to eat during our breaks. They're really way nicer than normal marshmallows and I think it would be a fun thing to try to make.

Guess what -- by this time tomorrow I'll be hanging out with Hilde!! Yay! I'm really excited about that. AND by this time tomorrow Steven will be on his way to the airport! ALSO VERY EXCITING!!!

I need to figure out what I'm cooking for dinner... have a lovely day!

Christmas Chaos.

Well, Laura and I had a lovely time in London yesterday. The weather was fantastic, which worked out well because we did quite a bit of walking. We started at the Portobello Market on Portobello Road in Notting Hill (no, I did not see Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts -- bummer). This market is huge and unbelievably busy!! The directions on the website literally tell you to get off the Tube at Notting Hill Gate Station and "follow the crowd." No joke. The market is 2 miles long and split into various sections -- antiques, produce, etc. We did not traverse the entire two miles... in fact, we got tired of it pretty quickly.

We meandered (and by meandered I mean we didn't use a map and probably walked in a very squiggly line without any real idea of where we should be going) over to Oxford Street for a serious Christmas shopping experience. Along the way we found a Starbucks and enjoyed a nice walk through Paperchase (quite a fun store).

There are different Christmas markets all over London and we were pretty excited to stumble across this one on Oxford Street. It was tucked away off the busy street. It had temporary walls surrounding it and it was really pleasant because I felt like the busy city noises completely died down the moment we stepped in. We didn't buy anything there but it was fun walking around.


The rest of the day was absolutely chaotic!! Fortunately, they had closed Oxford Street to any motorized traffic for the day. Even still, there were so many people everywhere that it was hard to move. There was so much going on too. Everywhere you turned someone was trying to hand you a pamphlet or coupon or canvas bag with the American Express logo on it. There was a Marks & Spencers parade and people in elf costumes on stilts and fake snow shooting out of Selfridges -- it was crazy. Victoria happened to be in town with all of the boarding school girls for a day of shopping so we met up with her and some of her coworkers for lunch.

Of course, one of the main objectives of the day was to take Laura to Harrods since she had never been there. Holy cow. I tell you what -- going shopping in London on a Saturday just three weeks before Christmas is a pretty dumb thing to do but going to Harrods on a Saturday just three weeks before Christmas is absolutely idiotic. Seriously. There were so many people in there you couldn't even move! The whole building is decorated to the nines but it didn't even seem all that Christmassy in there because people were pushing and shoving and didn't really seem to be super happy, just eager to buy everything in sight. Madness. Absolute madness. You know that line in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge (picture Michael Caine) says "If they'd rather die then they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population!" I tell you what, if there was a surplus population in the 1800's, I'd hate to see poor Scrooge's reaction to the crowded London streets of today. Anyhow, Laura and I made our purchases and darted for the door.

Harrods had completely done us in. We were both overwhelmed and tired. Laura left to catch her train and I wandered from Hyde park up onto Oxford Street again. I just really wanted to see the Christmas lights all turned on at night time.

And that was the end of my day in London -- I couldn't take any more of it! I love Seattle. So so much. Save me some candy cane Frangos!! I'll be home soon.

So cute.

Okay, first of all, and this is not the part that is "so cute", I would like to tell you that I am sitting on the couch wearing at least three layers of clothing, with a blanket around my shoulders and my breath is coming out in little cloudy puffs and my nose feels like a little pink ice cube. I know, sad huh? We just got the boiler replaced on Tuesday and we woke up to no heat and no hot water again! Needless to say, Curtis is not very happy about this. Someone is coming over in about an hour so hopefully it will be fixed (again) soon. Oh. AND I'm drinking warm milk with brown sugar in it. I've already had a few cups of tea and we don't have any hot chocolate. This is actually quite a nice alternative.

Anyhow, on Wednesday I met up with Victoria and Bec and we toured a couple of super cute little Cotswold towns. The first stop was Burford. It was such a tiny town and it was all foggy and cold, which I think really added to the quaint little atmosphere. It sort of reminded me of Leavenworth except not quite so cutesy and, uh, Bavarian.

We shopped around for a bit and wandered through the church and then we popped into a little cafe called The Copper Kettle. We were a bit skeptical at first because it was completely empty and all of the other little restaurants we had walked by were packed, but it was quite nice. Victoria even let me serve the tea! Lucky me : )

Chocolate cake, mmm.... I could go for that right now. I wish I had kept the last 8 bites that I left on the plate. It was only 11:30am and we hadn't even had lunch yet. When Victoria and Bec went straight to the back of the menu to look at the cakes I said "oh, is it time for cake?" Victoria looked at me incredulously and said "It's always time for cake!!" It was tasty : )

It's just so cute, don't you think so? I kept saying that over and over again but that's because things just kept being cute. They had cute little Christmas decorations...

...and cute little bakeries, and cute little antique shops, and cute little sweet shops...

(Victoria's fav) AND us! We were there and we're cute too, so it worked out well. After Burford, we got back in the car and made our way over to Bourton on the water. Also very cute!! I had a very successful Christmas shopping experience in one of the cute little stores and then we stopped in a cozy (and cute!) little pub for lunch. Fish and chips! Tasty. I could go for that right now too... mostly, I think I just want some warm food. Maybe I'll make some chili.

Basically, we had a really lovely day and I had a very fun time wrestling my multiple bags of gifts on and off the trains and through the rain on my way back to Virginia Water : )

I'm still not quite finished with my Christmas shopping but I'm getting really close and I'm spending tomorrow in Harrods with Laura so I'm sure I won't have a problem checking everyone else off my list! I tried to do some shopping in Richmond yesterday but there just wasn't as much shopping to be done there as I had anticipated. I DID however, buy wrapping paper, ribbon and Christmas cards for the gifts that I won't be taking home with me, so that part of the day was successful. Well, I need to go curl up like a cat on that sunny spot on the floor for a little while so I'll catch you later.

Brrrrrrrrr.

Wow. Happy December!! I felt a significant decrease in the temperature overnight, BUT what a PERFECT day for us to get our new boiler. Wahoo!!! There is heat in this house at last! It's still not super warm because it's a huge house and difficult to heat the whole thing but it's much better than it was. Have I mentioned that I am so so so so SO excited for Hilde and Steven to come next week and equally as excited about going home after our adventures here? Because I am. So excited. I don't even know what to do with myself. I'm trying to pass the time but my efforts to pass it more quickly seem only to slow it down : ) so strange how that works. Maybe I should make some Christmas cookies... Probably. For now, I think I'm going to go make myself some coffee and turn on a Christmas movie. Time to enjoy this cozy house!

Post at Bournecrest.

Just in case you were planning to send me anything else in the mail I just thought I should let you know that since I will only be here until the 17th of December, you will want to make sure it is postmarked BEFORE December 8th, otherwise it might not reach me before I leave.


Not like you have to send me anything or that I'm expecting anything, just, you know, a heads up, in case you were planning to send anything : ) I know I've got letters on the way from Steven, Paige and Chris so I'm already pretty excited about that!

Turkey Day.

There's my bird!! Victoria named him Fred. I suggested Ebeneezer so I think we added a hyphen. I had never stuffed a turkey before. You can fit quite a lot in there!

We had an amazing Thanksgiving celebration! When I got back from Belgium on Monday, Kimberly and I went grocery shopping for our big dinner. We only spent about 110 pounds. Yes, it's quite a lot of money but considering that it fed 14 people Thanksgiving dinner AND I still have leftovers to show for it -- it wasn't bad. I spent the next three days cooking. Literally. It's a good thing you can make so much of it ahead of time. There's no way I could have done all of that ON the actual day!

(Like my new apron?? I was quite proud of that turkey. I look rather flushed. Hmm... I get my pink cheeks from Grammi : ) I had been in that kitchen since I woke up at 7am.)

It was such great fun too because I got to make LOADS of things that I had never made before. This was my first turkey and I baked a ham as well. I looked up some recipes for that and then just sort of created my own glaze based off of what I had read. It was beautiful. I found a WONDERFUL sweet potato recipe, which I will probably use for the rest of my life -- you bake the sweet potatoes and then split them open and pour in a mixture of butter, brown sugar, flour, baby marshmallows, cinnamon and pecans. I wish I had taken a picture of them. They were divine!! I thought we'd have loads of them leftover because they were so huge but there was only one left. I ate it.

I just LOVE cooking for people!!!!! Seriously. It's one of my most favorite things to do. I talked to Steven's mom to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and she said that she thought I was so brave for cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all those people by myself. She told me that when she was my age and she had to do Thanksgiving dinner she was terrified. I think that's why I'm a decently good cook -- I'm not afraid of the kitchen! I get excited about finding recipes and trying new things and I truly do enjoy taking the time to make really good food that I know people will love.

I made our traditional things like mashed potatoes and pink salad and cheesy cauliflower. I found a new recipe and made my own cranberry sauce. That was pretty exciting. I also made a HUGE green salad, which didn't really get eaten and is still in the fridge, and Kimberly made a bean/rice salad and Brussels sprouts with bacon. So good! I quite like Brussels sprouts. I made pumpkin bread and cheese dip for the crackers and a pecan pie, and a pumpkin pie (with home-smooshed pumpkin!!!) and some whipped cream as well.

I didn't take many pictures because I was so busy and then once everything was finally on the table, it was too dark in there to get any really good pictures anyway. I was too embarrassed to turn the flash on. I felt a little silly taking pictures at that point.

Have I mentioned that our heat has been broken since last Tuesday? Yeah, true story. We're getting a new boiler in a few days though, so that will be good. On Thursday, while Kimberly and I were bustling around getting things ready, we brought all of the space heaters out of the bed rooms and tried to place them strategically around the entryway and dining room to help take the chill off. Kimberly and Curtis had moved the kitchen and dining tables into the big room and at one point while Kimberly was decorating the tables I heard her shout "Do you think the candles will give off any heat???" I laughed but then I realized she was serious -- we were SO COLD! She went ahead and lit the candles anyway just in case that tiny amount of extra energy was going to do us any good. We got the gas fireplace going and rocked out to some Jackson 5 (interesting choice of Thanksgiving music...), all the while counting down until our guests were due to arrive.

At 5pm I took the potatoes over to the next door neighbor's house to put them in her oven -- couldn't have done it without her!! -- and everyone showed up at 7pm. There were 14 of us all together and it was fantastic! Everyone was so complementary. It's a good thing it was dark in there because I'm pretty sure I was blushing the whole time. Curtis had introduced me to everyone when they came in and he kept telling people that I pretty much run his life -- which made me feel really important and needed -- and Kimberly kept telling everyone how we wouldn't even be having Thanksgiving if it wasn't for me. All throughout dinner they were all imploring me to change my mind about staying in Seattle after Christmas and Curtis made a few comments about how there was a chance my passport might go missing in the next couple of weeks : ) Kimberly told Curtis that as long as they're married, she's quite certain this will have been the best meal he's ever eaten. I thought that was quite funny. Deb (the woman with the blond hair sitting next to Curtis) was particularly thankful as she usually likes to do Thanksgiving (she's American) for her family but has gone back to school full-time and knew she wasn't going to be able to pull it off this year. I spent quite a bit of time talking with her husband, Chris, who I was sitting next to. It turns out that the two of them used to own property in Woodinville and Juanita!! How random is that??

After dinner we went around the table and everyone said one thing they were thankful for. We laughed a lot and it was just such a happy time. I missed being at home so very much but since there was no way that I could really just pop over for a long weekend -- I know I couldn't have found a better alternative.

Brilliant.

I'm really into Queen right now (because of the musical I saw last weekend) and I always love the Muppets, so I found this quite entertaining:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY&feature=player_embedded

And then THAT reminded me of when 4th West did The Princess Bride for Ashton Cup sophomore year (because they used Bohemian Rhapsody) so, I had to watch that while I was on youtube. It was fun.

I'm Thankful for You!!

Hi guys. I'm pretty tired but I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you're all having a marvelous holiday and not missing me too terribly much ; ) I am certainly missing you! I had a busy day though and a really lovely Thanksgiving celebration -- I feel so lucky to be living with an American family. I'll tell you all about it (with pictures) tomorrow.

Thank you for reading my blog and staying in touch with me and always sending your love and encouragement. Knowing that you're there for me has made this entire experience so much more enjoyable.

love,
Steph

It Has Begun.

The Christmassyness that is. I know. I cheated. I started a day early. Victoria and I saw the new Christmas Carol movie yesterday. You know, the 3-D Disney one with Jim Carrey?

We very much enjoyed the 3-D glasses but I tell you what -- that movie was scary!!! Seriously! Obviously, I know the story pretty well. I've seen the Mickey one and the Muppet one and I've seen the stage production and I know that Scrooge gets haunted by ghosts, which equals scary. BUT since this was produced by Disney, I sort of expected it to be a little bit more light-hearted like the other ones I've seen. No such luck. The ghosts were scary and since it was 3-D... things were flying at us and we were a bit jumpy.

Fortunately, there weren't many other people in the cinema so we were able to just talk, which made it less scary, and we had loads of sweets to snack on. Probably a few too many...

Back at the house, Victoria helped me to make a pumpkin pie (her first ever!!!) and then we bundled up with some blankets in front of the TV. We watched Scrooge, the 1970 musical with a very young Albert Finney as Scrooge. It was MUCH more cheerful than the other version of the story we had watched earlier in the day and we were both feeling quite Christmassy afterwards.

It was so much fun to have a sleepover, but it felt a bit strange being the "host" considering this isn't even my country. I think that's another good sign that I'm feeling quite comfortable here and that makes me happy. The great part about being the host was that I got to use the "Mountford motto" and say "I insist!!" so that Victoria couldn't get away with trying to pay for everything like she usually does ; )

Just Like the Pilgrims.

We're having a big Thanksgiving dinner here on Thursday and I've been so loving planning it!!! I can't even tell you how many lists I've made. It's a bit ridiculous. Kimberly and I went shopping yesterday and, my goodness, it's no wonder they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here--they don't have any of the right ingredients!!!! How do they survive?? No mini-marshmallows, no cool whip, no cans of cranberry sauce, no ready-made graham cracker crusts (or graham crackers for that matter), no corn syrup, no canned pumpkin... the pilgrims didn't have these things so I suppose I'll manage. This is definitely going to be an experimental Thanksgiving. I don't feel like any of my recipes will be made without at least one substitution.

I decided to buy a pumpkin and cook it myself. Of course, when I woke up this morning our heat, hot water and oven all weren't working. So... I washed the pumpkin, cut off the peel, chopped it to pieces and boiled it. Then I squished the water out of it and forced it through a colander with a wooden spoon. Yes, it's true, I made my very own pumpkin smoosh. No food processor or anything. Just a wooden spoon and a colander. Oh yeah, I totally could have made it as a pioneer. Well, actually, maybe not really. I must say, that was a lot of work for just 2 and a half cups of pumpkin (don't worry, that is enough to make one loaf of pumpkin bread and a pumpkin pie)... at least I know I don't NEED canned pumpkin! I'm so self-reliant.

(Good thing I had all that experience making baby food this summer... it was my inspiration.)

More Chocolate Please.

I forgot to tell you before I left but, look how little I packed! Cool, huh? That was all I took with me for ALL THREE NIGHTS!!

I spent the first day/night (last Friday) in London. It was really quite nice. I walked around for a few hours and checked into my hostel and it was just a beautiful day. I walked through some of the arcades but didn't do any shopping. I was really wanting to see a show so I went to Leicester Square and said "what can I see tonight for less than 30 pounds?" I bought a 25 pound ticket to We Will Rock You. Then I made my way over to the British Museum. I was wrong about the "14 more trips" thing. I've decided I'm done with it. It's huge and yes, there's a ton of stuff in it but since I don't stop and read everything, well, okay, since I don't stop and read anything, it actually goes by pretty quickly. I strolled through the displays I hadn't seen on my previous visit and when the museum closed, I walked across the street to Starbucks.



I love Starbucks. I feels so much more at home when I'm in Starbucks. Seriously. I am comforted just by the sight of a Starbucks. It's a little odd. Anyhow, I read my book and enjoyed the Starbucks atmosphere until it was time for the show to start.



It was such a bizarre show. I mean, really strange! I had no idea what the story was about and it was just weird. It's set in the future and it's supposed to be a time when instruments have been outlawed and everyone listens to the same regimented music and they aren't allowed to make their own music but there's this group of "Bohemians" aka rebels, who try to make their own music and are on a quest to bring rock and roll back to life. It was ridiculous but funny and of course the music was great. Everyone likes Queen, right? I was SO glad that I went!! I just love being in the theatre. I can't really even describe how it makes me feel except that I feel so alice in there. I just get this huge surge of energy and excitement and emotion. It's the best. I love being on stage and I get SO excited for the people who are performing and they just looked like they were having such a wonderful time and I wanted to be them. Even though the show was weird. I had a blast.



Upon returning to the hostel around 11pm, I met my roommates for the night -- a large group of students from Spain, Germany and France who are all attending the same school in Ireland this semester. We talked for a while and they invited me to go out with them around midnight... I politely declined and went to bed. They came back more than a little tipsy around 3:45am. At 4:15 I had to sit up and tell them to either go to sleep or leave the room. They were whispering but 10 people whispering is not exactly quiet.



Next morning, I was on a train bright and early and I was in Bruges by noon.


Bruges is beautiful! It's referred to as the Venice of the North because it has lots of canals and people think it's super romantic. The map I was given at the hostel even has little hearts all over it, which are supposed to mark "places to kiss." That seems like kind of an odd thing to put on a map but... when I would walk by those places I had to check and see if there were actually people kissing. I just think the idea of having a map dictate where you kiss is really funny.


There are horse-drawn carriages EVERYWHERE! I was particularly fond of this one. I love how huge and amazingly strong those horses are. I wanted to pet them but they didn't have time to stop. I think they're amazing. The carriage rides are expensive and I didn't want to go on one by myself anyway. Plus, it's hard to pet the horses when you're in the carriage so... what's the point? No, really, I would like to go for a carriage ride someday. Just not alone.

The marketplaces are so great! I love pedestrian areas with just a bunch of people milling about. The Christmas market was all set up and people were ice skating and it was just lovely.

The buildings here have so much character! I just wanted to take pictures of ALL of them. So... I did. I walked around for quite some time with no particular direction in mind. I walked through the various markets and at one point I bought myself a hat (finally! I've been looking for one for weeks! Now my little head will stay nice and warm and I can hide my hair whenever I need to) and a gigantic Asian pear, which I carried around in my purse until the following evening.

This is the Belfry tower. I climbed it because it seemed like the thing to do. There were 366 steps, I think, so about half as many steps as climbing up the Eiffel Tower. But these steps were scary!!! It was a spiral staircase the whole way up. It was steep and I was feeling very trapped and claustrophobic. Breathing was difficult because not only was I out of breath from the climb but I was a bit anxious about being in such a tight space. People were coming down at the same time I was going up and it was just a bit crazy.

I was glad I did it -- of course. The view was great! And the bells were ringing while I was up there. I don't think they ring at any particular time necessarily but a guy sits at this thing that looks like a piano and "plays" the bells and he was just playing random songs. I really liked it.

I was also quite happy to be back down on the ground. I felt pretty accomplished though, so that was good.

I walked around Bruges for the rest of the afternoon/evening and it was just beautiful. The weather was perfect (lucky me!!! When Paige went at the same time last year it snowed! I was so scared I was going to come back half frozen and while snow would have been beautiful, I was happy not to see any) and it's such a pretty and friendly place.

Waffle on a stick dripping with warm chocolate?? Right, as if I was going to pass THAT up! It was tasty. There are waffles everywhere in Belgium. And chocolate, too, which makes it a pretty great place.

I spent the next portion of the evening walking around the market place, drinking mulled wine, which I actually quite enjoyed, especially in that atmosphere, and looking at, but not buying, all of the cute things in the marketplaces. Once I had walked around these particular areas three or four times each, I decided to head back to my hostel and guess what I did.... I took a shower!!! Wahoo!! This was the first of TWO showers that I took on this trip! And I changed my clothes too. Huge improvement from Paris ; ) It was only 7pm after I was all clean and everything so I walked around the corner and sat in a pub with hot chocolate and a piece of apple pie. Excellent dinner. I read my book there until I decided it was a late enough hour that I could probably go to bed without feeling too lame (uh.... it was... um... 9. Yeah, 9 o'clock.)

Back at the hostel I ended up going down to the bar with another girl who was staying in my room (Stephanie from Toronto, also traveling alone) and we hung out down there talking with the bartender and the owner of the hostel and it made for a far less lonely evening. I very much enjoyed Bruges.

Sunday morning, I caught a train to Brussels. Brussels is a city that takes a long time to wake up. I felt like I walked around for a while before I found a place where I could sit down and have a hot chocolate (p.s. my eating habits on this trip were really bad. I didn't eat much and when I did it usually involved chocolate.) The buildings in the Grand Place area were pretty cool so I walked around there for a bit until my bike tour started at 10am. They were using that big thing to decorate that ginormous Christmas tree. Unfortunately, they were using those hideous blue lights that are so piercingly blue it hurts your eyes to look at them. Yikes. I'm glad I wasn't there to see the finished product.

The bike tour was okay. Word(s) to the wise:

1. Brussels is not so wonderfully flat as Paris. This makes for a slightly more strenuous bike tour.

2. Do NOT try to do a bike tour with a huge hand bag over your shoulder. You will probably have balance issues and you may be decently uncomfortable.
I don't like to leave my bag at the hostels. I don't bring much with me and I don't like to let any of it out of my sight. Having my bag bumping against my knee the whole time wasn't the greatest. There are a lot of really wonderful buildings to see in Brussels and again, the weather held out for me. We stopped part way through the tour and had some fries. In Belgium, they dip their fries in mayonnaise. Actually, they pour mayonnaise over the top of their fries. I don't think this is the greatest but as long as it isn't too globby and is just a tiny bit and you can't really taste it, then it's not gross.

I DID get to go to the Musical Instrument Museum. It was my favorite part of my time in Brussels. It's pretty fun. You put on headphones and walk around the museum and when you stand in front of different instruments you can hear what they sound like. I didn't discover until the very end that they have these guides for each room that are in a bunch of different languages but that's fine because I probably wouldn't have read it anyway. I just liked seeing all of the cool instruments and listening to them. It was fun watching people sort of dancing around. Everyone was listening to a different kind of music (depending on what instrument they were standing in front of) and it seemed like people couldn't help but move to the beat a little bit. I was doing it too but that's not really a big surprise. I wanted to keep this one. It would be a nice addition to my collection.

When I was finished looking at all of the instruments (and wishing I could take them home) it was pouring down rain outside. Since it was getting dark I decided to brave the rain and start looking for my hostel. More words to the wise:

1. Take your rain coat. Yes, your trench coat is cuter but your umbrella probably can't handle the windy conditions and you'll wish you had a waterproof jacket with a hood.

2. Take a padlock in case your hostel as lockers you can use.

****

I was at the hostel at 5pm and I was SUPER hungry. I went outside and walked for about a block and a half. At that point, I discovered I was freezing cold and it was VERY dark. Not only that but my hostel was in an area where pretty much everything was closed down (5pm on a Sunday evening, why would anything still be open? I mean, really...) and there weren't many people about. I decided that I wasn't super comfortable making the 20 minute walk into the city center and then back again in the freezing cold darkness and all by myself. So I went back in the hostel, took a shower and got in bed. There, I ate my ginormous Asian pear, listened to a sermon from church on my ipod and fell asleep to my music. I felt really lame about that but... I also felt safe, so it was probably the right decision. No point going out if I was just going to be anxious the whole time.

****

I woke up the next morning, found a place to eat a waffle and drink some hot chocolate, walked around Brussels in the rain for a couple of hours, bought 4 very expensive but very delicious chocolates and hopped on the train. Heading back to my temporary home.

****

On the train the next morning I was SO happy to be arriving in London. Really. I was incredibly excited about it, which surprised me. I think I'm sort of starting to "own" London. I'm beginning to figure it out and to know where things are and when I use the subway I don't do that walk-really-slow-so-I-make-sure-I-can-read-every-single-sign thing, I just blaze on through because I know where I'm going! And it's a great feeling! It made me even more excited about the fact that I get to see Seattle in just a few short weeks. I love that coming home feeling and being in my comfort zone. I'm glad that I'm starting to let London be part of my comfort zone. Just in time for my departure, right? I guess that's perfect for when I come back in the future.