Happy New Year - Antwerp Style

Antwerp rung in the New Year this past weekend with a free event in Grote Markt.

We met up with a bunch of our friends and walked up to check out the activites. We ended up hanging out under an awning during a brief period of blizzard like conditions. Lucky for us, the awning was right next to the tents where they were giving away soup, friets and beer. We thought it was funny that you had to wait in line for 10-15 minutes to get a cone of fries but there was no wait at the beer stall. We were all saying that would not be the case in the towns that we came from, besides the fact that they wouldn't be serving any type of alcoholic beverage at all.

The kids had a lot fun on the swing ride and eating cotton candy. We managed to get some of the large balloons they used to decorate the square. Craig said that we looked weird and that people were looking at us carrying the huge balloons. Our friend, Amelia, insisted that they were just jealous. When we got home, the balloon would not fit in the elevator. We live on the third floor, so we tied a long string to it and brought it in through the sliding glass door.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

With Colin and Craig both starting their 2 week Christmas vacations, we decided to go to Bavaria. We left on Friday to drive to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for the night and to see the Christmas Market. The five and a half hour drive ended up taking over nine hours! During our drive, it started snowing and the tempurature dropped to 13 degrees. Our windsheild wiper froze and it made it very difficult to drive. Overnight the tempurature dropped even more and was 5 degrees when we head out to see the Christmas market. It was so cold and we had to keep going into stores just to warm up. That afternoon, we drove into Bavaria to an apartment on a farm that we had rented for the next five nights.
We spent the next day on the farm because our car wouldn't start because it was too cold. The following day we drove down to Oberstdorf, the town Craig stayed during his exchange 20 years ago. A day later, friends of ours from Antwerp arrived and they watched the kids so we couple go see Neuschwanstein and Honenschwangau castles. We all met up later at the Kemptem Christmas Market then for dinner.

On our way home, we drove through Dettingen, the town where my grandmother grew up.We arrived back in Antwerp on Christmas Eve and with just enough time to prepare for Santa and everyone was very happy when we saw that he had left lots of gifts under the tree the next morning. Colin got the Playmobile Castle he asked for and Chloe got a stroller for her dollies along with lots of other goodies. We spent the day inside because it rained the entire day.

On the 29th, we were visited by the Hickeys on their way to London from Paris. It is always nice to have visitors and wished they had stayed more than one night.

On New Years, we were invited over to our friends Amelia and Rajat's to celebrate. They live around the corner along the river and have the perfect view for the fireworks.
Happy New Year!!