Wine and cheese night!!

 

Mike and Brent Gordon in Paris

We drove down to Paris for the day to see Brent and his friends. Good wine, good conversation, and cheap Chinese food! And no riots 

Me and my aunt in the Grand Place

 

The King's House in Grand Place, Brussels

Even though no king has ever lived here. It's where all the cute clothes for the Mannekin Pis statues live :) 

Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) in the Grand Place in Brussels

 

Cool little nubby gnarly trees

 

more grapes :)

 

Trying grapes

Not bad, but they taste better as champagne. The fact that they use red grapes to make champagne just makes my head hurt; I try not to think about it. 

More grapes

 

Champagne

I visited this area with my aunt and uncle when they came to visit us. We didn't get to try much champagne but the area is just beautiful 

Hautvillers, in the Champagne region of France

 

This is what our puppies do while we're away

 

Weekly Flower Market

Luxembourg city again; full of antiques and plants 

The Casemates of Luxembourg City

These were built into the side of the hill; they're part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. We got to tour around inside of them; pretty cool 

Luxembourg City

Isn't it beautiful?! 

My cute baby car!!

 

Mike on his Moto

 

Even though we have 2 cold-weather dogs, they've never seen snow like this before, and were quite confused by it for a while. Once they figured out that the big smooth expanse of white wasn't like an ocean, and they weren't goign to "fall in" if they walked over it, they had a good time rolling around and running in it. 

SNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUW!!!!!

We got our first snow this past Friday night. Of course, I've seen snow before, but I've never actually had a big snow like this where I LIVE! It's so incredibly beautiful. But it's surprisingly cold. And wet. Most of the snow is gone now, or melting as we speak, but it was soooo pretty. 

Excitement coming up, animals and auditions

So I've posted the pictures from our trip up until our last day in Luxembourg. I will post those whenever I get a chance. Today (Nov. 1) was All Saints day, which meant that nobody worked, and people went to the cemeteries with carnations and ate pancakes. Since we have neither dead relatives here nor carnations, and we don't eat pancakes, it was a pretty uneventful day.

But I have some fun things coming up :)

First, I went to the Birds Bay animal sanctuary (site is in French) last week, and I'm going to try to go 2-3 times a week to help out. They have soo many animals. Mostly pigeons and hedgehogs (cracks me up that they're wild here!) but a good number of hawks and owls, and a handful of other birds and rabbits. And pretty much all day the volunteers just work work work cleaning up after them, medicating them and feeding them. It's an insane amount of work. But I get to be around animals and practice my French (only 1 woman there speaks any English). They have a vet come in periodically to check everyone out, and hopefully I can talk to him a bit when he comes in next time, maybe I can help and learn some more about wildlife medicine. I haven't done any since I graduated.

Second, I have (I think) screwed up my courage to go to an audition with the Brussels American Theater Company on Thursday, 3 Nov. It's a play with a small cast, called Five Women Wearing the Same Dress by Alan Ball (the guy who wrote American Beauty). It's a comedy. Anyway, I haven't done any theater in over 10 years except for Chris' scene for his grad school class. I miss it so much and I really want to get involved again. So I'm proclaiming here that even if I don't get a part (which I would be VERY surprised if I did, these people have never even seen me before!) I would like to be involved somehow, with props, set building, whatever. That way it's harder for me to wuss out after the audition.

Mike's been home for a 4 day weekend, which has been really nice, but tomorrow it's back to the grind.

One last compulsory ice cream

Man, that stuff must have been pretty good. I can only imagine the gelato that will be eaten when we finally get to Italy! 

Peace Sign Jesus

We must have been in a surreal-comicy mood. Because we found a postcard of this scene in the Dom information center, and it looked so funny, like a Family Circus peacenik Jesus that we set out to find it for real. Nobody else seemed to find it amusing so maybe we were crazy...... 

Bobblehead Jesus

Wandering around, we noticed that the Jesus on the Top of the Liebfrauenkirche is oddly out of proportion and looks sort of like a cartoon character. 

Imperial Baths

Touring the Imperial Baths the next morning, which were built for emperor Constantine, who left before they were finished so they were never used. The grounds were used as military barracks later on as well. It was really neat wandering the underground corridors; felt like you were in real-life DOOM game or something. 

Compulsory ice cream

While we wandered around that evening, we saw soooooooo many people walking around with ice cream that we decided it must be either extremely good or there was a road block forcing everyone who passed to get ice cream. So naturally we had to stop, and Mike tried it. Dirt cheap and good, apparently. 

Hotel FrankenTurm

This was where we stayed in Trier, the Hotel FrankenTurm (a Rick Steve's Reccomendatio.) Not all that exciting to look at but a FANTASTIC bargain if you're willing to share a bathroom. Double room was 50 Euros if you shared a toilet and shower, 80 Euros for a private bath (but they were all booked the night we were there). But the shared bath is shared between only 3 rooms, and we didn't have a problem with it at all. The walls are thin, though, which can be a problem if you have, *ahem* lively neighbors....... But downstairs is a great restaurant and bar with great atmosphere, a nice free breakfast, and free use of the parking garage with a 20 euro deposit, returned as soon as you bring the key back. And the hotel is less than a block off the Hauptmarkt. Great location.