Visiting the Anckaerts
Ahhh... first off, the keyboard is very different here from our American keyboard. But here we go...
We stopped in Koln for a few hours to walk through the huge cathedral; it is very black on the outside but massive on the inside. We had a nice lunch (steak for Ben and cordon bleu for me) in Koln (we forgot to tell that we ate CHINESE food in Frankfurt--no franfurter in Frankfurt for us!) then we got on the train to Brussels. This was the first time we did not reserve seats and we discovered that it was required since Thalys is a private train company so we paid so that they wouldn´t kick us off the train. We had a funny time meeting up with the family because Ben got mixed up and thought we were supposed to go to Charleroi Ouest (wzst) but it was actually Charleroi Sud (south) but it worked out fine--the family came to get us at ouest.
We are writing from Grandmere et Grandpere Anckaerts house in Belgium. We arrived here Thursday evening and have been staying with Marguerite and Claude (Marcelle´s sister). We met everyone the first and second evenings--Carol and George; Christian qnd Vincenne and their adorable two little girls;Eric and we hope to meet his fiancée later this evening.
Yesterday Claude and "Margie" as they call her, took us to the Waterloo memorial where, as Ben says, "Napoleon got his butt kicked!" It was a living history lesson for me.
We then drove to Brussels and walked all the sights there. We saw the Grand Place, the Manneken Pis (literally a statue of a little boy peeing!) and to the city´s main museum. It was a nice day even though it rained a bit.
We visited with the family in the evening, playing with Laura and Gayle, and hearing funny stories from Grandmere.
We slept in today until 10:30am! That is very late for us on this trip but all the traveling finally caught up with us.
We went to the school where the Anckaert girls went to school; to the LDS church that Elder Wood and his family built while Marcelle was on her mission in France; and to the store to buy some Belgian chocolates for our loved ones back home!
We have enjoyed this afternoon talking with the grandparents!! It is great to get a chance to meet them and hear all their stories!
Tomorrow we leave for Paris and then Monday we leave Paris for home. This may be all from this side of the ocean--we´ve had a wonderful trip. Thanks to our family and friends who made it possible! We love you! Au revoir!
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