Brugge and The Hague

A couple of weeks ago we had a long weekend so we took a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands.  We drove and the kids loved going on the EuroTunnel (not the driving).  You drive your car into the train and ride for about 30min.  It was pretty cool.  It felt so good to be driving on the right side of the road again (All mainland Europe drives on the right) even though our steering wheel is on the wrong side.  Brugge is amazing!  Such a beautiful place.  We stayed right in town and enjoyed this awesome walking city, cobble stones everywhere and lots and lots of chocolate shops.  We would start in about 10:30am trying the different chocolate shops just to make sure one wasn't better than another.  We had a nice boat tour and enjoyed walking all over town.  We had a great couple of days there.  The weather was a bit cold but no rain until Holland.  We tried to stop in Brussels on our way to the Netherlands but because of traffic we scrapped it.  We made a pit stop in Antwerpen on our way to The Hague.  We got into our hotel which seemed really nice and headed to the dining room to get some dinner.  So we are sitting there waiting for our food and I notice a few tables away that the people kept staring at us.  I figured it was because of our "large" family which happens on occasion but they just kept staring.  I was getting pretty uncomfortable at this point until I see them pointing to the floor.  I look over to see a little mouse...I gasp and instinctively pull my feet up which made them laugh, not funny in my mind. The little old man gets up with his napkin and tries to throw it on the mouse which didn't work and it scurries under our table somewhere and then disappeared or else off to torture someone else.  A few minutes went by and the manager comes over and says "so I hear you had a little visitor" a little visitor...yeah I say eye brows raised. "Yes, well it's a known problem and we are working on it."  Working on it! are you kidding me! Where I come from you can't have mice in a restaurant. I didn't really know how to reply to him I was still shocked. Needless to say no one was feeling very hungry after that.  I guess we'll never forget that evening right?  As for things we did we got to see a cute little art museum, walked around their downtown, saw the Temple, went to church all in Dutch, saw windmills, and went to Keukenhof (amazing gardens).

 Brugge

 Brugge

 The oldest Brugge bridge "Mead bridge" where back in the day they would sell mead and other herbs.

 crow-stepped gable, very typical of Brugge

 fun holland shoe decoration

 loved all of the bicycles

 The Easter bunny managed to find us in Begium and left some delicious chocolate eggs in carton.

 A sampling of some yummy chocolates!  Melt in your mouth goodness that have divine fillings not sickeningly sweet gooeyness that we do in the states.

 The kids begged to stay for primary in The Hague and ended up with these darling bunny breads from a sweet Dutch lady who spoke very little English.  They came with an egg in the middle.

DE KERK JEZUS CHRISTUS VAN DE HEILIGEN DER LAATSTE DAGEN 

Den Haag Nederland Tempel

 The Hague standing across from Museum Gevangenpoort where we saw Vermeers' Girl with the Pearl Earring (it happened to be on loan from the museum we wanted to go to but it was closed).

 Parliament buildings and Knights hall

 The Hague, I need that door.

 Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse- Holland

 making wooden shoes

 We were lucky to not have rain until Monday our last day and we happened to be outside most of the time which made it slightly miserable but I thought these tulips captured the drops beautifully.

 Amazing colors...they had some awesome greenhouses which allowed us to escape the rain.

 Stroopwafel, yum.