London March 10-12

We are really getting too far behind on blogging these days, so we are switching to a more summary format. Apologies to all our fans that have loved our cutting humor and powerful insights, but we want to make sure we keep some memories without wearing ourselves out typing.

• As our first holiday outside of Belgium this year, we took a half day and went to London for the weekend.

• We stayed in the East End for a chance to experience a part of the town we hadn't seen before. Qbic hotel: funky themed "green" hotel with modular "cube" bed and bath  

• Friday night dinner: Meat Mission. Greasy and spicy burgers and hotdogs. A little taste of home aka gut bomb

• First East End observations: We weren't hip enough to be there and wow, hipsters like to get their hair cut (almost as many barber shops as pubs)

• Saturday was supposed to start with a food tour, but our guide called off sick and we got bumped to the lunchtime tour so we took a walk to see the Borough market and Shakespeare's Globe.

Borough Market

• Borough market: Neat street market nestled under a mass of overpasses. Great street food and treats.

• Shakespeare's Globe: we saw it from the outside...not much more we can say than that.

• We took a nice walk back to the hotel across the Millennium bridge and past St. Paul's Cathedral.

• Up next was the beginning of our food tour! We started at Spitalfields market and toured the gastronomical offerings of the East End. 

• St. John's for a bacon sandwich (great bread and homemade "ketchup" - more like apple butter), The English Restaurant for bread and butter pudding (Tyler's favorite stop), then a French cheese place, then Poppies for traditional fish and chips (fried perfection), Pride of East End pub for ale and cider, Aladdin for three curries on the famous Brick Lane curry capital, Bagel Bake for the classic salted beef bagel and mustard (perfect mix of flavors - The winner for Molly), last stop: Pizza East for salted Carmel tart

• Hung around a few hip pubs for the rest of the afternoon

• Saturday evening: Book of Mormon at Prince of Whales Theater (great production and lots of laughs)

• Finished the evening with (you guessed it) a late night snack at Wahaca, a local Latin cuisine chain (nailed the Guac and tacos) 

• Sunday morning: the line around the block prevented us from eating at The Breakfast Club, but St. John's turned out to be a great plan b

• Olympic Park was the rest of our day (with a pit stop for Shake Shack milkshakes).  We rented city bikes and toured the park grounds. The velodrome was especially fun to see.

• Biked back across town on the CS2 (the "cycle super highway") to pick up our bags at the hotel and catch the train.

• Engineering works gave us some heartburn, but we made out train just in time

• Summary: Amazing second time experience in London. We really enjoyed staying outside the touristic centre and getting to eat and drink like a local. Also, the theatre experience did not disappoint. As per usual, we were left wishing we had another day to enjoy this great city.

Ardennes Part 2 Feb. 10-12

In Febuary, we planned another adventure to the South of Belgium to the Ardennes.  The group changed a bit but the overall goals did not.  We wanted to hang in cool cottage/cabin, hike a bit and visit a brewery.  And, we succeeded!  We all arrived on Friday night and enjoyed the warm fire in our Airbnb while catching up.  Before bed, we did our very best snow dances in hopes we would get some wintery weather for our hike the next day.  We woke up to 1-2 inches of prime snowball making snow.  We enjoyed a great American breakfast of bagels and cream cheese before heading out for our hike.  We had planned a 10 km (6ish mi) hike but of course ended up turned around a bit and completed about 12 km (7.5 mi).  It was beautiful to walk through the quiet, snowy woods. 

Hiking

The perfect snowball fort

By the end of the hike, we had worked up quite the appetite and headed to Bastogne for lunch.  Bastogne is where a significant part of the Battle of the Bulge took place during World War II.  We went to a restaurant full of war memorabilia, and they served a beer created based on an old war story.  Airborne beer is served in a ceramic helmet to signify an American soldier who brought beer to an ailing friend in his infantry helmet.  Some of us sampled the beer, and we all enjoyed a hot lunch after our snowy walk.  On our way back to the cabin, we stopped at the War Memorial outside of Bastogne.  The snow was coming down very hard during our visit.  It was emotional to be at the memorial and imagine being in that sort of difficult weather during the Battle.  

Airborne beer

The taste testers

World War II memorial

After our visit to the memorial, we headed back to our Airbnb for some R&R.  We had pulled pork for dinner and spent the evening hanging out and playing games.
On Sunday morning, we headed out for our last stop before heading home, Brewery Achouffe, the brewer of La Chouffe beer.  We had a nice Belgian brasserie lunch before heading on our tour.  It was an interesting tour with the history of the brewery and brewing process which ended with a tasting.  We all spent some time and money in the gift shop before heading home.  It was another successful weekend in the Ardennes with friends!

Achouffe brewery

Home for Christmas Dec 21-Jan1

Although we love Europe at Christmas time, this year we made the trip to the States to spend time with family.  As always it was a whirlwind of visiting family and friends, driving, eating, drinking, watching basketball, shopping, opening presents and eating some more.  We used Knoxville as our home base but made adventures to McMinnville and Raleigh during our stay.  We got so wrapped up in visiting, that we did a terrible job of taking pictures so we have shamelessly stollen photos from everyone else!  We always enjoy coming home to see the changes during the time we have been away.  We were able to try some of the new, hip restaurants and breweries that have popped up in our absence and we can honestly say they did not disappoint.  We of course visited some old standbys as well!  We really enjoyed the trip and loved getting to visit with all of our missed loved ones.

Seriously, the US is the only place we pack like this for.

Christmas Eve lunch with Dad & Sue

Raleigh to watch Caroline play ball

Caroline with her dad and uncles

Family dinner after the game

Testing out the new s'mores maker

Brothers

Board games

Post Christmas hike

Annual Brunch

Sista!

Checking out the breweries with Nic, Kellie, Jess & ML

Strasbourg December 10-11

Starting a tradition, we spent one weekend in December going to a Christmas Market with our friends Luke and Emily.  Last year we went to Cologne with them, and this year we decided to go to the oldest Christmas Market in Europe in Strasbourg, France.  It is said the market originated in 1570 and has grown into one of the largest Christmas markets.  With Christmas markets come very expensive accommodations so we opted to drive down on Saturday morning and stay one night to return on Sunday night.  We booked our hotel at the end of September and were only able to get something outside the city center.  The hotel was simple but perfect with a tram to take us directly to the Christmas Market right outside the door.  We received a map of the city with all of the Christmas Market locations market so we could make a plan of attack.  Strasbourg is in the Alsace region of France, very close to the German border.  We were excited to see the French/German cuisine that would be offered at the markets so naturally, our first stop was the food stalls at the artisanal market.  We all tried sauerkraut with meat and potatoes in a delicious white wine sauce.  It was tasty and just what we needed to fuel up to explore the markets.  We walked through the artisanal market and headed to see the big Christmas tree that was set up on the square. 

It's not a Christmas market without Gluhwein

After exploring multiple markets and the Notre Dame Cathedral of Strasbourg, we headed to Petite France.  This area of the city is where the medieval trade took place.  It is the quaint old town of Strasbourg.  There were two more markets located in this area and we stopped and ate a typical Alsatian snack of Tarte flambée (a thin pizza like dough with creme fresh, red onions and bacon).  The ones we ordered were cooked out on the wood stove.  It was our favorite new treat of the weekend.  

Petite France

As it was getting cold, we decided to find a place to rest our feet and get a drink.  We enjoyed local Strasbourg brews at a microbrewery.  They had a nice seasonal beer called Rudolph that everyone enjoyed.  Not to forget the reason for the trip, we headed back into the cold to view the Christmas tree at night.  We continued our Christmas market exploration and headed to a restaurant for a warm meal inside.  The Christmas markets closed pretty early so after a stop for an after dinner drink, we headed back to the hotel.  On Sunday, we visited the remaining Christmas Markets and started the long drive home.  We really enjoyed visiting Strasbourg and the Christmas Markets and of course the food!  We are already pondering what Christmas Markets to visit next year.  

Emily and Molly