Ola! or should I say, "Hallo!" ..or maybe, "Bonjour!"

Hello, everyone!! So, I want to get you up to speed about where we are and what we have been doing for the past week or so. Is that alright..? Great! :)

When Anna finished the last blog entry, the boat was just getting into port in Bari, Italy. From there, our plan was to take an overnight train up to Mannheim, Germany. We got on the train in Bari, and eventually found our seats.. in the same tiny room, seating six people in total, as three Italian young men (maybe 22-25 or so..) who did not speak English, but thought they could.. :) It was very interesting.. One of the guys especially was very outgoing, and kept trying to talk to us.. but we could not understand him at ALL!! His friend was a little bit better, and would sometimes translate.. But oh.. it was a very interesting night. They were pretty respectful, nothing TOO wierd happened, :) but it was just a very interesting night.

Anyways, so we got off the train in Milano, never to see those men again, and caught another train all the way up through the beautiful, snowy land of the Switzers! :) Up to Basel, Sziterland. From there we caught another train up into Mannheim, Germany. We stayed overnight with the Shareski's for one night. It was so good to see them again! It felt like it had been AGES since we'd seen them last. :) A lot has happened since then!

 The next morning, we got on a train, heading to Luxembourg! Our goal was to have "lunch in Luxembourg". And we did! However.. It was raining when we got there, and so we could not find any dry, warm place to sit and eat our sandwiches the Shareski's had so generously provided for us! We searched and searched for somewhere to eat.. but not for too long, cause we were cold and wet. We then saw a staircase leading underground! That looked promising. We followed it and it led us to an.. undergroud parking garage.. :) We looked at each other.. then shrugged. Its warm and dry! So we set our stuff down in a spot that said reserved, hoping that whoever it was reserved for would not be coming very soon. :) And then we ate our lunch in Luxembourg! Not entirely what we had been expecting, but it makes for a better story. :) We got a LOT of wierd looks, and once a policeman drove by slowly, and we thought he was going to come back and kick us out. But he didn't. :) 

..In the parking garage, for lunch! :)

After lunch, we wandered around the beautiful city of Luxembourg City, and it was beautiful! Even in the very soft, yet unrelenting, rain.

The view from Chemin de la Corniche, a walkway looking out over a part of Luxembourg City. :) So beautiful. After we wandered around for a bit, we made our way back to the train station to catch a train to our next destination.. Belgium! :)


Dendermonde, Belguim. This might seem like a random location, but it is because we "met" a family from here, and we were planning on staying with them. When I say "met", I don't exactly mean face-to-face. Let me explain. :) In Canada (we can't exactly remember how or from whom..), we learned about this thing called CouchSurfing. I don't know if everyone has heard of it, but its a HUGE community around the world and online where you can either be a "surfer", (a traveler who stays at peoples homes, on their "couch") or a "host", when you host people to stay at your house. Hopefully, you end up being both a surfer and a host at some point! For now, we are just surfers.. But someday I hope to be a host! I think its a wonderful idea. :) When we were looking into it while we were still in Canada, we found this family, (Lieke, Peter, and their 4 kids) who lived in Dendermonde, and asked them if we could stay at their house! They said yes! And so, here we are. We got into the Dendermonde train station, all prepared to find our way to their house using the instructions they gave us when we had communicated back and forth, but then when we got off the train, we heard someone calling our names! ..A very strange experience in a country you have never been in..But it was Lieke! She had come to pick us up because it was raining, and she didn't want us to walk all that way in the rain. Very thoughtful!! She drove us back to their house, and we met Peter. The kids were all in bed, because by this time it was 9:30 pm, or so. I should say 21:30, I suppose, since thats what everyone uses here. :) Then they showed us the house, and where we would be staying..

 Its beautiful! Dendermonde is a little town, I think maybe 40,000, :) But it really does have a small town feel. And the houses and streets are just so beautiful. So medieval! I love it. Just look at the picture! :)

 Anyways, they fed us supper, some leftover chicken and potatoes, with a VERY good orange sauce! Then for desert... Belgian chocolate mousse.. mmMMMmm.. SO good. Wow. I think I can honestly say its the best chocolate I have ever had. It took me a long time to eat, because it was so rich, and because there was quite a bit of it! A glass cupful. But it was so good. Anyways, after supper, we chatted with Lieke and Peter. They are a wonderful couple. SO nice, and just so fun! She is a elementary school teacher, who is at the moment taking some time off because she was just in the hospital for.. some viral infection in the brain, I think.. But she is recovering from it quickly, so thats good. Peter works at the Brussels Airport, and is a artist!! Leike showed us his workshop, and he is so good! So, they have been a fun couple to get to know. :) At about 11:30 that night, we all went to bed. They had to get up early to go to a gymnastic competition of their son, Bavo. And we were planning on going to Brussels for the day. So we all headed to bed. Then shortly after we all went to bed, I had a very.. strange experience.. Well, as many of you know, I have had a pretty bad cold for a couple weeks now, maybe evern three weeks. I just have a really bad cough, thats mostly all it is. Well, at about 12:30 am, I woke up coughing. I coughed and coughed.. and then.. threw up! But that was not the wierd part.. The wierd part was that it smelled entirely, and ONLY, of.. chocolate!! Ohh, it was wierd. :) And I wasn't even feeling sick, before or after I threw up.. It was so wierd. It must have been because I had so much chocolate, maybe. I just hope that I don't always associate the smell of choclate with.. throwing up! So, sorry to talk about throwing up on our blog.. but I thought it was a very.. interesting/unfortunate/funny first experience with true Belguim chocolate! It was SO good! ..but maybe TOO good for me. :)

ANYways.. :)

 The next morning, Anna and I went to Brussels for the day! It was Sunday, and we wanted to go to church. :) We had heard about this Assemblies of God church in Brussels, and kind of had an idea of where it was.. So, we set off to try and find it. ..Needless to say, we didn't find it.. Brussels is quite large.. So, we gave up, and decided to go back to the main square of the city just to wander around and see some things. We hopped on a bus to head back up into Brussels. (Where to church is is quite a ways south, and almost not in Brussels anymore.) The bus we jumped on was SO full!! It was packed to the hilt. So, we got pretty comfortable with the people beside us. The lady beside us was a black woman, who we discovered spoke English when she alsmot got pushed out of the door, and was trying to stay inside. :) We had a fun time trying to help keep her in. :) Anyways, at one stop, she said goodbye to another lady who was getting off the bus. She kissed her on the cheek, and said, "Bye! See you next week!" ..And I thought, "Hmm.. Thats what I say to people after church.. What are the odds..?" And so, I asked her if she had ever heard of this church where  we had just come from called the Christian Center. She said she had just come from there! Awesome. :) Turns out, most of the people on the bus had just come from there. :) And she said that there was an evening service too! Perfect. :) She told us how to get there, and apparently, we had been nowhere CLOSE to the church, when we were looking for it before. :) But now we knew. 

We spent the afternoon looking around a HUGE market and having our first legit Belguim waffle!! SO GOOD. Not what I was expecting at all! Or, not how WE do Belguim waffles at all, but it was SO good. They knew what they're doing! We found our way back to the church around 6, when it was going to start, and we found it! When the service started, we realized that it was entirely in French. We didn't understand a word. :) But some of the songs they sang were familar tunes, just with French lyrics! So we sang along, in English. The message was given by a lady who spoke English, with a translator. So, that was good, we could understand that. :) But it was a great experience. Then, after, we were waiting at the bus stop to catch the bus back to the train station, when a man came and asked us where we were headed. When we told his the train station, he told us they could give us a lift! We recognized them as people from the church, so we weren't worried. :) So, in total, there were three of them, and then Anna and I, in the small car. :) They were all black, from South Africa, and had come to Belguim 13 years ago! It was fun to get to know them a bit as well. The kindness of strangers! We thank God for little opportunites like this to get to know people from ALL different backgrounds. :)  We got on the train back to Dendermonde after a full day in Brussels. 
So, the picture above is our first experience with legit Belgium waffles. :) Basically, the only way you get them is from street vendors. If you get them in a restaurant, they are no longer legit Belgium waffles because they do it up all yummy like we North Americans like it, and it becomes just a tourist attraction. Legit Belgium waffles are just plain. And SO GOOD. Wow. You would not even believe. I was addicted to them for the rest of the trip. Just ask Anna. 

 The next day, we took a day trip to Gent and Brugge. They are two of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen! So.. surreal. :) And very midevil. Beauitful cities to walk around in.

A castle and a moat! In the middle of Ghent, Belgium. It was so EPIC. :)

The picturesque town of Brugge, Belgium. It was so medieval, and SO beautiful. :)

We had offered to make supper for our host family that evening, which was last evening, the 28th.. the last evening of Febuary! So we picked up the makings for stir-fry, and made it for them when we got home. :) It was fun.

Enea and Lieke, reading the books we brought them!

.And we finally met the kids! They had always been gone or alseep when we are here! But we got home early enough last night that we were able to meet ths kids, and give them the books we brough from Canada, and India! We heard that they collect childrens books from everywhere, and so we bought them some before we left Canada, and while we were in India. The youngest, Enea, (she is 5, I think) loved looking through them. She was SO cute! One of the boys, Bavo, who is 8, said that they were studying India in school! And so he brough the books to show the class today. :) Glad to be of service! They have another son, Arne, 10, and an oldest daughter, Nina, who is 16. A very cute, and VERY hospitable family! It has been fun to get to know them.

Well, today we are planning to go to Amsterdam. ..We are not yet sure if we will return to Dendermonde for one more night before making our way up to Norway, or if we will catch an overnight train to Copenhagenm and continue our journey north from there. I think we will spend one more night here. That would be fun! I like the relaxed pace of life here. Its a good break from the GO GO GO! :)

And that will give us time to add pictures as well! I think we will be leaving soon for Amsterdam, as its a two hour train ride, and then spend the afternoon there. Then come back, for one more night before making our way to the "motherland". (As my good friend Jonathon Leslie calls it. :) And I have started calling it that as well. It sounds so.. epic.) :)

Anyways, hope this finds you all very well! Signing off to write another day.. :)

And if you are wondering about the title, its because in Dendermonde, we are in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, but there is also a French speaking part, with its own government, and a German speaking part as well. Its.. crazy. :)

Anyways,

God Bless!

Demara