Europe 2011

[Beth]: I am always amazed how quiet our apartment feels when one of us is sick.  Sadly, Jared is currently sick.  He was supposed to be on a plane to Montreal for work, but a stomach bug had other plans for him.  In trying to be quiet and let him sleep, I have been catching up on emails and life.

We have been gone from San Diego for much of the month of March.  Thus, the playing catch up – and the return of the blog!  I suppose one day our “second chances” of jump starting the blog after months of silence will grow old.  Perhaps it already has.  I guess we’ll see if we get any comments, or even have any readers still.

The biggest event of March was our trip to Belgium and France.  What an adventure!  To set the stage, Jared found out last November that he would get to return to Paris for a conference for work.  But then unbeknownst to me, he also got approved for a second conference – the previous week in Brussels!  He looked at airfare, took a gamble, and bought me a ticket too.  For Christmas, he completely surprised me with the ticket and trip!  On Christmas morning, I first opened a box of Belgian truffles.  Yummy, I though.  What girl doesn’t like chocolate?  Second, I opened a box of French truffles.  I will never turn down more chocolate.  Third, the plane ticket and my utter amazement!  And last was a trusty Rick Steves guidebook (we never leave the country without one).

So we were off.  5 days in Brussels and 5 in Paris.  Although we have been to Paris before, Brussels would be a completely new experience.  We learned that about half of the Belgians speak French, half speak Flemish, and nearly everyone in Brussels speaks English fluently.  Our French has steadily improved, but we are nowhere near fluent.  As it turns out, Belgium is just about the perfect country for us: beer for Jared, chocolate for me (see below), and lots of history and tasty food!

I plan to take our trip day by day in the coming week or so.  So please stay tuned for lots of pictures, foodie talk, and maybe a misadventure or two!