Day 3: A funny thing happened on the way to Paris...

So, Paris totally almost didn't happen. Yesterday (Monday) was our day we'd planned for Paris, and it turns out that Monday was also the day that the Belgian Transit decided to go on a strike! Yeah... And it didn't happen until we were already sitting on our train. Like right after we sat down we felt and heard the train shut down, and then there was an announcement that the train had shut off, and that there was a protest on the tracks.  So... we decided to just roll with it for awhile, and we came up with the plan that if it hadn't started running by 10:30am (about 2 hours after the scheduled departure) then we'd just get off the train and go find something else to do that day. We figured maybe we'd just save Paris for a different trip at another time. While we were waiting we watched Star Trek: Into Darkness on McGee's Ipod, so it wasn't so bad. We were completely relaxed really. But, then at about 10am the doors shut, and then the train started up! Off to Paris we went!

The transit employees came through the train handing out flyers with this on it. We didn't understand anything it said, but we got the general idea: We weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

We arrived in Paris at about 11:30am, and took another train to Notre Dame Cathedral, and oh my goodness it's jaw-dropping gorgeous. The windows are absolutely stunning (pictures can't do them justice), and the architecture is really beautiful too. After we finished there, we took the looooong walk from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, walking along the River Seine the whole time. It was beautiful. While walking, we passed by the Louvre, so we stopped by there to just kinda check out the building. We knew we wouldn't have time to go in (that's at LEAST a full day on its own!), so we just checked out the courtyard and the massive building. It's really stunning. We also stopped for lunch (with wine, of course!) on our walk, and we saw the very famous bridge with all of the locks (I have no idea what it's actually called... but I'm sure you've seen it! People buy locks to attach to the walls of the bridge, and it's supposed to "lock them in love forever"... hmm...).  After what felt like a millions steps, we finally reached the Eiffel Tower! And then we figured, "Hey, let's walk some more!" so we payed the 5 Euros to hike up the million steps to the 2nd floor. It was a tough climb, but it felt really good when we made it. And the views were amazing.

Notre Dame Cathedral

One of the windows! 

Another window! 

Notre Dame again! 

The locks on the bridge!

You can see the wall of locks! 

Part of the Louvre! Such a beautiful building!!  

The courtyard of the Louvre! It was great to just hang out here for a bit.

It's so pretty!! 

The view from the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower! It was very worth the hike.

 After we hiked back down those million steps (and my legs were soooo shaky by this point) we decided to go sit at a cafe and relax. McGee had some wine, and I had a coffee (it was chilly outside!). Then we walked back over to the Eiffel Tower, because we wanted to see it all lit up at night! It was soooo darn pretty. After we had our fill of watching people take selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower (people and their selfies are kind of obnoxious here... soooo many people even have those "selfie stick" things!), we took the train over to the Arc de Triomphe (because I was not up for that mile-plus walk at this point), and had a great time viewing the Arc at night. It's beautiful. We sat on a bench and just relaxed and enjoyed the amazing evening. It was lovely.

The Eiffel Tower at night!!  Gorgeous.

The Arc de Triomphe!

Here's the view from the bench we were sitting on for awhile! We had the whole area to ourselves. 

Then we went to another cafe for dinner, and then it was time to start our train rides back at about 8pm!!  It was such an amazing day, and I totally get what all of the fuss over Paris is about. It lives up to all its hype, and it's a really beautiful city. Oh, and just so you know I'm not exaggerating TOO much: We walked about 13 miles yesterday! It felt like more, but that may have been because of all those stairs to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. Our legs are hurting today!! We're having a blast!!

Day 2: In Bruges

We had an amazing day in Bruges yesterday, and I love that little city! It's so darn cute. Every part of it looks like something out of a fairytale. Oh and the De Halve Maan Brewery has hands-down the best brewery tour we've ever been on. The brewery itself is really cool with lots of history, but the part that makes it so great is the tourguide. She seems to give all of the English tours, and she is absolutely hilarious. Our whole tour was cracking up the entire time. Oh and the brewery has a LOT of crazy staircases you have to climb (she said that's why they give you the beer after the tour is over). But the reward is an amazing view at the end.

Here's handsome McGee! And he's looking slightly annoyed that I'm taking a picture of him while we're trying to figure out where we're going. 

This is Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges. It's the only work of Michelangelo's to leave Italy during his lifetime. It also plays an important role in the movie Monuments Men, if any of you have seen that!

Here it is again... 

This is Dumon. It has THE BEST chocolate. It's this very small shop that's family-owned and operated, and they make their chocolates fresh daily. It is SO delicious - definitely the best chocolate I've ever had.

Part of their central market area (Grote Markt)

The Belfry

Bruges! 

Bruges again! This was a view from the De Halve Maan Brewery tour. 

Yeah... Is this a fairytale scene or what?? 

Arrived in Brussels!

We arrived in Brussels this morning! We were both super excited, but we were also kinda zombified because neither of us slept on the flight (it was pretty impossible). When we arrived at our B&B, we both wanted to sleep, but instead we headed into town and got some Belgian waffles and coffee, and saw a few of the sights. The waffles here are SOOOOO amazing - they're nothing like we have back in the states! They have like a caramelized sugar on the outside of them - it's AMAZING.

THEN we went back to the hotel in the afternoon and had a pretty long nap (much longer than we intended to have!). After we woke up, we walked back to the main part of town and had some dinner and some amazing Belgian beers. We also had our first Belgian frites (fries)! I'm loving the beer here, and the waffles. Tonight we're both pretty exhausted so we're sitting in our room watching a movie while we get our Bruges plan together, and drinking some beer (Chimay Bleu for me, and Chimay Trippel for McGee). Tomorrow we're going to Bruges and that's where I'm going to have my first Belgian chocolate which I'm soooo excited about.

One of our waffles (in a handy holder) and our 2 coffees

The Grand Place

Another of The Grand Place

A close-up of one of the buildings!!  I don't know if you can see it clearly, but those are all huge statues of men. Kinda puts it in size-perspective maybe! 

They're in the process of putting up their huge Christmas tree! We're hoping they'll have it lit up within the next few days. 

The Mannekin Pis (it's a little boy peeing... It's one of Brussels' most famous landmarks)

Our first beers in Belgium! I tried their Kriek beer (which is one of their most popular, and it's cherry flavored), and McGee had a Westmalle trappist beer. 

Then I had Chimay Bleu and McGee had Rochefort 10.

Some of the pretty Christmas lights that are up! They are in the process of putting them up all over town.

The Grand Place all lit up at night! It's super pretty. 

Another of The Grand Place!  

We're loving it here already! We're going to try to go to bed at a normal time tonight and then hopefully be on a good normal schedule by tomorrow. We've been zombies most of today! We're SO excited for Bruges tomorrow though!!!  

Thanksgiving! And the insane week ahead...

McGee and I had a great Thanksgiving yesterday! We watched football (we won't talk about that Eagles game...), and had a great dinner. I even took a picture of our meal! We had turkey breast (which I cooked in the Crock Pot), mashed potatoes, and roasted brussel sprouts. And then we made an apple pie for dessert - McGee made the crust (the most difficult part!!)!

The color always looks weird in my food pictures...

And we watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving! I love that movie. 

We have an INSANE week this week!!  We both have very nutty schedules at work this week. I just stopped working this evening at 10pm... There's a HUGE project that just started, and I have to have it done before my vacation (which starts this Friday at 2:30pm). And we have SO much to get done to prepare for our trip still! Just laundry, packing, calling banks, etc... And Thursday night is when we have to go drop-off Guinness... so... oh my goodness. It's a bit overwhelming! We'll have a lot of early mornings and late evenings I think. And here's what Guinness thinks about that:

I just took this picture of him about 30 minutes ago. He fell asleep with his chew ring stuck on his leg. What a silly boy... 

I don't think I'll have any time to write the rest of this week, so I'll talk to you all either from Europe or when we get home! I'm going to try to do some posts while we're over there, but I'm just not sure what the WiFi situation will be like. So, we'll see! I hope you're all doing great! 

I still love Fall....

Last night was soooo relaxing and perfect. McGee and I were both really worn out from the week, so we made dinner together (sesame udon noodles with chicken), relaxed, and watched some movies that take place in Belgium to get even more excited for our trip. We watched Monuments Men (with George Clooney) and In Bruges (with Colin Farrell). Oh and Kevin made our first fire of the season in our fireplace. Guinness didn't really know what to think about the fire (I guess he forgot about the fires we had in the fireplace last Winter...), but he eventually decided it was ok and took a nice nap.

I thought this picture was funny... Guinness is photobombing! 

Today was a very productive day! We started out our day by raking leaves in our front yard for about 2 hours... Yes, 2 hours of raking leaves. We were going to go to the gym prior to raking leaves, but I am sooooo glad we didn't do that! I don't think I'd be able to move at all if we'd gone to the gym first. Here are some pictures of our yard before and after:

Before. Yeah... I swear we have a lawn under those leaves. It was a LOT of leaves to rake. 

Here are the 10 bags (there's some in a 2nd row there...) of leaves we raked (sorry the sun is kinda messing up this picture!). In PA, we have to put green waste in these tall paper bags that we buy at hardware stores or grocery stores. We don't get those handy green waste containers like they have in CA... I'm not sure why. 

I thought I'd take a close-up picture of our front steps. I know I mentioned in the Halloween post that our front steps are messed up... And it's even worse than it looks. Those stone slabs like to slide around and wobble like crazy. We always have to push them back into place so they don't fall off. They are not attached at all. It's not very safe..

Here's our lawn after raking! And that big ol' tree is the reason we had to do so much raking... It has lost 90% of its leaves now.

So, even though I had to do hours of raking today, I still love Fall. It's still an absolutely beautiful season, with perfect weather. I realized I hadn't really taken any pictures this year of the pretty trees for you guys! So, I snapped this photo of a tree on the corner of our street. 

And the chilly evenings during Fall mean that it's perfect for cuddling up on the couch with a blanket! Guinness is now a HUGE fan of cuddling, and it cracks me up. Even as I type this, he's cuddling with me on the couch. 

He's totally passed out in this one. 

And with that, here's the update on my Fall Bucket List! I've been slacking on making soups and breads (I have made a few soups, and I made Irish Soda Bread once), but maybe that's more fitting for Winter anyways? I'll definitely make lots of soups and breads this winter. And we're having our Thanksgiving-ish feast tomorrow, and we're going to watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving tomorrow. So, other than that, I think all we missed was watching Rosemary's Baby at Halloween... but things just got too busy around Halloween. Next year for that one!

NEAFS

This week I had to go to the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists (NEAFS) annual conference. Luckily, it was in a pretty easy location for me: Hershey, PA. That's only about 1.5 hours from where I live, so that's not too shabby. I arrived there on Sunday, and then I got to come home last night. The conference and accommodations for the conference were at the Hershey Lodge, which was pretty darn cool and adorable. They give you Hershey bars with EVERYTHING - when you check-in, with room service, when the maid cleans your room... It's a lot of chocolate. I tried to take lots of pictures of the hotel room and some of the cool stuff around the Hershey Lodge, so I hope you enjoy the pictures!

This was me enjoying my room service while watching the football game. The sandwich was sooo good (it was a grilled cheese made with fresh mozzarella and tomato), but it came with coleslaw which was soooo gross. Luckily I'd also ordered a salad to go with my sandwich. And that's my goblet of milk by the TV. Yes, I drink milk (and usually order it with my room service whenever I'm traveling for work). 

Here's the Hershey bar (and a fresh daisy!) that came with my room service. 

The wallpaper in the bathroom had Hershey Kisses all over it! So cute. 

The toiletries were AMAZING. They were all made with chocolate, and I got to walk around all day smelling like chocolate. 

The sheets had Hershey Kisses on them too, but it was very subtle so I had trouble capturing it in a photo. I had to get the light reflecting off it just right! Hopefully you can see it.

This was a baby that was attending the conference... That was definitely a first for me. She was adorable and quite well-behaved, but I couldn't figure out why there was a baby at a Forensic Science conference... Luckily she was way too young to understand anything that was talked about, or any of the pictures that were shown during the conference. 

By the end of the conference, Hershey had started decorating for Christmas! 

This was a fireplace in the lobby, which I loved. I definitely sat here whenever I had 15 minutes or so to spare. It was a massive fireplace, with openings on all four sides of it, so people could sit on any side and have full access to the warmth and the pretty view.

I hope you're all doing well, and enjoying this amazing Fall weather!!  We're loving it. I can't believe we leave in just a few weeks for Belgium!! Crazy!!!  

Halloween

We had a really great Halloween!

We carved our super awesome pumpkin, and we both loved our pumpkin we picked out this year! The shape was really unique and fun, and we both loved it at first sight when we were at Linvilla Orchards. We put it on our porch next to a few other cool pumpkins we liked at Linvilla (but we didn't carve those up), and we also had a few cool gourds.

Isn't he cute??  

There's our other pumpkins and the gourds! I forgot to take any pictures of them during the day... 

There's McGee waiting for trick-or-treaters! You can see some of our window decorations too. 

We set up our tailgating chairs on our porch and were ready for trick-or-treaters! We wanted to sit outside, because our front steps are really messed up (and surprise surprise, our crappy landlord hasn't fixed them even though we've been nagging him every week) and we were worried about kids tripping or something. Sadly, we did not have many trick-or-treaters, and the ones that did show up were older... They all looked like emo teenagers, and I don't know if they were even wearing costumes, or if it was just their emo makeup. We have SO much candy leftover... I'd really thought we were going to get lots of trick-or-treaters since we live on a busy road, but it turns out people don't go trick-or-treating on busy roads!  Who knew... After about 30 minutes of just sitting there though and no trick-or-treaters, we decided to head inside and watch Hocus Pocus, and The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. We ended up having a very fun and relaxing evening, and it was nice to be toasty warm in our house rather than on the porch. It was a chilly night!

Today we went and saw the movie Fury! It was really amazing, but super intense (which is suggested by the title... so we weren't surprised). I'm really glad we were able to see it on the big screen though. SUCH an awesome movie. And when we got home, we made an amazing pork chop dish for dinner using some of our Linvilla apples, and it had an apple cider sauce. We also cooked up some farro to have with it, and neither one of us had ever tried farro before, but it's really delicious! And for dessert we're going to have some apple pie that I made a few days ago with some of our Linvilla apples. The pie turned out quite delicious, and has been our dessert the past few nights.

The apple pie. I did not take this picture though... It was from the website where I got the recipe. It's what mine looks like though! The lighting in my kitchen just isn't very good...

Now, we are watching maybe the worst movie ever, which is why I'm doing a blog on a Saturday evening. So, for some reason we own the movie King Kong (the one with Jack Black). McGee has owned it for many years, and has never seen it... but we know it's awful so we haven't wanted to see it... But we didn't want to get rid of it until we'd seen it. So, for years we've had it set aside, because if we watch it then we're finally going to get rid of it.  So, tonight it is happening, with the help of a good amount of alcohol.  I hope you're all having a great night! And take my advice: Don't watch King Kong. I realize I might be many years late with this advice though...