Hi everyone and Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Hoping you had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We surely did here in Belgium even though it is not technically celebrated. Since we were not going to be making it home for Thanksgiving, Aunt Amy, Uncle Brian and Ray decided to visit us in Brussels! We had a great time even though the weather was not the greatest. The winter weather officially moved in the morning they arrived and we had temps ranging from the 30s to 40s! Even some snow on the last weekend totalling up to 3-inches! It is rare to get snow this early in the winter season and even rarer to get 3 whole inches!

On the Dorbands' first day we showed them around Brussels and all our favorite nooks including the best Belgian fries and our favorite Belgian beers. On day two we traveled 60km south of Brussels to Namur to check out the enormous castle there. On the third day we went north to Brugge for the day and managed to catch a sunset in the sea town of Oostend, just north of Brugge. The following day we visited Gent, just south of Brugge and also finished the day with a sunset in Oostend... It was too pretty the first time and we couldn't resist. Sorry for the abundant photos of sunsets... Next we moved out of Belgium and hit Amsterdam for a day. The following day was Thanksgiving and we spent the day just as most Americans do: by preparing way too much food, except whole turkeys are very rare here, so we made-do with some roasted chickens. The last two days were spent touring Paris where they also got some snow! We had a great time showing the Dorbands some sights around western Europe and getting to spend Thanksgiving with family! There are of course pictures to share from the week:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=d3mrqfc.s7cr2wk&Uy=4qno7f&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=99180724297_23476268508

Well, after our second round of visitors we are getting back to our traveling routine and we will be visiting Barcelona, Spain this weekend. We are definitely looking forward to some warmer weather and the sights of Barcelona!

We hope this post finds everyone well!
Take care!
Jackie and Joe

Ciao!

This past week our travel itinerary took us to Rome and Florence, Italy! This was definitely the highlight trip for both of us. With the Armistice holiday (Europe's veteran's day) we were able to take a long weekend to quickly tour both of these amazing cities. It was nice to see both cities and the major differences between the two. We were very lucky and had blue skies and temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees! We began our tour in Rome and nearly walked our legs off getting to see the many sites of Rome, from ancient ruins to the Vatican City. It seemed that everywhere we walked we found amazing sites. From Rome we took the 1.5 hour train ride to Florence. This city was a totally different atmosphere from Rome. It is a much smaller and laid back city. We enjoyed our quick tour and also fit in some relaxing moments for lunch and late afternoon as we overlooked the city from Piazza Michaelangelo. Between the two cities we definitely were able to add a few pounds (or kilos if you're metric) with the pasta, pizza and gelatto we devoured daily! It was definitely too short of a trip, but definitely worth it to get a taste of Italy!
Of course there are many photos for your viewing pleasure:

Rome, Italy:http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=d3mrqfc.11v6g1vg&Uy=4snunx&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=258116323614_32137135508
Florence, Italy:http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=d3mrqfc.elbput8&Uy=o37f4p&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Well, we hope this finds you well and ready to devour some Turkey! We will be enjoying our second visitors: The Dorband Family, who will be spending their Thanksgiving Holiday with us in Brussels! We are very excited to have some company and show them around Belgium and nearby!

Happy Thanksgiving - please eat some turkey for us! (whole turkeys are very rare and have to be ordered in advance at an expensive rate, so we will have to skip out on the tradition this year and substitute with a chicken!)
Arrivederci!
- Jackie and Joe

Top o' the mornin to ya!

Things in Belgium continue to go very well for us. We have really hit the fast track with our traveling as we are already nearing the three month countdown until our return to the U.S.! We are wasting no time and have a lot of great trips planned for the next month - so my fingers will be busy taking pictures and posting them for you to check out - sorry for extensive amount of pictures... I can't help it! So flip through as fast as you want.

We spent this past weekend in Dublin, Ireland - which was really great. It was a really quick trip since we flew in Saturday morning and left Sunday evening, but a deal we couldn't pass up from a discount airline. You can buy flights around here for cheap if you look hard enough (we're talking only 5 euros (before tax of course)! Anywho, we spent Saturday just walking the streets of Dublin. We toured the Guinness Brewery and just checked out a bunch of pubs trying to find some Irish music, which you would think would be no problem right? Actually not so much - we heard a blues band, a heavy metal band and even a ska band. We didn't find live Irish music until Sunday evening right as we had to leave! Sunday we found a tour guide who would drive us through the Wicklow County, which is the "Garden of Ireland" south of Dublin only 20 km. We had a genuine Irish tour guide driving us through their mountains and valleys and even to the most historic monastic site in Ireland. We really lucked out on the weather and avoided rain almost the whole weekend and even had sunshine!
It was a great trip with plenty of great photos:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=d3mrqfc.wdnnpmk&Uy=-klof6i&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Well, thanks to Joe being in the UK for work most of this week, I had the chance to get all caught up on the website to present day! We actually leave Friday morning for Rome and Florence, Italy. We have four days thanks to Armistice (veterans) day - and we are really excited for this trip! We'll let you know how it goes!
Hope this post finds everyone well and in good health. We are getting antsy for our next visitors (The Dorband Family!!) during the Thanksgiving holiday, which is fast approaching!

Au Revoir for now!
Jackie and Joe

Bonjour everyone!

Jackie and I visited London, England over the last weekend in October. We enjoyed two full days of walking throughout the city to see some of the major sites, from the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace to the Tower Bridge. We also had the chance to see "The Producers", a play that we couldn't get into on Broadway back in the States. It was especially nice to be able to have full conversations in English with all the locals, and other tourists. The only unfortunate part of only going for a weekend is that we didn't have time to get to a football, cricket or rugby match...not to mention having to get another currency (the Pound) that is even better against the dollar than the euro.

Overall, London was a cool city with a ton to see, take a look...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=d3mrqfc.187oa5ik&Uy=-iugwdw&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0