Um, Where's the Ice?! - A July 2012 European and DLRP Adventure*UPDATE 12/15 Pg.29*

[PopArtGal]

My dad will be happy to learn that you are slowly convincing me to go to Disneyland Paris. (My first language is French but I'm perfectly. But my dad is not. So hereally wants to go to a park where he understands everything). I've been against it for so long since I've heard less than stellar reviews hehe

 

[PopArtGal]

I know I may have said it before but I love you as a platinum blonde!

 

[PopArtGal]

My mom and I keep telling each other that we can't wait to have a stroller to use it as a weapon as a sort of revenge from past stroller accidents lol

Did you try the croque monsieur at Be our guest? It so not is a real croque monsieur.

 

[PopArtGal]

I think I've seen Kiplings bags in stores here too. Are they the ones with a monkey keychain with it? If so, why?

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

I think I've seen Kiplings bags in stores here too. Are they the ones with a monkey keychain with it? If so, why?

Here is the story behind Kipling bags:

Founded in 1987 with its name inspired by Rudyard Kipling, the author of "The Jungle Book". Headquartered in New York City with products developed and designed in Antwerp, Belgium.

Whenever you think of Kipling, you think of the monkey. Of course the brand name "Kipling" and Rudy Kipling's famous work "The Jungle Book" give Kipling the perfect connection. Monkeys are symbols of fun and adventure, so the monkey naturally became the brand's mascot. And not very much later, it became the monkey key ring. Every Kipling monkey is named after an employee from somewhere around the world. Every collection has its own unique monkey! The monkey has definitely become a collector's item for anyone who is fun-loving and young at heart.

Danielle and I have a lot of Kipling bags. We love them because they are so durable. I gave my best friends each a Kipling bag about two years ago and one of my friends Debbie is now hooked, every time we get together she has another Kipling bag.

 

[PopArtGal]

Here is the story behind Kipling bags:

Founded in 1987 with its name inspired by Rudyard Kipling, the author of "The Jungle Book". Headquartered in New York City with products developed and designed in Antwerp, Belgium.

Whenever you think of Kipling, you think of the monkey. Of course the brand name "Kipling" and Rudy Kipling's famous work "The Jungle Book" give Kipling the perfect connection. Monkeys are symbols of fun and adventure, so the monkey naturally became the brand's mascot. And not very much later, it became the monkey key ring. Every Kipling monkey is named after an employee from somewhere around the world. Every collection has its own unique monkey! The monkey has definitely become a collector's item for anyone who is fun-loving and young at heart.

Danielle and I have a lot of Kipling bags. We love them because they are so durable. I gave my best friends each a Kipling bag about two years ago and one of my friends Debbie is now hooked, every time we get together she has another Kipling bag.

Now it makes sense! Thank you!

 

[TinksThree]

It may seem like you lost me...but not really! I get caught up, say hooray!!! and then one month later I am so far behind reading and udating my own TR! But this one keeps making me want to go to Belgium! Will your family be my personal tour guides?!

The pictures are great and I love history so all of your side notes were fantastic!!! And the food......

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

It may seem like you lost me...but not really! I get caught up, say hooray!!! and then one month later I am so far behind reading and udating my own TR! But this one keeps making me want to go to Belgium! Will your family be my personal tour guides?!

The pictures are great and I love history so all of your side notes were fantastic!!! And the food......

We would love to be your personal tour guide When are we leaving?

 

[IheartDDuck]

Walkers shortbread rock!

I often don't realize how much import we get from the UK because Canada is still owned by them hehe I guess I take all that for granted.

My experience with American Express is that it's often not accepted in Canada or elsewhere. So I always carry my Visa. I know that amex sometimes sucks!

Walker's shortbread are one of my favorites! I love them so so much. They're pretty expensive for us here, so we try to buy them during holiday time when they're in better packaging and pricing.

Amex just basically irritated us at that point. My parents closed all of their accounts because of it.

It is so cool that you speak Dutch! I'd love to learn a third language.

I'm definitely not fluent, but I do speak a bit. Enough to get around and understand.

I love the Warhol in the room!

 

[IheartDDuck]

My dad will be happy to learn that you are slowly convincing me to go to Disneyland Paris. (My first language is French but I'm perfectly. But my dad is not. So hereally wants to go to a park where he understands everything). I've been against it for so long since I've heard less than stellar reviews hehe

It's definitely not Disney World. And Europeans as a whole are really different than Americans, which is why I think it gets a bad wrap. I feel sometimes people go there expecting it to be just like America and Americans, and then they don't understand why on earth people are culturally different. They just come across as slightly cold at times, but that applies to a lot of European countries.

I know I may have said it before but I love you as a platinum blonde!

Thanks! Obviously you know it's different now, but I love just messing around with it. The platinum was lots of fun.

My mom and I keep telling each other that we can't wait to have a stroller to use it as a weapon as a sort of revenge from past stroller accidents lol

Did you try the croque monsieur at Be our guest? It so not is a real croque monsieur.

I haven't had the croque monsieur at Be Our Guest yet, because we haven't gotten to eat there for lunch yet. Hopefully in January. But I'm fully expecting that it won't be like a real one.

 

[IheartDDuck]

I think I've seen Kiplings bags in stores here too. Are they the ones with a monkey keychain with it? If so, why?

Here is the story behind Kipling bags:

Founded in 1987 with its name inspired by Rudyard Kipling, the author of "The Jungle Book". Headquartered in New York City with products developed and designed in Antwerp, Belgium.

Whenever you think of Kipling, you think of the monkey. Of course the brand name "Kipling" and Rudy Kipling's famous work "The Jungle Book" give Kipling the perfect connection. Monkeys are symbols of fun and adventure, so the monkey naturally became the brand's mascot. And not very much later, it became the monkey key ring. Every Kipling monkey is named after an employee from somewhere around the world. Every collection has its own unique monkey! The monkey has definitely become a collector's item for anyone who is fun-loving and young at heart.

Danielle and I have a lot of Kipling bags. We love them because they are so durable. I gave my best friends each a Kipling bag about two years ago and one of my friends Debbie is now hooked, every time we get together she has another Kipling bag.

Now it makes sense! Thank you!

Hahaha, obviously my Momma went into good detail about the Kipling bags.

 

[IheartDDuck]

It may seem like you lost me...but not really! I get caught up, say hooray!!! and then one month later I am so far behind reading and udating my own TR! But this one keeps making me want to go to Belgium! Will your family be my personal tour guides?!

The pictures are great and I love history so all of your side notes were fantastic!!! And the food......

No worries, I'm going super slow on this one, so you're definitely not far behind.

I have absolute no problem being your personal tour guide.

The food is absolutely insane.

We would love to be your personal tour guide When are we leaving?

Tomorrow?

 

[IheartDDuck]

Wednesday July 4, 2012

We had a somewhat relaxing day ahead of us. The next day the plan was to drive to Amsterdam (about an hour and a half away), so we wanted to just chill with Chris and Heinz.

PLUS....I needed to get a hair straightener that was for European voltage. Why do you ask? Well, we had converters for everything that we needed. When we were in DLRP, I had plugged my Chi hair straightener (i.e. a really expensive one), and it burned my hair! Because it was running too high. And then, it stopped working. $100 for a hair straightener, and it just konks out. Whatever.

So I needed to get one. Nothing super expensive, just good enough to get me through. Plus, little did I know it would come in handy later when my brother and I went to Italy.

The plan on top of that was to go to the market. Belgium (and a lot of Europe) is known for what we would call Farmers Markets. They are just the market there. Each city has a different day for their market. Basically the vendors travel around from city to city to sell their goods. You're mind is going to be blown by the pictures of this market. Seriously. Mine was.

On the way we saw a police motorcycle parked on the sidewalk.



They have EVERYTHING at these markets. And you don't only have one vendor to pick from. Take cheese for instance. There's like 5 different vendors! Fresh bread. Ach. I'm just dying thinking about it. I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.







OMG the cheese! The ccchhhhhheeeeessssseeeee!





Fish vendors.



Fresh baked bread anyone? And they slice it for you on the spot.



Heinz is so cute with his cart. Everyone has them. You buy, stick it in there, and keep walking through the market.



See? Everyone has them.



Bakery goods. Again, I'm dying to have one of the eclairs.



These are waffles!



There was so much more I didn't get. They had clothes, jewelry, shoes, absolutely everything. Makes our "farmers markets" look like a joke! And everything was incredibly fresh, so tasty. Chris and Heinz do almost all of their shopping there. They don't generally go to grocery stores. Yes, they have them, but the markets are just jam packed. It's the way you can get your local storeowners (butcher, cheese makers, bakers), all in one place. The equivalent of a grocery store without the store environment. So incredible to me.

Chris and Heinz have particular people that they shop with. And the cool thing is that they have relationships with them, so they get free things because they know them. An example? We went to the fish vendor to get stuff for dinner, and he gave us the fish salad that was purchased for free, simply because Heinz is Heinz. Cool stuff. :good vibes

Heinz basically did grocery shopping for the next few days at the market. What did I come back with?

Dutch Cosmo



Dutch Beau Monde



And my hair straightener! Woo hooooo!



I thought that I took pictures of it, but I clearly didn't.

We had a cold lunch of salad, smoked herring, fish salad, cheese, and bread. Now, I hate herring. Like, the pickled variety that we are all used to. However, this is fresh smoked herring, and it was incredible. Nothing like it.

Up next: Let's just talk again about how amazing Chris cooks.....

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

Boy do I wish that the farmers markets would be like that here. So many vendors selling their stuff. Fresh, fresh, fresh food everywhere. I remember as a child in Wijnegem we had our market on Fridays. My mom would buy fresh smoked Herring that was just delicious. And the bread Wow amazing.

 

[PopArtGal]

The markets look cool. We have a small very small version of that here. But it's only during the summer and like you said, on certain days of the week.

 

[CarolynK]

I'd love to have that farmer's market close by! What a great way to shop! When we were in Rome last summer we shopped daily for our food (we rented an apartment) and it was such a different experience, but we loved it!!

Impressive cheese selection.

Was the hair straightener a reasonable price? It's not something one usually has to shop for on vacation!

 

[zanzibar138]

We have markets like that in Australia. I didn't even know it was a 'thing' until now Now I understand why the Queen Vic Markets are such a big tourist drawcard

 

[teekathepony]

I wish so much that we could have markets like that here. Our local farmers market really is a joke, it's small even compared to other joke farmers markets! Lol everything looks so tasty, I think I could spend hours just looking at each different cheese!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[Aussie Wendy]

We have markets like that in Australia. I didn't even know it was a 'thing' until now Now I understand why the Queen Vic Markets are such a big tourist drawcard

Me too, though Queen Vic takes the pick of most Aussie markets I think. One of my favourite local market produce stalls has to be the Vietnamese greengrocers-such great fresh green stuff! When it comes to multicultural food I think we are spoilt in Aus as just how good we have it, either buying the raw products to cook at home or eating out.

 

[mebbradley]

Oh my gosh! I read the whole thing last night! I loved your report so far and really like the info on the other countries!

Following along now!