Paris

We spent the last two days in Paris! It was so wonderful and such a romantic few days. After a rough train ride that we were lucky to make, we decided our first stop would be the Eiffel Tower. We waited in line for about 3 FREEZING hours before finally making it to the top. Although it was cold and long, it was perfect and worth the wait. The views from the top were spectacular.

After being outside in the cold for hours, we had some much needed coffee before heading over to the Arc de Triomphe and a few other sites before dinner. The next day started with unpleasant rain and a lot of sight seeing. We did everything from Notre Dame to the Royal Palace. It was a long day, but we were able to see everything we wanted to see.

After a short nap, we headed out for a great French dinner. The food was unbelievable and the ambience was exactly what we imagined. It was such a wonderful and magic 2 days! We left this morning for Dublin. This will be a little change of pace, but we will definitely be welcoming the New Year in the perfect place!

Happy New Year!

Brussels

After spending a few days in Bonn and Cologne, Marie, Nick, Brian, and I jumped on a train and were off to Belgium. It took 4 separate trains to get there…one that looked like it was built in the 1930’s. Our first order of business was to check out the Grand Place. It is by far the most beautiful plaza I’ve seen…so far. When we first walked into the plaza we were in awe of its beauty and architecture. As we were admiring the buildings, music started to play the Hallelujah Chorus. We all knew this was going to be a once in a lifetime experience and such a memorable moment. After seeing the plaza, we walked around to a few other sights, the peeing boy, his sister, the peeing girl, but shortly realized Brussels wouldn’t be complete without a Belgium Waffle. We indulged ourselves in a few yummy treats, then ventured back out to sight see. We ended up at the Delirium, the bar that has over 2600 beers. We all tried too many exotic beers, ranging between 8-13% alcohol. The beer was so good, it had to be, Marie drank 5…that has to be a record! (and I thought the bar held quite a record) Haha!

The next day I forced everyone out of bed so we could get to the Atomium as early as possible to beat the lines. This is a HUGE metal structure which resembles an atom and serves no purpose. It was built for the world exposition, like the Eiffel tower, but is anything but romantic or beautiful. We were able to go inside and go into the different areas. The view from the top was great, but the Atomium was not that impressive. The only thing impressive is that someone actually had the idea to build a giant atom that would serve no purpose…

We headed back to the city and checked out a few churches, including one that it is famous for peeing on. That’s right, you are allowed to pee on the church. It actually has pseudo urinals. And yes, you guessed right, Brian put them to good use. We then decided to venture out to the “best French Fries in Brussels”, but were a little disappointed that it was closed. With our hunger building, we decided Mussels in Brussels were the way to go for dinner. We all tried the mussels, including Marie! No one actually liked them…except Brian!! He’s becoming quite the seafood lover… We decided to head back to the hotel early, since we drank all of the beer in Belgium the night before and had an early train ride to Paris this morning. We’ll be in Paris for the next 2 days and are excited for our next adventure!

Merry Christmas from the VanAsperen girls!

Marie and Nick made it to Germany safe and sound! Brian and I picked up Marie and Nick yesterday from the Amsterdam airport. Being with them really made Christmas wonderful! On our way back to Bonn, we made a side trip to Asperen, Netherlands. Our expectations were pretty low, but the city was incredibly cute and only about 10 minutes off the beaten path...

The town is about one street which is made all of brick. At the end of the street, there is a huge cathedral and a few homes. We spent about 45 minutes walking around the town and pretending that we knew everyone that lived there or that we are in some way related. All of the shops and restaurants were closed, but we did get a good feel of the town and were definitely surprised by the community.

We made it back to Bonn around 4pm. We put the turkey in and started getting everything ready for Christmas dinner. Marie and Nick were pretty tired from the flight, but were able to stay awake to enjoy the holiday! After days and hours of waiting, I was finally able to open my gifts. ;) It was a tough day of waiting, but in the end, worth the wait... We had a great Christmas dinner and wonderful night!

Today we are heading over to Cologne to see the sights and of course the cathedral. Everything is closed today for Christmas so we're hoping that we're able to find a good German restaurant tonight so Marie and Nick can have some yummy German food.

Just because Brian is so excited about his mustache, but refuses to take a good picture, I'm posting this one...maybe it will encourage him to shave... (probably not) Any encouragement will be greatly appreciated!

We all missed everyone back at home so much, but are excited about our travels over the next few weeks!

Merry Christmas Eve...from Luxembourg

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Eve. Brian and I spent the day in Luxembourg. The city is only 2 hours from Bonn so we made the short trip to enjoy a little sight-seeing. Although it's a small country, the city offered a great atmosphere and really had the old European feel with a touch of modern. It was a short day, but we were able to get a feel for the city and see a new country.

Tomorrow Marie and Nick arrive! We're so excited. Tonight Brian and I will just be getting everything ready for Christmas tomorrow. For Christmas dinner, we'll be having Marie, Nick, Brad, and Daniel. I'm cooking my first ham and also a small turkey. It should be interesting...

Brian and I really miss you all and can't wait to see you next year!

Ice Skating and Our Christmas Trip

Last night Brian and I ventured out into the cold wintry weather to go ice skating. Bonn has 2 different open air ice skating rinks in the city. Both are fully decorated with Christmas lights and play US and German Christmas carols. We skated for about an hour and although I'm a horrible ice skater, I had a great time. Bonn continues to put me in the Christmas mood, especially now that Brian and I are both on break. We're both done with work and class until January...

We decided to hold off on travel until Marie and Nick arrive in 6 days. Our Christmas trip will be a lot of traveling, but is going to be so much fun! We begin our trip by picking Marie and Nick up in Amsterdam on Christmas day. We're planning (if Marie and Nick aren't too exhausted) to walk around the city for a short time (everything will be closed) then head back to Bonn. On our way back, we're going to stop at Asperen, Netherlands.


A little Van Asperen history:
I don't know much about my family heritage, but I do know that when my ancestors came to America, they took the last name of the village they came from..."Asperen" Van in Dutch means from, so we apparently took the name "from Asperen" which is "Van Asperen". Asperen was a former municipality in Zuid-Holland; since 1 Jan 1986 it is part of Lingewaal municipality in Gelderland province. It was part of the region known as "Vijf-herenlanden". To the right is the Asperen flag. The colors are from the old Asperen arms. The Asperen arms are for the original family which settled in Asperen, the Van Arkel's. Supposedly, the family was guided to this tribal land by a swan which is where they settled. The ship represents the location of the village on the Linge River.


That's about all I've researched about my family history, but it should be exciting to see...we'll return to Bonn in the late afternoon and have a nice Christmas dinner. On the 26th we're going to spend the day in Cologne. We leave on the 27th for Brussels, Belgium. We spend 2 nights there before heading to Paris, France on the 29th. We will do some great sight-seeing and leave on New Year's Eve for Dublin, Ireland. We'll bring in the New Year in style with Irish music and our own pub crawl. We're meeting some of our friends in Dublin as well. We fly into Dusseldorf, Germany on January 2nd and plan to spend a few hours there if we're not too exhausted. We'll have a relaxing night back in Bonn before driving to Switzerland on the 3rd. Our drive will be through southern Germany, Austria, and the smallest German speaking country in the world: Liechtenstein. We'll be in Savognin, Switzerland for 3 days and will ski down the Swiss Alps (I'm so nervous). We're staying in a winter sports city so there will be everything from skiing to curling. We head back to Bonn on January 6th. Marie and Nick leave on the 7th. We will all probably be so exhausted, but it will be so much fun!

Our Christmas Party

On Friday night, Brian and I hosted our first Christmas party. We enjoyed singing Christmas carols, Christmas games, great holiday food and drinks, and of course ugly sweaters. The party was fun and definitely got everyone in the Christmas spirit.


The first picture is of all of the TLP's in Germany singing Christmas carols and the picture to the right is of Brian playing one of our Xmas games.


This is Brian's last week of work until January 5th, so he'll probably be really busy trying to get everything done before the holidays. I have class this week, but won't babysit because the family is back in the States for the holidays.

O Tannenbaum

Brian and I are ready for Christmas! We have our tree up and are starting to decorate a little bit for the holidays and Marie and Nick's arrival! Only 16 more days! Does my excitement show? Haha! This week is going great! We're having a Christmas party on Friday night, so we've been trying to get everything ready for this weekend! I hope everyone is getting excited for the holidays!

Back to School...

I finally decided to force myself to sign up for German classes last week. I have been trying to find a good class since I got to Germany in September and I finally found a good school. Classes started this week at Steinke-Institut in Bonn. This is a very intense class, meeting 5 days a week (Monday - Friday) 9am-12:15. I've already learned a lot and am having a lot of fun. I definitely feel like I'm back in college. I have homework every night and an exam schedule. My class is made up of people from all over the world. There is a girl from Malaysia, a girl from China, a guy from Israel, a guy from Uzbekistan, a woman from Hungry, and a woman from California. Since we all speak different languages, class is taught only in German. This is definitely helping/forcing me learn fast.

Between class and babysitting, time is really flying by this week. Brian gets home tonight from Northern Germany. His plant visit went well and things are really coming together for him at work. The Bonn plant and office are on shut down from December 19 - January 4 so Brian will have more time off than anticipated for Christmas. We are starting to plan a trip to Sweden before Marie and Nick arrive on Christmas. Only 21 more days!

Athens, Greece

Brian and I spent the last 3 days in Athens, Greece. This was such an amazing experience. Athens is so much different than any of the other places I've been. It has so much history and different places to see. It seemed liked every minute we stumbled on another adventure.

After arriving on Friday night, we found our way to our hotel. The hotel we stayed at was very interesting and quite funky. The reception desks were old VW beetles and there was a monkey hanging in the hall. Our room came complete with a tiger skin blanket on the bed. It was a really fun place to stay. Our balcony overlooked a beautiful plaza.

The next morning, Brian and I were able to tour the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. It rained the entire day, but we were still able to get to the top and see everything. The only positive thing about all of the rain was the lack of tourists.

After a long day of sight-seeing and being soaking wet from head to toe, we decided to eat at a traditional Greek restaurant with a very warm fire place. The food was great! We were also able to experience a little night life as well. We didn't stay out too late because we knew we'd have to be rested for Sunday and our tour of the Aegina island. We were able to see a lot of different areas of the island while we were there. We took a horse and carriage ride and also rented a four wheeler. The weather was great, 70 and sunny. Before we left the island, we watched a beautiful sunset over the Aegean Sea. I really loved Greece and didn't want to leave!

We made it back to Bonn around 2pm today. Brian had to go into work and I had to pick up my text books for German class that starts tomorrow. I have it Monday - Friday from 9-12. It is going to be very intense, but I'm glad I'll be able to learn a little bit of the language while I'm here! Brian leaves tomorrow morning for a 3 day business trip to northern Germany. I should keep really busy between my classes and babysitting.