An American Christmas in Alsace/Belgium/Holland

I’ll try to keep this one short (and as I re-read it, fairly uninteresting)

The Weisman family adventure was great. Plenty of ups and downs (downs of note: cancelled and delayed flights/trains, lost luggage, stolen purse, etc) and it was strange being so far from home/the clausens for Christmas, but all in all a good time.

Our Itinerary:

Day one: Met up in Basel, Switzerland. Despite Europe transportation going haywire, the fam still arrived in time for delicious swiss fondue dinner.

Day two: Colmar, France

Day Three: Strasbourg, France --The Capital of Christmas!

Day four: Strasbourg-Brussels (Though Brussels doesn’t really count since we got there pretty late due to train detours and once we arrived the city was shut down because of snow/christmas)

Day five: Arrive in Bruges. Lanie and Julia surprise mom and dad with a Christmas Eve feast (and Ned splashes wine all over himself in his attempts to open the bottle).

Day Six: Christmas in Bruges (with waffles for breakfast naturally)

Day seven: Head to Amsterdam where we spent a lot of the day in the police station reporting mom’s stolen purse (but they were nice and gave us dutch Christmas bread)

Day eight: Strolling, museums and good food in Amsteram

(we aresterdam?)

Day nine: More strolling, more museums (including the rather strange "Heinekin Experience" pictured below) and more good food in Amsterdam

Day ten: Head back to Brussels. Cool light show in the main square, Magritte Museum

Day eleven: I get up early to catch my train home. Make friends with the conductor on the train to St. Dié. Settle back in at the internat only to find...no internet! arg. (That's also why I'm posting this a week late)

Other main components/ kewords of the trip:

Beer:

Mulled wine (vin chaud, gluwein, whatever) :

train:

and now back to the grind!