awake in europe . . .

well it is 12:57 here in antwerp, belgium, and i cannot sleep a wink, so i just thought i would take the time to catch you up on my summer vacation so far.

it has been excellent. i am in europe, just in case the title didn't give it away. i am having fun. there you go! my summer vacation so far. hope you enjoyed it! i will share more later.


just kidding, here are some details. read on if you are interested.

so far i have shopped, as any woman in her right mind would do. i have tasted the culinary delights that are available, and let me tell you, there are many. i have never had a bad meal in europe. as my father would point out, "everything is fresh! there are no preservatives!". i have been to the movies, and i have thrown up because of a horrible, awful fair ride! let me break it down for you.

shopping - amazing!!! the shoes here are phenomenal. there is brand call "campers", that i first believed to be from the britain, but just found out they are really from spain. any way, they are the cutest and most original shoes i have ever seen. i own a pair, and for those of you that have seen them, they are the ones that look like someone drew them on with a sharpie. i love them. the shopping over here is just great. there are stores that mirror those in the US. C&A here is like a T.J. Max or Marshals in the states. Inno here is like a Dillards or Rich's in the states. They even have a Payless-type place called "Shoe in a Box". how cute is that? cute clothes, fun styles, very original. overall, i give shopping here a "9 1/2".

food - incredible! i have had kip(chicken) that is out of this world. by the way, they love curry here, and i am starting to love it as well. their italian is out of the world. everything is made from scratch, and there isn't the rush here to eat and run. a meal will take close to 2 hours. it is very relaxing. my new favorite however, is an asian noodle place called "wagamama". fun name huh?! i am proud to say my father and I ate the entire meal with our chopsticks! we were very proud indeed. (that is the picture you see with this post) overall, i give the food here a "10"!

throwing up - i wouldn't recommend this to anyone. they have a carnival in town right now. (yes, everyone get it out of your systems. i know you want to say the austin powers line - "carnies. small hands, smell like cabbage.") well a whole group of us from mom and dad's church went to this carnival together. it started out fine. we rode the lamest haunted house roller coaster you could imagine, the way they scared people was by having a man with a mask walk around to the cars and touch the people in them, which, i will not lie to you, was very scary at the time. i then went with the smaller children and one old child, the preacher, into a fun house, which was extremely fun! the floors spun and rolled, and you had to go down a gigantic slide to get out. much fun was had by all.

but then, my father, who shall remain nameless (bill bundy), decided we should ride this seemingly harmless ride. it looked like you spun around and went up and down. (i can handle this.) what i thought it did, and what it actually did are two totally different things. instead of just spinning and going up and down it went side to side and in every direction possible. well, if it had stopped when it was supposed to, i would have been fine. but no!! the ride master asked if they wanted to go again, which i couldn't understand anyway, because it was in nederlands(dutch)! everyone shouted, "yes! yes! yes!". i thought, one more time, i can do that. this happened no lie, 3 times. by the third time i was crying and wanting to die, but not wanting to puke on all the other riders. and i didn't, but as soon as the bar holding me in was released, i rushed to the side and emptied my stomach of everything i had eaten for the past week over the side of the ride. suffice it to say, i was ready to head back to mom and dad's apartment, which i did, only to discover that i had not truly emptied my stomach, and did in fact need to finish what i had started. overall, i give throwing up in europe a "3", as i have never purged my stomach in another country, and it was somewhat interesting to do.

that is my update so far. i will keep you posted. i hope you are having a wonderful summer, as i truly am.