This is how England delivers mail!

Here in England, one of our biggest frustrations when driving is that everyone who rides a bike rides on the road and not on the side walk.  I am always having to watch carefully for either bikes riding on the rode or for parked cars that are also in the way.  We also don't have a typical postal truck like you see in the states.  Above is a picture of a post lady who rides her bike to deliver the mail.  When I take the kids to school in the morning, I see quite a few of these bikes.  

Ferry

Our drive onto and off the Ferry!

Eurotunnel

This is a video of us driving onto the Eurotunnel which takes you underground across the English channel into Europe.

Our trip to France, Belgium and Holland

We had such a wonderful time on this trip and the Fabry's who we stayed with in Belgium were wonderful hosts.  Below are pictures when we went to Bruge which is just an hour outside of Belgium.  We took a ride on the canal and had yummy Belgium waffles.  There was a carnival going on while we were there so the kids got to ride a few rides which was a bunch of fun for them.  Here are some pictures of Bruge when we were on the canal.  

Holland

We drove into the Netherlands to see Keukenhof Garden which was amazing.  There were fields and fields of tulips of all different colors and everywhere you turned there were arrangements of all sorts of different flowers.  A beautiful place to visit this time of year!

Amsterdam

Amsterdam was a place we will never return to.  Everyone says you have to go just to experience it, well that was enough for us.  For those of you who don't know, drugs of any kind are legal here.  I'm not going to go into detail but it would be very easy to go into a store and buy anything you may want to try.  There is also what they call a red light district.  This is a street where woman stand in windows hoping you will pick them.  I am keeping this blog clean so enough said.  Like I have said before it is neat to see some of these places and experience what you never thought you would.  The history goes on and on and is very interesting in deed.   Below is a picture of Anne Frank's house.  We ran out of time and was unable to go inside but at least we got to see where it was.  We thought it was quite difficult to walk around here because everyone rides a bike so beware!  

                          A Coffeshop we did not eat at:)

                                     Anne Frank's House

                                   Anne Frank Statue

Brussles

On our last day in Belgium we went to Brussles.  This cute town is very well known for the statue of the peeing boy.  Why?  I don't really know.  There are many different legends told of why this statue is important.  He is believed to be nothing more than a decoration on top of a fountain, where people in the Middle-Ages came to get fresh water. Already in the 15th century a fountain called 'manneken-pis' existed in the Stoofstraat/Rue de l'étuve. The official origin can be traced back to the 13th of August 1619when the city ordered the sculptor Jerome Duquesnoy to make a new bronze statue of manneken-pis to replace an old and withered one. During the course of the centuries our little manneken has often been hidden to protect him against bombs of invading armies. He has also been stolen several times by plundering soldiers and even by the citizens of Geraardsbergen, a city in Flanders that claims to possess the oldest statue of a peeing boy in Belgium.

We ate on this cute little street which was full of restaurants, one right after another.

Last Stop.....Dover Castle

Our last stop was Dover Castle which is one of the largest castles in the country.  They have secret wartime tunnels which was used during the war.  Very interesting place to see and fun for the kids too.   Also below is a picture of the white cliffs of Dover.  It was a very foggy morning as we headed into Dover so the picture isn't that clear but you can get the idea of how big and awesome these cliffs look.  The rest of the pictures we took were at the castle.