Monday, December 22, 2008

Leuven - Another Belgian city!

Today was pretty relaxing - slept in until 11:30am and hung around the house until about 1pm. Beau and Natalie have a Ninentdo Wii so we have been spending a lot of time bowling, skiing, hula-hooping and more! We downloaded Super Mario Brothers yesterday - the original - and Natalie and I played it until 3:30am last night, kind of like we were in the 6th grade again! I beat the game this morning, and probably screamed louder than I ever have because I finally beat this game that I have been playing since I was like 6 years old. Pretty exciting part of my day haha.

Other than Nintendo, we headed to Leuven, a Belgian city about 20 minutes from Natalie and Beau's house. This city is the capital of the Flemish region of Belgium - (Flemish is a mix of Dutch and German). It was founded in the 800s, so obviously has some history! We were only in the city for a few hours - just time for some shopping and grub - but I managed to learn a little about the city and take some pics!

After parking we walked along the river that runs through the town and Beau told us that it is the water that they use to make Stella (a very popular beer in the States). Of course we ended up at a pub and drank some. Turns out that Leuven is home to Anheuser-Busch, so it's a pretty big beer town. I also tried some cider beer and raspberry beer :D Mmm Mmm delicious.

In the main town square, I saw the best building ever! Well, I am sure it is normally pretty, but it was decorated for Christmas, and we know how much I love decorations, so I thought it was fannnnntastic! When I saw it, I thought it was some amazing church, but turns out it is the Town Hall of Leuven that was completed in 1469. It is basically the original, although most of Lueven was ruined with a bomb in WWII. Also in the square were street performers - a mime, trampoliners, jugglers, and silly other street performers - as well as this acticity where you can put on a heavy coat and run through a whole line of chimes and it sounds like a bunch of bells going off at the same time - random but true!
We did a little bit of shopping, mostly just poking in and out of the shops and taking silly pictures with things like this - a life size nutcracker. Well I guess it isn't life size for everyone, but for me it is! We also found someone's bike and thought it would be fun to jump on and take pictures....luckily the person didn't come see us while we were having a photo shoot on thier bike. But we thought it was so fun because on the front of the bike is a little headlight - something I have never seen before. While we were walking down the cobblestone road, we were headed towards a church and with the Christmas lights, I saw this picture - one of the stars from the Christmas lights hanging above the street matched right up with the top of the spire of the Church of St. Peter. I just liked it and thought it was neat :D

We then grabbed some dinner and then headed home for some more Nintendo Wii hahaha. I am not sure what tomorrow holds, but I am sure it will be fun! Hope you are enjoying your snow (everyone in the entire state of Washington probably has more snow than I have seen in my LIFE! JEALOUS!).

Besos!
Amanda

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