May 13, 14, 2011
Let me first say that this weekend began with Friday the 13th. We all know that I don’t like Friday the 13th…however this one was not bad. Of course my kids were bad…like they have been all week, but they were not terrible. After school I got ready and Rachel, Tiffany and I went to the timeplan social in Romford at the bowling alley. We began with our free drinks and free French fries. We just hung out and talked to everyone, some people we only see at these socials and others we hadn’t seen in a while. It was nice to catch up with everyone and meet new people. Then we decided to bowl. Rachel and I decided to be on a team together- team name Dan (not our choice). We were bowling and having a good time then Rachel decided to drunkenly make a bet with Alan (the person who gives us work in the morning) saying that if we didn’t beat his score he would call Rachel at 6 in the morning every morning. Then Rachel comes to me and says that I have to win bowling because she can’t do it. I looked at our score and see that she had four gutter balls. How am I supposed to win with four gutter balls??? Needless to say, we lost. Hopefully Rachel is prepared to be woken up at 6 am every morning! We bowled a few games, drank, and talked to people. It was a really fun night…until we went to leave. We were waiting for the bus when I realized just how bad I had to pee! Really, really bad! Somehow I managed to make it home, but it was a close call! I also texted Aaron which I felt bad about because he was asleep! However, tonight was a successful night!
Let me first say that this weekend began with Friday the 13th. We all know that I don’t like Friday the 13th…however this one was not bad. Of course my kids were bad…like they have been all week, but they were not terrible. After school I got ready and Rachel, Tiffany and I went to the timeplan social in Romford at the bowling alley. We began with our free drinks and free French fries. We just hung out and talked to everyone, some people we only see at these socials and others we hadn’t seen in a while. It was nice to catch up with everyone and meet new people. Then we decided to bowl. Rachel and I decided to be on a team together- team name Dan (not our choice). We were bowling and having a good time then Rachel decided to drunkenly make a bet with Alan (the person who gives us work in the morning) saying that if we didn’t beat his score he would call Rachel at 6 in the morning every morning. Then Rachel comes to me and says that I have to win bowling because she can’t do it. I looked at our score and see that she had four gutter balls. How am I supposed to win with four gutter balls??? Needless to say, we lost. Hopefully Rachel is prepared to be woken up at 6 am every morning! We bowled a few games, drank, and talked to people. It was a really fun night…until we went to leave. We were waiting for the bus when I realized just how bad I had to pee! Really, really bad! Somehow I managed to make it home, but it was a close call! I also texted Aaron which I felt bad about because he was asleep! However, tonight was a successful night!
The next day we got up super early to catch our 6:45am bus to Belgium! We saw the bus, expecting it to be just a coach bus, and wound up with the bus the England football team used- including the seat David Beckham sat in!!! We began our journey to the border. We arrived in Folkestone where we picked up the EuroTunnel. The EuroTunnel is a tunnel that goes underneath the English Channel connecting the United Kingdom to France. You can take the Eurostar which is like a train you sit on or you can take the EuroTunnel which you drive onto a ‘train’ and that drives in the tunnel (kind of like a ferry but under the water instead of over the water). It was a very weird feeling. It is sometimes hard to tell you are moving and other times it rocks a lot and scares you, plus your ears hurt. However, we were only in the tunnel for about a half hour. It is also really cool because one you get in the tunnel they close a door behind you so the doors fold out and a metal door slides down, very interesting; especially when we were following another bus, I looked away and looked back and it was gone! Once we were out of the tunnel we were now in France! It was really cool to be in France mainly because they drive on the RIGHT side of the road. Although it was very weird because we were in a English bus so the driver was on the right. So we were driving on the right side of the road with the driver on the wrong side! So weird! France is very pretty and I really want to go back to just some random place sometime. This is also the part where I fell asleep on the bus though so I do not know when we travelled into Belgium…although I find it weird that we could just drive from England to France to Belgium without showing any sort of id. But whatever we made it to Bruges with no problems. Once there we were told we had about 4 ½ hours to roam around and to meet back at the bus at 4 o’clock England time (because Bruges is an hour ahead). So we began walking around, trying to make sure to pay attention to how to get back to the bus. We saw a road with lots of shops on it and went down that road. We then smelled a wonderful smell…..and we walked next door and saw waffles!!!! They were amazing. You could get tons of different toppings; I got chocolate sauce with whipped cream. Sooooo good! Best choice of the whole trip. After that we walked around looking at all the different buildings and shops. It was so beautiful! We found toilets for Rachel because she really needed them. After that we went to the market and shopped a bit. Then we found a boat place to take a boat cruise on the river. We got on the boat and freaked out because it almost tipped over!!! But we recovered and began our cruise. The driver spoke in French and English although it was hard to understand his English so we just enjoyed the boat ride and took lovely pictures. I even stuck my hand in the water! It was a 30 minute boat ride and it was really nice. After the market Steph went to visit a Church and Rachel and I went to get some food because we were really hungry. We found this cute little place that does sandwiches and we got mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and pesto. It was really good. Then we got some French fries and went to do some more shopping. Although Rachel got yelled at for being in the shop with her French fries so we went back to that shop later. We also walked to another market and shopped a bit. Then we went to a pub to get a drink before we met up with Steph to go back to the bus. Rachel wanted to try Belgium beer. So we went to the pub, which was hilarious because the football game was on and there were tons of guys singing and dancing and drinking in the pub! Rachel got some beer and I got Sangria with fruit in it. So amazing!! We finished our drink and headed back to the bus. We got a tiny bit lost but not too bad and we made it back before they took off without us! We then headed back to England. It was a fun bus ride back. Steph, Rachel and I played hangman for a while and chatted with two older people behind us who were arguing over playing hangman lol. Then we slept for most of the ride back. We got home around 9ish. Overall it was a wonderful trip and definitely a good idea even with it only being a day trip!
Until next time,
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