Welcome!

I am so happy you are joining me on my trip across Europe. Together we will visit Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome, Sarajevo and Bucharest. Along our way we hope to meet many wonderful people and learn about the different cultures in each country and city. This is my first European experience and new to the blogging world, but excited about the opportunity that is before me and looking forward to sharing the experience with others.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Day 2-Cold and Rainy, but still a great day

As of yesterday at 7:30 am , we are in Brussels which is headquareters to the EU and NATO. Most people speak English, which makes it easy to get around, but native language is Dutch and you will also hear French. They are known for their mussels and beer, but I had to check it out for myself to be sure and I am happy to report they are both fantastic – for mussels we followed the advice of the Rick Steve’s travel book and went to a little restaurant off the tourist beaten path . As a group of 12 we took up most of the place, but we ordered one of each kind and ate family style - my favorites were with the marinara sauce (good sopping with a french baguette!) and one that was similar to a Rockefellar oyster.


Today we took the Metro to Antwerp that has a wonderful history from the 1600s, and although very cold and rainy, we had a great tour guide, Lode, who showed us around town and briefed us on immigration in the Belgian society. Issues and opinions around immigration are not far off from what we hear in the US – I wil not espouse an opinion on this other than to report it as an interesting observation.

This evening our guest speaker was David Rennie, journalist with The Economist – which provided great insight on the European Union. Matt and I have been back and forth trying to figure out if this is a conservative or liberal paper – according to David, it is fiscally conservatve and socially liberal whch is why it is something we both will read being a couple that sits on either side of the aisle but close to the middle.

Tomorrow NATO and an individual meetig with EuroChild – stay tuned!

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