Je t'aime Paris!

We've taken our first official tourist trip since our move to Europe!  Last Wednesday evening we left right after work for a long weekend in Paris.  Needless to say, we LOVED it!  Our friends Brandon and Sarah McGillicuddy so graciously offered their apartment to us during our stay and we cannot thank them enough.  There was so much to do and see, and we got to see most of the sights we had in mind.

Thursday morning we woke up and got to The Louvre pretty early.  The line was not too long, so we really lucked out.  The Louvre is MASSIVE (it would take 4 months to see the entire museum!) and the first thing we  saw after we walked into the main area was the infamous Pyramid:

 
Once inside, we immediately went to see the Mona Lisa.  It was actually much smaller than we both had thought it would be.  It was surrounded by glass and everyone had to say about 10 feet away from it, but seeing it in real life was very surreal.

 

Another famous work of art that we saw here was Venus de Milo:

Here are a few of the other works of art we saw.  Keep in mind that we only saw a tiny portion of the museum, so this is just a snapshot of some of the works that are included in this amazing place.

 

After our 4 hour visit to the Louvre, we decided to check out Notre Dame Cathedral, of course!  We did not go inside, as the line was a bit long, but the sheer awe of being at the original Notre Dame Cathedral was truly incredible.  We learned that the whole thing took 2 CENTURIES to build.  It is truly a beautiful and amazing place:

Next, since it was an absolutely gorgeous day (and those are so few and far between for us, living in rainy Amsterdam!), we decided to go on a Seine River tour.  We were able to learn a lot about the city (we have more photos from this but have not yet uploaded them), and got our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.  After the river cruise, we decided to get dinner at the Notre Dame Cafe (across the street from the Cathedral) and then walked to the Eiffel Tower.  (This was just over a 3-mile walk - one way.)  We knew we had to take advantage of the beautiful night to see the Eiffel Tower in person and then to watch it light up.  We had seen pictures, but nothing does it justice like seeing the enormous structure in person.  It was truly breathtaking!  After sunset the tower lights up and then at 10:00 pm, the Eiffel Tower sparkles!

After the tower sparkled, we walked back home and fell asleep almost as soon as we laid down!

The next day we grabbed breakfast on-the-go and ate it in a beautiful and expansive park that runs all the way from the Louvre to the Obelisque.  It was very picturesque and a great way to begin our day:

After enjoying our breakfast and the scenery, we went to the Musee d'Orsay.  We cannot put up any photos, as the museum did not allow any pictures to be taken.  It was a very cool museum with famous paintings from many impressionist painters such as Monet, Manet, Matisse, Degas, VanGogh, Renior and many more.  There were other works of art there as well, but we spent most of our time looking at the impressionist art.

After the museum, we had lunch at nice cafe across the street and walked down to see some of the souvenir shops right at the Eiffel Tower.  We also enjoyed browsing the trinkets, photos and memorabilia at the street vendors on the street that runs along the Seine towards the Eiffel.

On our last full day in Paris, we met up with Brandon and Sarah and toured the Catacombs.  This is basically an underground tunnel-turned-graveyard.  Many bones were moved from cemeteries after some of them became health hazards.  Moving all the bones took 80 years.  This was truly an amazing thing to see, knowing that all the remains we saw had a story behind them that we will never know.  It was a  bit eerie, but also very interesting.

After the catacombs, the four of us had lunch and while Sarah waited for our table to come available, Brandon took us around the corner to see St. Sulpice, a MASSIVE Catholic church.  We were allowed to take photos inside the church.  For those of you from Grand Rapids and Catholic Central - it makes St. Andrews look tiny:

When our bellies were full, we went to Montmarte, a beautiful area with a Catholic Church even larger than St. Sulpice.  Montmarte is the area in Paris where most of the famous artists from the past would gather, and seeing the views, it's not hard to understand why.  From the top of the hill, you have one of the most breathtaking views of the city.

Once we had seen Montmarte, we decided to head back home to grab some dinner.  Later in the evening we met up with Brandon and Sarah to grab a few drinks and to say goodbye.

Sadly, our train left on Sunday morning.  We had such a great time in Paris and would definitely recommend it to everyone.  It's a great place to go if you ever have the opportunity.  The city is so beautiful and so rich with history that it should be on everyone's bucket list!

In just 2 days, Abby's sister Molly and her boyfriend Nick will be here and we are so excited to have family from home here for a visit!  

Stay tuned for updates, we will try to keep them coming more often!  We love all of your comments and are so glad we can share our experiences with you all.  Thanks for the prayers!

Rain, rain go away!

Greetings all!  We are trying to make a better effort to more regularly update the blog for everyone, so hopefully this is good!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the weather climate of Amsterdam, here is a little tip for you: BRING AN UMBRELLA WITH YOU EVERYWHERE YOU GO!  The weather here on a typical day (at least for the past few weeks) is pretty overcast and there is usually, at the very least, a 50% chance of it raining each day.  We have learned to always pack our umbrellas because you  never know when it's going to start downpouring!

You may be asking yourselves, "Why are they telling us this?"  Well folks, it is more of a transition to the next story.  Last weekend, it actually wasn't raining and we were quite surprised.  We figured we had to capitalize on the beautiful day and do some tourist-y things since we hadn't really done any sightseeing since we've been here.  We decided that it was a perfect day for a canal cruise.  It was a very cool experience and we were able to see a lot of the city that we haven't really had the opportunity to see, as well as get a bit of a history lesson at the same time.  We put most of the photos up on facebook, but if any of you would like to see them, just comment and we can put them up here as well.

In the mean time, we have 2 very special pictures to share; one for Abby's brother Neil and one for Dan's dad.  We think you'll be able to discern which picture is meant for which person.  We see both of these on a daily basis at a tram stop near the apartment:

This is actually life-sized and is just standing there in someone's apartment!  (They also have a huge Lisa Simpson on their balcony.)

We aren't sure if this is typical attorney attire in the Netherlands, but thought it was pretty cool!

On a different note, we have booked our tickets for our weekend trip to Paris.  We are so excited to go and will have our own personal tour guides, our friends Brandon and Sarah McGillicuddy!  We will be leaving after work on the 2nd of May and will return to Amsterdam that Sunday.  Rest assured we will post photos of that trip!

Well folks, that's all for now.  We love the comments, so keep 'em coming!  Thanks for all your prayers and support - they have been so encouraging!  We love you all and for those back home, we will see you in June!

It's been a while!

Well folks, it certainly has been a while since our last blog post - sincere apologies for that!  We've been in a bit of a transitional stage as far as moving and our wireless went out.  Luckily today we were able to put our minds together to figure out how to re-set it...phew!!

Since it's been so long since our last post, this will be more of a list/synopsis of what has happened since then!

-We have moved!  We used to live quite a bit south from town.  It had a really nice view of the sunset every night, which was awesome.  However, it was a studio hotel apartment and not a place anyone would really want to live out of for 2 years.  We now have a nice place much closer to the city center and much more convenient over all.  The commute  to work is much shorter and one side of the apartment overlooks a canal.  Here are few pictures:

 

- Last week we had the "Freaky Friday," which was a lot of fun.  The last week of every month, the company rents out 2 bars right across the street from each other for 3 hours.  They are open only to Booking employees during that time and it's just a really great chance to socialize with everyone!  We've both started to make some really great friends.  We've discussed with each other numerous times that one of the things we like best about living here is the culture of the company.  So many of the employees are not native to Amsterdam and much like us, don't have a lot (or none) of their family members here, so the company has a very family-like atmosphere and energy.  It's been a great comfort talking with colleagues who have left their "homeland" as well and that has made the transition for us very smooth.  

- Many people from home have asked us how the weather is here.  Don't let the above picture fool you...it's not that sunny most of the time!  About 1 week ago the weather was quite nice and sunny.  Still a bit chilly, but at least there was sun!  The past week or so however, it's been a bit dreary and rainy, which is very typical Amsterdam weather from what we have heard.  We make sure to bring our umbrellas with us every time we leave the apartment!

-We haven't really gone sightseeing much, but hopefully we will get some of that done in the coming weeks, now that we are getting more settled.  In the meantime, here are some pictures of the city, as we have had many people ask for them:

Rembrandt Square:  This is a great area for people to get together.  Abby's work is right around the corner and the Freaky Friday is in this square as well.

Just down from Rembrandt Square is the clock tower:

Here is a collection of pictures that we took of the city, just walking around:

And of course, we must put up pictures of Centraal Station:

Even though some of you may not believe it, Abby is getting much better at navigating her way around the city.  (It is still a work in progress though!)

Well, that is all for now.  Since we have our wireless up and running, we promise that it will not be as long between updates any more!

We love you and thank you all for your prayers and encouragement!