Then we are on the way to the airport monday night and on the plane to
both of our first experience outside the us or canada. And boy do we
have alot to figure out ahead of us. 

We landed at Charles D'Gualle in Paris about 8.5 hours later and have to drive 
in the plane for seemed like enternity and then take a tram and 
them get our luggage and figure out which bus was going where...

...not speaking a word of french...

it was interesting in a country that we found was not willing to speak english
at all. it rained the three days were in paris...we were ready to go to
london, and neither of us even care to see france again. 


...So we think yea at least they speak ENGLISH...
but that didn't help the attitude or
personal space issues. We didn't like London either, and we really
didn't expect to not like it there because a friend of ours is from
Manchester and we got a different picture from what we actually
experienced. 

We were glad to be on our way to Amsterdam with the same
feelings of London as France.  But this is were the honeymoon turns
great.  Amsterdam was wonderful!! The shopping was great!!! We had
bought craig a plain gold band and had a .25 carat diamond added to it
in Amsterdam for under $400.00 and it is a top grade. Craig sneezed on
the street an older lady walked over and gave him a kleenx!!!!!!!!! My
dads boss has a son and daughter in law that live there so we met and
had dinner with them one night and talked about home and their
experiences overseas as well and it was nice.  but I got soooooooo sick
that night. we think it was from the boat we took from london to
amsterdam across the channel cause it was vastly overpacked with people
so when we got our car and stared our drive toward kortrijk, belgium i
threw the whole way across belgium!!! And then craig gets it too, and it
lasted about two days or so and then you really dont feel all that
great....but it is all now something to just remember!! 


Kortrijk is not a tourist town in the least and we only knew about it because 
my dad does so much business there at a local company. He was the one who
acutally confirmed our reservation two weeks before we were there cause
he was there. This was a very nice little town. We were walking through this
little park when this little boy, maybe 7 or 8, rode his bike over to me and said
something in Flemish. I looked at him and said I don't understand. He sat for a 
second with a confused look on his face and all the sudden his little face lit up
and he point to his arm where a watch should be. I said 'Oh here' and showed him
my watch. He smiled and rode away. Ill never forget that, he was so cute!!!

Then we went to brussles a few days later and checked in
at the hotel. When we went to dinner in the hotel about two hours later
i got a club sandwich (dont read if you just ate!!!!) which i ate maybe
two bites then opened up to eat with a fork because it was falling apart.
the first bite i went to take something fell off the fork...and wiggled
and i screamed very very very very very loudly...i had almost ate an
earthworm! come to the manager of the holiday inn who we tell to go find
out what is going on cause he saw me in tears on the way back to the
room to get out of there. we wait over an hour for him to show up to
basically apologize and tell us what was going on and he never shows up
so we decide to leave..we go downstairs and they are all confused as to
why we are chekcing out when we had only been there three hours or so
and they go get the same manager. craig ask him why he never came up and
he said he had a large hotel to run and that his pager had went off.


Well, this PISSED ME OFF. I said excuse me but the only priority you
should have had at this point is if someone in your hotel was dying! He
said well, you just have to understand business practices (big big
mistake on his part), He said he ran a large hotel that demanded his
time and I had just had a small problem. I went balistic. I was yelling
so loud in the lobby that half the hotel may have heard me. I said I
have two different bachelor degrees in business and am almost done with
my masters don't tell me I just 'have to understand business practices'
because your business practices are flat out wrong. And we told them to
call the next hotel and make sure they had a room that we were going on
to Koblenz.  They made sure and we left.  

It was a five hour drive to
Koblenz Germany but was pretty and fun and we really didn't mind the
extra additional drive time that we hadn't expected for another day or
two. Koblenz was georgous and everyone was so friendly. from there we
went down the rhine river to Weisbaden for two days to then took a train
to frankfurt and flew home...

...and boy was that an experience for me...

I don't fly often only four times now. Im not afraid of it just havnt done
much. Craig flys Cessnas (two seater little things) for working towards
a pilots liscense.  This delta md11 left frankfurt straight UP. I mean
his climb felt like what i would expect out of the shuttle.
My head was on the ceiling!!  but other
than that it was a much waited for flight home!!  

It was great to walk through customs seeing all the vistors being ask 
when they were leaving and have them get to us and see our passports 
and say welcome HOME!!
this trip definatley made Lee Greenwoods God Bless the USA all that more
special!!!!!!!!!!  

We were so happy to be coming home that I wore my
Cincinnati Reds jersey and he wore his St Louis Cardinals jersey home.
It was a wonderfully exhausting 16 days.....One of which showed us that
holland and belgium and germany are return visits but definately not
france or london.  

and two days after our flight lands??? Im back at work!!!!!! Craig had
three days to rest....and a week later for me??? Marketing 901 and
Finance 901!!! GRAD school started back up again!!!

Now the wonderful search for better jobs and a house to buy!!!!!!

Ill let you know later about the first anniversary!!!!

The first anniversary!