Belgium, Then Back to Ireland & Home

On the last morning of our stay in The Netherlands, I woke early and walked on the beach by myself. Sometimes I think it's hard to get quiet, alone, do-nothing time. I sat in the sand and watched the waves and listened to them and the seagulls and just enjoyed being alone. I love my family but sometimes I feel like I never get to be just by myself. The beach was strewn with jellyfish all along the water, little gelatinous blobs dotting the shore. Inside they were shaped like daisies or purple suns with rays. Because they're see-through, you can see their tentacles from above. Some were upside down, so you had to be really careful not to step on those. I returned, packed up the house. I loved this little house with the breeze coming through the window all night, hearing the bells chime at the hour and the little song they would play. I'm not sure what song it was.

I went to the tulip shop where they sold Miranda tulip bulbs (I had bought three packages super cheap) to ask if I'll be able to bring them on the plane. The shop owner looked at them, dusted them off with his hand and said definitively, "No soil. You're fine." I tried to get them back through customs, but sort of knew I wouldn't be able to. It still stung a little when they took them away. I really wanted to plant real-Dutch tulips in my garden back home.

We got in the car and drove to Belgium. We saw our last windmills.


We stopped in Brussels for a couple hours and lunch. I really didn't care for Belgium. We drove until we found an older part of town, parked the car and then walked around looking for lunch. We ended up at an Indian restaurant. So far we're 0-2 for Indian food in Europe. It's just not good there. Not seasoned well at all.

Check out the crazy art noveau building in the background

Driving in the crazy third-world-like traffic

We walked around a little, took lots of door pictures and ran out of room on my camera. We flew from Belgium and back to Ireland where we stayed in a boring hotel near the airport. In the morning, they did have a decent Irish breakfast at the airport and I tried Irish black pudding. It was nothing like what I expected, like a round sausage with oats in it...

I watched tons of movies on the airplane on the way back, slept a teeny bit and we ended up getting stuck in LA, which I was actually okay with because my sister Susannah lives just five minutes from the airport and my mom happened to be there. So I got to spend a quick night with my family. We woke up around 4am, still on European time.   We made it back Sunday morning.

 Brussels Doors