The Europe Trip

Belgium/Netherlands/Paris

Photos

Welcome to this page. This edition is an upload of pictures taken on our trip to Europe during the last of June and the first two weeks in July, 2006. The reason for the trip was to attend the wedding of our good friend, Anke, and her financé, Carl, who were married near Brussels on the first of July.

That was also an excuse to stay and see some of Belgium, some of The Netherlands, and a little of Paris! But more important, it was a chance to spend some time with Anke and Carl, Irem (who had been an exchange student here from Turkey), Felice (exchange student from Belgium), Paivi and her daughter, Laura (Finn cousins of Jeanine), Janneke (exchange student from The Netherlands) and Janneke's family (whom we had met when Janneke was here a few years ago), and Paul (exchange student from France).

The traveling group consisted of Jeanine and Chuck; Malika, our daughter from Uzbekistan; and Julia, our grand daughter from Virginia-now-Colorado. And from time to time it swelled as we went along.

It was a wonderful trip, but especially made so by the extraordinary friends we visited: First of all, Anke and Carl, whose wedding celebration was incredibly joyous, whose kind hospitality extended even to arranging a couple of days of trips for all the stateside visitors to see Belgium's finest sights (guided by the sweet Anke herself), and who delayed their own honeymoon trip for the purpose.

Then there was Irem, who had come all the way from Istanbul for the wedding. She stayed with us and saw Brussels with us for a couple of days, then her boyfriend, Aytek, arrived, so she went off to another hotel. But we had the pleasure of their company through the wedding and the excursions in Belgium, until they finally had to depart.

Felice and her father met us at the Brussels airport, whisking Malika off for a few days with them to Mechelen in the north of Belgium, returning her to us in time to greet Paivi and Laura, who came to spend some time with us since we couldn't include Finland in our trip as well. Laura had spent three weeks with us the summer before. She and Malika are good friends. With them and Felice we toured some of Brussels.

When our time in Belgium was up, we hopped a train to Amsterdam and were met by Janneke, who stayed with us for our three days in that city, acting as our guide. We hadn't seen her for five years (though Irem, who was an exchange student here at the sam time, we had the good fortune to see in Istanbul twice). Next she went with us to Kinderdijk to see an awsome set of windmills, a UNESCO World Heritage site. This wonderful girl then brought us to her parents' home in another part of the country, where we stayed two days enjoying their warm and generous hospitality, before going off to Paris for three days. The second day there, Paul came by train from Normandy to escort Malika about the city for the day.

So you see, the value of this trip was very much in the people we saw whom we have known with affection for some time, but can't see often; and in addition, the many, many more people we met, especially Anke and Carl's respective families with whom we shared the spectacular wedding celebration.

Now, as to the pictures. They have been placed in ten different group, with links to the thumbnail pages on the left of this page. Enjoy!

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Material copyright © 2006 Charles Hughes