Mills and More

Hello my long lost blog readers!  I'm happy to be back with a post.  A lot happened in the past week, and I have tons of photos to share with you.  My parents headed back to the US yesterday after spending a week here.  We had a great time again, and I think you'll see that we stayed busy!  Unfortunately, Todd wasn't able to take any time off from work this time around, but he still managed to eat dinner with us every night and go on our trip to Germany last weekend.  Per usual, I'll have this post cover the first half of the trip and be back later with the rest.

My parents arrived last Tuesday afternoon on the train from the Amsterdam airport. It was so easy and convenient to be able to pick them up right at the train station in Eindhoven.  We spent our afternoon hanging out around Eindhoven, including some good walk and park time with Jackaroo.  Very nice, albeit a little soggy.  That night, we headed to a new restaurant (new to us), called Vintage.

It's a very cool place with fun decor and great food.  I can definitely recommend it, and I am sure we will be back soon.  

The next day poor Todd headed to work, so I took my parents to Ghent, Belgium.  This was now my third time to Ghent, but I still loved it. And I think I have a pretty good feel for the city now, which makes it much easier to navigate.  However, on foot navigation is one thing, but driving in Belgium is still pretty much a nightmare.  The driving experience in Belgium is always a bit touch and go.  Trams, bikes, people on foot, and cars are all trying to share the same roads.  I do think I managed though, aside from a slight moment of panic when the GPS wasn't cooperating.

We started our time in Ghent in the Gravensteen Castle.  The "Castle of the Counts", as a I mentioned in a previous post, was once home to the royalty and leaders of Ghent. Its construction began in 1180.

At the top.

After touring the castle, we found lunch at a great spot.  It was called Soup'R and specialized in, you guessed it, soup.  The place was teeny tiny, with minimal seating, but after waiting our turn in line we were able to grab a seat.  They somehow have an amazing system where the wait in line equals the amount of time it takes someone to finish their bowl of soup, or something like that.  I enjoyed a smooth tomato soup that came with 3 slices of 3 different types of bread.  It was delicious and the perfect break from walking around in the cold.

Their choices were ("erwtensoep") soup and cauliflower soup.

One of my favorite parts about Ghent is a street on which there are 3 huge beautiful buildings right next to each other.  The first is a cathedral, the second is the belfry, and the third is another cathedral.  Here's a pic of 2 of the 3 from back this fall:

We went into each of the buildings and climbed to the top of the belfry.  This climb was very cool because you could stop at multiple levels going up to check out small museums on each floor.  And the view from the top was awesome.

Replica of the guy who is placed on top of the belfry's tower.   

Following our architectural meanderings, we made a pitstop for coffee and dessert.  I had heard of a place called Max, that specializes in Belgian waffles, so we really couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out.  Max has been in operation since 1839.  

Here's a picture of the interior now:

And here's what it looked like back in the day:

The atmosphere was awesome, and the dessert was fantastic. I ended up getting a cappuccino and apple fritters:

They were incredible, and filling.  I could go for some right now actually.  Yum!  My parents had their first taste of heaven, I mean, Belgian waffles at this place.  After walking around and exploring a bit more, we headed back to Eindhoven for a nice dinner at home.

The next day was my birthday, and we decided to spend it in Eindhoven.  In the morning, I taught my English conversation course (I'll be sure to write a post about that soon), and then we shopped til we dropped in the afternoon.  At night we headed to the infamous Gouden Leeuw.  The Gouden Leeuw is only infamous to us, because that's the place where we ate before getting our car stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere last fall.  The restaurant is really lovely, and they offer a great 3 course menu, so I knew that's where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner.  It did not disappoint.

I ended up having a great day turning 29, and it was so special to have my parents around!

Now I'm up to Friday, which is the last day I'll mention in this post.  While Todd again went to work, the 3 of us headed over to the western side of the Netherlands. Our first stop along the way was Kinderdijk.  Kinderdijk is a group of 18 mills that were built in the 1740's.  They were used to drain the polder on which they are situated.  Basically, this means that they were used to move the water in the area in order to reclaim some of the land.  Without those mills, this part of the Netherlands would be underwater.  Here's a bunch of photos of the area:

We think it looks like someone actually currently lives in the one on the right.

It was very cool to see, and I would love to go back in the spring when the grass is greener and it's warm enough to bike around.

After Kinderdijk, we headed 20 minutes further west to the town of Delft.  For those of you not raised in Holland, MI, Delft is a city, but it also is the name for a pottery that has been produced in Delft for hundreds of years.  It's white and blue, and the real stuff is all handmade and hand-painted.

Delft was also the home to Johannes Vermeer, who was a famous Dutch painter in the 17th century.  He's the dude who painted the "Girl with the Pearl Earring".  The city itself is quite beautiful with lots of canals and old architecture.

We ate lunch and did a walking tour of the city. 

We also got our coffee and sweets fix at a small cafe and bakery that drew us in by having cute cupcakes displayed in the window.  The desserts were delicious.

Our last stop in Delft was the Royal Delft Factory. This delftware factory has been in operation since 1653.  It was interesting to check out the factory and see loads of delftware. I somehow didn't manage to take any pictures there other than the one earlier in the post.  I purchased a flower vase, but not the real deal.  Mine cost 10 euros and is handmade pottery, made at Royal Delft, but it is not hand-painted. A similar item that is hand-painted would have cost around 150 euros.  I wasn't quite ready to make that large of an investment in a vase, but perhaps Todd and I will go back and decide to get something another time.

That concludes part one of the recap, and I will be back soon with more!