My Weekend Adventure in Belgium

Friday morning my Mom and I headed out from the house around 9:15am. We walked 15 minutes to the train station, and bought two tickets to Maastricht, Netherlands. Thankfully the machine also works in English (ya press the little picture of the British flag in the bottom-left corner, and voila, Engels!). Anyway, we climbed the 2 sets of stairs to the platform-- we were about 25 minutes early, so we got the wait awhile :) No point in running to the train station late and missing your train!

Eventually we made it to Maastricht, no problems along the way, about 4 hours after we left home. My Dad met us there with the car, and we continued on to Belgium. He and my Uncle had been there since Monday teaching/speaking at different churches of their missionary friends the Meyers. I had heard of them for years, but never met them except once when I was 7.. but didn't remember them! They live in the town of Ciney, a beautiful picturesque town somewhere in Brussels- they work there and also in the town of Dinant which has one of the most beautiful churches and a fortress I've seen- they are right next to each other, so I think it makes them even more impressive!

Friday night we had church in Dinant, and my parents and I sang a couple of songs, and then we also sang in the Sunday morning service in Ciney. Saturday my parents, uncle and Roger (the host!) went to Bastogne where, during the Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne was completely surrounded by enemy soldiers but the allies held them off. There is a great monument there built by the Belgians in honour of the American soldiers that fought in that war. There is also a museum that were visited, quite interesting as well :)

Well, that is the short version. Tomorrow I'll be spending most of the day recording more parts of songs for FireChoir, and then Tuesday and Wednesday I'll do more recording in the morning if needed, but we'll see. Hope you enjoy the pics! The captions/descriptions are below each pic!

~A :)
**************************Belgium Trip*******************

Roger and Lilly's house in Ciney, Belgium

The Cathedral in Dinant, at night
Me, talkin' to Adolf Sax- the creator of the Saxophone!

Just outside of the star monument in Bastogne- I loved this statue of the Eagle drinking water out of a soldier's helmet- it represents the "Screaming Eagles" from WWIIThe Star monument in Bastogne, where the allies succeeded in holding off the enemy in the Battle of the Bulge! The monument was built by the Belgians in honour of the Americans that fought in the warMe, on top of the Star monument- I'm "touching" Minnesota with my scarf. Every US state is listed on the monument!One of the Tanks used in WWII - the back of the tank is below...

This is the back of the tank, where a young 25-year old captian was sitting inside the tank, and was killed by whatever made this hole in the tank. The skin on the tank is thick, too!My parents and I "singing" for the camera at the church in Dinant! The church in Ciney is actually part of a mall in a store front- very cool!Immanuelle and her brother- she is my newest friend, a real sweetheart!"La Guere des Vaches"... the War of Cows. This statue (and the pic below) are to represent a war that happened many years ago where a man from one town stole another man's cow. He eventually returned it, but the town where the cow was stolen from was so angry that they went to war against that man's cow and there was a huuuuuge battle that eventually involved many regions around both towns, and literally thousands of people were killed and died because of that war... All because of a simple Cow.....So, this statue is in a Traffic circle as a reminder of all those people that were senselessly killed because of one man's actions. Just think what one person can do, for good? :)