Europe 2012: The final 9 days

Nathan and I both picked up colds on our way home from Rome, luckily I had brought cold meds along with me though, so we were able to get some relief from our cough and stuffy heads.

My week was a busy one, as I had to prepare to move.  We had to be out of our current apartment on Sunday, moving into a hotel for a week before Nate can get into a different apartment for the remainder of his stay.

One last beautiful sunrise from our apartment before we lose our nice view.

Between packing to move, and washing laundry, I also worked on writing my blog from our Rome trip. Thursday was Thanksgiving, which we had originally planned on eating out, but because of our colds we decided to just eat at home. Instead of turkey (which I’ve never seen available over here) I made some chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn, along with a roll and some homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

On Friday Nate’s cold was so bad that I convinced him to just stay home from work, since there was nothing major going on anyhow.

My cold seemed to be trailing Nathan’s by a day, so Saturday was my bad day. But we decided to drive down to Aachen, Germany to the Christmas market. I had originally planned to go on Sunday, but since we had to move on Sunday I decided to go to the market Saturday.

When we arrived in Aachen the first order was getting lunch, then we headed out into the market. We were both surprised at how many people were at the market. There were way more people than at the craft fair in the summer. The Christmas market is open for an entire month, but it was only the 2^nd day of the market, and the 1^st weekend, so I guess we should have expected that.

There was way more food booths than I expected, taking up nearly half of them I think. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t more selection, like at the summer market, but there were nutcrackers, ornaments, decorations, scarves and hats.

Towards the end of our visit it was getting dark and we got some hot chocolate and shared a crepe, and headed back.

Sunday after eating breakfast I sent Nate down to see about checking into our hotel room and when he came back he found that our apartment key cards no longer worked. As I was in the room it wasn’t a big problem, but it meant that I had to stay in the apartment while Nate made several trips with our stuff.

We were able to get a hotel room with a kitchen and little living room, it’s basically a studio apartment but without an oven, washer, or dryer.

Christmas lights around Eindhoven

My last few days I’ve spent reorganizing my suitcases, finishing up my blogs, and any other last minute things I could think of. I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for when Nate comes home as he will have to take more bags then me.

On Tuesday night Nate got another group of work friends together for go-karting.

Nate got a group of guys from work to go go-karting again (from left to right Cathal, Rene, Nate, Tim, Luc).

Nate

For my last dinner in Holland I went to De Bengel's with Nate and friends to end my wonderful 3 month trip.

Tot ziens Nederland. (Good bye Netherlands)