Belfast, Bonn, Brussels, Bruges, Belfast

Over the past 2 weeks we have been busy bees! On Friday, 5 August we had the joy of serving at a BBQ for our friends Sam's wedding. Sam is from Northern Ireland and his now-wife, Hanna, is from Germany so their families had not had a chance to meet. It was fun to not only meet their families but also provide the space for the families to meet before the wedding day. On Saturday, we attended their wedding. We got to experience many of the differences between Northern Irish/German wedding tradition and American tradition. Here the wedding is a full day event. The wedding was at 1 pm, the dinner reception followed, and then their was an after-party. The party was still going at 1 am. The bride and groom were exhausted by the end of the day I am sure! Micah has said that it is a great tradition for the people attending, but he is glad we got married in the US where the day isn't quite so long! Other differences is that they don't feed cake to each other, the speeches are REALLY important here and tapping your glass doesn't cause them to kiss...it just means to be quiet! It was really great to be a part of their wedding day!

On Sunday (after arriving home a bit after 1 am) we woke up at 2:30 am to head to Germany. It was a day full of travel! We were in 4 countries during out travels! We headed first from Belfast, Northern Ireland down to Dublin, Ireland to fly to Brussels, Belgium. Then we took the train to Bonn, Germany. Even with a few naps along the way, we arrived at our retreat centre a little worse for wear. The retreat is for all European BVS volunteers. There were 18 of us in total. After dinner and some ice-breaker games, we were off to bed for some beauty sleep!

The rest of the week was filled with project sharing, meditations, a visit to GermanWatch (an environmental organization in Bonn), games, sessions on community development, human security and inspiration, a photo slideshow, watching the film 'Life in a day', playing bocce ball, 7s, and ultimate frisbee, a group hike to an old abbey, and a BBQ. On of the highlights for the two of us was biking along the Rhine River on our free day. The weather in general was a bit cold and rainy, but on our free day the weather was PERFECT! Five of us headed out to rent bikes and spent the day biking, taking pictures, 'trespassing' to have a picnic lunch, and eating yummy ice cream! By the end of the day our bums were sore, our faces were sun burnt and we were exhausted....but it was well worth it for the views!

On our ferry across the river with our riding partners, Julianne, Kendra, and Jill.

A pretty cool church.

A vineyard we came across when on a walk.

After the retreat, we spent a few days in Brussels, Belgium. We were able to stay with a L'Arche community there, which was such a blessing. Before we got on the train for Brussels we went to the Cologne Cathedral, which was just magnificent! Brussels was beautiful and we saw way more of it than expected because we got pretty lost the first day when we were trying to find a brewery! It was really interesting to see how divided the city is. During our rather long walk to the brewery we went through neighbourhoods that were almost entirely Asian or Middle Eastern, which is just an interesting phenomenon in cities. Eventually we found it and really were glad we didn't give up. The Cantillon Brewery is family-run traditional brewery that uses the same method as the early 1900s including natural yeast--which means they don't have the control over the outcome as modern breweries do. It was a really interesting process that included a couple years of fermenting in wine barrels and a year of fermenting in bottles. If you are ever in Brussels-even if you don't like beer-we would highly recommend this place! By the time we were done with the tour it was time to head out to the L'Arche house for dinner.

Cologne Cathedral

Sunday we spent the whole day exploring Brussels. We went to a couple cathedrals, enjoyed the architecture of the Royal Place square, ate waffkes, saw Mannequin Pis and Jeanneke Pis, ate frites and mayonnaise, and walked around a lot! By the end of the day we were exhausted and headed back to the L'Arche community to hang out for the evening.

Out side the EU Parliament Bulding

The EU Parliament Building

From the main square in Brussels. Amazing!

Mannequin Pis

Yummm! Chips with mayonnaise

Belian waffles!!

Christian, one of the L'Arche Brussel's core members.

On Monday we went to Brugge, a smaller town about 1 hour from Brussels. It is known as the Venice of the North because of all the canals...we think this might be an exaggeration, but we really enjoyed spending the day in a quaint Belgian town. A fellow BVSer, Kendra, joined us for the day. It was lovely getting to spend the day with her. Other than lots of walking, we visited churches, went on a canal boat ride, and went out to some windmills. We headed back about 5 pm in order to catch our flight out of Brussels at 9. We had a bit of trouble actually getting to the airport, which led to a bit of freaking out since for awhile it seemed like we were going to miss our flight. Next time we will have learned to make sure our metro map is up to date before we use it to try to get to the airport! But...we made it in plenty of time and even had a chance to buy some Belgian chocolate!

Central square in Bruges

Since being back in Belfast, we have worked in the office. Micah is working hard to get the final details together for Root Soup's summer programme next week. Lucy is trying to recruit a volunteer for September after a volunteer left only a few days after arriving. We have hung out with Joy and Bobby. Micah has helped Sam move a shed to his parents house to store lots of stuff since Sam and Hanna are moving to Russia in a few weeks. Lucy has gone to pick blackberries with Joy and the boys. Last night we went over to Peter and Jenna's (MMNers) for dinner and had a great discussion on self-sufficiency! It seems that life just gets filled up pretty quickly!

We are looking forward to our final summer holiday to Inverness, Scotland with Thomas in a few weeks. Then, we are looking forward to returning to a routine! It is amazing how tiring being out of routine can be even when we are so thankful for the experiences we have had!! Please remember Micah and the Root Soup team in your prayers as they work hard next week to make the summer programme a huge success!