dear all,
the journal will no be cowritten by amanda jane hetherington...so ill pass it over to her...
We arrived in London to a beautiful, sunny day but boy was the air freezing. The flight over was good, we all slept for 9 hours thanks to the restivit tablet we all took before leaving kuala lumpa. Had a ball watching heaps of films and eating, certainly didnt get bored. We left our luggage at our accomdation and travelled into the city on our first double decker bus to pick up our hop on hop off bus tour of london which we then did for the next 2 days. We saw all the sights including big ben, westminster abbey, the eye(beautiful views) tower bridge, piccadilly and trafalagar squares, harrods, buckingham palace, hyde park, st pauls etc etc. We are having an absolute ball Have mastered the underground railway system, its so user friendly, by friday we were experts changing lines and fighting with the peak hour traffic. Bec and|I had a ball shopping on oxford st and the Christmas decorations are absolutely beautiful, so pretty at night. The days are short, dark by 4.30 but since Wednesday its been overcast so not as cold as tuesday.Our time in London went very quickly and before we knew it we were on the plane to Brussels to meet jess and dan.
jess...thats me...dan and i got stuck at the brussels south train station because we were directed to a tram, waited for 30mins for it..all these other trams were arriving but not ours..we checked in the end and found that it only arrives after 8pm...and we were there at 4pm..damndamn. so mum, dad and bec beat us to the hostel. when we arrived at the hostel it was great to see their smiling faces in the lobby, huge hugs followed and admiration at their huge amount of luggage. the hostel is really nice (good choice mum and dad), and we have a 5 bed dorm and ensuite to ourselves. we made our beds which is a story in itself..never again ask the hetheringtons to sort out the bottom sheet, pillow case and doona cover..dosnt work, were blaming dan he was hogging the pillow cases and pretending to make his bed..which actually happened an hour after we had all finished.
us being in brussels ending up matching perfectly to mel and meg being in brussels as well. so we met up with them yesterday, big hugs again and we all had pizza for dinner with lots of mel and megs travel stories...meg is great..she can fit her entire body in a dryer...thats pure talent..mel even has the movie to prove it.
Slept beautifully in the hostel, we have our own little balcony and comfy beds. Met mel and meg and spent the morning with them and then waved them off onto luxemburg.
the hetheringtons then continued the grand walking tour of belguim, which included several beautiful churches, food, shops, food, manneken pis (the small pissing statue wearing a red coat..his costume is changed reguarly), food, admiring the xmas decorations and a little more food..mum will be chained to the curves circuit when she gets home..food included belguim waffles topped with cream and strawberries, chocolate kisses (like choc royales but way way better), souvlakis, amazing chips and then timtams..i know not very belguimish of us but they looked so tempting.
all a little tired tonight with sore feet..dad is considering rubbing deep heat on his feet.
not too many plans for tomorrow yet, belguim is old fashioned and ALL the shops are shut on sundays, so were thinking a walk out to one of the museums and parks for a picnic.
hope all is well at home
love always mandy and jess xoxoxo
