I’m finally posting something😅 Now that it’s summer and we have more free time because school’s out. So, you know what that means… TRAVEL! ✈️
We’re going to Europe again. I know right? Three years in a row. 😱 This time around we will be going to Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, and the UK. 🇨🇭🇫🇷🇩🇪🇧🇪🇬🇧
A couple days ago, we flew to London from Seattle, had a 5-hour layover, then took a short flight to Geneva. After two days here, we’ll take a train to Morzine, which is in the French part of the Swiss Alps. We vacation there with our friends for a little over a week then take the train through Munich to Bad Blankenburg!!🚈 If you don’t know what that is, it’s the little town in Germany that the #SeattleBundas visited last year to do volunteer work. I’m excited to go back so I can see some of the friends that I met last time!
BB friends:)
After BB (Bad Blankenburg), we are doing more volunteer work in Darby, England. It will be similar to BB but the people will speak english! Between Germany and England, we’ll be visiting our friends in Belgium.
We are already in Geneva, but for some reason I still don’t feel like we’re actually here. It feels like a weird dream or something…💭 Must be the jetlag!
Holmsted Manor is a place south of London that is run by Youth With A Mission (YWAM), a non-profit service organization that teaches young adults about Jesus and how to love and serve people the way Jesus did. My mom and dad met there 20 years ago, even though my dad is from Hawaii and my mom is from the Seattle area. Holmsted Manor recently celebrated its 40th anniversary as a YWAM base and we were there to experience it.
One of Dad’s amazing, long-armed selfie’s in front of Holmsted.
We were at Holmsted with the staff, this year’s Discipleship Training School (DTS), and some other families who had traveled there for the 40th anniversary. The staff also used the celebration as fundraising for general repairs of the Manor. These repairs included remodeling a bathroom, fixing special rooms, and removing the ivy that’s invading the house.
Brochure for the HM40 fundraising campaign.
In preperation for the event, everybody pitched in to help clean up the place. My family helped clean up the dining room by clearing and wiping down the tables and sweeping the floor. Other teams mopped, did dishes, or vacuumed. Designated guides practiced their lines for the tours which were being conducted for guests.
Washing the dishes.
Once people started arriving, we decided to roam the grounds and admire the scenery. Sadly, the cool stream that used to flow around the Manor needs to be fixed and dredged, but they don’t have the funds to do so. There were also really cool trees in the garden. One was even shaped like a chair!
The gardens and what’s left of the stream. Sis sitting in the cool tree/chair/branch.
Once we had gone all the way around the gardens, my family and I went to take a house tour around the Manor. As we walked around, my father and mother told my sister and I just as much about the place that the guide did. The funniest part of the tour was seeing how small the boys’ prayer room is. It might have a total of 8 square feet of floor space. We also saw where Mom and Dad’s dormitories were!
One of the Boys’ dorms. View of the driveway from Dad’s old bedroom when he was on Staff there.
At the end of the tour, our guide showed us that we were actually able to buy a tree out of the 40 different trees that were going to be planted around the grounds to celebrate the 40th anniversary. Our family decided to buy tree number 17, which is near a swing set that my parents used to hang out near, and the tree number is also part of the date of their anniversary, August 17.
The spot where the tree will be planted.
Once we finished the tour, my parents saw some old friends and started chatting with them. Us kids just stood there for 10-20 minutes, we started playing tag! After a while, it was time for the gathering to start. I must admit that I paid little attention to the actual talk, but did participate in the worship and prayer.
Thomas and I playing a game called “Ninja.” 3-person Ninja when Xiao-Yu joined the game.
Then our families walked around the gardens together. Once we had finished circling the grounds, they had to leave, so we said goodbye, but we just couldn’t quite say goodbye yet, so we all went to a restaurant for dinner together.
Dinner with Miss Kristy, the Chudleys, and the Hobbs at The Harvester.
This is an important day for my entire family. For my parents, it meant seeing the place where they met, and seeing old friends. For us kids, it meant seeing a place that is important to our parents, and meeting new people. Overall, we all enjoyed the experience that helped us understand the world a bit more.
So, today I am going to blog about foods we have had through our Europe trip! First, I’m going tell you what I thought that country’s food was, then I’ll tell you what it actually was.😊😉🍴😋
I’m going to start off with Germany, the first country we went to.🇩🇪Before I came to Germany, I thought German food was all bratwurst and schnitzel. I didn’t even know what a frankfurter was until I heard we were going to be landing in Frankfurt.😂 And to be honest, I had no idea what a schnitzel was either, It just sounded German-ish. Until I actually went to Germany. 😏😂🇩🇪
When we got to Germany, the first meal we had was in a German pub.🍻 I ordered a schnitzel, Dad ordered shweinshaxe (pork knuckle)🐷, Mom ordered a schnitzel with mushroom sauce🍄, and Trey ordered a frankfurter with lentil soup. It turns out, a frankfurter is basically a german hot dog. And a schnitzel is sliced, breaded, and fried meat☺️. I had potato wedges with my shnitzel and they were good, but the shnitzel was amazing!
My schnitzel!😄
The next country we visited was France, which I knew a little bit more about than some of the other countries we visited.🇫🇷
Before we went to France, I thought French food was all croissants, baguettes, crepes, escargot, and macaroons. And mostly, that’s what it was! ☺️
We stopped to get some baguettes on the way down from the Eiffel tower and ate them on the grass. They were yummy, but nowhere near as good as the jambon (ham and cheese) baguettes we got on our first full day in paris!😜
Baguettes in front of the Eiffel Tower😋
We took an awesome walking tour of Paris but unfortunately, it was rainy and cold.💦We got some yummy crepes to warm us up!Warm, toasty crepes on a rainy day☔️
On one of our last nights in Paris, We found a little resturaunt in the heart of the city and ordered some escargo!🐌 I wasn’t super excited to eat snail, but I was willing to try. I actually thought I might like it, because it smelled okay and you could eat it with bread and cooked veggies. When I tried it, it was worse than I thought it would be! It was sort of like a mushroom, (I don’t like mushrooms either!) only it was saltier (and yuckier!). Escargot!🐌
Then, we went to England. Before I came to England I thought all English people had Fish and Chips all day, every day. Plus some tea, and a bit of bubble and squeak (stir-fried veggies) for breakfast. Until I went to England. My theory about fish and chips was sort of correct, people did have a lot of it, but they didn’t have it all day, every day, just alot.🐟🍟 My tea theory was also only sort of true. Did you know that The U.K. Is as much a coffee country as it is a tea country?☕️
Coffe in the crypts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square…☕️ Poppies fish and chips that we got in London. Yum!🐟🍟 They were so good! Especially with tartar sauce.😉
The last country’s food that I’m going to talk about is Italy. Before I came to Italy, I thought Italian food was pizza, pasta, wine,🍷 tiramisu, and gelato!!!🍦😄
One of the first Italian Queens, Queen Margherita, ate so much of this type of pizza they named it after her. It is also why the Italian Flag is red, white, and green. Red is tomato sauce, white is mozzarella cheese, and green is the basil topping. I can understand why the Queen ate so much of that pizza, it’s delicious!Margherita pizza!🍕
Handmade pasta!🍝 Some of the best I’ve had in my life. Perfectly cooked and yummily made.☺️Tiramisu in Italy is the best! 😛 So yummy!
I think I’ve had Gelato almost every single day in Italy so far. It’s amazing! 😛😋🍦
And that is basically all I have had so far in Italy😂😂 But there are a couple other things that I had no idea about that are very Italian. For example, bruschetta! Bruschetta is lightly salted bread with olive oil and tomatoes on top! It’s soooo gooood…
somedayletsvisit 