Some People shouldn't travel

It's so much easier to be a wild crazy brave traveler when you are sitting at home in the good ole USA. Yesterday I was a bum all day and got caught up on sleep. This morning I decided that I was going to go out and see the city. I planned to go back to the GroenPlatz (City Center) where we were last night. Kyle and John pointed out that if I got on the #22 bus then there was no way I could get lost. Of course, in true Christie fashion I got on the bus going the wrong direction. So my 20 minute ride down to the GroenPlatz turned into an hour and a half ride to there through the entire bus route. I did get to see a lot more of the city.

So I finally got down to the GroenPlatz and got off the bus and started to walk around. I noticed that there was some very loud music playing and a rather large police presence. All of the sudden there were thousands of people dressed in red from head to toe coming out of several side streets. They were chanting something very loudly. It was difficult to tell if it was a Pride march or a Protest march. Suddenly there was the sound of something going off, I couldn't tell if it was fireworks or a gun. About 30 seconds later I hear sirens coming from all different directions. So I took my happy little, I-only-speak-English butt and got right back on the bus and came back to the hotel. I have no idea if it was harmless fun or the makings of a riot. Since I couldn't understand a single word of it and there were so many people I decided the best/safest thing for me to do is go back to the hotel.

So, my first trip out in Europe alone was me riding a train for close to 2 hours, walking around for 10 minutes and then coming back to my hotel to hide out again.

I did see a very cool looking flea market in my round about way. I think I'm going to put on my big girl panties and go check that out in the morning.

People watching on the bus is pretty interesting. There is a very large Hasidic Jewish community in Antwerp. The men look so interesting in their beards, hats and the long banana curls hanging down over their ears. There were very few cars on the road and it was so interesting watching all the older men and women with their shopping baskets getting on and off the bus.

There are also a ton of bike riders. It's not at all uncommon to see a mom riding a bike with a toddler on the back whipping in and out of traffic. People seem to walk a great deal everywhere we've been. It's quite the change from St Louis where people drive to go 1/2 a block.

Another very interesting thing I've found is that I saw probably half a dozen middle aged women pushing baby carriages. That wouldn't be so odd except the baby carriages held dogs!!!!

Things I've learned so far:
European toilets are weird. I was so glad when John mentioned how much they freaked him out too. Kyle and I were afraid it was only us that were intimidated by them. There is a basin (with almost no water) at the top of the toilet that collects waste. When you flush (using a large button the wall) water comes from the back of the toilet and washes out the waste leaving the basin at the top dry again. (I know Benjamin is finding this very interesting.)





Not speaking the language is difficult. Especially in very crowded strange situations.

Bus drivers here are CRAZY. They have no problem squeezing a bus through a space where they don't have 3 inches to spare on each side. The citizens of Antwerp don't even seem to notice this.

Meters/Kilo's all that metric crap is way difficult. Although it is kinda cool seeing a speed limit of 140 even if it is in kilometers.

Ditto for the Euros. It's so weird paying for things using coins. They have 2,5, 20, 50 cent coins then $1 and $2 euro coins. The paper money is very thin and feels like Monopoly money. We can't seem to find any rhyme or reason why the coin sizes are the way they are. The $2 and $.50 coins are almost the same size. It's just weird.

They use military time here. So right now the clock in our hotel room says 13:42 or 1:42 (It's like 7:45 in STL right now). I just don't want to have to subtract 12 when I look at the clock after noon.

Trying to get onto a normal sleeping schedule is hard when it's only dark for about 6 hours tops per night.

!nbev is everywhere here. Last night Kyle and John ordered a Stella beer at the Greek restaurant and discovered when it arrived that it is an !nbev product. I promptly took away their St Louis residency cards. They are now strictly Pabst Blue Ribbon guys now.

Okay, enough belly aching for me for now. The city really is very beautiful and slightly exotic to my uncultured self. It's also intimidating. The people seem very friendly but I'm still trying to get up the guts to venture out on my own.

First day in Europe

I'm finally rested enough to type a little about our trip over to Europe.

Our flight to Chicago was completely uneventful and we arrived in Chicago on time with 40 minutes until our flight left for Frankfurt. Right before we arrived in Chicago they made an announcement that the flight to Frankfurt, Germany was delayed 15 minutes. We arrived in Chicago and grabbed a bite to eat before our flight which ended up being delayed almost 3 hours!!!

We finally left Chicago after they brought up a new plane in from Philadelphia. It ended up being a smaller plane and we were packed in like sardines. The flight was uneventful and very very very long and uncomfortable. We finally ended up in Frankfurt, Germany at 1:30 pm on Sunday afternoon. We had left our house at1:30 pm on Saturday.

The Frankfurt airport is not air conditioned and most people do not use their air in their cars either. It was very hot and humid and after such a long flight we were pretty tired. We picked up our tiny rental car and we were on our way to Antwerp by about 3:30 pm.

Our new Garmin GPS is brilliant. I'm not sure how we would have gotten along without it. At one point in the trip we got stuck in a major rain storm and ended up pulling off of the highway onto a side road. It was hailing over marble sized hail. Our great GPS managed to get us through this little German town and back onto the highway.

The little German towns was one of the weirdest/coolest things we saw all day. The storm seemed to come up very quickly and was quite severe. We pulled out of our spot right off of the road as soon as it stopped hailing (and I got a few pictures). It was still raining a little bit but as we drove through this town there were huge groups of people outside sweeping the leaves that had fallen off of their driveways and off of the street. The streets were quite flooded and at one point we went through some pretty deep water and we were worried we wouldn't make it through the water. The thing that astonished us most was that it was still raining a little and the German families, young and old were all outside in their golashes cleaning up the debris from the storm before it was even fully over.




We drove past tons of windmills and I found them really beautiful. We stopped at a small town right before the Belgium border and had dinner in a great little Italian place. We walked through this sweet little town, down brick streets, had pizza then walked down the street to get gelato. I'm now totally in love with Gelato.

We got into Antwerp, Belgium about 9pm last night.We are staying in the Crown Park Plaza on the edge of Antwerp. It's a really nice hotel and the shower is one of the best ones I've ever used in my life. I'm pretty sure it's strong enough to strip paint. Of course, after all that travel a shower was wonderful. The beds have great thick comforters in nice washable duvets. I had one of the best nights sleep ever.

This morning I went down and had breakfast with Kyle before he left for the plant. They had all of the normal American breakfast items plus a large yogurt bar with all sorts of granola and nuts for it. They also had a large assortment of breads and cheese and lunch meats.

While Kyle worked I took a nice long nap and read quite a bit as well. It was nice to relax for the day. Tonight we went with John, a guy who works for Kyle, into Antwerp on the bus. The city center has a huge church. I didn't take my camera with me tonight but I will be sure to take it tomorrow when we go downtown.

We had dinner in a Greek restaraunt. It was very interesting trying to order. The guy at the restaraunt spoke only French and Flemish and we spoke only English. We ordered using lots of hand signals, the waiter bringing ingredients out of the kitchen to show us, and us trying to decipher words in the description of the dishes.

We ended up having an amazing meal. Everything was absolutely delicious. We sat and talked for quite a while and realized that it must be getting kind of late but it wasn't getting dark. We started walking back to the bus and realized that it was almost 10pm and the sun hadn't set yet. At 10:30 tonight it was still light outside and the sun is up again about 4:30 am!!!

Here are a few photos of our trip in yesterday:

Very Fun Wedding

So Ryan and Stephanie tried to warn me that their wedding was going to be a wild fun time. I really didn't totally believe them. Stephanie and Ryan have always seemed like such quiet laid back people. I think that's because I hadn't met their friends.

These guys were some of the wildest craziest couples I've have the opportunity to work with in a very long time. I don't know when I've laughed more at a wedding.

Here are a few of my favorite portraits from the day. I'll have to post some of the CRAZY outtakes a little later.

Engagement Session

Here are a couple of my favorite portraits from a recent engagement session of B&T. They are getting married in a few weeks and I'm lucky enough to get to photograph their big day. I've been photographing B's niece and nephew for a while and it was so nice to finally meet B&T.

B&T saw me on a day I was feeling less than stellar. I'm really really hoping that I didn't spread any scary flu germs on them. They had barely left my home when I totally succumbed to the flu. They did get to meet my darling 10 year old son who was home sick as well. My sweet little boy got to try out his new 3 foot long Nerf gun with a scope on them. At least I got some really great smiles from B&T!!!!

Sweet Little Baby M

I think I could be in love. This sweet adorable little guy is the baby of one of my former wedding couples, M&H.

It was such a pleasure taking a trip down to their beautiful home and meeting such a sweet little baby boy. Baby M is the most adorable squishy cuddly baby.

He's one of the newest members of my new and improved Baby's First Year Program. I can't wait to see him again in a couple of months!!!

First photos on the new blog

So here are E & M from a recent maternity session. I photographed their wedding about 3 years ago and I'm so excited that they are expecting their first baby in a couple of weeks. It's so nice to see a couple who are still so much in love and have such amazing things going on in their lives.

They were one of my favorite wedding couples of all time and now I get to experience this next chapter of their lives with them. Thanks for letting me tag along on the journey.

I can't wait to meet the new baby!!!

The Triumphant Return of the BLOG!!!

I've had so many people over the past year ask why I quit blogging. The simple answer, I have been the most unorganized person on the planet for the past couple years.

This is sort of a confessional. I'm majorly organizationally challenged. I'm really great about going to Office Max and Target and spending massive quantities of money on baskets and organizational goodies. I really kinda stink at actually doing anything with those boxes and baskets though. I'll admit that for the past year my entire filing system has been fill a wicker basket with papers and when it's full, buy another basket. It's really really sad.

Sadly, my computer was almost as unorganized as the rest of my business. When I would receive a call asking about pricing for something or if a client has any remaining credit my system of organization was dig through baskets and do searches on my computer and pray.

My business has grown quickly and I've never taken the time to get myself organized and I've just continued to add more and more clients while never having a firm grip on anything.

I can't even tell you how proud I am that those days are behind me. I've spent the past few weeks actually organizing my entire business. I can even find things!!!! There's no more searching for 2 hours to find an invoice. The days of me digging through folders frantically and ready to pull out my hair are done. (Okay, perhaps I'm being a smidge optimistic but I can hope.)

It feels really really great to know that I'm going to be able to take care of my clients so much better now. I decided with opening the new studio in a couple of months I needed to get my act together.

Part of my new found organizational system means I'm going to have more time to dedicate to growing my business and servicing the clients I have. I'm also making a commitment to keep my blog somewhat updated. It's so much easier to update the blog with important reminders than it is to update my website (plus I'm much less likely to break stuff this way too).

So, here's to blogging in 2008~~~~~~~