The Amazing Race - Europe

Day 2 - The Wedding

2007-09-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Eight o'clock sharp, that's the time we needed to meet in the hotel lobby to go to the Tea Ceremony. Again, heading out of the garage Uncle Jerry had to endure the extremely sharp turn. As I closed my eyes again and hoped for the best, he made the turn like a Pro. You Go Boy! Since we did not know the way to the house in the town of Westerlo, we met cousin Binh at the restaurant so we could follow him there. From the restaurant it took a good 20-25 minutes to get to the house (Binh said it would take about 10-15 minutes). While in the car we were saying "How are we going to know how to get back to the hotel tonight? We sure hope someone can led us back to the main road." As we made the turn into the Cul de Sac, we said what a cute neighborhood it was.

After arriving to the house, we all just sat around eating pastries and waited for the groom & his family to arrive. We were sitting in back yard, when Elaine spotted the first cute boy we saw in Europe. She got my attention and yes, he is pretty darn cute. If I remember correctly, I think his name is Thomas. Then I asked her who he came with and she pointed out to me that it was with one of Anh's cousin (cousin Binh's brother). Oh! I told her then he's not available. Ha-Ha! You know what I mean

Tea Ceremony

Finally, the groom and his family arrived for the tea ceremony.

It was a simple ceremony, nothing to extravagant. Both families made the same o' boring speeches. It lasted about 30-35 minutes. The 4 of us did not understand a thing that was said.

City Hall Ceremony

Then we had to get ready to go to the ceremony at City Hall. The drive there was about 20 minutes. When we arrived at city hall, all of us just said "wow!" It was a gigantic castle looking building. Kinda like what you would see in Harry Potter. "That's city hall", I said.

The ceremony last 30 minutes in this medium size room. The inside of the city hall was not as impressive as the outside. Alot of the guest had to just stand around in the stuffy room.When the ceremony was completed everyone headed outside for pictures. By this time, I was ready for a nap. Yawns!

Aww, don't we look so cute. LoL!

Yes, that's Elaine in the background. Now you know why Kevin doesn't take any pictures. Geez, we could barely see her

Mr. Pimp Master himself

Church Ceremony

Everyone hopped into there cars and headed to the Church Ceremony. When we arrived at the church, there was at least 40 guest waiting for us to arrive. I guess they were non-v.i.p.s. and was just invited to the Church Ceremony. As everyone lined up to go inside, the 4 of us opted to wait because we wanted to sit in the way back (It wasn't like we were going to understand anything) As soon as the Ceremony started and everyone was seated the 4 of us sneaked out (I know we're bad, Shhhh!!!) We spotted a pub across the street and headed over there for drinks. We saw the limo driver there eating his lunch. He was the messiest eater I have seen in my entire life. Everytime he lifted his fork, only half the food ended up in his mouth the rest just fell down somewhere. LoL!

Kevin & I order beers, Elaine had a Irish Coffee and Anh of course just had a Cola. Anh kept looking over to the church to make sure no one could spot us. He was pretty nervous about getting caught (I sure hope the messy limo driver doesn't snitch on us) and kept telling us to hurry up with our drinks. Finally, we were done and sneaked our way back into the church. Perfect timing! They were just about done. I pulled out some gum from my purse and shared it with my fellow travellers, cause Anh said we wreak of alcohol. As everyone headed outside, Leslie had drinks ready. He was serving Champagne and Juicy in fancy plastic champagne cups from the trunk of his car. Wow! These people think of everything.

Standing outside of the church, Elaine spotted the 2nd cute boy in Europe. We never got his name but nicknamed him Beckham. All she could say was I hope I see him again tonight.

Day 1 – Rehearsal Dinner in the City of Lille

2007-09-18T14:04:00.001-07:00

We met Uncle Jerry & Aunt Thao in the lobby and then headed to the garage to pick up the car. Again, we were all thinking, we sure hope he has a big enough car. Yes, he had a Mini-Van/SUV looking car it was a Citroen Picasso.
As we were heading out of the underground parking garage there was this really tight turn that is uphill Uncle Jerry had to clear. I held my breath and closed my eyes hoping he would not scrape the side of the manual transmission car he was driving. Woof, it got pretty close but he made the turn. Good Job Uncle Jerry!

We started our trip to Anh's relatives restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. Uncle Jerry is very cautious about driving and driving in a foreign country is not easy since he didn't know his way around. Aunt Thao was trying to be as helpful as she could by giving him the wrong directions and also a very good backseat driver. At this point, I think Jerry was getting a little annoyed. We reached the exit we needed to take and it took us a good 30 minutes on the freeway. (Cousin Binh told us it would take about 20 minutes on the Bus, Yeah Right!) Finally, after several wrong turns and 15 minutes later we passed the little church in Lille; I knew our destination was close. Yeah!

"Thanh Long" that's the name of the restaurant I wondered if they served Garlic Noodles and Crab. LoL! As we walked in I could see several little Vietnamese ladies busy cooking away. Anh & I said "Hello" to all the family members and then we waited for the bride & groom ,Hang & Patrick to arrive. Hang finally appeared alone, hey I thought this was a rehearsal dinner? What gives? When Belgian's say rehearsal dinner, they mean the last dinner with their own respected family as an unmarried person. I guess we were not going to see Patrick tonight.

The food was done and the kids (meaning us) decided we would sit in the backyard. The food we had that night included a melon soup (I think) , fried chicken wings and rice. There was a beautiful tent was set-up with a few tables. Very Nice! Kevin, Elaine, Anh, & I took our seats, soon after cousin Binh joined us and a girl name Therese also joined us. Cute girl! She was born & raised in Belgium, but has moved to Westminister, California a couple of years ago. Very friendly! A guy named Leslie joined us at our table, immediately the 4 of us thought "wow, this guy is very feminine he could be gay" We must of at least gone through 2- 3 bottles of wine when Leslie started telling us a story about his ex-wife and his son. The 4 of us looked at each other, kinda puzzled. Well, maybe he's not gay! Another bottle of wine and it was time to head back to the hotel.

You would think we would be exhausted from the long day we've had, but nope. When we got back to the city, the 4 of us headed outside to see if there was any nightlife in the city of Antwerp. We weren't able to find any nightlife, but we did find a 24 hour joint that had some yummy looking rotisserie chicken and I also wanted to have my first taste of Belgium Fries also know as Frites. We ordered our food and sat outside to enjoy the night scenery. Our late night snack cost us about 12 Euros total. Finishing up our meal, we headed back for a good nights sleep and was looking forward to the long day we had the next day.

Day 1 – Antwerp, Belgium

2007-09-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

At around 9:15 a.m. we finally arrived to our hotel, The Astrid Park Plaza in Antwerp. Cousin Binh just dropped us off in front said “see you guys later tonight” and let us venture into the hotel alone. Of course, we arrived too early to check-in and the rooms were not available yet. Then I told them, if they could at least give us one room first, it would be great. They finally said “ok”, but it still won't be available until at least 11 a.m. With 2 hours to kill we headed outside to tour the city and have a small breakfast. As we headed outside, all I could think of was this is a cute little town. We turned right from the exit of the hotel and found Chinatown. Ha-Ha, their Chinatown was made up of about 6 restaurants and 1 little market. We walked through Chinatown and in the middle of it; we saw a place with the name
“GAY RON” outside. We all just started laughing hysterical and that was our first Kodak moment.

Too bad, none of the shops were open yet. We headed back the other way and walked toward the Antwerp Central Train Station (Which is directly across from the hotel) Roaming through the city of Antwerp a little more we finally settled to having breakfast at De la France, which is diagonally across from the hotel. The price for breakfast was about 3-4 Euros per person

We got back to the hotel at exactly 11 a.m. and finally got one of our rooms which was Kevin and Elaine's room, it had 2 single beds. Our room would not be ready until 2 p.m. At the front desk, Anh called Uncle Jerry and Aunt Thao, they were staying at the same hotel. Uncle Jerry had rented a car and offered to give us a ride to the rehearsal dinner that night and told us to meet them in the lobby at exactly 5 p.m. Uncle Jerry is a very punctual person, so we had to make sure we were there on time. We headed to the room it was a pretty contemporary, but the size of the rooms in Hong Kong. For all of you that have traveled with Kevin, you can imagine as soon as the bellman left our room, Kevin's shoes, socks and pants were already off. I have to give him credit; he can remove most of his clothing in a wink of an eye. Elaine immediately jumped into bed, and then Kevin into the other. Anh & I just kinda looked at each other and then he jumped into the twin size bed with Kevin. Can you picture that Anh & Kevin in a twin size bed? LoL! Elaine invited me over to her bed, but I just pulled the two little lounge chairs together and snuggle up. At exactly 2 p.m. I stumble downstairs to check into our room. We had a big king size bed and our room looked a tad bit bigger than Elaine's & Kevin's. Of course we all then took a nap. After a long flight, a 2 hour nap in a bed never felt better.

Day 1- Brussels Airport

2007-09-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

After about 15 hours, we finally arrived into Belgium's Brussels Airport at around 7:30 a.m. (Their Time) We de-boarded the plane and walked which seem like at least 2 miles that led us to a long wait line for Customs clearance (Kevin was happy because we got a stamp in our passports) we headed to retrieve our luggage, keep in mind we all started with one luggage per person three big ones and one little one. As we entered the arrival gate we saw Cousin Binh waving like a crazy madman. Boy, did I feel like we were superstars. With four people and four pieces of luggage, I was thinking in my mind “I sure hope he came in a big car.” As we walkthrough the parking lot, my hope started to become fear, all I see in the massive parking lot are tiny little cars, most of them are a little bigger than a mini cooper. We got to Cousin Binh's car, and no he didn't drive a van or a SUV. He has a little Volkswagen, similar to a Jetta. LoL, the four of us just kinda looked at each other. As we were struggling to fit most of the luggage into the trunk, Kevin's orange strap that he has secured to his suitcase broke. We finally manage to squeeze three suitcases into the trunk; the last one had to sit on Elaine, Kevin, and my lap in the back seat.
The ride from the airport to our hotel in Antwerp took about 35 minutes. On the way to the hotel, Cousin Binh was giving us details to the wedding (This is one of the reasons why we choose Europe as our vacation spot this year) and that we were invited to the rehearsal dinner that night. We were all cool with it; all we were thinking was "ooh free dinner." Then Cousin Binh said that we will need to take public transportation to the dinner and that it would take about 20-25 minutes to get there on the bus and the only thing I could remember him telling us is that the stop we needed to take was at the little church of Lille. We were then told that we were VIP's and was invited to all the wedding festivities, such as the rehearsal dinner, tea ceremony, city hall ceremony, church ceremony, cocktail reception, family luncheon, and the dinner reception. Um, I was thinking “Are we going to do that all in one day?” I guess they go all out when there's a wedding in Belgium.

Day 1- San Francisco Airport to Washington Dulles Airport to Brussels Airport

2007-09-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Our trip had started by having Anh & I going to the wrong terminal at SFO. Since our final destination was Belgium, we automatically thought that our flight was departing from the International terminal. We were dropped off at the International Terminal at 5:30 a.m. to find that all the check-in counters were not open yet. Another family who was also on the same flight with us was also there. After about 10 minutes of waiting, we finally figured out that we had to check-in at the Domestic Terminal since we were flying to Washington D.C. first. Gees, why don't travel agents let you know these things in advance? I was thinking in my head “Damn, how the hell are we going to get to the Domestic terminal, it's almost a mile away.” Luckily, one of Anh's friends who is a limo driver happen to be at the airport at that time called us and asked where we were and wanted to say goodbye, he came by and whisked us away to the Domestic Terminal to check-in. The other family that had made the same mistake as us had to take a cab. Check-in went rather smoothly, they have these new machines that if you just place your passport on it, it can scan everything that's on it and then print out your boarding passes. Kinda cool!