Finding Our Roots

Last year when we were in Korea we decided to subscribe to Ancestry.com so we could start creating one family tree for our newly formed family. We were able to trace our lineage back to when most of our ancestors came to America. On our European adventure we realized that the cities from which both of our father's families originate were within a few hours drive of Gelsenkirchen.

First we decided to visit Tourinnes-la-Grosse, Belgium. Jeff's father's side of the family left here in the 1850s to head to America. It was a super cute, super small town. You can tell everyone knows everyone because as we drove through the streets people looked at us with a look of "who are these strangers driving around!?!" After driving around the town we found the really old church that we were pretty sure Jeff's family belonged to. Inside we saw a cornerstone indicating that the church had been standing since the 1700s (which is a huge feat given the destruction caused by World War II). After looking inside the church we examined the cemetery surrounding the church to see if there were any family headstones. We weren't able to find any from Jeff's family, but there were a ton with the last name Degreve, who at some point married into Jeff's family. We believe that a Degreve married into Jeff's family and left her family behind when his family traveled to the US.

Later on in our trip we drove to Glandorf, Germany, where Mia's father's side of the family lived before coming to America in the 1830's. We were also able to find her family's church, St. Johannis, but unfortunately the church is not the same one that the family attended. The church was destroyed in World War II, but parish rebuilt a new church, which was still pretty cool to see!

We also found the "old" town cemetery, but we didn't find any graves there for people who passed away before World War II. Our best guess is that maybe the cemeteries were destroyed in the war, and the "old" cemetery was created after the war. Since the family left in the 1830s, we weren't able to find any grave, but it was still really interesting to walk through the cemetery and the town.
We have to say that visiting the exact places that our ancestors used to live was really a once in a lifetime experience that neither of us will forget.

Manneken Pis Party

A few weekends ago, before the job in Gelsenkirchen was completed, we took a road trip through Belgium and stayed in Brussels. The last stop on our city tour was the popular tourist attraction "Manneken Pis." You may recognize this naked statue of a boy peeing, as we did in the tourist books. As we approached the area of the statue we saw that there were tons of people crowding the streets around the statue. We just figured they were all there to see the cute little bronze tyke. However, when we arrived we were shocked at what we saw - Manneken Pis was wearing clothes!

His little hooh-hah was still providing a nice fountain stream, but what was with the frock and pink elephant? After looking around we noticed that not everyone was there to admire the statue. They were across the street enjoying free beer, compliments of Delirium Tremens. It took us a second but we finally made the connection between the Delirium Tremens logo (a pink elephant on a blue background) and the outfit that little Manneken Pis was wearing. The statue was all dressed up as a part of this big promotional party.

Not being the type to turn away free beer, we grabbed a few drinks and joined the crowd in the streets. At this point we noticed another hilarious part of the beer promotion. A crazy looking older guy (I'll explain more about him later) was pushing around a cart with a replica of Manneken Pis on top of it. With the push of a button the replica could spray unsuspecting passer-bys. Occasionally the guy operating the cart would begin to chase through the crowd spraying any and everyone in his path.

Needless to say, this was completely hilarious to watch. We are not exaggerating when we say that we watched clueless tourists being chased and sprayed for over an hour!

An event like this certainly brought all of the crazies out of the woodwork. They were probably all attracted by the gentleman chasing people through the crowds with the Manneken on a cart. If there were a contest for the world's craziest moustache, this guy would win hands down!

Some of our other favorites in the crowd included this young woman who danced to some great 90s tunes,

and this guy who, well, we're not really sure what to say about this guy!

Life Update

Hello all! We know it's been a while, so we thought we would give you a quick update on our lives. We left Gelsenkirchen on August 25th and headed off on a two week vacation. We decided to rent a car and drive through Western Europe. Along the way we stopped in TONS of different cities and were overwhelmed by all that we saw in such a short time. We will post more details later, but our main stops were Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva (Switzerland), Lucerne (Switzerland), Fussen (Germany), Munich (Germany), Rothenburg o.d.t. (Germany), and Dusseldorf (Germany). Throughout the trip we constantly commented that it felt like we were on our third honeymoon (the first being the real one in Costa Rica and the second our month in Australia). I guess it's hard to complain when you can have three honeymoons all before your first wedding anniversary!

Anyways, we left Germany on Sunday and Jeff left on Wednesday for a quick job in Daesan, South Korea. I decided to stay back because the town is very small and there's not much for me to do there during the day. Plus it's a quick job, so I know Jeff will be back soon!