my hero!

we spent thanksgiving weekend in the BEAUTIFUL city of ghent, between antwerp and brugge in belgium. we'll be devoting several more blogs to our adventures there, but since we still do not have internet access at home, i just wanted to share one quick story with you. i'll post other stories later...

our hotel was actually a former monastary, and our extremely spacious and lovely room overlooked a little courtyard and a chapel wall. though the monastary was beautiful, it was definitely not built necessarily for comfort. the halls carried sound throughout the whole building, our room had no telephone, and the floor boards creaked. but how quaint! we were sleeping in a monastary!

i was exhausted our first night there, after travelling on a train for 5 hours and spending a few hours in amsterdam before we caught our connection. it was thanksgiving, and so i was feeling just a little homesick. and finally, Finally i got to go to sleep, after a very long day of sightseeing and travelling.

when just then, the people upstairs came "home" to their room.

clomp clomp CLOMP murmur murmur CLOMP crash CRASH! so loud! they didn't mean to be that noisy, but being in an old monastary will amplify any sound you make. and i'm such a light sleeper, that the smallest sound will wake me up. so needless to say, i was getting really grumpy. i was SO TIRED, and all i wanted to do was sleep! and the people upstairs weren't helping!

all my tossing and turning and grumbling woke up adam, who was very patient with me as i decided to just sleep in the side room that our hotel room had. i figured that in the side room, where i could turn on the bathroom fan for background noise, i wouldn't hear the people overhead tromping around in their room.

i was just about to lay down when i grabbed the powerstrip that was on the bedside table, to place it on the floor so i wouldn't electrocute myself in the night. all of a sudden POP as it sparked right in my hands! i screamed, jumped back, and in the process, i blew out all of the power in our wing of the building. adam came rushing in to find out if i was okay, and i just started to cry i was so tired and now scared.

so now there's no power, i'm scared half to death, and i'm still tired. so adam decides to wander through a dark monastary, looking for the night guard, to turn the power back on. he's gone for quite a while as he tracks down a person he's never seen before in a pitch black monastary.

and when he comes back, not only is the power back on, but he is holding in his hands two earplugs that he got from the guard! my hero!

i did sleep well the rest of that night and the next day bought more earplugs that i will always carry with me when i travel. when we came back to our room that next evening, after a full day of sightseeing and drinking incredible belgian beers, we found that housekeeping had removed the powerstrip. good idea.