On Monday we were scheduled to leave Brussels and head to Liege, where we would meet up with Dad's cousin, Mauricette. She is one of his many family members within Belgium. Unfortunately, we slept in quite late which did not help jet lag. To start the day off, Dad and I headed downtown to a cafe we had snacked at the day before. Dad had not heard of a croque monsieur, which I explained was a grilled ham and cheese. For brunch we ordered a slightly different version of this sandwich, a "croque madame". It is essentially a croque monsieur with an egg on top.
Dad's coffee, avec a piece of chocolat of course
Words cannot describe how good this is, so the picture will have to do!
While sitting at the cafe, Dad and I noticed a man heading by in a wheelchair. I know I probably did a rather comical double take. Dad and I almost simultaneously asked each other if the man we saw was Stephen Hawking. Dad said that he saw some sort of mathematical graph on the folder one of the men was carrying, and come on... how likely is it Stephen Hawking to have a body double with people who follow him carrying graphs? So, we managed to sneak a photo by going down the street. He entered a very fancy looking hotel so we figured he was there for a conference.
Stephen Hawking photobomb!!
"Stephen Hawking, emeritus Lucasian professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and one of the most brilliant physicists of our time, is visiting the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry in Brussels from May 28 till June 1, 2012."
So, there you go. It's true. Stephen Hawking was in Brussels, and I just happened to see him.
We then headed back to the hotel to check out (and of course I had to Tweet about Stephen Hawking) and tried to get out of Brussels. I say tried because it was unbelievably hard to leave the city! I am quickly realizing just how attached I am to my iPhone, especially having it hooked up to the 3G/4G network. Navigating without the iPhone or a GPS or even a map with all the road names is quite difficult! We have found the best way to do it is to take pictures of Google map routes on our phones and go from there. A lot of the maps we have been given do not actually have all the road names on them, and even worse lots of roads have multiple names. For instance, some of the highways have both an old name (such as A3) but also a new name (E40). Also, in Belgium they speak both French and Flemish so you must know the names of your towns in both languages. For Liege, it is Liege et aussi Luik.
Dad and I gave ourselves enough time to head to Liege with a stop first in Aachen, Germany. I hadn't heard of Aachen outside of them hosting the World Equestrian Games in 2006, but I figured hey, why not stop in Germany!
On our way to Aachen, we saw one of these:
BMW 118d!
Due to the high price of gas in Europe, a lot of people have gone for smaller hatchback cars. I absolutely love the 1 series BMWs since I think they look so compact yet beefy. It's like there is a lot of power stored in a tiny body (huh, anthropomorphize much? wow, can't believe I'm using that word this late haha). Also, most of the cars seem to be diesels since diesel is actually cheaper over here. There are also a lot of scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians. People do whatever they can to avoid gas prices, but also everything is located much more closely together.
Aachen is a very pretty little town. It was quite interesting to be in a place where I had absolutely no concept of the language. At least in Belgium et France I can speak enough of the language that with gestures I can usually get people to understand me, especially if they are semi-fluent in English. Germany, not so much. Luckily my father has an excellent memory from spending time in Germany for Siemens! It was very helpful as I had no idea what was going on. We wandered around for a while, and really enjoyed seeing all of the churches. I certainly appreciated all of the beautiful architecture and paintings. It makes me so glad that I took Art History in college, as I have some idea of what to look for.
After building up an appetite with lots of walking, we sat down at a cafe for some Konig Pilsner and a snack.
Continuing to eat our way through Europe: Apfelstrudel with vanilleeis
As usual, Dad and I passed the time by playing our favorite game: people watching. While we were chatting and eating, we saw another interesting sight... two young guys with skateboards.
Tell me, how does this work??? Skateboards on cobblestone??
It is so confusing. That can't possibly be fun. Anyways, we wandered some, and of course needed more photos for the strange things...
689 Euro for a model of a crane!
We ate again...
Schnitzel weiner art with some pommes (fries)
A quick word before I wrap up for tonight- do not say french fries!! Fries were created in Belgium. They should just be "fries" or "frites".
Unfortunately, I have a lot going on tomorrow so I must stop here. I think I need to start writing blog entries in Word so that I don't have so much to catch up on when I finally get Wi-Fi access. Tomorrow hopefully I will talk about Liege, and then our journey here to Poperinge. Noel was kind enough to take the day off tomorrow to show us around, and we are starting the morning at the boulangerie (bakery) where Bert works. I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of Poperinge.
Dort bien!
-A
I love your posts and photos (and they're not bad either!), though you're making me hungry. And the beer images are much appreciated, as you are aware of my infatuation for the beastly brew! Posting on Blogger is easy using Word, though I usually cut and paste into html. Less code that way, but it doesn't really have an effect on the outcome. And seeing Stephen Hawking is awesome! (Hate that word, but what else could I say? It was sick!) Keep having a great time! Looking forward to the next post.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow, Stephen Hawking!! That's so cool!
ReplyDelete