Brussels

So, we've been in Brussels for almost 3 weeks now. I haven't updated much about the city at all. We live just south of city centre and next to Halleport - the last standing entrance gate to Brussels.

Our flat is decent and livable, but nothing to write home about. There is a big market in St. Gilles Parvis every Wed., Sat., and Sun. - but on the other days, there are still a few vendors selling their goods. We've got to know the cheese/meat guy pretty well. Great food. We haven't really gone out to eat much in the area except to get donar kebap from the guys next to the Halleport. We've done the tourist stuff - Mannekin Pis, Grand Place, chocolate, beer, etc. We even made it to the Flower Carpet (turn down your speakers before hitting the link)

We are finally settled in.

So, this weekend we are headed to Rotterdam.

A few sets of pictures:

Set 1: 14 photos mostly of our drive to Belgium. Including the autobahn and 104 MPH driving. =)



Set 2: 5 photos of the flower carpet.



Set 3: 20 photos of Jeff's visit to Brussels. Including the Cantillon Brewery (they make the last traditional lambic/gueuze - by natural fermentation)



Until next time.

Heidelberg - Land of Schnitzel

This will be a short post, primarily because we only spent one day in Heidelberg. Our primary mission: Meet up with Shelly and some of her friends for a going away party. Easy enough. We got off to a late start and the GPS messed us up, so we didn't get over there until about 2:30. The city is beautiful. Heidelberg is an old university city with a beautiful castle - just what someone would imagine based on their high school textbooks.

We visited the castle, did some shopping, met up with Shel and her friends, and ended up at the most amazing restaurant - Heidelberger Schnitzelhaus. OMG. 101 schnitzels. seriously awesome. I want to go back and try every one. I was tempted by the Mole Schnitzel, but ended up with a Roquefort-filled one. nummmmmmmmy. and beer. of course. beer. lots of it.

This time: 25 photos. Mostly castle

Next stop! All aboard!

Our next stop, Heilbronn, was going to be nice because I'd have a chance to catch up with Shelly - an old friend of mine from my Iowa days. She graciously offered to host us. (shelly - thank you again) Heilbronn is a smaller town and as we rolled in on the train - I decided that this is the Iowa of Germany. Yep. Green rolling plains and gentle farming with infrequent big industry. Just like Iowa.

I won't go into too much detail, but Shelly and Keith made the week awesome. Took us to meet some friends, had some dinner, made some food, drank some beer, saw an 80's rock cover band, ate lardo, and just had some fun. The last day, Lo-Lin and I walked up to the vineyards. Beautiful.

I just wanted to make 2 additional comments. Beer here is not as exciting as in other places around the world, rather it is straight forward, good tasting, and plentiful. Enjoyable all the time. The second comment is food-based. I love food and Heilbronn did not disappoint. I've been wanting to try proper lardo for a while. For the uninitiated, lardo is pork fat with a bit of crispy skin that has been melted and spread like butter on bread (or pizza or other mediums). It is *rich* and creamy, but a little bit of texture too. It sounds gross (Shel wouldn't touch it), but it is top notch country cuisine. The vendor even asked me twice (he spoke English well) - Are you sure you want this? You know what this is? =) Yep. and I loved it. p.s. it was served with another piece of bread with pork tartare ;)

Now to the photos: 36 photos. This one is of some sort of meat/cheese filled baguette that I had. SCRUMPTIOUS! The meat salad in the pictures looked great too.

Berlin. The land of ...weird.

Much has been forgotten about Berlin, so this might be a little cloudy.....

As with most countries/cities - finding public transportation from the airport to the city is an enigma. A few cities get it right: Amsterdam, Chicago, Tokyo. Berlin doesn't get it. After lugging our bags onto the bus, we maneuvered our way off onto an U-Bahn...and then to another U-Bahn. Finally there? Wrong. Our first place fell through, so we stayed in what seemed like the middle of nowhere - about 6 blocks away from the U-Bahn in southeastern Berlin. Get there - no air conditioning. doh.

I won't go into much about what we did, but we both weren't too impressed. Between the seemingly disrespectful aspect of the younger generation (nonsensical graffiti, destruction, and throwing bottles on the ground on public transport) and the sadness of the sites - I don't know. As a tourist, the place wasn't for me. I bet if I found myself there for some time - say 3 or 4 months - I could figure out the underside of Berlin. The clubs, art life, the food - I'm sure I could seek it out and it would be wonderful, but the short time span didn't allow me those luxuries, sadly.

Highlights:

• 6th floor of KaDeWe - the first one. omg. food heaven. Lo-Lin had to drag me out of there.


• Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche. This is a bombed out church. One of the few remainders from WWII.


• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The outside is impressive and most people see this and leave. Underneath there is a very sad memorial.


• Joe's Beer Garden. near the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. First time I saw Liter-sized beer.


• Donar Kebap. The shop near our hotel was the best by far. The guy was extremely wanting to help us and give us the food that he had made - in the best possible manner.

Lowlights:

• Curry-wurst. I was led to believe that this rocked. Lame. Curry mixed with ketchup and bratwurst. lame. lame. lame. Curry fries were much better. Culinary disappointment!


• 40 euro ticket on the U-Bahn. I didn't pay it. It will probably come back on me at the most inopportune time.


• German people in general. They just weren't very nice in general. The beer staffer at Prader even grunted at me.


• Obama. I can't seem to get away from him. We arrived when he spoke in Berlin. We go to Brandenburg Gate and he's staying at the hotel next to it. If he was the President of the United States, I would be more respectful - but he's a junior senator from my home state, Illinois, acting like he is the leader of the U.S. That is disrespectful.

On to some pictures. 33 photos.

Finally back!

After a bit of a struggle, we are finally back online. Lo-Lin and I arrived in Brussels, Belgium on 8/1 and have been working to get proper Internet since then. Thankfully, Marianna (our downstairs neighbor) is amazing. =) So, the updates will be coming, slowly but surely over the next day or two.