Balladins Confort Charleroi

... the Chocolate Museum, which made me ridiculously excited. We timed it so we arrived right before lunch, and so we were able to get a bunch of samples during the chocolate-making presentation. Then we were able to sample different types of chocolate chips, from milk to super dark chocolate. I had to practice ridiculous self-control here, because I figured that grabbing the entire bowl of chocolate chips and dumping it into my mouth would not be socially ...

... very sour, very nice!

Walked around the main tourist drag and had curry mussels at Chez Leon with Grimbergen brun. Not as nice as a Leffe brun, but still good.
After dinner went to Delerium bar which is in the Guinness book of records for having the most beers available - 2004 different varieties.
I was only interested in the 24 they had on tap - most of which couldn't be had elsewhere.
Had a cactus beer which tasted ...

... as low as it had ever been. The fighting around Belleau Wood was not managed well; it was terribly confused with many soldiers in the dark forest not knowing exactly who was where. It is a testimony to the individual bravery of the soldiers who fought there that they continued the combat even under demoralizing conditions and extremely high losses. On June 6th alone, in that relatively small wood (about a mile square) over 1000 Marines ...

Yesterday I left the hotel by about 9:00 and drove about three and a half hours to Saint Avold. I was struck again as I drove, by how many wars have been fought over the parts of France through which I was driving and how many important historical events have occurred here. The drive roughly parallels the Western Front of WW I. I drove through the area of Château Thierry where Belleau Wood is located. That was a battlefield where American Marines distinguished themselves ...

BEWARE TRAVELERS! The Brussels CRL airport is not in Brussels! We got up early to fly to Dublin, and after 1.5 hrs of travel, found ourselves at the wrong airport; the other airport was 80 km away! Needless to say, we missed our flight. We took the train again, and spent the ...

... purchased,they just laughed.But i wasn't laughing. Now i was at Liege (where ever that is) with no money,no battery on my mobile phone.My medicine supply was getting dangerously low too.I was tired,hungry,thursty and ****** off about the idiot on a train.I was desperate.I figured that if i go outside the station and find a local store,i could try to steal some food and drinks from it. And if they catch and arrest me, i can always stay at ...

... you return it before you leave!" What a nice guy! Got a day membership for free! After the gym we headed downtown for some shopping. Rob really wanted to go to this store called Lacoste so we did....only to find very rude French-Belgians!! When we arrived we started browsing and one of the clerks heard us speaking English so approached us in English asking if we needed help. He helped us find what we were looking for and was ...

Surprise! We woke up at 5:15 AM, and began a long drive into what seemed like nowhere. After about an hour and a half, we saw the white cliffs of dover, and were asked for our passports. We boarded a large ferry, and departed for the French coast. It was very large, and had a few shopping places, restaurants, etc. On the ship, we had to exchange some of our pounds for Euros. Great, another new currency to learn. After a nice breakfast, we got back ...

... Amsterdam in the morning. For those of you who don't know what the Mannekin Pis is, it is a statue of a little boy peeing. Our travel book talked it up and friends told us it was funny, so we were looking forward to this big elaborate statue. Ends up being about 12 inches tall, max. (Tall, not long). After the peeing, we wandered ...

... runned by an Italian emigrants, and it was awfull: the floor of our room wasn't event plain, it was all up-and-down, and the fornitures were in a bad shape. We walked around in Charleroi, only to discover that, apart from the Grimbergen (beer) factory, some belgian comics characters' statue and a few parks, there was nothing intresting that you can reach by walking.