Holiday Inn Liege Liège

I. Am. Tired.

But, I got all of my goals accomplished today, so I am also very happy!!

After my successful lesson at school I took the bus back to Aachen. I got off a couple stops short of home to stop by the electric company. It was surprisingly easy. I brought in the paper the guy gave me this morning when he looked at my apartment. The paper has the number of my electrical meter on it. I told the lady that I wanted to turn it ...

... use my fingers to eat wings, but other than that, very delicious.

Tomorrow I have to:

1. get up and go get my apartment looked at by the rental agency to make sure of the apartment's condition so they can ensure that the room is returned in the same condition
2. go to the electric company and sign up so I can have power at my new place
3. go to the bank and finalize my damage ...

... They told us we were at the highest point in Belgium, which was somewhere in the Nature Park.

We decided to call it a day for the roadbook, and make a detour to just get into Luxembourg for fuel, and to make sure we 'did' all the countries.

Looking back that detour cost us some time, but did mean we visited Luxembourg, even if it was too dark to see it.

Once in Elsloo, we stopped to find postcards (having completely missed the observations again), only to find that the only card shop was closed that afternoon.

Up the road a bit, and Kieran was dropping a card into the door of a Landy enthusiast they had met on the recce. The guy turned up at that moment, and so we were invited in for a refreshing cold drink. The Landyprikkers overtook us at that point, and went on their way. We then ...

... time. That means that some people were eating while other people were done. It was weird, because they knew we were coming and we even had our food pre-ordered, so they knew what dishes to make. I guess it was because we were such a large group, about 80 people.

After lunch we took a walking tour of the city. They split our large group into three smaller groups to make it more managable. The city is ...

... and not pay taxes. It was pretty easy, I just had to show my passport and give a little information. I then got a welcome packet with a city map and lots of coupons to use all over the city.

One of the coupons was a monthly bus ticket. So yesterday I took the card to the main bus station (Bushof) to get it activated. I can use the card to ride the buses and trains all over Aachen and the surrounding cities and also to ...

... statue to Charlemagne. This particular stone depiction of the horse-mounted, sword-wielding Frank proudly proclaimed Liege as birthplace of Europe's father, though much debate remains as to Charlemagne's hometown. This statue-and its claim-illustrated much about the Belgian and French obsession with their 9th century leader and their contemporary mindset. Francophone Benelux prides itself as the ambassador of Europe and is quick to draw comparisons between the EU ...

... chocolate cake you have ever seen! Unfortunately the ferry crossing back was a little rough and only 2 of us were in any fit state to even contemplate eating chocolate cake, and since it wasn't our cake we decided it would be rude. The following morning however, she decided to cut it up and share it out...aaaawww, bless! The journey back was also particularly eventful as one of the girls drank a little too much vodka and started threatening to throw herself ...

We 'trundled down past Maastricht towards Germany. The deviations were big ones but we still were able to make good time! The scenery was worth the deviations though. We past by some wonderful little towns and river gorges. Very nice bit of countryside. Will have to return there sometime, God willing!

On our quest to get to Cherbourg(where the ferry leaves for Ireland) we find out that it is not possible to do that night, so we decide to try to get as close as possible to our destination(since we have a unlimited train pass) once back in brussels we quickly head off to Liege. Here we go out and eat a soupe aux poireau... yummy. Back on the train and off to Namure!