La Passerelle Liège

... bad, but considering everything I did today, it was a long day.

Coming up the stairs I met our neighbor lady, Rosvitta. She is a talker, but very nice. She's the lady that cooked that traditional German dinner a couple weeks ago. I told her all about my day, and she was happy for me and kept telling me how my time here is just going to fly. She also said that if I ever get homesick I can always come back here to my family. That was ...

... 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 ...

After popping into and out of Germany, we were now back in Belgium. It was beginning to get a bit dark, and we still had at least 200 miles left to drive.

Gaz's motor was struggling, and threatening to overheat, so we stopped to let it cool down.

With the vehicles all decorated with stickers, we attracted a bit of attention, and a Belgian couple took our ...

... on.

We stopped at one point, because the roadbook wasn't very clear, at which point Gaz and Charlotte came up behind us. They had been left behind by the V8s, as they were in a Series vehicle, so we said we'd stick with them.
At this point, Kieran noticed a strange noise from our engine, which was duly investigated by James. It was diagnosed as the fan belt tensioning pulley. But we didn't do anything about it at the time.

... beautiful, and you can see lots of pictures of it on my gallery:

www.juliesours.com/gall ery

We saw lots of old churches from the 1500s and a castle/fort, which is in the pictures.

Also yesterday I signed the lease for my new apartment! Nil came with me and basically did all of the talking, and I am very grateful for that, because it would have been difficult to do by myself, signing ...

... grade English class, and I must say, they have been quite impressive. It is definitely beneficial for the students to start learning a language so young. In the 12th grade class we had a discussion about the American Dream. The students seemed very interested in what I had to say and learning what its really like instead of learning from reading about America or seeing it on TV. At the end I asked if any students had any ...

... the German border that primarily speaks German). Road signs are given in one language in one zone and may change considerably in the other, so one has to get used to both versions when driving in Belgium. When moving from French to Flemish, Liège becomes Luik, Anvers becomes Antwerpen, and Courtrai becomes Kortrijk to name just three. Several of our members in Belgium live south of Liège, just a few miles ...

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!

The second city we visited on our trip was another city in Belgium called Liege. This was a French-speaking city so this meant for once I was not one of the only people not able to communicate with anyone. It was funny seeing everyone else frustrated with not knowing how to speak French. Other than not being able to properly order food, the city was nice and it was cool being in a French influenced city ...

... with the darlings Celine, Py and Marjorie! Celine, Py and I even managed to fit in a trip to Bruges, a gorgeous little town that charmed the pants off us, despite the (seemingly) sub-Arctic temperatures. After a walk through the lovely streets of the old-fashioned town, we went to an ice and snow sculpture exhibit. The theme was Greek mythology and there was an indoor labrinyth constructed, dotted with all the gods and characters that you ...