Tulip Inn Heerlen

... I've experienced (like something out of a comedy sketch show, where one character is only capable of saying 'no' - remind me to act it out for you when I get back to Australia), I discovered that, without residency in a European country, it is basically impossible to get a Chinese visa there. I have since spent hours trying to find a loophole, with little success, except the occasional 'If you bring us all your documents, and leave them with us for a week, then maybe we will ...

... alley where Hugo won handily.<br>The next day the kids had to go back to school, so we decided to head into Maastricht and have a look around. I'll let Whitney tell you about Maastricht and get to the important stuff -dinner! Trees cooked us Bami for dinner, which is a delicious noodle meal that went prettyquickly.<br>The following day is was time to say goodbye, so we bid farewell to the kidlets before school and got dropped off at the station with our bellies ...

During our stay in Spa we had the most scary, horrible, unpleasant experience ever in a restaurant.<br><br>The restaurant to avoid is "Le Bouchon Gourmand", the owner does not hesitate to insult customers, lock them into the restaurant if there is a dispute on the bill, and claim more money than is due. <br><br>See more on www.bouchon-gourmand.blogspot.com

... even though this seems too good to be true)<br><br>From the electric company (STAWAG) I got out my handy dandy map and notebook with addresses to the mattress companies (aunt lena, I use that little red notebook every day). I got on the bus a rode to the mattress company, it was right on a corner, couldn't miss it. I went in and the sales dude showed me a couple different mattresses, all around 100 euro. I saw on the webiste that I could ...

One of the teachers that I assist couldn't be here at all this week, and he asked me if I felt comfortable taking over his class for the week. I said I would, and this weekend he emailed me some information about what to do and discuss in class. <br><br>Our topic today was "If you had the power to change the world, what would you change?" The students are to write their own first chapter of a book entitled "Ecotopia." Today we ...

... br>2. hang up my flyers advertising my excellent proofreading skills (trying to make a little money on the side)<br>3. make a copy of my new apartment key for landlord<br>and and and...<br><br>WHEW!! all of this stuff has to get done sometime, I guess. I am just glad things are finally starting to come together, or at least they will have a little more by tomorrow night.<br><br>Going to bed for now!

... They told us we were at the highest point in Belgium, which was somewhere in the Nature Park.<br><br>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.<br><br>Looking back that detour cost us some time, but did mean we visited Luxembourg, even if it was too dark to see it.<br>

... on.<br><br>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.<br>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.<br>

... I ate inside once. The bartender had us taste-test some local wines - yum. We stayed there until about 1 am after me stumbling through a bunch of bad German and teaching the locals a few things about English. I swear to God they were laughing at us, but they were cool anyway. That was some strong wine, and we fell asleep immediately. Until of course, the other people in our room arrived back from Bonn, sufficiently drunk. Ahhhhh, Germany :) USA tomorrow!!!!

... edge of the town centre there were a number of different animal statues set around the bottom of an old concrete enclosure. After coming across a dog-like creature with a striped back, we jokingly pronounced it to be a Tasmanian Tiger, looking up at us in recognition of spotting two of his own. Despite the uncanny resemblance we dismissed it as something more European, like a fox or a wolf or something, until with ...