Luxemburg, Belgium, and a Cathedral in Koln

After John’s class our first full day in Germany, he decided he wanted to visit a couple other countries, since we were so close. So we took off on a little adventure, and went and visited the countries of Luxemburg and Belgium. Not a whole lot to see. We drove through, picked up some post cards to say we were there, and ate dinner in Belgium. They speak French there. It was kind of a little town, so I wasn’t sure if they spoke much English, so while waiting for our waiter to take the order, I consulted my little translation book and memorized how to say “Please I would like the chicken salad.” (I’m sure my translation was terrible) the guy looked at me, and in perfect English said “You want fries with that?” No kidding. I felt like a dork. Maybe I got points for trying. I don’t know.We didn’t take any pictures. Not much to see. Probably not the best use of our time, but now I’ve been in 5 other countries besides the US. Woo-hoo. (I’ve never been outside the US before this trip) On the way back, we stopped in a city called Koln, or Cologne, I think either spelling works, (I could SOOOO be wrong) There’s a really neat Cathedral there. John wanted to see it lit up at night. The problem was is that it was already like 10:30, we had a two hour drive ahead of us, and it was barely starting to get dark. You don’t get the full impact unless it’s really dark out. Kind of disappointing for us. It’s a neat Cathedral, years of history of course, amazing architecture, but it was closed so we couldn’t go in it, and they were cleaning it, so there was scaffolding around it in spots. It was right next to a train station, so it was grody. I think they couldn’t get some of the blackness off in spots. Some of the walls looked like they had done their best then moved on. Maybe they need to borrow the laser from the Notre Dame cathedral.



Oh and funny story- Since we got to drive on the Autobahn (which of course has no speed limit) John got our little 4 cylinder Ford Focus up to 200 km/hr. (133 mph or something?) But that’s not the funny part, on the way back to the hotel, we are fairly certain we got a speeding ticket. A red light flashed us. He was going like 130 in a posted 100. We were under the impression those signs were “suggestions” I guess sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not.