Brussels

Yes... I am very slowly catching up on this. Sorry about that, I had said I would catch up when I did Warsaw... Oops.

So, most of you have probably read London up above, that was the second weekend excursion we went on in just as many weeks. During the first weekend of July we decided to pack up and go to Brussels. We left Bonn at around 7:00, well closer to 8 as we decided to treat ourselves for a Starbucks for the ride. It is only a 2 hour drive to Brussels so we pulled into the hotel just as the sun went down.

Saturday we spent the day meandering through the city. We started at Autoworld, a museum about the history of the automobile. It was a little different in that it was basically a big open place, like an airplane hangar, but still very nice. They had hundreds of cars dating back from the late 1800's to today. And of course, they had a Harley Davidson! It was donated to the King of Belgium for his motorcade. Every King needs a Hog to keep him safe!



We then made our way into the main square. Just like every other town in Europe, the architecture is absolutely breathtaking. The main square was hands down the best. There was a wedding going on and they had stilt walkers outside. My favorite is a photo my wife captured of them resting against the wall. Bonus points if you spot the funniest bit of the photo!




One of the highlights of the day was finding the elusive Lost Boy Statue. This is located in Egmont Gardens, behind the Hilton Hotel. This statue is unique because it is one of only 7 in the world. There is a special attraction for us as a good friend brought our attention to the statue because one of the seven is in Camden, NJ. Why Camden, not a clue... What makes this statue elusive is that there is only one website on all of the web that even hints as to where it is. In a city full of statues, this is truly a lost one, not even residents of Brussels know about it!

Driving and Music

It has been a while since the last blog entry...

So I did go for the bike ride on Sunday. It was a great ride. I went out with a new riding partner who is used to flats and not much climbing. Now I have heard he is a really strong rider on the flats, so I was a little worried about going for a ride as I do not consider myself a super strong rider. However, the hills leveled the playing field. All in all, it was a really good ride. The weather was good and the roads were dry. In the end it looks like we will ride some more in the future and he invited me to use one of his bikes in the States next time I am in town and want to go for a ride.

After spending the day with family, I had a quick business trip to Brussels, well, the meetings were at the airport, so I didn't really see Brussels at all.

Anyway, it is 235 km (141 miles) from Bonn, 225 of these are on the autobahn :). The company has a fleet of cars we can rent out for trips like this. I had a relatively new BMW 320 with a 6 speed :) I really enjoyed cruising on up the highway on this trip. Even though the car was a combi (stationwagon), it drove like a sports car. Plus the car even had a hook up for the iPod, so I got to listen to good old american music for the entire ride up and back!

This leads me to my last good tidbit for the day, one of my favorite artists Toby Keith is releasing another album in June! Thank goodness for iTunes. It makes buying music so easy and the iPod makes travel so much better, especially on long flights like the one next month to Mexico (12 hours).