Week 52: Ex-Pat Meetups!

Wow! Week 52! We've been here in Germany for a year now and are still quite enjoying ourselves. There are still more castles to see...

We've been participating on-and-off with an ex-pat group in Luxembourg for events such as Burgbrennen and a hot air balloon festival. A few weekends ago we participated in two events. The first was a hike through some of the hills and villages of Luxembourg. The hike ended up being about 22.5 km and resulted in some fantastic blisters on the backs of my heals due to my boots, which, evidently, weren't quite as worn in as I had thought. (I had to wear shoes quite sparingly for the two weeks following the hike--things are almost back to normal now...)

Despite the pain that tends to cause to such large blisters, we both had quite a good time, as can be seen in the picture below. The group we were hiking with included a couple Germans, a South African, a Canadian, a Bulgarian, a Luxembourger, maybe people from a couple other places, plus us Americans. (Luxembourg is great like that--there are people from absolutely everywhere.) And the weather was perfect. Oh, and the place where we ended our hike was having an opening celebration, which included free aps and drinks.

Enjoying the Hike

The hike was on Saturday. I spent much of Sunday keeping the backs of my feet away from just about everything. I do have to say, though, that Spyroflex coverings work really well, though it seems they are no longer manufactured (based on my Google search) and makes me wonder just how long I have had them in my med kit. By the evening, Jason was able to convince me to try my sneakers, which wasn't much more comfortable than the boots, but we made it to Luxembourg City, to join another group of ex-pats for a pub quiz.

Our group had a Moroccan, an Italian and Jason and I. We did alright in the first round, coming in 3rd, but blew everyone away in the second round, and ended up winning 18 EUR apiece! Nice! One of my personal contributions was knowing who William Cody was better known as. I don't think a single other person in that bar knew that answer--I've been to a ranch of his in North Platte, Nebraska many years ago.

This was only the second pub-quiz I have ever been privy to. The first was a little less than a year ago in Norway. The entire pub quiz was in Norwegian, though, so my coworker and I didn't participate. This didn't stop him from getting two questions right, despite not knowing a word of Norwegian. He was lucky, though--he's Canadian and the answer to both questions was Canada.

All-in-all, a very good weekend, meeting some people from all over the world. With the bonus of coming out 18 EUR richer and with (hopefully) a pair of boots that are a bit more worn in and ready for the next hike.