Week 64: Meetups in Belgium and on Bikes

[I apologize for the lateness of these last posts. Between our recent move and other activities, it has been very difficult to catch up. After this post, there are two more coming.]

With the cool summer weather holding on for quite a while in the Eifel, we spent yet another weekend outside. On Saturday, we went to a Meetup member's house for Belgian National Day. As previously noted, Belgium has an uneasy truce between its two biggest groups: the Wallonians and the Flemish, but the national day does not so much celebrate this union as the creation of an independent Belgian state that served as a buffer between the major European powers in the early 1800s.

Much like Americans do for our Independence day, the Belgians celebrate with BBQs, fireworks and other summer outdoor activities--though they do end it with a tented and liquored dance party! We enjoyed it all (okay--minus the dance party) with the Meetup group, despite the cool weather and the rather small fireworks display thrown together in the village where we spent the afternoon and evening.

Spotted on the Way to Belgium: a River Full of Recent Rains

Sunday lived up to its name and we joined some other Meetup-ers for a bike ride along *yet another* section of the Mosel. For this ride, we started in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. For many, the name Schengen may sound familiar due to the Schengen Agreement, which is the reason why it has been so easy for us to travel from one country in Europe to the next without any boarder controls. The agreement was signed in Schengen in 1985 and removed boarder controls between its signatories. There is a small monument to this event next to the river (and across from the bike rental location where we met up with the group).

View Larger Map

Our ride took us from Schengen to Oberbillig, Germany, up the Mosel river and mostly along bike paths that were lined with Dutch and German Wohnwagons (motor-homes). And the wonderful part of Germany in the summer? Festivals! We found a wine fest, stopped and had some Kaffee, Kuechen and other goodies while listening to the local choir and other choice musical performances. We didn't drink enough to be wobbly on our bikes, but we had enough cake to slow us down a bit. The ride was a total of 35 km (22 miles) and ended at a nice cafe with a beer and a chat before Jason and I caught the train back to our car.

An International Group

The Choir...with a Viking Ship?

Later that week, we did some driving through the countryside near our place and found, as there always seems to be around every corner, a playground with some choice equipment. Not only was there an old school steel merry-go-round (in this bone-crunching style), but there was also a great zip line. Jason was kind enough to get a nice blurry shot of me enjoying the ride!

Being Blurry Makes it Even More Fun!

Week 57: Abtei and Luxembourg Photographers

Jason's boss is an A-10 pilot. As one coworker of mine said when I told him that "OMG! That is the coolest boss ever!" (That was in front of his boss, so he quickly backpedaled...) But, as happens with most military jobs, he will be rotating out of Germany and out of flying the A-10 within the next few months. As these rotations tend to come in waves, there were a number of pilots who were moving on at the same time, so the squadron had a farewell dinner for them all.

The dinner was hosted at Abtei Himmerod, located about 15-20 minutes from our place and is home to some ridiculously strong beer (10.5% alcohol content--that is much closer to wine...). We had the options of a few different German meals. Jason selected the Moechskloss (potato dumpling), whose correct spelling, with the German letters, is shown in the picture below. 

What would you like for dinner?

The farewell dinner was interesting, as no one wanted anyone to speak for very long, but each person did. And, this was despite the fact that they had a bowl of water full of ice at the front where everyone spoke. While speaking, the speaker had to have his hand in the bowl of water. It seemed to me to not be much of a deterrent since (1) these guys are in the military and have to put up with crap like that all the time and (2) they were sucking down the 10.5% alcohol beers like they were going out of style.

On Sunday we went off to Luxembourg for the afternoon. We were planning on doing Happy Mosel, where the road next to the Mosel is closed and becomes a huge bike way, as we did last year, but when we woke up it was PORING rain, so we decided to avoid making our selves into the wet and, likely, unhappy people we would become after riding our bikes for 2 to 4 hours in the rain. Instead, we visited a photo museum in Luxembourg.

The museum is located in one of Luxembourg's casemates (we've toured other sections on a couple of occasions) and is named, appropriately, Am Tunnel. Two Luxembourgish artists were featured. The first, is a sport photographer, Arthur Thill, who does photography particularly of F1 and Olympic sports (currently his site is showing snaps of the EuroCup). Check out this award-winning series of photos of a Formula 1 race in Germany, where some errant fuel was ignited. Very dramatic.

The other photographer on display was Edward Steichen. Steichen is really only a passing Luxembourger, having moved to the US with his parents when he was very young. He is, though, quite famous (in the right set) for curating a photo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NY called The Family of Man, which went on tour around the world and was seen by over 9 million people. They had some information in this exhibit regarding his work, but the actual Family of Man exhibit (the last one left) is located in northern Luxembourg. That goes on our list! For 2013 (it is closed until then...)!

After visiting the museum, we got a coffee and walked around a bit, finding the crew of Asian tourists taking photos of each other in front of Dunk Henri's palace. Sort of a meta picture, I suppose.

The Duke's Palace, in many photos

For the evening, we caught up with the meetup group at a pub and did a pub quiz. We came in second, but by only three points. On the way back to the car, we saw a little piece of home in a shop window...go Celts!

Evidently, the Celtics vacation in Luxembourg

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.