Out of Town

Hello everyone! Scott has a work trip on the outskirts of Paris on Monday 7/30 and I'm tagging along. We're headed off to wonder around Paris today (Sudnay 7/29) and will be back Monday night. I'll blog later on in the week!

Geentse Feesten ( Gent Festival)

This past weekend, Belgium celebrated its Independence Day. The city of Gent has one of the largest festivals so we headed off to Gent Saturday afternoon. We biked to the train station and parked our bikes with the thousands of other bikes and took the 30 minute train ride to Gent. We took the local tram/bus into the city center and toured on from there. Gent has a very beautiful castle that I've always wanted to go in but didn't want to pay the entry fee. On Saturday, it was free. We took the tour, walked up a few hundred spiral stairs to the top and had wonderful views of the city. Next, we took a canal boat tour through the canals of Gent. I learned a lot more useful information for the guided tour that I give to all of our visitors. After our touristy stuff, we moved on to find the 5 or so stages to see what music was playing. I'd describe this as a free music midtown like Atlanta has. One stage was built across the water. We wanted to stay until the fireworks but they were at 11:30 and our last train was at 11:35 so we headed back early. We arrived back in Brugge and realized that we didn't have any mandatory lights on our bikes. It's kind of like a car, without lights, you really can't see in the dark. We eventually made it home after hopping off and walking our bikes every time we saw a cop. Just another Scott and Lacy adventure for you!

Click HERE to see all of our Gent pictures.

Luxembourg

Cough, Cough. I was a little under the weather last week so I'm behind in posts. All year I've waited for the weather to warm up. Last weekend it did - 80ish! But, I got a sinus infection and felt like crapola and couldn't even enjoy it. I'm feeling much better now and it's in the 70's for a few more weeks.

Anyway, last Saturday we got up bright and early and drove three hours south to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Luxembourg is right below Belgium on the map. If you scan too fast you'll miss it b/c it is pretty small. It's surrounded by France, Germany and Belgium.

Much to our surprise Luxembourg City was a very cosmopolitan city. Much more with the times than the entire country of Belgium. It was the week before Jazz festival there was everyone was gearing up for that. We had lunch outside (at another Chi-chi's we found) and listened to jazz music, strolled through an antique fair, saw the Royal Palace, and the main church for the city. We really enjoyed the city and wouldn't hesitate to come back.

Click HERE to see our Luxembourg pics.

Our hotel had a swimming pool which we were more excited about than the actual touring of the city. The bathing suite of choice for men in Europe is a speedo. Most pools require men to wear a speedo but thankfully the Hilton didn't. You know how in the U.S if you see a man wearing a speedo you usually do a double take? Well, that's what everyone did for Scott as he made his big splash into the pool with his long Hawaiian patterned shorts. He was the odd man out!

The next morning we drove over to the U.S Military Cemetery and saw General Patton's grave. Scott, who randomly knows more about General Patton than I knew, said that he didn't die in the war, he died in a car accident back in the U.S a few months after the war ended. His request was to be buried with his troops.

Oh, I forgot: We saw Die Hard 4 at the movies in Luxembourg. I had a Die Hard marathon previous week and saw 1 through 3. This last one was my favorite by far. I was talking about the movie two days later!

On Monday morning, I woke up to the sound of gun shots. I ran to the window and was in shock for a few seconds....then I saw the cameras and director....they were filming a local TV show on my street. They were here all week and filmed each scene 10 times so I got to hear a lot of tires screeching and gun shots over and over all week!

Not too much going on here in Brugge again this week. The weather is slowly creeping up out of the 50's and 60's and into the 70's.....and hopefully the rain we leave as well.

We went to the Cactus Festival with our friends Bob and Robin on Friday night to see CAKE. Always nice to see a band you can sing along too!

On Saturday, we drove to the Belgian city of MONS and toured around there for an hour or so. As we were driving through their city center I told Scott to look at the TexMex restaurant on the corner. He shouted, "CHI-CHI's!"



I'd never heard of it but, apparently it's a chain Mexican restaurant from back in the U.S. We had a yummy lunch there, sitting outside, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. After a year of us being here, we discover the most authentic Mexican restaurant that's comparable to back home and learn that they have 3 other locations in Belgium. Lucky us!

On Sunday, we had a "going away" get-together for our friends Doug and Kristin at our house. They are moving to The Hague, Netherlands on Saturday. We wish them the best of luck in their future!

(I did forget my camera all weekend so I apologize for the lack of pictures!)

Off to Luxembourg next weekend for a short weekend trip! I promise I'll have the camera!

Delta SiteSeer Challenge

Shannon and I are up to it again....even if we are 4000 miles apart. We submitted our audition tape to Amazing Race a few years back and this time were trying something different. Delta is having a challenge where 5 teams of 2 go to predetermined cities and tour around while being video taped. Delta.com cutomers go on and vote who's the best and the winner gets 1 million skymiles. Its a really big deal with Delta so our audition video is probably one of thousands. Who knows....maybe we'll make it to the top 5.