short story about friday night first. rich and i were walking towards the computer labs at the vub and we came to the main road, which is a four-lane divided road. at this point we saw what may have been the stupidest car accident ever. someone turned on to the road in the wrong direction and began to drive for quite some distance. meanwhile, all the other cars were stopped at a light. so there was just one singular car driving towards a whole bunch of stopped cars. but he kept going! and then when he got close enough everyone started flashing their lights and him and beeping and it looks like he just kind of coasted into them going 15 mph. looked like nothing big though. just really really stupid.
anyway, we left for luxembourg early in the morning on saturday. we left from gare centrale at 8:40. it wasn't one of those fancy high-speed trains, so it was a three-hour ride. still, there was lots of great scenery as we rode through the southern part of belgium. our group consisted of me, rich, jason, caroline, eric, joanna, and john. right when we got to luxembourg the skies cleared up, which was great. we walked to the hostel, which was on the other side of the city but still only a 25 minute walk or so. the old walls and defenses were incredible to see. I was going to post my pictures, but I think those panoramas from the city's website do it a lot more justice.
the hostel was pretty nice. it was a Hostels International hostel, sheets and breakfast were included, it was clean, and was only 19.30?
we went for a walk along the chemins de corniche, which is a pedestrian path along the old ramparts. the views were great. we made our way down to the Grund (an old part of the city) and saw the church of st. jean baptiste. we went back up via an elevator built into the rock, which was neat.
for the rest of the afternoon we went to the cathedral in the city, which has an old section from 1622. then we just wandered along the different parks and valleys on the edge of the city. there are all kinds of towers and other fortifications still built into the rock that you can wander into. we also saw a little church/chapel that was built into the rock in the one valley. it wasn't in use, though.
at night we wanted to try some real luxembourgish food, so we went to a place called brasserie guillaume and four of us got Judd mat Gardebounen, which was smoked pork collar (??) with beans and potatoes. it was good. at night we just found someplace to get coffee and called it a relatively early night since we were all tired from all of our climbing and walking.
sunday was pretty quiet. we had our breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch. we headed down to the parks on the other side of the city and walked around for a bit, but the weather was pretty bad and we were carrying all of our stuff. So we ended up heading back to Brussels around 11:30ish. it was really impressive how quiet the city was on sunday. for a capital city, it was basically completely shut down.
all in all, it was a great trip. if the transportation was easier, me and rich would like to see all the castles in the north and the different mountain-y areas.
this week has been routine so far, though. the work is actually starting to pick up, but is still manageable. also, it's strange coming back from dinner and having it be almost 9 pm.
but anyway, i need to get back to writing my Stalin book review.