When I got to Luxembourg I walked about 2km to the hotel and waited for Patrick to finish his first meeting of the trip. Talk about a rough start...he flew from Dulles to Luxembourg, took a bus to the hotel, changed, showered, and went straight to a meeting.
Luxembourg was a lot of fun. It's a beautiful city, and the people there were friendly. On the walk to the hotel I walked over a large bridge. Underneath, instead of water, was a huge valley of trees, and it was set up like a large park. There were walking & biking paths, a mini-golf place, and benches to sit & relax. It was tiered, so you could walk around at different levels. Below is a picture of the bridge, and the trees underneath.
Patrick & I walked around there, as well as the main city streets with more shops then I could count. That night we met up with his co-worker, Ben, and went to a place he'd been to before that he recommended. It was pretty good...I normally wouldn't have ordered Italian, but he said the Pizza was great, and it was. While the weather had been beautiful that afternoon, that evening it started to rain. We were under an awning, but it was just my luck that part of it split right next to me and a flood of water came down, soaking my legs. After we finished up, we were all tired so we headed back to the hotel for an early night.
The next morning Patrick went off to his meetings and I started to explore. We'd seen a lot of the city the day before, and I'd heard from Ben that there was an amazing History Museum in the nearby town of Diekirch. I got the address, then took a bus out there. The ride itself wouldn't have been long if I'd been driving myself, but this bus stopped at every village along the way. I can't even call them towns, they literally consisted of maybe 20 houses and occasionally a school or restaurant...these were definitely villages. But the country side was beautiful, so I didn't mind the hour & 15 minute drive. Once we arrived it didn't take long to find the museum, thanks to the plethora of open wifi networks in the town. I haven't seen that many unsecured open networks in a long time. I hopped on one, pulled up a map, and quickly located the museum.
The Museum itself was amazing...when I first walked in I thought it was kind of neat, but nothing too special. Then I saw the stairs. When I finished walking around the second floor, I saw more stairs. This museum, which looked small from the outside, was four stories. They did something neat that I'd never seen before...they put up a picture that a photographer took, then they recreated it in Diorama form. One particular one stood out (and I didn't think to take a picture). It was a picture of 2 US Soldiers in a fox hole in the blistering cold & snow looking out. The Diorama was also there of the event, then it had a letter written by one of the soldiers in the picture. Apparently the Museum had tracked him down in 1982, and he wrote back about what he remembered about that day. They also had an interesting souvenir donated by a US soldier. It was a Nazi flag which he had sewn on the Unit badges of all the Army Units that had fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
Once I finished there I grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the bus stop. Once back in Luxembourg I met up with Patrick, and also met a guy who lived in Frankfurt who had come later to work them. We headed out to dinner at this place called L'Attrium. The food was amazing...Ravioli stuffed with Swordfish, as well as little pieces of Swordfish on top. Or, as the English Menu put it, Ravioli stuffed with Wordfish.
There wasn't too much left to do on Friday...I walked around town and explored areas I hadn't been to yet, and eventually met up with Patrick that afternoon. Shanna got there around 6 and we grabbed a bite in town, then drove home to Stuttgart.
Patrick had mentioned wanting to see either the Porsche or Mercedes Benz museum while he was here, so we headed to the Porsche museum on Saturday. It was interesting, they had all sorts of Porsches there, including a tractor, a Polizie car, and a Pig Racing car. You'll have to see the pictures to see what I mean about the Pig Car. It wasn't too big of a museum, but there was a wealth of information, so we were there for most of the afternoon. Once you left the museum area you walked by the gift shop. It had some interesting things in it, but the "real" gift shop was across the street when you walked out of the door...a Porsche dealership. I wonder how many people have walked out of the museum and gone over to buy a car.
That evening we headed down to the Marienplatz, which is about a 5-10 minute walk from our house, to watch the US/England World Cup game. It's definitely a completely different experience watching Fußball in Europe then in the US. It was a lot of fun, and the crowd definitely got into the game. An England loss would benefit Germany, so it was us, a few Americans, and a lot of Germans packed in this bar all cheering for the US...I almost felt bad for the one British couple there. :)
The next day Shanna wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home while Patrick & I headed to Ludwigsburg. There's a castle out there, and Patrick had never been to a real castle before, so he wanted to visit. When we got there I was disappointed...it was more like a palace then a true Medieval Castle. As we walked in, though, we found out that there was a classic car competition being held there that day. There were all kinds of cars on display, then at the end of the day they award the winners of each category, as well as Best in Show. The way they presented the tours was confusing...instead of just paying a general admission fee, they broke the Palace into sections and charged for each section. As a result, Patrick & I accidentally ended up paying to view the Ceramics museum part of the Palace. We tried to be enthusiastic about it since we'd just paid 7 Euros to get in, but we couldn't do it...especially when we walked by a window and saw that in the back part of the Palace was a ton more cars on display. We left that part, but big surprise, had to pay 7 more Euros to visit the "Garden" where the cars were. The first part had been in the courtyard area that was open to the public for free. So we paid and headed in. They had some neat cars on display, and even had a 12 cylinder engine block that had been converted into a Wine Rack. And big surprise, a Mercedes won Best in Show. It WAS a nice car though, from 1929.
That night Shanna made her famous Buffalo Chicken Dip and I grilled out burgers & brots. We still don't have TV service (long story) but we didn't need it to know how the German World Cup game was going...you could hear the horns, cheering, and even car horns blaring every time they scored. By the time the game was over, just based on the cheering, we figured the score was 4-0, and sure enough it was. They even launched fireworks over Stuttgart after the game. The next morning we got up early and took Patrick to the airport. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and waiting for the loaner furniture office to come by and get the furniture we had borrowed while waiting for our household goods.
Over all it was a great 5 days...Shanna & I had a great time, and hope Patrick did too. Coming up we have two more trips planned. First is a trip on July 4th to see King Ludwig's castles in Bavaria, and in August we're heading to Berchtesgaden to see the town and Hitler's Eagle's Nest.
To see the pictures from the trip, either click here or click the train picture at the top of the post.
At first glance, I thought the pasta looked like nachos. Looks good though!
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