Biggest Ikea store Ever!

MMMMmmmmm waffles I think I am going to like Belgium. Tourqaui, Belgium is a beautiful city, just like most of the cities I had seen in France. After the previous night of swimming in my sleep and the fact it was raining here to, I figured I should try the youth hostel. I think the word hostel actually means (nowhere near the train station, because they are all in the middle of no where) I set off to walk across town to the hostel and find a place to sleep for the night.

I finally get there only to find out they are full for the night. I really didn’t feel like sleeping in the rain again and they weather was too bad for me to attempt to hitch a ride. So I set off back to train station to go elsewhere. I make it about five feet from the door when small Moroccan woman comes after me and tells me to wait a moment. After about ten minutes of waiting she returns to tell me that apparently I will be staying with her for the night. So I ended up getting a free night in a hostel, she had gotten a double and she only needed a single room. We sit up for a few hours and she proceeds to tell me her life story in a combination of broken English, broken French, broken Spanish, and a few hand drawings. It took a bit, but I think I got the point. The next morning I set out to hit the art museum since I was in town. Sad to say once I got there it was closed along with everything else in town. It was a Sunday, and since it was Sunday in a small town I had three options; sit in the park and do nothing, go to church, or leave town. After getting another waffle from a snack machine I decided church would be my best option for free entertainment, Needless to say I never made it to the church.

Instead I happened on a sand soccer tourney in the town square. There was nothing but kicking and screaming and flying sand, with a fair amount of show boating mixed in for fun. I ended up watching this and taking pictures for a few hours before deciding if I should stay and watch the Belgian pop concert that was later on that night, or skip town now.

I was on the roadway hitching a ride before you could say top-40 hit. I ended up thumbing a ride from a French mother and son team in Belgium to visit family. They fed me tomato and cheese sandwiches and I gave them some of my waffles. They dropped me off in south Brussels near the Coke headquarters. From there I took a bus to north Brussels and the train station since it was still Sunday and everything was closed.

Apparently Sunday is the day to leave Brussels the train terminal was packed solid. I ended up getting a ticket to Eupen on the border of Belgium and Germany just because it was the farthest I could get with out having to wait in one of the long international lines.

junderburgerwhatsa?

I arrived in Eupen, Belgium about the same time as night fell. it is a cool little town with a mild French Influence, but the over all tone is definitely German, The art and architecture was a bit more germanic and the streets went from being rues like “Le Rue De St. ” in Tourqaui to being strabes like “JunderbergerStrabe which I hunting to find the youth hostel. So as i see it, west Belgium is not exactly France, and east Belgium is almost Germany.

I spent the remainder of the evening walking around Eupen seeing the sites trying to find someone to explain “America Square” to me, and hunting down a youth hostel that turned out to be closed for the season. The next morning I got up and for 1.5 Euro I rode a city bus from Eupen, Belgium over to Aachen, Germany. Total cost to get across Belgium. about 13 Euro not including food.

Once I hit Germany, I finally got a real sense of culture shock and panic. All of a sudden I was illiterate. The signs the menus nothing made sense anymore. Not even Batman could help

Germany now