Today was the last day of class. The students handed in their tests and I corrected them and happily everyone passed. Because they were a fun crowd it was kind of sad to see them on their separate ways but all things come to an end, good or bad. After seeing them off in their taxi to the airport (or in their cars for those that were from France) I made my way back to the hotel to pick up my bag which I left there after checking out. Quickly I turned around for the train station again where I bought a bag of chips and a coke to be lunch. I got on a 1:30 train which was an international train so had less stops than an intercity. It was still not a fast train but I got to Luxembourg at about 4pm. I quickly checked into the hotel which was only a few minutes walk from the train station and set out to the downtown area. For the first couple hours it was a bit humid and overcast but fairly nice but after that we had a couple bouts of downpours. One was very brief. The second fortunately happened while I was eating dinner.
Luxembourg is a nice looking city. My hotel is about 10 minutes or less walk from the downtown area. The large bridge that spans the valley through the city is very picturesque. The downtown area is pedestrian only. I walked around town to get my bearings and see what could be seen in a couple hours before the rains started to hit. After the first downpour ended I tried to find a place to eat and chose La Boucherie which was on the main square. I had a rump steak cooked rare of course. That came with fries and a summer squash medley. I accompanied with a Diekirch beer, which is a local brew. It was nothing to write home about but not bad either. Standard pilsner. Not up to the Belgian snuff though. After dinner I had a sundae with coffee ice cream that was supposed to have chocolate sauce on it but by accident I convinced the waiter to put an espresso in it instead. It was awesome. A mild mistake that worked out perfectly. I would definitely order that again.
After dinner I found my way down into the valley and walked underneath the big bridge. From there I headed back to the upper ground and the walked back to the hotel at a leisurely pace. Perhaps it was still a bit early at nearing 8pm but I had a full day and was tired so I decided to call it a night. Besides the humidity after the rain was positively dreadful. At the hotel I got undressed, found out I had to get a password for the internet, got dressed again to go down to reception because they wouldn't give one to me over the phone - apparently because they use a random generator, then finally got to get back to the room to relax.
My intention is to leave moderately early from Luxembourg because it is going to be a long day of travel to Munich on Saturday. I can guarantee my day will be little more than transit, almost like I was flying except flying would have been much faster. There are a lot of places for me to screw this up but I am hopeful I will be able to manage it.
This trip to Belgium was nice. I really enjoyed the class a lot. With more time spent outdoors I realized even more how much these people smoke though and that was evident in Luxembourg as well. It seems to be something about French speakers that makes them have to smoke at all times (I am not sure what the Luxembourgers? speak, but I heard mainly French here as well). I don't fully get it. Perhaps it is why they don't pronounce most of the letters in their words. I should remark on the quality of the trains in Belgium. Some are moderately nice but the majority are old. Also it is strange the difference in quality from station to station. Some have signs that tell you every stop the train is going to make so you don't accidentally end up on the wrong train (which is nice since they never speak English on the trains though I guess I understand the French well enough) and some don't even have signs as to which track is which train, just a monitor in the station house. It's a bit confusing. I suppose Boston is somewhat like that. I wasn't totally sure I was on the train to Luxembourg until they announced the stop today. Amusingly I went from a very small country to an even smaller country in the process.
The pictures from today can be found here.
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