Brussels, Belgium

Our final stop in Europe.  It was a beautiful day driving from Stuttgart to Brussels. We got to see a lot of the countryside and it was amazing to see how the villages all had a cathedral/church as the center of their town.  Mark did slow down enough once in a while for me to catch a glimpse of random objects/signs but at 100mph+ on the autobahn, I think he was just happy to get to Brussels and not having had to stop anymore for me.

Until Sunday.  hmmm...when they say "No Drive Sunday" it means NO CARS DRIVING unless you are a taxi, bus or headed out of town. And don't drive over 30km/h We learned this almost accidentally but thank goodness Mark was actually paying attention and asked more questions of the reception desk at our hotel after overhearing someone else's conversation regarding free metro rides.  You would think since he was asking for a token to get out of the PARKING garage, she would clue us in right? NOT!  Anyways, getting out of the City was ummm, what's the word? stressful? panicked? embarrassing? I had to at one point put the receipt the receptionist so helpfully gave Mark after he had to ask her for one after she told him that's something you had to have should you get pulled over onto the window so people would stop giving us dirty looks!  As we pulled out of the garage, it was as Mark put it like something straight out of the movies: imagine looking left and right and seeing no cars but a sea of bicycles and people walking in the middle of the street!  NO CAR SUNDAY! hmmm, who knew?  After making our way to the airport to return the car, it was actually really cool to see Brussels without the cars though :)  And Gavin Newsom thought he was being so progressive by just shutting down the Embarcadero...the entire city of Brussels was closed!  and everyone LOVED IT!  I guess it only happens once a year, and lucky us, we were there trying to drive that one day.  I did see the sign driving in saying something "voitures dimanche" with a big red slash through it so my loose translation thinking was tunnels were closed on sunday.  oops! better brush up on the French next time ;P

Brussels was interesting because they seem to have no real identity.  I did discover they were the "Capital of Europe" (a la Washington DC?) yet they seem to not be able to decide between being French, Dutch or a melting pot with a single language? Their streets are both in French and Dutch so navigating was somewhat difficult but we managed.  I even somehow made it through a dinner with a menu in all French.  I have to probably Thank my sister and Maddie for keeping me somewhat in the loop with Francais :P  

Mark had a meeting here in Brussels so I spent a day walking the neighborhoods and window shopping, and yes, the LV and Hermes along with the other Boutiques were about a 5 min walk from our hotel :)  But I spent most of my day alone walking other neighborhoods which was quite interesting because although it was a Monday, a lot of shops were not open and/or not a lot of people out and about.  

We finally boarded our flight at the "Kiss and Drive" area of the airport towards London Heathrow to the US.