Saturday, December 20, 2008

Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Germany

So we (my parents and I) are making a whirlwind tour of "countries that border Germany to the west and south". In the last two days, we've been to Luxembourg, Belgium and France (along w/ Baden-Baden in Germany). Below are a few of the highlights.
Luxembourg is a country of about 900 square miles that's west of Germany. We visited Luxembourg City which is a city of about 85,000 people. It was established in the 900s (yes that's right, the nine-hundreds).

This first picture is of the wall around Luxembourg City.



Next is a picture of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg City. The picture doesn't do it justice. But it proves that there was sun while we were in Luxembourg!



This last picture is of the cafe where I had the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted; and, believe me, I've tasted a lot of hot chocolates! Communication with the waitress was a bit difficult as she didn't seem to speak English or German; I tried both. Apparently, there are three national languages in Luxembourg: German, French and Luxembourgish (yes, it's really a language!).




Next we went to Belgium, but we just crossed the border and then turned around so my parents could say they had been to Belgium (see my previous post about going to Belgium a couple of months ago).
Yesterday, we headed off to Baden-Baden, Germany. Baden basically means "baths" or "to bathe". It is famous for hot springs that have fed baths since Roman times. Now it's a resort town with spas and a casino.




Yes, I actually went into the casino. In my defense, I was going to go to the Christmas market, but my parents needed help translating the German signs in the casino. We spent 8 Euro and didn't win anything. This is why I don't gamble!

We did also get to see a living manger scene. Well, the animals were alive and kept trying to topple the statue of Mary!




All in all it was a great way to spend the end of my time with my parents!

I promise, I will really blog about our trip to Berlin soon!

1 comment:

Lynn said...

What a great experience, Christie! I love traveling vicariously through you this year. I think after three major vacations and a trip to Florida for Patrick's brother's wedding we are pretty much done for a while.

Kristin told me your trip got cancelled to visit them because of her grandmother's passing. Hope you still get a chance to visit in the next few years....maybe we can go together!

We've been thinking about you a lot...and frequently mentioning what bad friends we are for completely missing your birthday (we actually did remember...we just didn't act on the thought).

We need to chat soon!