Luxembourg

Gates to the American Cemetery

Today I was supposed to go on a tour that stopped in Bastogne, Belgium on the way to Luxembourg; the site for the victorious Seige of Bastogne for the Battle of the Bulge in WWII.  Well, long story short..I found out the morning of that the tour was actually overbooked.  Damn.  So, I was going to have to skip Bastogne because there was no way I could get there by bus and still get to Luxembourg and back in one day.  I made my way to the train station, missed the train by 5 minutes, of course, but managed to catch a 10:30 train for the 3 hour ride to Luxembourg.

Names of those missing in action

Alex Penkala

After arriving at the train station, I worked out which bus I would have to take to get to the American Cemetery, which is actually located just outside of the city in Hamm, Luxembourg.  Then about a mile walk from the bus stop to the actual cemetery itself through a deserted path.  A little unnerving, especially with threatening skies and me with no umbrella and no where to go for shelter.  Fingers crossed the weather holds out.

Warren Muck

William Mc Gee

5076 service members lie here, including one woman, most of which lost their lives in the Battle of the Bulge and the advance to the Rhine River.  The cemetery was established on December 29, 1944 by the 609th Quartermaster Company of the US Third Army.
Some notable people buried here:  Some of the "real" Band of Brothers of Easy Company 101st Airborne Division. 
Other men from the unit buried here include: John Julian,, Kenneth Webb, and Patrick Neill.

General George S. Patton himself is also interred here.  He was severely injured in a car crash in Heidelburg, Germany just after the war, and expressed his wishes to be buried here with his men.

Patton, overseeing his troops.

 I was amazed that I had the cemetery all to myself.  After about and hour I headed into the main city.  Here is the looong road back to the bus station.

Luxembourg has the second highest GDP in the world and was ranked first in personal safety.

The Gelle Fra monument commemorates those who volunteered for service in the armed forces of the Allies of WWI.

German travelling singing group:  "Too Young to Shave."

Great singing!

The oldest pub in Luxembourg

70 meter deep gorges which are part of Luxembourg's natural topography.

I was really paranoid that I would miss the last train back to Brussels and therefore miss my flight back to work in the morning.  I grabbed some food at a shop to take home for my dinner because I knew I wouldn't make it back to my hotel until 10pm.

My great hotel/apartment.  

On the way back to my hotel from the subway in Brussels, I saw a man from behind picking through the garbage. I got on the train, and the doors closed.  I looked again and the man was drinking from a paper cup he found in the trash.  I felt bad, and wished I would have given him some of the food I had bought, but it was too late.  In the morning, I would head back to the UAE and back to work.  Summer of fun was over.

Museum Day in Brussels

Today was originally reserved for Luxembourg, but I managed to find a pretty good day tour that was only open on Friday.  No, today was going to be "museum day" instead.

First stop is the Royal Palace.  The present-day palace stands on the grounds that were once part of the Coudenberg Palace; a very old palatial complex that dated back to the Middle Ages.  Today the palace is only used for state functions.

Inside the Royal Palace

Next stop was the Musical Instruments Museum, a collection created in 1877 with a collection of a hundred Indian instruments given to Belgian King Leopold II by Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore in 1876 and the collection of the celebrated Belgian musicologist Francois Joseph Fetis.

The collection now boasts over 4,000 instruments.

Ornate cello, or viola or something.

Brussels is also the home of Adolphe Sax, of saxophone fame, which he patented in 1846.

Collection of stringed instruments.

A knot garden in Brussels

Champagnoteque??!!

The next stop was the MOOF museum (Museum of Original Figurines).

Yes, the Smurfs were a Belgian creation that began in 1958.  The original name was "Schtrompf", which is an invented word.  There are 105 different Smurfs.  The caps they wear  are Phrygian caps, which represented freedom in Roman times.

TinTin was created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi under the pan name Herge around 1946.  The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, which has been published in more than 70 languages.

TinTin's dog, Snowy.

And of course, American superheroes.

According to the City of Brussels Museum, my next stop, "The wardrobe of Manneken-Pis did not really grow in the 19th century. Between 1918 and 1940, it received around 30 suits. In the 80s we counted more than 400 and today we have more than 800!"  

Bizarre costumes from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Malta, Spain and more!  They keep about 100 displayed at a time, rotating the wardrobe every month.

You can also check out an interactive computer with all of the costumes, and where and when they are from.

Scary looking baby Jesus in a nativity scene at the museum.

City Hall in the Grote Markt.

Next up, the Chocolate Museum.

Complete with a demonstration of how chocolate is made.

Different kinds of cocoa beans from all over the world.  Why is Belgian chocolate so good?  Chocolate manufacturers in Belgium only use 100% cocoa butter whereas European Union legislation allows up to 5% of vegetable fats such as palm oil in chocolate, leading to a loss of quality.

But it must be considered how cocoa is harvested and workers exploited in poor countries.  Some men have never tasted cocoa from the beans that they themselves have harvested.

End of the day.  There was barely enough time for the Comic Strip Museum.  I got there right as they were closing, but the kind man let me in for free.

Merde is shit in French.

 Last bits of randomness for that day.

Weird French singing group.

Really weird.

Check 'em out.

Mmmmm...beer.

And I will leave you with this....thing.