Luxembourg 10 March

Right nestled in Between the southern tip of Belgium, Germany, and France, is a tiny country called Luxembourg!  It consists mostly of it's capital city, and that's it.  The area is very rich because of high taxes, but few people actually live within the borders.  Many people commute into the country every day to work to avoid the living taxes.  They have their own language, Luxembourgeois (in French, I don't know how to say that in English) but most of them speak French or German, and more likely, 2 or all three languages.  The city has the old and the new sections (which seems to be somewhat common in some European cities where they want to conserve the culture and look of the old city and have a new modern bit that keeps up with the changing times).
So with the Rotary district 1630, we drove in a bus through the Ardennes, about 2 hours from Liège to Luxembourg!  We saw mostly just the old Luxembourg.

As with any good Rotary outing, we started with a brewery tour: the Luxembourgois beer, Bofferding

The bottling plant is always the most interesting thing to see!
It was not running though

We got to watch a nice video on what happens to the beer when it goes into each of these great holding tanks!  the fermenting and that

HOPS  houblon

The water used in Bofferding beer is from a deep deep pure well beneath the plant.  They drilled very very deep and it is naturally pure and cool.  They let us try cups full!

And as with any good Rotary outing, it included a free beer tasting!

A great huge building in Luxembourg

Old Luxembourg

An enourmous tree that I was going to go hug until I realised the dirt was too well groomed to mess up by stepping on it.

The Palace in Luxembourg.  With castle guards that march before it all day long!

A fun way to have hot chocolate, you buy the hunk of flavoured chocolate on a stick, and then the hot milk, and you melt the chocolate in the milk, and use the stick to stir!

I'm always so amazed that every town in Europe has a magnificent cathedral in it

Some woods in Luxembourg city

Looking down from the old Luxembourg

View from the Citadel-fort

End of February, Beginning March

It finally stopped being under 0 degrees, and I finally got better, so I started going out and seeing stuff.

As always, the awkward period between christmas and easter where it's cold, and there are not a lot of holidays (except when you celebrate Carnavale! :D ) we do a lot of just day to day life.  So that's what I have here.

School gets out at 4:15

Marie, Cyril, Nat and I get picked up at the bus stop by host dad Daniel

Le Peron at Liège which is the historic center of town and symbol of Liège.

The Western Union has money from all over the place!  Even old Belge Francs and everything.  This one is right downtown

A day at school where it was a bit sunny!

My town!  Liège itself is downstream and up to the right a bit.  My School, Air Pur is at the top of the hill, so all the way at the bottom in the pocket on the left, right before the dark green woods.  The area is called Air Pur because it's up the hill and so out of the dirty polluted air of the factories down on the river, so the air is pure.

The famous and old old church in Liège, St Barthélémy

Near St Léonard, this reminded me of that painting by Vermier with the lady in the courtyard.

School of St Barthelomy.  Right next to the stairs of Beuren, and the school of several great friends of mine, Luz, Connor, Jarrod, and Rachel all went there

The mail man with the mail for the mount Beuren

The character in the houses (behind the palace)

The street behind the palace.

In front of the palace onto Place St Lambert

I do not know what shape is on that building.  I don't think Liègeois know what it is either

Place Cathedrale, it rains.

Inside the Galleries St Lambert

With the sun-roof!

In the museum of Wallonian Life

A tunnel under the museum from the war era

A clay representation of the Peron and the market people in the 19th century

A famous Liègeois character, the wooden puppet,  Tchantches is a Liège staple.
He speaks Wallon, the local dialect, in between German and French (with a lot of t's, ch's and k's),
drinks pékèt (the local flavored gins) and is "a typical hot-headed Liègeois".

The national symbol of Wallonia, is the red "coq wallonie."

Echasses from les Echasseurs Namurois!  Alain from my first host family was one of these folkloric stilt-walkers, and there are pictures of me with them from back in October!

A map of old Liège! The river now passes from bottom right to upper right in a practically straight line, and that great curve on the left is now the main boulevard at Liège.  

A real guillotine from the age of the Revolution in Belgium! There were meant to be real preserved heads in the museum, but I couldn't ever find them :(

The Peron after the museum

St  Jacques from the side

St Jacques!  It seems to me to be the biggest church in Liège for the moment, but that's probably not the truth.

Cyril's school in downtown liege

The birthday of Margaux (second from left)

In a restaurant called "le bruit qui cour" (the running sound) which means like, a rumour.