Home Sweet Home

As much as I travel, and as many cool things as I see, it is always nice to come home and sleep in my own bed.

If I could just hire an agency to come stock my fridge right before I get home, that would be truly awesome, LOL!

Got home last night, touched up the ironing on Corey's pants for today, scrambled some eggs because I was starving and that was all we had, and was asleep by 9:30.

And awake at 3am. I struggled to get myself back to sleep (ordinarily not a problem at all, but jetlag does that), woke briefly as Corey left at 5am, and then got up at 6:15.

The trip was great. Things didn't go as planned...we were to fly out through Chicago, but they were expecting delays going in and the gate agent was afraid we'd miss our connection and have to overnight it in Chicago, so we went through Zurich instead. We got on the plane to Zurich and then there was lightening in the vicinity and they pulled all the tarmac workers off the tarmac periodically for the next two hours while we sat on the plane. Then after they started the engines and prepared to pull away from the gate, they discovered a technical problem and we had to wait another 30-40 minutes for that. After the tech problem started, the natives in coach were getting mighty restless, so the stewardesses back where I sat finally gave us some water. None of us could bring any drinks on, so we were getting ancy about it, LOL! Corey was sitting up in business class the whole time getting drinks from the moment he boarded. Something I only harrassed him about once. He was sweet, though, and sent back two glasses of wine after take-off. Then he sent me his ice cream sundae dessert later, after his four course extravaganza and my one-course airplane lasagna ordeal. They don't skimp on the good ice cream for the business class people, that's for sure. And it was an act of true love, as Corey really loves hot fudge sundaes.

So we took off 2.5 hours late, got into Zurich, and had missed our connection to Brussels. So we had a 4 hour layover in Zurich. Thankfully Corey's business class fare got us into a private flight lounge there where we could relax in comfort with snacks and drinks. Got into Brussels late Tuesday afternoon instead of early Tuesday morning, I put my head in DH's lap and slept the hour drive to the hotel in the back of a Mercedes (most taxis in Europe are Mercedes), and Corey had missed his meeting, so we met his coworkers for an awesome dinner. Fois gras, veal, a cheese platter...I was in HEAVEN. I out-ate Corey and the three other guys. I was starving after 17 hours of measly airplane/airport food.

Wednesday and Iwent into maastricht in search of a yarn store, gave up finding it, checked in on-line, and then went back to the awesome hotel we were in for a spa treatment. Since he missed working Tuesday and spent most of Wednesday in meetings, Corey worked all day Thursday, the day we were planning to drive down and visit Liege on the way to Luxembourg. I needed to go into the office with him and print off hotel stuff since we got our wires crossed and left it at home, so I sat in his office ALL DAY waiting patiently. And knitting. And occasionally reading. We left for Luxembourg at around 7 and arrived at the hotel at around 9:30 after a stop at a Belgian fast food burger joint for dinner. Six Euros (around $8) for a burger/fry/drink combo. I always forget how expensive things are there.

We visited Luxembourg City the first day. Saw some ruins, a cathedral, the usual stuff. Nice city. Great views. :D Drove back to the hotel in eastern Luxembourg via the Moselle wine road. Dinner was chateau briande. No dessert.

The second day in Luxembourg we drove up to Vianden to visit a restored castle. Very nice. Drove out to a small town on the Sure river and drove back along that valley. Very cool. Then drove through the Mullerthal, or "Little Switzerland", which was nice but not a three star attraction in my humble opinion. Saw a Genral Patton memorial. Never made it to his grave...I couldn't talk Corey into visiting the American Cemetary. Dinner was a fish dish...not an American fish, so I don't know the US name. Dessert was creme brulee.

I cursed the road signage repeatedly, but we did okay. The Europeans don't use "north, south, east, west" on signs. Just the name of the next city OR the city after that OR a big city a long ways away in that direction. It's enough to drive you nuts. I can never tell DH in advance which way to go because I never know what city they are going to put on the damn sign and lots of times they don't give you a road number to go by. And then half the time, especially in small towns, I have to hunt on the map for the cities on the signs as we approach the turn or go in circles around the roundabout. I'm good with a map....I'd be really scared to navigate there if I weren't....we still got lost a couple of times. I still don't know where the hell Metz is, and it must be a big city, but I could never find it. Add to that the fact that in Belgium the cities all have two names...the Flemish/Dutch language one and the Woluwe/French language one...and depending on where you are and what map you are using, it can be an issue.

Anyway.

The third day there we drove over to Germany to visit Trier. Roman ruins and a cathedral and a basilica. Nice plaza. Great city. Dinner was duck, duck, and more duck. Duch in the appetizer (didn't plan that...they just bring something), the first course (along with some farewell fois gras on my part), and the main course. Love me some duck. Had a chocolate cake thingy for dessert that was warm and fudgey inside.

Monday we drove in the rain back to Lanaken (where the office is in Belgium) and took a big detour over to see the cave at Han, a three star cave by Michelin standards. Got there and it was closed. Great. So we bravely (foolishly?) cut across on some smaller roads, eschewing the highways for a more direct route, and did great until we got massively lost in some medium sized town trying to follow the road through its twists and turns. Wouldn't want to mark the forks in the road, would we? Added a good 30 minutes onto the trip that way. Should have taken the longer route on the highways, LOL! Anyway, we did make it to a 2 star cave at a town south of Lanaken and that was a really nice cave. Wonder how great the 3 star one would have been.

Made it back to Lanaken in time for Corey to work for an hour before the car came and took us to Brussels. Stayed at a Holiday Inn near the airport. Dinner was cheeseburgers.

Flew back Tuesday. Corey surprised me after take-off and gave me his business class seat on the flight to Chicago. Good man, that one. So I got to put my feet up and relax and watch Easy Rider on my own personal DVD player while sipping wine and tea and whatever I wanted. It's ridiculous how much they feed you. It took us an hour or so to eat our first meal in four courses. I sent Corey a sundae this time and took him a muffin from my mid-flight snack. He would have gotten a nice cookie after the second meal, but they were oatmeal raisin and he doesn't do oatmeal. That business class is a good deal if you can get it. At $6,000+ round trip, I don't know that it is fully worth it, but if you can do it on the company bill, it's definitely the way to go.

The four hour layover in Chicago became five due to a delay. Of course. No private lounge for us there, either. Corey took the first class seat home from Chicago. I knew he was about to hit the wall and he did. He slept the whole way. I knitted. Of course.

So, that's the trip in a nutshell. I'll upload photos tomorrow. I gained five pounds over the trip. Disappointing but not surprising. I haven't gone back to working out since the mono...trying to deal with some foot problems. And I don't go to Europe to diet. I go to eat fois gras and pain au chocolate and wash it all down with wine every night (I'm wined out for a while). But I'm feeling these five pounds and I don't like it one bit. We are having a big salad tonight, LOL!

I did manage to barely beat my cousin in Fantasy Football this weekend and it was a particularly satisfying win since this one seems to have real issues about losing to The Girl. And my brother graciously harrassed him about it for me while I was out of touch.

Corey's on the way home. Got to get cooking....