St. Patty's Day Madness

So St. Patty's Day has always been a bit of a non-starter for me. Usually trying to go out to anyplace 'Irish' would be insane as the bars are packed and really not that much fun. In fact, my favorite part is usually the elusive Shamrock Shake at McDonalds, which is pretty sad. But this year, well, considering the fact that 95% of my friends here are Irish (and by Irish I mean not their grandparents were Irish, but that they moved over from Ireland within the last year or two) well that figured to change. On top of that, I had my 2nd visitor to Lux...my Euro sister Cat!

Well the weekend was centered around the Place d'Armes (the center of the city) having a huge tent with Irish themed activities, thus, mainly drinking. But there was a surprise guest on friday night:

Is it U2? If you squint hard, it most certainly is! Or maybe it was just a good U2 cover band. Either way The Edge didn't say anything.

After a great friday night, we took Cat around Luxembourg to see the sites:

and 30 minutes later we went to watch Ireland-Italy in 6 Nations Rugby Tournament. Yes, I am getting into rugby, and if anyone is interested I can give the details of this game which was the most amazing and bittersweet thrashing of the Italians.

Anyway, the party continued that night, just ask these people:

Actually, the most surprising thing to me was how into St. Patty's Day all the Irish folks were. For some reason I thought it was one of those holidays that gets blown up in America but has no real significance to the 'native' people who should be celebrating. Good times.

On Sunday we decided to make a trip out to Vianden Castle, which is north of Luxembourg (city):

It was a pretty cool 'castle', but ultimately I don't think its history stands up well with the many other European castles out there...so cool on the sliding Luxembourg scale. Regardless, it was nice to actually see other parts of Luxembourg other than just the city or the highway to Belgium.

And on a very related note, I recently had my Opel Astra 'break' station wagon swapped out by the rental place for this American princess:

That is right folks, a Ford Focus station wagon. Why I am driving a Ford in Europe? Why is it a station wagon? What is wrong with me? It is a big step down from my last car in the US, that's for sure. But at least this girl was brand new so I have that going for me, which is pretty nice.

Well that is it for that weekend. Stay tuned as within the next few days I will be posting about last weekends trip to Madrid, and my tustle with the bulls!

Cheers.

What a groovy room...

I had such a good time during my first trip to Amsterdam in the fall, that I decided to do it again…and it certainly did not disappoint. This trip was going to be a bit special, with the focus being a Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds acoustic show on Saturday night in a converted church/club that can hold only 1,000 people. Needless to say we were excited, but we will get to that in a second.

With me on this trip was once again my travel buddy Timmy, and we were also joined by his roommate Kurt and Kurt’s friend from college, Mel.

After seeing people tear through the streets on the crappiest bikes I have ever seen last time I was there, I have been chomping at the bit to get out and tear it up. Luckily the weather cooperated and we had an gorgeous spring day to see the sites.

And even stop in the park for a few refreshments.


I tell you in Amsterdam, the beer flows like wine.

As a special bonus, I even took some videos which I have linked below. They aren’t too exciting until you place them in context. Taking the videos was maybe the closest I have come to death since moving to Europe (excluding the beat down from that English hooligan). I mean these bikes are the definition of rickety, the streets are mostly cobbled, there are tons of other bikers zooming by, and of course you even have trams and cars steaming by. Throw in the fact that my camera did not have a safety strap and I was very concerned about dropping it, well that was enough to terrify me. Check it out for yourself by clicking (HERE) and (HERE). Really, it was much more exciting than it appears.

Well after surviving near death, we headed out to the concert.

There is really just one word to describe it: amazing. It was definitely the coolest concert I have ever attended (an opinion shared by most people we talked to), as it was the perfect venue and ambiance, and really it just seemed like Dave was in his element (he actually lived in Amsterdam for awhile and several times spoke in Dutch). On top of all that were so close that you could walk to the bar to get a beer and still have a great view of the show. I managed to take this video (yes that is how close we were), with my only regret that it killed the memory card of my camera or else I would have taken more. Okay, so the sound is off on the video I uploaded, so I am linking to another (not as good, but closer) video for your enjoyment (HERE).

All in all another great meeting, and that is even including the fact that 2 of my travel companions actually ran into and met Dave on the street at 2:30 Saturday morning, but I was of course wondering off somewhere else with the camera. Oh well, I will just have to look for him next time.

Cheers!

Long drive for waffles.

There are many reasons to visit Bruxelles: the Belgians are a very nice group of people, the city is a great combination of liveliness and intimacy, the European Commission is there…but most of all it is for the waffles:

Yes I have a crap eating grin on my face, and you would too if you were about to devour one of the finest treats know to man! You might think I am joking, but you would be very wrong. These waffles are not from this world.

Anyway, another great part of Bruxelles some of you might know about or remember from my first visit is the Manneken Pis. This statue of a little boy peeing is an odd combination of mild disappointment (it is really quite small) and popularity. He is all over postcards, t-shirts, corkscrews (think about it), and other countless crappy souvenirs. He even gets to be dressed up quite frequently in one of 100’s of costumes donated over the years. This weekend he was celebrating the recent Chinese New Year:

While this little guy is quite famous, most do not know he has a little sister, Jeanneke Pis. Of course she is the victim of severe gender discrimination as she is nowhere to be found on souvenirs and it even took asking multiple people for directions just to track her down in some dead end alley where you would not find her unless you were looking. Well we were looking and we got to see her in all her naked glory:


Really, is there anything better than a statue of a little girl peeing? Well, besides a little boy peeing of course.

But honestly the main reason for the trip was to meet for the first time some of Secil’s friends and to do things like have tea and cake with 2 people who don’t speak English (come on, doesn’t everyone speak English?) It was actually a great weekend and it was fun to visit Bruxelles again with a local tour guide.


Cheers!