belgium

(Looking out the window from Elodie's house near Liege)

Ryan and Lisza and I are having a great little Belgian adventure. We left Koeln yesterday and stayed with a family in a village/suburb near Liege in the French_speaking region of Belgium, which is called Wallonia. Our actual host there was a very sweet 20 y/o girl, Elodi, who, despite sweet appearances was really into heavy metal music as her principal interest. For the evening we went with Elodi into Liege, where we tried some very sweet belgian liquor called Peket; had frittes--fries smothered in goopy flavorful sauce--and finally had beers qt a cool student hang-out called 'a pot of milk'.

Today we went driving randomly in the countryside south of Liege, sort of near Luxembourg. The area is surprisingly hilly and gives the feeling of being a bit mountainous, with cute little villages tucked away in little river dales. We followed signs for a random chateu and came upon a nice park where we were able to walk along a river for a while and also sneak into a castle ruin. When it started getting dark, we quit the country roads qnd jumped on the autobahn -- now we're staying with this really awesome guy Gijs who cooked us spaghetti with a great sauce made from home-grown herbs. He's a beekeeper, too!