Brussels

Brussels has been love at first sight for me. Maybe even before I saw it. We got to Midi train station this afternoon. I had not made reservations for our trip to Amsterdam on Saturday, so I was making sure I did that before we left the station today. So, when it was my turn to talk with the information man I asked if I needed to make a reservation in addition to my rail pass. He said that I didn't, and I said, "Clearly we are not in France." He said that Belgium is a very small country so they don't need to reserve for the train. Good answer. Still, I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and I don't believe we are in France anymore.

Our aparthotel in St Etienne was the pits. It was clean enough, but located out on the edge of town where there are no restaurants. We went looking for the Sushi place listed as 5 min walk from the hotel, but it doesn't exist and the restaurant that does exist does not serve food-we don't have enough vocabulary to ask. So, though we were tired we returned to the stupid aparthotel and put together something just beyond bread and water.

The biggest sin of the Park and Suites was it's spotty to nonexistant internet. It seemed to run during the day on weekdays, but shut down at 7pm. and weekends were about the same as evenings. Marcia got lucky a couple of times. I was delighted that she got lucky enough to get on yesterday afternoon as I had read all my kindle on blackberry books and edited all the photos. I am still amazed that I can go online and order a book and within minutes it appears on my blackberry. Real magic! So, Marcia and Amazon Kindle and my blackberry saved the day for me.

So, arriving at the Adagio aparthotel was like walking into the Ritz. The cozy room is just right for us with its little kitchenette. The internet is not perfect, but seems to be working at a slow but steady pace. I will work on getting photos posted from time to time, but me and this city have lots to learn about each other.

The weather might be a complicating factor. It was quite hot today, 35C (another plus for the Adagio is the functioning AC allowing temps as low as 17C). Tomorrow the high will be 33C, so another day of capris and short sleeves, but the raincoat goes in the backpack because rain is predicted for the afternoon and on into Wednesday morning. Highs on Wednesday will be 21C and on Thursday 20C. So, quite a change from the least amount of clothes possible to layering all we have and pulling out the scarves we bought in Brittany.

This city is small, and I was delighted to see that the major metro station is just outside our hotel door. I'll be making the most of the sunshine tomorrow-you can bet on it. There are plenty of indoor museums for rainy days, and most Belgium beer is made to be drunk at room temp-which might be near to refrig temp in the next few days. Besides that there is chocolate. If there were no other reasons to love this city, chocolate might pull them through. I'll be sampling.

KG