Day 18 (June 22nd)

Woke up and had breakfast at our usual place and then walked Al to her office. We had decided to go to Luxembourg this weekend instead of Berlin so I spent the morning doing some research on Luxembourg and the surrounding area. I found out that it was a National Holiday and there were some festivities going on. There wasn't a lot of information about Luxembourg but it seemed like there were some random castles throughout the country. Fact: Luxembourg is only about 51 miles long by 32 miles wide. Met Al for lunch who was craving something simple. We ended up eating at Burger King and having a "long chicken sandwich" with fries and a coke. I definitely don't miss fast food. After lunch I went over to get the rental car for the weekend. When I got there they had an automatic but it didn't have a Nav system. I knew from prior experience that it was mandatory to have the Nav system in order to navigate the crazy roads. I asked them to check if there was a vehicle at any of the other locations that had a Nav. After a few calls they located one up at the airport. At first they wanted me to drive up there and get it and I told them that I prefer them to get it for me. They said ok and that it would take about an hour. I walked around town during that time and checked out a different section of Dusseldorf. Nothing special, mostly bakeries, clothing stores, jewelry stores and hair stylists. I passed an Alamo car rental place and priced out a car for July 6th to August 8th while the kids are here and they quoted me 1300 Euros. When I returned to Avis they said the car was there and that they would upgrade me a class. They ended up getting me a Mercedes E220 CDI Diesel. Nice car. I had already arranged the parking garage at the apartment so I went back and parked the car. Met Al, YH and Rajni for dinner. We first met another one of Al's colleagues at a bar called Siam for some drinks. They made some very interesting fruity drinks. We hung out for a while and had a couple of beverages with peanuts (no food). We then decided we should get some food and headed back to the Irish pub we went to the other night. The waiter spoke English and was a very nice guy. I had the Irish stew and a couple of Guinness while we watched Gaelic football on tv. Gaelic football is somewhat similar to Australian rules football. We had a nice dinner and then headed back to the room to watch some more Gilmore Girls.