Day 4 (June 8th)

Woke up and went to our "usual" place for breakfast. I had the Camembert cheese on a nut roll, chocolate milk and I tried the apple flugel (it was ok). Dropped Al off at work and went to the supermarket. This time I was prepared with my grocery bag. I bought some flavored water for Al, cheese, paper towels and laundry detergent. Went back to the apartment and asked Sarah (office manager) to show me the exercise room, sauna and washing machines in the building. My goal for the day was to figure our transportation for the weekend. I went to the backyard of the apartment since I couldn't get a good wireless connection from the room. The backyard is very nice with a couple of chairs, a table and flowers. I researched rental cars. We were thinking about going to Belgium or Luxembourg tomorrow. The best rental company seemed to be Avis which has an office not that far from the apartment. I needed to find a car with automatic transmission and A/C (not all cars have it). I met Al for lunch and 12:30 PM at her office. She invited a friend, JT who works with her and is from Dallas originally but who has been here for approximately a year. We went to a Chinese restaurant and had chicken in a red curry paste with vegetables and white rice. I drank a Frankenheim Alt beer (nice). Actually this was the 1st time we went to a restaurant that had an English menu. I walked Al back to the office and then went to the Avis store. At Avis, I asked for a car with automatic transmission but he didn't have any. I haven't driven a stick in 25 years and never practiced enough to be good. He told me I could check back later and maybe an automatic would be available. I then walked over to the train station to find out prices to go to Brugge (225 Euros), Luxembourg (237 Euros), Koln (23 Euros) and Aachen (31.50 Euros). The trains are pricey if you don't reserve one a number of days in advance. I then walked back to Avis to see if an automatic was available but no luck. I still needed a cell phone so I found the cell phone store that had quoted me the lowest price for a prepaid phone. I bought a new phone with 5 Euros of talk time for 14.99 Euros (.29 Euros per minute). They even threw in a camouflage carrying case. Came back to the apartment to update my travel log and then called Avis. I asked for an automatic and she told me a Mercedes was available (c class, nice!!!!). She quoted me 197 Euros. When I told her I was able to get a price of 166 Euros on the Internet she said ok, let me see if there is a special price. She came back with 134 Euros. I said "Book it". She gave me a reservation number and hopefully it will work out all right tomorrow. Now we need to figure out where we are going. Al came home at 5:45 PM and I told her about the car. After doing some research in my Europe book it looked like there was more to do in Belgium than Luxembourg. Al agreed with my decision so we thought it would be best to drive to Brugge first and stay overnight, then try to hit Ghent and Brussels on the way back. We looked on line and found a nice hotel in Brugge (called Romantik Pandhotel). We called and they had a room available for 180 Euros. We were all set with a room now. We then researched a place for dinner in Dusseldorf and found an authentic German restaurant called Hausbrauerei Zum Schlussel. As we went to the restaurant the street were packed with thousands of people partying. The restaurant was sort of like a brew pub with the brewery vats in the back. They served two types of beers (full strength and half and half) from a real keg at the bar. We sat down and luckily the waiter brought us English menus. Al chose the saurbraten (roast beef in a sauce with potatoes and cabbage) and I picked the meat loaf. The waiter didn't speak English and he was a grumpy big dude. He started talking to me in German and both he and I knew I had no clue what he was saying. He brought out Al's white wine and my beer (.20 ml) along with an applesauce bowl for Al and a salad for me. My salad was more like a coleslaw than a salad. When the main course came out Al got her saurbratern but he screwed mine up and I got a big pancake/crepe with bacon on it. I wasn't about to send it back and deal with that hassle so bon apetit. It actually wasn't bad. We hung out and had a few more drinks and watched the people in the streets. After dinner we walked around a little and then headed home.