It's a beautiful Saturday morning and the kids aren't all right. They
came in late last night, pissed in the bidet and crashed. I got up, moved
the car from the "forbidden" spot to a nice spot down the street next to the
river, came back to the room and read a while. At 10:30 someone from the
hotel knocked on the door to let us know we had a half hour to check out.
Tony and Zeke moaned and groaned a bit but got up and by 11 we were at the
desk checking out.

     We had breakfast at the car, by the river, leftover snacks, sweet
waffles, grapes, whatever was left in the car yet. Washed it down with fruit
juice and soda, yum, a sugar fix. We took a little time to let the batteries
recharge and Tony and Zeke told me their story of friday night in Tillf.

     They found the hotspot, the bowling alley, which had a bar. They met a
couple of Belgians, Victor and John, whose family owns all the arcade
machines around, pinball, shufflebowl, video games, you know. They shot
darts and enjoyed the international fraternization. The Belgians, brothers,
had been to America often to check out the new games coming out, so they
spoke English well. They lent Tony and Zeke their company cell phone so Tony
called Isabel in Koln and set a rendezvous time and place and Zeke called
Marylou (my wife) to let her know that everything was fine even if the call
was a week later than she expected. Then they translated a few key phases to
French for us that should come in handy in the near future. The Belgians
kept buying rounds, that's why Tony and Zeke got home late. Makes sense to
me, now it's off to Liege.

     By this time we were all wearing the last of our clean clothes so the
first thing we planned to do in Liege was find a laundromat and do a wash.
We drove around the side roads as the main roads moved too fast and it was
impossible to find anything. After a couple of false stops at appliance
stores we located the Laundromat. It took a bit of figuring but with some
French speaking assistance from a girl doing her wash we figured out how to
work the machines. You had to put your money in a machine to get tokens and
use the tokens in the washers and dryers. I washed all my clothes except the
ones I was wearing and then decided to wash my shirt as well as the scent of
B.O. was strong in the air. After putting on deodorant I figured out it
wasn't me, it was the girl. A real nice looking and friendly girl too, but
stink, woooo, when I thought it was me she was 10 feet away. Good thing I
didn't have one of them poles you here so much about.

     So we repacked our fresh clothes and headed to the train station, met
Isabel and went to lunch. Isabel is a very nice, cheerful girl who speaks
English and German so she was no help at the restaurant. It was a little
place, like a diner with a counter and booths. We managed to communicate our
orders, shrimp salad on a baguette (me), crab salad with frites (Zeke),
tough steak with anise peppercorn sauce (Tony), and nothing (Isabel). The
steak sauce was fantastic even if the steak was tough. We all drank
Grimberger, nice malt and hop flavors, perfectly blended. This stuff is
good! We found a man who spoke English and got directions to the hostel. He
wondered why we laughed when he told us to go up this street till we hit the
traffic jam, but he was right about it and we found our way with no
incident.

     They were having a fair across the street from the hostel so we parked
there and went and checked in, all four of us in the same room. Isabel
didn't mind as she could tell we were all gentlemen. Then we found they had
parking after 20:00, the guide book had been wrong. They said we could park
on the street until then if we had Belgian tags on the car. Cars with
foreign tags get towed. We put our stuff in the room and went for a walk.
Tony with Isabel, Zeke and I together went looking for an internet cafe. All
the directions we got took us to the same place, the Red Light district.
Scantily clad women in picture windows and shady looking characters on the
streets. Oh, that reminds me, the streets. Let's just say that the
considerably canine population had left its mark. You had to be very careful
where you step in Liege.

     Zeke and I returned to the room after meeting Tony and Isabel on the
street out front. They were going to a Jazz festival across town at the
Palais des Congres, we let them have the time together, we were bushed. Took
a nap, woke and read, Zeke woke later and said he was going outside for a
smoke. At 20:00 I went out and brought the car around to the gate that opens
to a courtyard at the center of the hostel. A guy was there closing the
gate, I told him I was parking there too so he left it open for me. After
parking I went back to close the gate. As I was trying to figure out how it
latched and locked, a guy from the hostel came out and started yelling at me
for breaking the gate open. I explained that someone else had opened it
prior to me and had let me in. This did not seem to deter him as he puffed
up and shouted, "Well then, someone like you broke it." I guess he told me.

     I went back to the room took a shower and read some more, "House of
Blues" by Julie Smith, a Skip Langdon novel, about a New Orleans female cop.
Not bad, not quite up to James Lee Burke's  Dave Robicheaux stories. This
hostel is like the big ones in Germany with many rooms. The rooms are
spacious, airy, well lit and have a full bath with shower in them, nice. I
was still awake when Tony and Isabel got back. They had a great time seeing
Jazz, Blues and Flamenco acts. It was late and we crashed.

     Zeke got back much later.

Next time - Antwerp, Antwerpen, whatever

Pictures  -  Pit stop, the lovely Isabel