Ok, here we go. We flew over on Continental because Tony works for them
and he flies free. The downside is you fly standby. We were supposed to
leave Newark at 6PM on a flight to Dusseldorf, but we got bumped, our backup
was a 7:30 flight to Frankfurt, we got bumped from that one too. Faced with
the prospect of staying the night in Newark and trying the same plan the
next day we looked for other flights to Europe on the board and found that
the next gate had a flight to Paris, but it was leaving in 15 minutes. After
some major begging they let us on, there were four empty seats. We finally
departed Newark around 8PM.

     It was a 6 hour flight plus you lose 6 hours to the time difference, so
we arrived at Charles DeGaulle in Paris around 8AM Sunday morning. The
flight was as good as a 6 hour flight in coach gets with the exception of
the fact that the stewards knowing Tony worked for Continental, comped us a
lot of drinks, that eased the pain.

     Guess where our luggage went? That's right, Dusseldorf. Originally we
had planed to rent a car in Dusseldorf and return it in Brussels at the end
of the trip because we were catching the Inaugural flight from Brussels to
Newark with Continental. We didn't want to rent a car in France because it
was much more expensive. In Europe, Germany is the cheapest for car rentals
with Belgium a close second. We went through Auto Europe, they guarantee the
lowest rate. So we took a train to the train station from the airport and
there, after some delays for some police action (bomb scare?) we took a
train to Brussels. The only part of Paris we saw was the street in front on
the train station, it was enough to let you know you weren't in Kansas
anymore.

     Ninety minutes later we were in Brussels, got another train to the
airport, rented a car (a SEAT, pronounced say-ot) a diesel, which saved us
on fuel. Gas is $4. a gallon over there and diesel is cheaper, unlike
America. We found a small town near the airport called Zaventem. After
trying a few bar doors (locked, it's Sunday) we found one which was having a
fundraiser for their football (soccer) club. One guy spoke a little English
and he welcomed us in explaining that what they had for lunch was steak,
steak or steak served with three different sauces and frites (french fries)
served with mayo. So we had steak and frites with, finally Belgian beer. We
drank mostly Palm and Duvel and left on our way to Germany in a much better
mood.

     Almost done now. Ok, so we got lost in Brussels for a while but finally
found someone who spoke a little English to get directions (an occurrence to
be repeated countless times) found our road to Dusseldorf and were off. This
is when we discovered that the roads in Germany are more clearly marked (we
hardly ever got lost in Germany), all the big highways are the Autobahn and
there is no speed limit except in congested or dangerous areas. Soon we
arrived at the Dusseldorf airport, got our bags, directions to the youth
hostel where we were staying (without reservations, of course), drove to the
hostel and almost had enough German money to check in, but not quite. They
directed us to a cash machine where I got some more and then we checked in.
Totally exhausted at this point ( it was about 10PM Sunday) and not having
slept for about 32 hrs, we decided to visit the bar we had spotted near the
ATM to try the Alt.

     To be continued..

Travel Tip: Get all your money changed at banks, unlike here even branches
will change money with no service charge. The money changers at the airports
charged a $15. fee for each transaction and had a less favorable rate.

Pictures - the car, the hostel