Places to Go, People to See

So we're a little behind on our blogging, hope to catch up with it a bit this week. Two weekends ago July 12 Keith and I had a pretty full agenda. Saturday we headed about 40 minutes east of our little town to another little town, Namur. The highlight of the town has to be the Citadel, sitting atop a large hill, very impressive. The hill top provided some fantastic scenic overlooks. Some fortress though, we read in our travel guide that it has been sieged and occupied more than 20 times. It turns out on the inside they have a lot going on including medieval reenactments, etc. but we were both in the passive tourist kind of mood and skipped on a lot of the inside stuff. We both thought it might be a good reason to come back. The town itself was charming as usual with great open markets and cafes, perfect for strolling. As most know, neither Keith or I are all that interested in shopping but I have to admit it's fun to discover the unique shops, so we haven't done much buying but still fun to look.

Sunday was extremely satisfying, we made a trip up to Brussels to the Monument for Jewish Martyrs. My co-worker back home had told me before I left that she had discovered that she had family members names on the walls at the memorial and asked if I would be willing to get a rubbing and some pictures. It was really exciting to find their names, get rubbings, and take pictures. I guess it just felt great to be able to do that for someone.

We also headed back to the nice movie theater to see Kung Fu Panda, I still can't get over the ten minute intermission, so weird! But fun to see a movie in a real theater instead of at the base.

On Tuesday we were back in the car heading to Leuven, which is about an hour east of us, just outside Brussels to meet up with a former professor of mine from grad school who was here for a conference. Small world I guess, back home she moved from NOVA to Georgia so we haven't seen each other in a long time, it just takes moving to another country! She has significant experience living abroad so we had a good time picking her brain for travel ideas. She confirmed that Budapest is a must see. So many places, so little time!