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Then there was the trip:
Belgium and the Netherlands
Jerry Frankhouser
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But there was a little French restaurant across the street and in the direction we were going so we stopped to eat. I had a pork kabob, Anne had a wonderfully light cheese omelette as only the french can make it and Chrissy had chicken. We had a little excitement here, I as normal do not sign the back of my credit cards for safety reasons. Well the restaurant said they could not honor the card without the back being signed. In fact they were going to keep my card. They did not want to listen to my reasons. So after a few moments I signed the back of the card and everything turned out ok. After lunch we were off to the Begijnof, a refuge for widowed women whose husbands where killed in the crusades. It is now a Benedictine
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convent. then off to find that ATM machine again. While we were walking around Brugge, we saw a Crown Plaza Hotel. We went in and mage a reservation for the next night (our last night in Europe) at the Brussel's airport Holiday Inn. It was about time to take a little rest before dinner. As we were resting the rain started. With the rain, we were going to a have to find a restaurant close to the B&B, one we had spotted out of our windows overlooking the canal. Anne got out her traveling watercolors and painted the rainy scene through the window that afternoon. The
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restaurant was very nice I had a very good steak, Anne had lamb chops and white asparagus and Chrissy had a salad chicken strips on it. But she did try Anne's lamb chops and liked them. That was the second dinner she had that she had never tried before. To our suprise we found out that the restaurant was an ice cream parlor. So we had to order desert. I had a vanilla ice cream, with raspberry sauce and diced peaches and cream. Chrissy had vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce and sliced strawberries and cream. Anne had a butter creamcake (poundcake) and cream.
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The next morning we took a cab to the train station for the train trip to the Brussels Airport. At the Brugge train station was a wonderful pastery shop and we got some great cinnomon rolls. We noticed that the local travelers carried a lunch to eat on the train. We got a hotel by the airport so the next morning it would not be a rush to the airport. We could let the hotel van take us. After getting everyone settled, Chrissy and Anne went to the indoor pool, I took the train back to Brussels to visit the automotive museum. Altho we loved the trains from city to city and the tram within the city, I got my first and only experience on the subway. I got off the train, from the airport, at the central station and then walked underground to the metro station.
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I then took the subway to the area where the auto museum was located. I got off the subway and walked to the museum. I walked through a beautiful park ( ) to find the musuem in a very interesting complex of buildings. I found out since that the buildings were built for world's fair and then converted to a series of musuems Auto, air, history and art. Boy did I find the right place! I saw about 140 automobiles on display,
many from the United States, some from England, and to my surprise a lot that were manufactured in Belgium. I did not know that they built so many different makes of automobiles in Belgium. But I guess, every county had their automobile entrepreneurs. And after being squezzed in the subway on the way back to the Central station, I treated myself to another Belgium waffle, and the trip back to the airport hotel was a good one. That evening we went to dinner in the hotel restaurant. We had a wonderful meal and drank some white beaujoulais wine. Sure would like to find the same wine here. The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel, wonderful pastries and food. Then to the airport for the trip home. The flight home was very nice but a little sad. We had such a good time it was hard for it to end.
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