Everything you've been told

It's true. Europe is pretty small. One rental car over a week can in fact take you to four countries. Lunch in Luxembourg, dinner in Germany, just in time to get back to Belgium for a night cap. It is also true that there is constantly a cloud over Belgium. The sun may appear every now and then but it is sure to rain at least once a day. Luckily, we made a break for Normandy for two days and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful scenery. Yes, our route may look a bit strange, but considering much of the right portion was done without a map, it's not so bad.


I got more than I bargained for on the language front. I thought I'd get a chance to practice my french, and I did. But I did not count on having to remember how to converse in basic german or having to speak bits of coherent dutch. (Yes, that's right, small countries like Belgium and Switzerland divide themselves up into regions that speak the nearest neighboring country's tongue). What I learned is you can still get by speaking german to dutch speakers, and for a lot of words they'll just think you have a really strange accent. Still, I couldn't help having the Swedish-chef like chant "ferdi fundi bundi" in my head all day.