Luxembourg

Needless to say, waking up after a night full of men was difficult. Even if they were gay men. I called my hiking buddies Alex and Marco to see if they were still up for a drive and they agreed. I didn't think Bjorn was up for going anywhere at this time in the morning.

The drive to Luxembourg was quite beautiful. The small towns nestled in the hills surrounded by bright colored folliage was picturesque. The tree lined road was quite refreshing to go cruising through. Certainly nothing like the highways in Houston. The only annoying part was the short spurts of construction areas where the speed limit went from "none" to 60kph. It was cramping my style. Fast.

There was a perfect stretch of road where I tested just what it felt like to have no speed limit. 213kph was the fastest I went before I needed to slow down. Luckily the car was there because I was secretly reaching my comfort limit along with the adrelene of speed. It was a real inner conflict.

We made it into the city and then came the fun task of trying to find a parking spot. I swear, europeans could allow a little more room in the parking garages. Talk about nerve racking! Once the car was parked, I whipped out my handy map and saw that the Crypt I wanted to go see seemed to be on the other side of town. I told my travel companions that we needed to hurry if we wanted to get there in time.

We hurried a couple blocks before I stopped to check the map. Surprisingly, it seemed we were already more than 1/2 way there. Apparently, drawing things to scale is not one of Luxembourg's strong points.

We made it to the Archeological Crypt. It is an old fortress built deep into the hillside used to defend Luxembourg City in the Middle Ages. I was quite impressed with it's design. Places for cannons and archers as well as passageways that led to no where in case of infiltration.

We spent a lot of time exploring every nook and cranny. There were even some dark crannys Alex and Marco wanted to explore just to make me scared.

After we left the crypt, Alex found a old tower in ruins at the edge of a bridge crossing a large ravine that was begging to be climbed. Marco has a theory that all Canadians are climbers. Well Alex wasn't willing to try and prove him wrong.

After Alex had got the climbing itch scratched we went to a pub to grab a coupl beers. We had already walked through the city twice and needed a place to rest our feet. We found a pub that was full of old men watching the rugby match and we took a corner booth. We each asked for the draft beer. Luxembourg beer is a very crisp pilsner what was surprisingly refreshing. We spent a couple hours just shooting the wind and trying to translate a interesting note on the back of one of our coasters that was in Luxembourgian.

After a couple beers, we went for dinner at a French restaurant. Yes it's a little backwards, but we needed to kill time before we got hungry. Yes, the city is that small, especially on a Sunday when nothing is open. After a nice dinner spanning England, Germany, Russia and France. We started the drive home.

About 1/2 way home I was merging onto a new highway while talking to Alex in the passenger seat. From the back seat comes this scream, "Watch out!" I thought a deer was running onto the road. When I realized that it was just Marco concerned that I didn't know to merge, I yelled back. I almost swerged to avoid a nonexistant deer! Then we'd be in trouble. It was just a freaked out German worried about American drivers is what he told me. That's funny because I'm just as freaked out when he's driving.

The rest of the trip was quiet and we listened to my '80s mix the rest of the way. By the time I got home I had only spent 4 hours in my apartment the whole weekend. I was certainly not ready for an early morning, but that's the price you pay to live it up in K-town!