Block leave officially begins as we leave military posts behind. Our destination was France, a first for both Martha and me. Because we were in NW Germany, we cut through Luxemburg. We went straight for the heart of Luxemburg City and walked around for a couple hours. The old town is built in and around a gorge that weaves tightly through the city. The historical sites were few, but each turn of our walk yielded little surprises.* We didn’t know what to expect, and actually walked away wondering what we had seen. The footpaths around the gorge, old buildings, and old walls were rewarding. We found what appeared to be the primary plaza in the city and grabbed our first French portions (read, expensive and small…but then strangely filling) while we listened to our first bits of the French language. I still can’t believe I tried to learn it. I’m afraid French persons are at an extreme disadvantage from the get-go because of its inherent demureness to the Yankee’s ears. But, if the Yankee happens to be demure in the first place, it proves to be the perfect language for whispering and “trailing off”…easing the awkwardness of the initially awkward situation. I like it…as long as it’s not yelled in drunkenness.
We moved on towards Paris, but somehow** took a wrong turn and wound up in Belgium...not that it looked any different than any of the green cow country that stretches across Germany, France, BENELUX, and pretty much anything else north of Spain and Italy. Only the map told us we crossed a border. We put the worthless GPS into the glove compartment, and used the map to aim at Paris. France wasn’t much different in the countryside, but the cars got smaller and rustier (most with 9 inch wheels a whole family inside crawling at about 35 mph) and the road got bumpier.
Editorial notes:
*One little surprise was when we accidently walked way OUT of the city center into the suburbs. But that's what buses are for.
**By "somehow," Nathan means "because the GPS is evil and tried repeatedly to lure us into the middle of nowhere for nefarious reasons."
Looking into the gorge in Luxembourg:
Engaging in one of our favorite activities:
3 comments:
I can't believe it took me this long to find your blog... or that you were ripping on me downrange for blogging. Hypocrite!! But you've stopped writing... about the time you took over as E Company XO... strange coincidence that is!
I'm just guessing who this is, since I'm too lazy to read your blog, but notice that Nathan wrote a total of 5 or 6 posts...all in the first 2 months of deployment. And then 1 more after.
PAPU forever! Or something. I forgot our acronym because I forgot what your party's called.
Also, I'm a little creeped out...tell me you found this from a link on facebook and not from googling my husband...
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