3 countries in one day

Who knew time could go faster the longer you are in a location?

Turns out we have less than one week left - next week at this time we will (should?) be at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC waiting for our connecting flight to Detroit. Crazy how fast time goes - I remember looking at the calendar and thinking, "Wow, we still have 10 days left."

Things are going well, although today I did a day trip to Belgium - which means I started in Germany, drove through a little section of the Netherlands, and arrived in Belgium. It was only about 2 hours each way - so not too bad. It had been almost a week since I drove the car (since the train is my preferred way of getting to work) and it was nice to be behind the wheel. Our GPS system (Tom Tom is it's name) helped me navigate the roads here and get to my destination without any trouble at all (which was a total relief).

Here is a picture of my special Father's Day gift Tay picked out for me. For those that know me, I can be a bit of a pen snob and so this chocolate pen and pencil set was perfect!

Here is a picture of the train station I walk to daily to catch my ride to and from work...it's a bit busy in the afternoon, but not too bad in the morning...guess not many people want to be up as early as I am in the morning no matter what country I'm in...

There is a famous bridge here in Cologne as well (it's on every reference to the city along with the Dom Cathedral) so we decided to take a walk to see it tonight after dinner. On the Hohenzollern bridge there are pad locks couples have been placing there to symbolize their love. It was fun to read many of the names and inscribed dates. Apparently, this trend started in Rome and has spread all over the world. The idea is to get a pad lock and put names on it - then you lock them to the bridge and throw the key into the river to symbolize ever lasting love (or something sappy like that). It is very romantic. Since pictures are worth 1000 words, maybe these will help explain what I'm talking about.

View from the bridge

On the bridge looking back towards the Dom...you can see the locks lined up on the fence to the right.

Closer look at some of the locks.

Here are some pictures of the places we have had dinner. These are along the Rhine river - as you can see, there are many, many restaurants to choose from - one right after the other. They are more than happy to help you find a seat or answer any questions you may have. It has been fun walking past all of them and reading the menu to determine where we would like to eat each night - and yes, the menu is in German so we have to do a little bit of guess work. Once we choose a location and sit down, they usually have a menu in English for our final selections.

Here are some other pictures we took tonight during our walk - it's nice here because the sun is up early and doesn't go down until very late. The weather has been great the last two days so we have enjoyed eating outside. Still definitely having a blast over here.

I finally completed our last hotel reservation for next week last night - which means other than a few connecting trains here and there, we have all of our arrangements complete...now all we have to do is stick to the schedule...sigh.

Good night, it's 11:30PM and even though the day is still young back home, it has come to a close here.