Brian in Belgium

Disclaimer I know this is late in coming. I know it's been over a month since I actually visited the Isle of May, but I've been a busy boy lately and this is the first chance I've had to post some photo's. The Isle of May Need a day trip from St. Andrews? Then I highly recommend the Ilse of May. Take a bus to Anstruther, grab some lunch at Prince Willy's favorite chipper, then hop on the May Princess for a 45 minute ferry ride out to the island. The Isle of May has no trees, lots of birds, and is small enough that you can walk the length and breadth of it in a day. Puffins and seagulls abound, and during the right time of year, lots of seals too. This was not the ... read more

St. Andrews at Last We left Edinburgh on the train to Leuchars, which is as close as a train gets to St. Andrews. Our departure was delayed by about half an hour because they were changing the power plant on the train. When we finally got underway, it didn't seem like the change did much good because purple smoke was rolling down either side of the train cars, but the old girl eventually got warmed up and we chugged right along to Leuchars. As the train was approaching our stop we asked one of the locals (who was also getting off at Leuchars) how to catch the bus to St. Andrews. As luck would have it he was heading that way and offered to give us a lift. I had my first experience with the symmetry ... read more

Introduction Well, off to the next big adventure. I'm afraid that the biggest challenge on this one was to keep my wallet firmly in my back pocket. With the pound stirling currently equal to about 1.8 US dollars, my wallet kept trying to lift itself from my pants and fly into the hands of surrounding merchants. Not to worry, I managed to escape with my shirt still on my back despite a missed flight and a detour through a country I wasn't planning on visiting this weekend...but I think it's best if I leave that story for a later blog. The Flight Left Gent bright and early and headed to the "Brussels" airport. I'll just go ahead and say something about a little airline that, in order to avoid a lawsuit, I will refer to as ... read more

Well, Mom and Jim came for a visit over the Easter holiday. It was great to have some of my family come all the way over here to visit me, although it did make me a little homesick. We had a wonderful time. They arrived on a Friday morning, and I did my best to keep them awake all day so that they could get over their jet lag. Their first taste of Belgium came from the waffle stand at Gent St. Pieters Station, and I believe they were quite impressed. After dumping their luggage at my apartment, we went to Iepers and walked around a bit, but they were really too tired to enjoy it much. That evening we had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, and Jim's mood improved substantially when I introduced ... read more

Day two in Luxembourg started off rainy and gray, but that’s just par for the course in this part of Europe. A friend once told me that if you wait for the rain to stop before you travel, you may not ever go anywhere. Living in Belgium I’ve learned to take this little nugget of wisdom to heart, and not let the rain stop me. So after a decent breakfast in the hostel we made for the train station to do a little exploring. Now, Luxembourg has a really nice deal for traveling within the country. For five euros you can purchase a ticket that will give you unlimited use of trains and busses for 24 hours. The CIA World Fact Book describes Luxembourg as being slightly smaller than Rhode Island, so you won’t be traveling ... read more