Sitting in Champagne-Ardenne

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At present we are sitting in the campervan in the town of Vouziers in the Champagne-Ardenne region of Northern France, having finally found some useable wireless internet (who would of thought that the middle of rural france would be the place to find wireless internet! Anyways, after leaving amsterdam the other day we headed down through Den Haag to pick up kane's emergency passport and get a new Vietnamese visa issued, which turned out to be quite painless. We headed on to Antwerp where we visitied the Beerhuis Kulminator, possibly the greatest beer drinking establishment on the planet. A little pub in the backstreets of antwerp was the location for a pub with a menu of no less than 941 beers, from many different brewers, all styles and many, many years. After deciding not to go with the most expensive item on the menu, The Bordeaux, Moulis en Mèdoc, Château Chasse-Spleen 1969 13% 75cL for the princely sum of 70€. After drinking 8 beers each, the most pricey being the La Trappe Amber 1975 33cL for 15€ along with a selection of other fine beers, we stumbled out and headed onwards to Brussels, realising that what is supposedly a great Belgian beer, Stella Artois, is in fact, utter crap.

Brussels was the setting for watching sweden being defeated by germany, and a whole lot of walking. And what a dirty town to take a walk in. So we left and headed towards Ieper, where the next day we visited the Menin Gate memorial on a rainy belgian day, and headed on down to Paris.

Paris was a blast, with visits to many of the city's great buildings, and before heading up the Tour Eiffel, my camera battery died. But its ok, i still got some great shots of the city (and tower) earlier in the day, so, after watching australia go down to italy after a good match due to an unfortunate decision, we have now headed out towards Luxembourg through the french countryside stopping at a couple of small towns along the way. should be a good trip from here, and we all look forward to the game in Hamburg on friday.

Matt

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Comments

[mum and dad]

hello
It's good to get an update without all the drama. You are really getting around and having some fun. David's message to you is "Lucky bastards, all that choice of beers!!" Take care and waiting for the next update.