Rain, a somber honor, and traffic jams.

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Geo: 50.8516, 4.35031

So, after a looooong sleep, and a welcome breakfast, we checked out and headed to the Clais Sud cemetery. We had originally planned to visit Normandy, and wanted to find someone who had family buried there, that we could visit. That quest came up empty-handed, but someone on one of Dejo's message boards said that he had a great-grandfather buried in Calais, if we happened to be up that way. Turns out that Calais was more convenient for our itinerary anyway, so we gladly obliged.

We found the cemetery easily, and after a slight detour (in which I was afraid I'd have to report to Michael that his great-grandfather's grave no longer had a headstone), we found the right section of the grounds, and found a very well-kept plot. We left some flowers that we'd gotten, and read aloud 2 poems that Michael had written.Very good poems, and we were honored to be able to carry the messages personally to Sgt. Casey.

After paying our respects, we were back on the road, and headed to Bruxelles. (apologies -- after several years of working at Rail Europe and reading out of the Thomas Cook European Timetable, I'm unable to spell any European cities with their anglicized spellings. Heaven help the reader if we ever get to Germany or Italy.).

All was well, until we came to a screeching halt on the highway. For about an hour.

We traveled 10 km in1 hour. Oy.

But, we got to Bruxelles okay, if a little later than we'd hoped. If only I'd remembered to bring the directions to the hotel with me, we might not have wandered cluelessly about the tunnels that ring the city. We did finally make our way to the city center, and to the Astrid Hotel. We met up with Dejo's parents, and Ans & Joop (his dad's cousin and her husband). We had a drink, and then a lovely dinner at Restaurant Ste. Katherine. After everyone else turned in, Dejo & I headed back down to the Grand Place, caught some of the light show oncity hall, and then went for a drink at a la Mort Subite.Yum.

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Photos

The gang
At dinner. I'm standing about 1 table from the back of the dining area.

Joop "helps"
Whether he was helping the chef, or helping himself to some more spirits, it was pretty entertaining!

Mort Subite
This place does a fantastic white beer, and several tasty lambics, as well.

Pirat le chat
The resident cat ("Pirate"), taking his rightful place after most guests were done using his breakfast room.

Sally sees the beach
But it was WAY too cold and windy for any of us to get out, so she had to settle for seeing it from the car.

Sjt. Peter Casey
The headstone of Sjt. Casey's grave

Dejo at Sjt. Casey's grave
Just wanted to get a tiny idea of the number of soldiers laid to rest here, and where Sjt. Casey laid, amongst them

Restaurant Ste. Catherine
This is the place where Dejo & I had dinner with his parents, Joop & Ans, and their son Ron & his wife Aliana.