Germany and Belgium

I wish I could post pictures with this post, but close by internet access is hard to come by over here. Seems I was quite lucky to have such a great hostel in Berlin, cause mine here in Belgium definitely doesn't have it. In fact the internet they do have is hooked to a pc and cost 5 euro an hour.

Belgium is getting a little ahead though, I guess I should go back to my last day in Berlin and my time in Hamburg. Monday we only had a short morning in Berlin. I was planning on walking over to the piece of the Berlin Wall that is still up called the East Side Gallery, but after all of the walking from the first day there my hip was hurting pretty bad. So I ended up taking it easy instead.. had a big breakfast and packed slowly. The whole time we were in Berlin we were trying to get a hold of this girl Emma that had been in Castiglion Fiorentino while we were there but were having no luck without a phone. We finally managed to run into her in the train station on the way out, which is insane cause the Berlin train station is enormous. We chatted with her and her mom about Berlin a bit an then caught the train to Hamburg.

Hamburg was probably my favorite leg of my after trip so far. We stayed at Hadyn's cousin Stefan's house and him and his family were so accommodating. He got married not to long ago and now has a 7 week old baby, so they were definitely in the new family mood.. which I got used to. They showed us a around Hamburg a bit and on Tuesday we saw a Rothko exhibit at one of the local museums. Ironically enough Stefan's father (and Haydyns uncle) was in town also and is an apparently well known artist (although I've never heard of him). So he talked our ears off in big artist terms for a lot of the time, which was interesting but a little too much sometimes also. Oh and I also learned that Stefan and his wife got married in the Rothko chapel in Houston next to the Menil. I still haven't been to that place but they had pictures of it at the exhibit that looked very neat. So after getting fairly comfortable in Hamburg we took an overnight to Brussels, where I am now. Definitely not the best transit I've ever taken, but I survived.. only with very little sleep.

Now I am in Brussels and it is cold and rainy, so I decided to take shelter in a coffee shop and get on the net. I've only been in Brussels since this morning and as much as I'd like to figure out everything the city has to offer, I don't think it is going to happen today. With the rain and the utter exhaustion, all I really want to do is relax. My man aim for Brussels is to get some Belgium waffles and some Belgium chocolate, which can probable happen tomorrow morning before I fly out. Today is really my last day of non-travel in Europe. Tomorrow I fly to Pisa in the late afternoon and then have an overnight train to Rome. I'll have a couple of hours in Rome before I fly out.. and then I'll be home. I don't think that moment can come fast enough! Hopefully I'll be able to update again before I fly out for good.. but if not then my next post will be from the States! Ciao!