Bye Bye Brugge

Friday during our walk around Brugge, Belinda and Alice found a flea market and had to decide which was the heaviest item they could buy.

Before we left for the train station this morning (Saturday) we had breakfast at our BnB with a couple from just outside Brussels who asked about Donald Trump and whether he was really running for President because they think he's a joke. We told them no, he's serious and we really think he'd do well for international relations. Then we all laughed and agreed on one thing- he's an idiot !

We left Brugge at 0850. It was sad. I mean it was cloudy and about to cry😢. We went through Brussels and on our last train for the day we cruised at 245 km/h from Koln to Berlin, arriving at 1706. And this isn't the fast train. I laugh when I hear people in the US talk about high speed rail. Hell the damn local trains here do 70-90 mph. Amtrak would be overjoyed with that. On the other hand we can have wine and beer on the train. All electric overhead wires AND NOT AN EFFING TRAIN WHISTLE TO BE HEARD!!! We so live in the 1800's when it comes to our rail lines. All concrete ties and seamless rails here. We need to make our trains more people friendly. Stopping the horns is the first step and if you really want to do that let me know. It can be done. Oh, it's raining out the window. Stupid statement... it's not raining inside. Anyway apparently Germany is sad to see us arrive. But Thomas and Friends were not.

We arrived on time, of course, these are German trains. Clean, fast, efficient. And the Nutella was ready for us. Felix, Carola, Thomas, and Olaf were excited to see us as you can tell by this staged photo. They immediately took us out partying.

(www.folsomstreetfair.com)

We also went to a cabaret show tonight, which was very, very fun, and then just toured the city on a city bus, going to the Brandenburg Gate, Sony Center, Holocaust Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, American Embassy and some other sites that were architecturally or historically significant. You can always come see what we did. Check with me and I'll give you Thomas's phone number to make your reservation.

Typical dinner with Alice

I still haven't been able to make a local phone call on this trip. Called back to the kids but not our BnB down the street. I'll find out what's going on. I'll let you know so you won't worry. Brought two tablets and a phone with us. Everything is Android.  Both tablets are Acers. One is a $130 8" tablet and the other is a $80 7" tablet, both from Costco of course. Both seem to work exceptionally well. Of course I have the bigger one because I've been told size matters! It is absolutely amazing what technology has done for travel. I used to print off pages and pages of notes. Now I just load PDF files on all our devices. Plus we can communicate with the world, when we have WiFi or when Verizon works. By the way because my phone didn't work when we arrived in Amsterdam I couldn't call or text Verizon to tell them. So I posted a comment on their Facebook page and they Messaged me until we got it figured out! I was impressed. Now if I could just figure out what codes to use locally......

Finally figured out the phone issue. Verizon said to preface the phone numbers with +1, then the country code and number. NOT!  It's 00, then the number. Yay! I know you were worried.