Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

As promised, I owe you a report about Luxembourg. Like I said in my last blog, we arrived Wednesday night tired from a long day in Brussels and on the road. We checked into our hotel here and settled in a little before going out to find some dinner. Our hotel is conveniently located within a ten minute walk from the city center (or “centre” here). It is also located on a bluff overlooking a ravine. The scenery is great here in Luxembourg. Here are some pics. And for good measure there’s also a shot of a Ferrari parked at our hotel.
Here’s a better look at the ravine from the bridge seen in the pictures above. Our hotel is located to the right of that white house in the center of the picture. There are walking and bike paths down at the bottom of the ravine. The plan is to head down there tomorrow on foot or on a rented bike to check it out. The ravine runs past several sets of medieval ruins. It should be a good time. Hopefully the weather cooperates so I can get some good pictures for you.
We didn’t have a walking tour from Luxembourg, but I did snap a few pictures from around the town Wednesday night when we were trying to find food. I really like this town. It’s pretty compact, but still has a lot to offer. I’m really excited to explore some of the parks and wooded areas of town. Anyway, here are some other pictures I snapped the other night.
So, back to what we ended up doing for food on Wednesday night. Well, we knew that Germany was playing Turkey in the EuroCup semi-finals that night and had heard that they had a beer garden area set up to watch the game. Hearing this we headed over to see if they had any food. Alas, they did: two types of bratwurst, one light colored, the other dark. I didn’t know what the difference was since it was written in German, so I just pointed to the dark one. Normally I’m not a fan of brats, but this was damn good. Perhaps because I was so hungry, but maybe it was just really good. Of course, they also sold beer at this place, so I got one of those too. It was a beer called Bofferding, which is brewed in Luxembourg. And it was not very good. It was my least favorite beer consumed on this trip. Well, perhaps the 12% beer I had in Brussels was worse, but not by much. Here are some pictures of the beer garden area. It was pretty cool.
In case you wondered , Germany ended up winning the soccer game 3-2. I was surprised at how many Turkish fans were there though; it was close to an even split among people who had a strong allegiance. It was a great finish. Germany scored the game winner in the last minute of regulation. Last night we went to the same spot to watch Spain play Russia. The first half was a bit of a boring stalemate, ending 0-0. But Spain turned into its dominating self in the second half and won convincingly 3-0. I was rooting for Spain because I hate Commies. The championship game between Germany and Spain is this Sunday. I’m already looking forward to watching it at the square. Germany and Spain had the largest factions of supporters these past two nights, so it should be a festive atmosphere. I’ll take more pictures, don’t worry.

The only other thing I’ve done since coming to Luxembourg is to visit the European Court of Justice, which is the highest court for European Union matters. It really wasn’t anything special and we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. The one cool thing was that we got to watch a hearing regarding a Spanish case. The parties presented their oral arguments in Spanish and the judges (the five of them) all spoke in German. It was cool because there were booths of translators ringing the courtroom, so we got to hear it being translated in English. Apparently, French is the official language of the court. Anyway, the proceedings themselves weren’t that interesting, just the translation part.

Tonight I ventured past a Subway here in Luxembourg and lo and behold, they had the chicken, bacon, and ranch sub. I thought that ranch was outlawed in Europe. I just had to have it, especially since I've been going through ranch deprivation for the last five weeks. The sub had a little bit different tasted to it, but it was all that I hoped it would be. Plus they had free refills on their sodas; that's the first time I've seen that in Europe. Here in a little bit we're going back to that square where we watched the soccer games because there's a free concert by some kind of European cover band. The sign we saw said that they are the "best cover band in Europe" and cover bands such as Queen, Gloria Estefan, Tina Turner, etc... Should be interesting. I'll report back tomorrow and let you know how it turned out. Until tomorrow, auf wiedersehen (FYI: French, German, and a Luxembourg dialect are all official languages of Luxembourg; so I'll try to mix it up a little).

Okay one last thing since you got me started about languages. After being in Italy for four weeks, I have been accustomed to saying "si" for yes, "grazie" for thank you, and "per favore" for please. I've had a hard time switching the Italian off. The worst part is that I now cycle through many different languages, so that the person I'm talking to, if they understand all the languages I utter, hear "yes, yes, yes, yes" or "thank you, thank you, thank you." This is how it usually goes: a person at a store or restaurant gives me what I purchased and I usually start off with "grazie." But then I realize I'm not in Italy, so I resort back to "thank you" then throw in "merci" or "danke" for good measure. Then they look at me like, "silly American, our language isn't for kids." I'm just gonna give everybody the finger from now on. That should work.