I need to:

1) Remember to buy a can opener. Or…
2) Remember to not buy cans.

While I’ve gotten pretty good at opening a can with a razor blade, I wouldn’t exactly call it easy…

That is all for now...

Museums. Well, Museum at least.

I was working last weekend, so I took Tuesday off and went to the Mercedes Museum. Check out pictures of horse, bus, and cars.

Went to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory on Friday. We learned when we got there that the factory had a museum, not of chocolate, but of modern art... Art Museum out in suburbia didn't exactly seem like a must see, but at least they had a chocolate store.

Goodbye Fiat.

Today I turned in my Fiat for an Audi 3 diesel with a navigation system. Significant upgrade, significantly cheaper. Of course, I could really be saving some money if the rental place offered the Mazda 6 live-in edition (engineered by K. Goza).

More on Germany

1. Parking lots in Germany will have a sign that says "frei" (free). After parking several times and having to pay, I've realized they mean free as in available, not free as in free... I guess there's more to learning a foreign language then memorizing words.

2. Afraid of declining birth rates, the German government will now give its citizens up to $33,470 to have a baby. Maybe I should go find me Helga while I'm here....

3. March has significantly less Madness in Europe. It's a good thing I didn't come here during football season.

Mannekin Pis

I've been working hard on trying to find out the story behind this kid, his pee, and why it attracts hundreds of people at a time away from things such as beer, chocolate, and seafood. It turns out, it is not known where he comes from. There are several stories surrounding him, mostly involving the peeing producing some sort of military victory... Brussels, you would've been better off just claiming you made it up (see: Hokie).

Pictures

Brussels

Went up to Brussels this weekend where a coworker from DC, Mel, just starting to work with NATO. The first site to be seen would be Brussels' most famous - Manneken Pis. More on it later, but it's a small statue of a kid peeing. Well, at least Brussels has beer, waffles, chocolate, and seafood to fall back on...

When walking past a bunch of seafood places, I made a comment about snails being on a lot of the menus. Mel said, with no previous bacon-wrapped-bacon conversations influencing her, "they're actually pretty good wrapped in bacon". Consider the bacon makes everything better point proven.

Next up, a bar that's in the Guinness book for most types of beer. They had 2004. I drank 2. One tasted kind of like Sam Addams, one tasted a lot like pennies. mmm... copper...

Sunday morning we went over to a flea market. I was thinking it was going to be a tourists' flea market with lots of souvenirs, but it was definitely more geared towards locals. Nothing purchased, but I came across an 8-track car stereo. Unfortunately, it wasn’t compatible with the Fiat...

Brussels summary: Beer – good. Mussels – excellent. Waffles and chocolate – fair. Statue of kid peeing – weird enough to warrant its on blog post.