Day 3 - Around Huy

So, as you saw yesterday, we went to bed at 7pm (we'll, I Clint, went to bed a bit earlier than Melissa...) We woke up to the smell of bacon cooking and the phone rang...but it was dark and we were very confused. I pulled out my bright green ear plugs and asked Megan what time it was, she said 9. Man it's sure dark here in the morning...Megan then said she was cooking bacon "tonight" for breakfast in the morning. We'd only been sleeping for 2 hours...geez.

So at 9 AM, we awoke the this...

Here in Huy, you have a very small narrow trashcan that you set out once a week. to encourage people to recycle (which is free) they weigh your trash (as this man is doing) and you are charged by the kilo...interesting.

So after a very fine breakfast that I'd been thinking about since about 9PM we set off to explore Megan and Clay's hometown.

Huy was formalized as a village back in 1066 although there are records of the town going back to the fifth century. Clay and Megan have a book that features old engravings of Huy and on the cover it has this medieval painting...And this is the view from their apartment...


We walked across the river and saw this modern apartment complex. Apparently the stairwells are so narrow in the buildings here that the only way to get your furniture in our out is by using one of these guys...

One of the first things we noticed here is how many beautiful flowers there are all over town, We snapped this photo as we peaked into someone's backyard.

The next thing we noticed after the pretty flowers was this...

Nuclear power is a big deal here apparently and they need a large supply of water...we've got that here.

We came back and had a wonderful pasta lunch...


Here is my plate when I was finished, you can tell I liked the cheese :).

We then visited the Huy La Collegiate Notre-Dame , the town's cathedral (on the front of the book above) which they started constructing back in 1311. I've never seen a place quite like this. It's probably hard to tell from the pictures but this place just looked really old. There's been a church on this site dating back to the third century AD and the crypt under this building dates from 1066. Wow.

It was very cold and fairly dark so alot of the pictures didn't come out so well. But to think about this place being built in modern days is impressive but to think about the technology and tools these people had to deal with is incredible.

We then went and visited an old monastery that has been converted into the town's museum. Here we are out front.

Then Megan stood on the wall of the monastery and the curator came running out asking for their "monk clothes" back...

We came back to the house and Meg made chicken tortilla soup. Some of their friends here in town have an ailing father so she made soup for them as well. Dad, you'll like this...Clay needed to add a little spice to the soup...look familiar?

Melissa and I struck out on our own for a sunset walk around town...

The view here is so amazing, incredibly picturesqe. Pretty incredible place to live I'd say...

So we'll leave you with this picture. There are signs like this all around, at cross walks...no one, even the locals knows what it means...


Good day!