Dueling Backpacks

Day 441 – (September 12, 2019) – D ü sseldorf, Germany We, once again , found ourselves back in Germany! After leaving Brussels by train and making a quick transfer in Cologne, we had arrived in D ü sseldorf. We were starving by the time we got there so the first order of business was to find some food. We went for a couple mustard-slathered bratwurst to mark the occasion. What could be more German than that?

Day 438 (September 9, 2019) – Brussels, Belgium We flew to Brussels on Ryanair, which meant that we were flying not to the main Brussels Airport but to the Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which is used by most of the low-cost carriers. It’s kind of a stretch to include Brussels in the airport name as it’s about as close to Brussels as it is to France, but there was a bus service from the airport to downtown. An hour or so after boarding the bus we arrived in the center of Brussels where we found the subway and took the short ride out to the home of Lauren and Kyle (and their dog, Ellie). Lauren, Travis, and I all went to graduate school together, and Lauren and Kyle used to have a house in Philly not too far away from ours before moving across the pond to Brussels for work.

Day 434 (September 5, 2019) – Bratislava, Slovakia Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was only a short train ride away from Vienna . After arriving at the Bratislava train station and walking to our new apartment, it was clear that Bratislava was a much smaller and more manageable city than Vienna. It was still the afternoon when we got settled in, so we went for a walk downtown. Waiting in the Vienna train station for our train to Bratislava. Walking around Bratislava. The downtown area was very cute and very European, but with a hint of Soviet flair. The city is situated on the Danube River and one of the major bridges across the river is decorated with a giant gray concrete UFO-like structure at the top. There is really no other way to describe it, but it screams of Soviet-era architecture. Otherwise, most of the city is composed of cute pedestrian streets, outdoor cafes, and a handful of noteworthy buildings, like the Historical Building of the Slovak

Day 431 (September 2, 2019) – Vienna, Austria One of the first things we did in Vienna after checking into our apartment was going on a walk around the neighborhood. Vienna felt like a much more regal and higher-class city than most. The neighborhood around us was set up in a perfect grid of one-way streets with imposing four and five story buildings filling all the available real estate. In typical European fashion, each building was a different color than the next and each had their own unique stonework or elaborate window trimmings. Blue trams and buses ran up and down most streets.