Luxembourgish Sunday

Today was all Luxembourg.

I got up this morning, had brunch with Norby and his friends from Germany, and took a shower. Then, we went to the National Museum of the Mines in Remalange (just outside of Esch). We got to take like an hour-long guided tour down into the old steel mines, which was sweet. Unfortunately, our tour guide just spoke in Luxembourgish, but thankfully they gave us these little audio players so that we could hear the tour in English. Twas a fascinating tale indeed.

We spent the afternoon at Pitcher, where we met Norby's niece, Tammy, and her friends Michael and Andy. Greg and his host family, including Jacques, as well as a couple other Miami students joined us for some drinks while it poured outside. So, I had a Heineken, which was good. But then Tammy and her friends got some "Blue Nickel" (could be off, but that's what it sounded like), which was some drink invented at that bar. I inquired as to what it was, and Norby told me it was a little vodka with a lot of blue lemonade and lime flavoring. So, we all had a shot of that (while I'm still drinking my Heineken). We just hung out and chatted, and it was very nice. We had another shot of the Blue Nickel (still good), and hung out some more.The bartender, Jean-Claude, then brought over some black looking drink, called Black Nickel. I did not have any. But later, when he brought us some Purple Nickel, I mean, I had to try it since everybody else seemed to like it. It was more sour than the Blue stuff. And then Michael poured me another (I tried to stop him, but I don't think he understood english very well). So, I had to have it. DISCLAIMER: I am not an alcoholic, and I will only drink responsibly - approximately three hours elapsed while we sat at this bar. UNDISCLAIMER: Then after a while, Norby decided we needed to have some Bofferding, which is another famous Luxembourgish beer. 

Then, we went to Greg's host family's house for a traditional Luxembourgish dinner. It was awesome. We had some pork pie with jelly for an appetizer. Then we had bean slurp soup, which sounds nasty, but was actually delicious. Then we had bacon potatoes (best creation ever), wine sausage with mustard, and salad for the main course. All of it was incredible and satisfying. Then dessert was a plum pie with whipped cream. Oh, and with appetizers and dinner we had a Riesling (white wine from the Moselle region), which was quite nice and refreshing. Then, after dinner we each had a small glass of Vieux Marc, which turns out is some extremely strong french liquor (even Norby said so!). I got it down though. I'm actually surprised that I did so well considering the amount of alcohol I consumed today. Don't get me wrong, I was trying to be very responsible and not drunk (which is extremely, EXTREMELY, frowned upon in Europe), but I was unsure about how I would handle. Luckily, I have good genes for this kind of stuff (thanks Mom and Dad!). So then, before we left, Tiffany and I asserted our American dominance at foosball over Jacques and his cousin, Lisa. America 4, Luxembourg 1. Victory yet again.

Anyways, first day of class is tomorrow, and I have class from 845 all the way until 1915. Yikes. Long day ahead, so yeah, peace out.