Liege was a beautiful town, yet strangely to me, it had more of an eastern european feel to it, as far as the architecture and the age of the buildings. Many of them were covered in graffiti and soot. Charles explained to me that this was characteristic of the French Belgian (Waldesian) towns where as the Flemish towns were much cleaner and orderly. The nicest thing though was that it was off the well-beaten tourist path. In fact, I think Charles and I may have been two of the only Americans in the town. The locals in town that do know him, know him simply as Charles, the American, as most of the people he knows do not know any other Americans in the town. Funny, huh?

 

 

Things in Liege are noticeably more laid back. Charles must feel right at home then :). We showed up late at the meeting point to leave for the BBQ and we still ended up waiting for about 20 minutes for everyone else to show. In the meantime, a nice communist party (Labor Party) protest parade was going on as we waited.

We arrived at a beautiful park in the outskirts of Liege and buddy, it was a sunny day! :) The park was full to the max with people and we were told there were no BBQ grills left to use, we pushed on though through the persistence of our empty stomachs. We managed to find a grill that people were finishing off with and we cooked things up. Now a good ol’ American BBQ consists of charcoal briquets and lots of flammable liquid. Can’t miss with that. In Belgium though, they used this charcoal that basically looked like pieces of burnt wood and was quite light. Then you had these little bricks of white something called Zip that were pretty flammable in a slow burning sort of way. Kind of cool twist on the whole ordeal, but in the end it still led to blackened meat :).

 

Pretty awesome day: good food and I fell asleep in the sun on the grass for quite a while. That’s what I call a vacation. I did my best to keep my eyes off of the Belgium cuties running around, but hey... it can be tough. :)

 

That took up a good portion of the day. Till just about 6pm, so it was then that we made our way back into town and regrouped. Just did a little email action and what not and then head out to tour the town. We first made our way to an overlook in town called the Citadel, which was within walking distance, right? Well, walking distance included walking up the stairs that  are pictured below. It was a bit of a hike up, but not as bad as Lower Dewy :).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the entire town there were signs of catholicism around. Many of the streets had a crucifix, a statue to Mary, or a saint placed at the head of the road. Needless to say, Liege is a very catholic town in the sense of seeing signs of the religion around, but it seemed that it was like most European towns: quite un-Christian in its populations’ lifestyle. Unfortunate, but that is why people like my friend Charles are there.

 

 

 

On the way home, we walked past this cathedral which was gorgeous at night. I have a good friend named Duncan who you’ll get to know more about later who has an affinity for ornate churches and says they help him connect with God. I can see that sometimes when I walk into a majestic church in these old european towns.