Belgian Money Maker

Hopefully some of you have seen Tom Hanks in The Terminal; in case you haven't he plays an international traveler who gets stuck at JFK Airport when his home country, Cracotia, erupts into civil war. The entire movie is based around his survival in the international transit zone of the airport with no job, no living quarters, and no knowledge of the English language. At one point or another he realizes he can earn US currency by returning the luggage carts to the rack counter and receive the one dollar deposit. Call me a monkey, but I've discovered the very same thing here in Brussels. Many of the local markets require that you deposit a single or double euro coin into a meter in order to use a buggy. And, if you just happen to have an extra two or three minutes its actually pretty easy to walk around the block, collect the buggies and take them back, banking roughly a dozen or so euros. Money Maker.

We found a sports bar in the government district of Brussels. It just so happens we got into a verbal disagreement with several gamecock fans who happened to be there and didn't appreciate our cadence counts in efforts to cheer on the Tigers as they took on NC state. Ultimately the Tigers won, the gamecocks were sour sports (what else is new?), and we found a relatively American hangout if we ever need to be surrounded by Natty Light, Pizza, Buffalo Wings, and American sports.

This morning we got up at 9am and went to the equivalent of what would be the barnyard flea market from back home. It was pretty cool, the most surprising thing was the abundance of cheese. Almost every stand sells some form of cheese in a plethora of sizes (they do lack a market for cheddars and edams...disappoint)

We ate lunch at a greek shop that sold something called gyros. It was actually really good. Imagine a pita bread cut in half with a slit filled to the brim w/ steamed cabbage, pulled roast beef, feta cheese, and some greek vinegar sauce. Fantastico!

Going to work out in a bit, and then I'm going to have to take care of some accounting homework.

Until next time,

Thomas