Todd was our first visitor from home, so we were pretty excited for him to get here! Unfortunately his trip started out very un-German- his train was running 45 minutes late (unheard of inefficient Germany!), but after that the trip went pretty smoothly. His first full day here we showed him around town. We biked to city center and started out at the markt (farmers market) then showed him around St. Peters (the main Catholic church in town, aka the Dom), the historic Rathaus (old town hall), St. Marien Kirche, the Heger Tor, the old half-timbered houses, had lunch at Panorama, and after a bit more walking around town we got ready for my birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant- the Kartoffelhaus Dominikaner. After one round of drinks after dinner we called it a night a little early, since we had to get up at the crack of dawn the next day to drive to Belgium for the Belgian Grand Prix!
Bright and early (or rather very dark and super early) we got on the road to Francorchamps- it was about a 3 hour drive from Osnabrück, but with the traffic when we got close to the town it ended up taking almost four. I’ve never been to a NASCAR race or anything, so I couldn’t believe how many people were there! People must have arrived at 7 in the morning to set up these big tents right along the fences so it was actually a little hard to get a spot where you could see the race well (especially when you are short in a land of giant Europeans). I couldn’t believe how loud the cars are or how hilly that course is. It was a serious work out walking around it. After 44 laps over 2 hours, Sebastian Vettel won (a German driver for Red Bull-Renault) and they opened the race track up. We scaled down a steep hill with a ton of other people (I was a little worried we’d start falling like dominos) and headed towards the finish line. It was pretty cool walking around the track and seeing the finish line with the big grand stands to the side.- Including a huge “Drilling in the Arctic? Shell no!” banner that some Greenpeace people had snuck in at some point before the race and was unfurled from the top of the grandstand during the podium celebrations. -Shell is the principal sponsor for the race. It was pretty funny watching the security people try to get down that banner plus two smaller ones that popped up in front of the podiums.
After the race we walked to the car and got on the road to Brussels. It was a really cool experience and we got really lucky because it didn’t rain all day (which is unheard of for this race).
