During our trip to Belgium, the Netherlands and France we picked up a few items that will always remind us of our trip. Here are a few of them.

At Newark our luggage was tagged through to Brussels. First on SAS Flight # 912 to Copenhagen and then on SAS Flight # 593 to Brussels.

On our last night in Brussels it rained cats and dogs. Four of us ended up in the Cafe du Dragon restaurant. It was located right around the corner from our hotel. This receipt is for a nice steak, fries, 2 glasses of wine, and chocolate mousse. The total came to 990 BEF or about $23.50.

Some of us kept our room keys from the Hotel Mercure Monte in Paris. We left very early in the morning of Friday 1/13/2001. When I got home I found this still in my pocket.

During our time in Paris we used the Metro to get around. After a few round trips you end up with a pocket full of these.

On Friday after lunch we split up into groups to visit sights around Paris. Those that went to the Louvre got a pass just like this. We arrived at 2:45 PM and found that we could save 15 francs by waiting 15 minutes. We did and got in for a mere 30 FF. We covered a lot of ground in the hours we spent here.

In Belgium many of us purchased phone cards to enable us to call home from the hotel. This is mine. 200 BEF got you a few minutes phone time. Those of us with AT&T phone cards found we could dial direct from our rooms with no extra charges added.

When we visited the OECD on Thursday we needed to sign in. We were given a pass that we had to wear while we were in the facility.

While in Belgium most of us ate a bit of chocolate. Neuhaus is arguably the best chocolate money can buy. While in Belgium...   I brought home several boxes of Neuhaus chocolates, they are all gone now but I kept a wrapper or two to remember some of the best chocolate I ever had.

Our trip home began with a boarding pass from Paris's Charles DeGaulle to Oslo Airport. After a brief layover in Oslo we boarded out flight to Newark and home.

A variety of coins from our trip. We found that when we crossed borders we could not trade in coins, just paper currency.

This is a Belgium 100 franc note. This is worth about $2.38 USD. Belgium notes came in 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 denominations. There may have been larger bills but 2000BEF was the largest bill I carried. It was equal to about $47 USD.

During our brief layover in Oslo we traded in some money so we could buy lunch. I had a 50 Kroner note left over when I boarded our flight for Newark.

Things are not always what they seem. That was what some of us learned as we toured Amsterdam. Several of us wandered into coffee houses in search of a nice hot cup of coffee. Unfortunately what we wanted was a cafe. In coffee houses you get an entirely different type of product.

Copyright @ 2001 James M. Lavelle
jlavelle@caldwell.edu