Brussels, Belgium

A few more famous folks from Belgium thanks to some well informed Belgian fans: the inventor of the saxophone Adolphe Sax, cyclist Eddy Mercks, artist Paul Rubens and the muscles from Brussels Jean Claude VanDamme. The renown harmonica/guitarist Toots Thielemans is spelled thus and not as in yesterday's note. My wife and editor of these notes chided me on my laziness in not looking up the proper spelling of others listed yesterday. Sorry. Apologies are also extended to anyone I might have offended with my description of Antwerp and the venue we played. There's apparently a wonderful old town in Antwerp that rivals Brussels. As far as the concrete monstrosity that smelled like a public lavatory, I understand they have been working very hard to clean the place up and was told that I should have seen it a few years ago. Wow.

The day off in Brussels was a success on all fronts, fitness, shopping, gastronomic and beer. I accidentally broke one of Guy's uke strings last night and managed to find an instrument store just down the street from the hotel that had a set. Leave everything to me, I'll find ukulele strings on Neptune. I had lunch on the square, beef stewed in brown beer with chips and the world's largest Leffe Golden Bier. When I got back to the hotel the phone rang, it was Matt so off we went in the rain ducking into a cafe for soup, coffee and Belgian waffle. We came across a great used record shop and spent about an hour in there coming away with a few treasures. I stopped at a couple of albums and didn't even get into the 78's, a real pain traveling around with phonograph records. I was told about a bar/restaurant here that has over 100 types of Belgian beer called De Ultieme Hallucinatie, the ultimate hallucination. It's tempting but I think it will have to be another time.

A brilliant Italian dinner tonight in the hotel at the Bocconi Resaurant. The meats are from Tuscany and it was one of the finest and most authentic Italian meal I've had outside of Italy. A noteworthy dinner.

Early luggage/lobby call and a full day tomorrow, flying to and playing Moscow then flying out after the show to spend the night in St. Petersburg.

Tot ziens (see you,)

Richard