A Weekend in Brussels

I've been slacking off a bit in posting for the past few days as life has again been hectic here. Case in point: I received an email a week ago asking me if I could please make an emergency trip to Brussels to speak at a very hastily organized event at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium, which I did. There wasn't much time to prepare and sightseeing was out of the question.

This photo doesn't do justice to the lovely gardens

These homes were quite impressive.

Liz, one the left, and Wendy. Liz is a well-known Perl hacker and
Wendy, her wife, was one of the organizers of this event at FOSDEM.

The ceiling of the restaurant we ate at on Saturday.

I've posted Brussels photos before at this mix of photos of different cities and this photo post.
The poor photos I've posted aren't particularly brilliant and don't do justice to a city both my wife and I love. It's one of the cities that we've considered moving to. We never know what the future holds, but Brussels is still on the list.
I took the train from the Paris Gare du Nord and arrived at Brussels' Midi/Zuidstation about 80 minutes later.  A quick taxi ride to the hotel (where the driver ripped me off by claiming a 20 euro fixed rate) and the next morning was a short walk to the venue.
I love this about Europe. In the time it takes you to drive across many cities in the US, I can be in another country. It's awesome.