If It's Tuesday, I'm in Zurich/Munich/Saarbrucken/Luxembourg

So as you may have heard elsewhere, I'm in Luxembourg this week for work. As you may have also heard, I missed a connection in Zurich and thus extended by travel day by another 8 hours or so, with layovers in both Zurich & Munich. The Munich-Luxembourg flight actually made a 15-minute whistle-stop in Saarbrucken, so five take-offs and landings in 24 hours - the last time I had so many flights that close together was Airborne school!

Despite being in Switzerland, I couldn't see any mountains in Zurich:


But onward we pressed, my three fellow strandees and I (two musicians enroute to a short tour in Luxembourg and Germany and a young lady headed to see her Italian banker boyfriend). Pulled into the hotel about 6 PM; got settled, took a shower and then headed out to locate dinner.

My land navigation skills must be really rusty, but fortunately Luxembourg is a small city, and the "Old Town" section I'm in has pretty clearly defined boundaries - it's set atop a rocky hill, with a promontory jutting out over a river. (It was originally a fortress and I'm hoping to see what's left of the fortifications over the weekend.) However, serendipitously I stumbled across Place d'Theater, which had this nifty sculpture in the middle:


I eventually made my way over to Place d'Armes, which these days is full of chain restaraunts and cafes. I passed up the McDonalds, Chi-Chi's (yes, the American Chi-Chi's!) and after a narrow internal vote, La Boucherie (a French chain we discovered in Normdany last year) and settled down at an outdoor cafe. What does the weary cyber-warrior need at the end of a journey like this?


Warm, crusty fresh-baked French bread with local (Luxembourgish) butter and a local beer, followed by one of the "Menu Brasserie" fixed menus (an interesting salad with deviled eggs, followed by wiener schnitzel with green beans and 'frittes', finished with a small creme caramel).

Unfortunately, no opportunities for sightseeing today as I wound up working until shortly after 9 PM local.

I've discovered that it's a mixed blessing to start out speaking to waiters here in French, even with my pronounciation and accent - or maybe I sound more fluent than I think - because they fairly rapidly shift into higher-speed French that's beyond my feeble kenning! I'll try to work on something more than "merci" and "l'addition, si vous plat".