Belting down rain at first, a word on the weather so far - practically perfect. Despite all the weather forecasters best efforts to spoil the party everywhere that we have gone to date has been better that forecast, certainly nothing to halt whatever we have been doing.

The plan today is to catch the local train at 9 .15am to Munich Ost, change to one bound for the airport, arrive at 11.00am with plenty of time to catch our noon plane to Cologne then airport train to Central station view the Cologne Cathedral to kill time before a train to Brussels.

Well that was the plan! Still if all went to plan I would have nothing to write about would I. Now what actually happened. Do I hear you say that we were supposedly going to Leuven to meet up with a couple of John's new found girlfriends, another story another time.

Train fine to the change over point, in German train names all seem the same don't they? Managed to catch the right train but only problem was that once on it went in the wrong direction - express. Around 10 stations later we get out and wait to get another back to where we came from, naturally it was one stopping all stations so things starting to look grim. With a noon flight we needed to be at airport by 11.20am to make check in by 11 .30am and let me tell you security checks are a nightmare, you are now practically stripped naked. why do girls touch up the girls and the boys touch up the boys? Anyway still on the train to airport at 11.20am, in fact do not even get to airport until 11.50am - big troubles. A Ned Kelly moment it seems, check in and tell the person that we should be on the plane that has just taken off only to be informed that there has been a computer malfunction at the airport a short time ago and all flights have been delayed by 1.5 hours, the boys are back in town, never in doubt!

Only problem now is that the time will be very tight at the other end, like 30 minutes to get from airport in Cologne to the connecting train to our new destination of Brussels but at least we are on the plane.

When things work they work and when they don't well .... Into Cologne and head to the airport station, you try buying a ticket when all the information is in German and time tight. Then when all seemed lost along comes our guardian angel (OGA) - this is cross my heart and hope to die stuff, OGA is an early 30's pin up model, like triple wow, now I am used to attracting this caliber of cattle but for John rather a special occasion. OGA said she wanted to help as she had a spare train ticket to central station and wanted to help someone out with it - sorry god for being so nasty to you. OGA purchased the other ticket required and like two little boys that had spilt the cream had us soon dividing the crowd and on our way . Once she found out that we were Aussies well I declare OGA also felt the earth move. On a busy train we had to sit in separate seats, John across from OGA and me, well I pulled the booby prize and found myself next to a 90 year old woman (OL) from Munich that once she heard that I was English speaking wanted to tell me her life story in her broken English. So John with the OGA and me with the OL - we could both see what each other was thinking, he with a smirk from ear to ear!

Arrive at central station with little to no time to spare, bring on OGA, she takes us under her wing and whisks us to the ticket point, taps away at the keyboard and before we know it OGA has tickets purchased, led us to the train departure point and then had 5 minutes to spare to take us outside and show us that Cathedral I mentioned earlier. The building is the most visited site in Germany, seats 20,000 people and is a Unesco protected site. OGA and a religious site, jigsaw complete. We grab a bottle of French Cab Sauv and discuss our day so far on the train - sure tasted sweet .

Rock up in Brussels around 5.30pm and get a recommendation of a new accommodation place (only open for 4 days) close to the city centre so book in there. Talk about funny(or not so) we are given a double bed, talk about having a gay time! Our new best friend Sebastian eventually finds us a "twin room". This room has two single beds but they are sandwiched together in a "balcony" room that swinging a cat In is defiantly out of the question, Our mate Seb says it is that or nothing, looks like it is now official - John and I are now dating! The balcony consists of a door that to open one has to move a table and push the bed away and then covers the chair. The depth of the balcony is 10 cms.

Short stroll past ABC and then into the city centre, I stopped counting the number of people that had heard the Aussies were in town at 50,000. They have a square called The Grand Place (look it up) and most of the 50k were there as well. Like a lot of places / buildings that we have come across so far, words can not describe the place that you cast in your mind - so consuming in depth and breadth to actualise. Then a late feed and some local famous Belgium beer and then buying the famous (and rip off expensive) Belgium chocolate at 11.30pm, many retail shops still open.

Back to our little pit of passion to get to know each other a little better - we chat to ML who thinks it all very funny!