Being flexible, we decided to instead go to the Belgian town of Spa. Originally we had hoped to go to Aachen and then Spa, so we had our swimsuits with us. Spa has been a destination for centuries for its hot springs and healing waters. We had a fantastic time and hope to come back some day.
Here is Claire taking money out of the ATM. We had some problems finding an ATM that would take her debit card, so she was happy to find one in Spa!
We walked around for a bit, and were rewarded with lush gardens and beautiful fountains:
Here is a source named after Peter the Great. The water was not tasty at all! But other Spa water definitely is. We had bottled water from Spa all over Belgium.
Spa has a casino which, according to the Belgian tourist office, is the oldest in the world. We did not go inside.
We had lunch in a little cafe across from the casino. Brian and Gloria had sandwiches, Claire had a pasta dish, and I had a chevre chaud salad. How I love goat cheese!
We then started walking towards Thermes de Spa. This place was even more wonderful than we had imagined. Located on the top of a hill, there is a funicular that you can take. However, it wasn't working so we took the long way up, through a scenic forest.
Funicular tracks:
One of my friends told me that Belgian horses are amazing. I don't know much about this, but promised to take some pictures of some if we ran across any. These were grazing along our path to Thermes de Spa:
Here was a gorgeous resting spot quite close to our final destination. In the background, you can see how far we've climbed!
Here is an outside look at Thermes de Spa. I didn't take any interior pictures as I wasn't sure what was allowed and I didn't have my camera with me in the pools.
I am certainly not worldly when it comes to spas, but I was very impressed with this. I had always thought that spas were places where people went for massages, facials, and other treatments. While this spa had treatments such as those, we didn't get any. They also had several large pools with jets, cascading water, etc., hot tubs, a sauna, steamroom, chairs under infrared lights, and chairs under blue lights of some sort. We got a three-hour pass which allowed us to use any of these services as we wanted. We all felt wonderful afterwards!Here are Gloria and Claire during our climb back down the hill. Gloria's host mother Claudine had given us apples for our trip, which really hit the spot! The columns in the background appear to be some sort of Roman ruins; however, we don't know for sure this is the case.
Frequently in Belgium we'd run across a plaque or fountain that was dedicated to Americans for liberating the city during the world wars. Claire, Gloria, and Brian are posing in front of a fountain thanking the Americans for our aid liberating them during World War I.
We took the train back to Liege. This picture is kind of blurry, but I wanted to enclose it because of the sign in the background. We noticed that Belgium is very much into positive messages. Instead of saying something like, "No bags on seats," the sign says, "Your bag doesn't need to sit down" accompanied by a funny cartoon of a person trying to sit down on a full train.
Back in Liege, we were famished, so we stopped at a snack shop for some frites. Belgians are known for their fries, which are fried twice and only cooked once an order is placed, so you get them piping hot.
We rode the bus back into the suburb where Gloria is staying. After appetizers with her family, it was dinner time.Again, we were treated to an amazing feast! I cannot begin to describe how good this food tasted. Her family is very much into healthy eating and using fresh, local ingredients as much as possible.
Philippe was kind enough to reserve the next day to take us around. We talked at dinner about where we wanted to go. We brought out the guidebooks and spent a long time trying to devise the perfect day, while managing to see as many things as possible.
Here is a picture of Gloria with her host sister, Oriane. 
For dessert, we had crepes flambees. Gloria had successfully lit crepes on fire before, but it didn't quite work when we were there. Her host parents came to the conclusion that because she was trying to do so many crepes at once, the alcohol evaporated before she could light them on fire. She did manage small flames on some of the crepes. In any case, they were delicious!
After more discussions about what we would do on Tuesday, we went to bed, exhausted yet again. It was after midnight! Dinners in Belgium are more of an affair than they are at home!
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