Greetings from beautiful Leuven Belgium.. Home of Stella Artois !.  I’m here to give a talk tomorrow to a group of 300 PhD students on the importance of passing on their passion about engineering and science to the next generation.     Hope it goes well !

Belgium is a fun contrast to Cosa Rica.. another beautiful land..   like there.. the folks here are freindly and helpful, unlike there.. no poisonous snakes to worry about.

Here’s the square that adjoins the train station.

From there it was a short walk to Pieterskirche.. St. Peters which is in the center of town. My hotel is about a block from there.

Here’s a slice of the ornate Stadthaus

Below my hotel window are small cafes .. with acrodian ‘mariachi’s playing until their payed to leave..

The short walk to the Katholiche University was very nice.. lots of nice art.. cool shops..

I made a stop at the Unviersity to set up for my tlak tomorrow only to find one of my peces of equipment is not working (bummer) .. but I’ll make do..

Ten we were whiskde to a barbeque fo rthe conference. It was great. there were folks from all over europe, africa and the middle east.. most in there 20’s and working on PhD’s.. I loved tlaking to the folks who were there.. I also caught up with some old firneds from the IEEE.. A very nice night !

On the way home I noticed that the parking meters were solar powered and could be refilled from your cell phone from a txt message…

This place is really, really smart !

OK.. All for now.. I’m missing my family after that wonderful trip..

Goede nacht folks, Goede nacht Sam
-me