Day 9
Bernie and I made it to Brussels pretty painlessly, even having a beer with a German pilot on the train here. After arriving, she bought me my first truely Belgian beer, an Affligen Blonde and it was awesome, I was going to say it was ama_ing, but I just found out there is no letter that comes at the end of the alphabet on a Belgian keyboard. We then parted ways so that she could meet some friends and I could find my hotel.
Last night, our "take it easy" pact worked. We ended up just staying in the room, repacking our bags and watching Blues Brothers. So, after a good nights sleep and a good train ride, we made it to Brussels. We met up later that night at a bar that Bernie claimed to be her favorite in the world. After experiencing this place, i must agree. If you are ever in Brussels you must go to the Delerium bar. It has 3 levels, a beer menu that fills a 2" binder, great music, great atmosphere, and oh yea, in 2004 it earned the Guiness word record of "most commercially available beers" with 2004 different kinds of beers available at any given time. This place is pretty much my heaven. I had 6 different kinds of beer in all in Belgium and enjoyed every single one. The alley that Delerium is on is a drunken paradise with a tequila bar, a rum bar, a whiskey bar, and to make sure everyone gets nice and drunk, an absynthe bar. Bernie took me into the absynthe bar and bought me a shot. I have no idea what kind of absynthe it was or how strong it was, but i did not take it gracefully, as Bernie can verify. I did get it down though, and soon after, we went to a place called Grand Place. It is the most beautiful Place ever, with giant, old, ornate buildings on all 4 sides. We then returned to the group and carried on bar hopping for the rest of the night. At the end Bernie and i said our good byes for good and i headed back to the hotel. Finding your way back to a hotel in an unknown town, from a bar that you wandered to and dont know where it was, at 3 am, after lots of beer and absynthe is super hard. I eventually found it, which suprised me at how well i did, and crashed hard onto my bed.
Day 10
I decided to sleep in today, so after i rolled out of bed around 1 pm i went just outside my front door to an open air market. I bought delicious fries, belgian chocolate, a new necklace, and watched a full orchestra play the theme from Rocky and Journey songs in a courtyard. A GREAT way to start my day. I basically wandered around the town, seeing a giant cathedral, an auto museum, a war museum, and a giant park with delicious waffles covered in chocolate. The walk turned out to be much longer than i expected, so after getting back i relaxed and found an English channel on TV. I watched the movie Prey and it was awful, it was super cheesy and the characters were annoying, but it was the only thing in English so i watched it. The movie Wing Commander was on next and made Prey look like it should win an Academy Award, it was somehow even cheesier.
While out looking at the sights today i stopped at an internet cafe to book my hostel in Paris and my flight home. Yes, i am coming home. I have decided that even though i have my travel legs and i am having a great time, i still wish i had a friend with me. I dont know what i will do when i get home, but even if i cant convince anyone to go with me, it was all worth it and totally amazing. Some people may say "you failed, you only made it 2 weeks", but it was possibly the hardest/most rewarding 2 weeks of my life. I dont think it was a failure, because the second i got on the plane to London it was a success. I will never be that person who says "oh i wish i did that", because i did it. I can now say "i remember doing that".
Day 11
I have spent pretty much all of my day on a train today. All of the direct trains to Paris were booked, so i had to do 4 different trains on the way here, making the trip way longer than it should have been. After getting here, i tossed my bag on the bed, grabbed some fruit and water from a market around the corner, took a seat in the lounge room, met some people from Monterey and the Netherlands, and now im typing this. Tomorrow I'm going to take a bus tour around Paris since EVERYTHING is closed today (Sunday). We will see how that goes, then a final day to relax and soak up Europe before flying home Wednesday.
I gave my flight information to David yesterday so that i could get a ride home, but in case anyone else wants it, i fly in:
United airlines 451 from Las Vegas at 9:50pm on Wednesday 7/21 to San Francisco International
Picture update: computers here suck, so im just going to wait until i get home, and then upload all of them. Expect tons of new pictures come Thursday.
