More Chocolate Please.

I forgot to tell you before I left but, look how little I packed! Cool, huh? That was all I took with me for ALL THREE NIGHTS!!

I spent the first day/night (last Friday) in London. It was really quite nice. I walked around for a few hours and checked into my hostel and it was just a beautiful day. I walked through some of the arcades but didn't do any shopping. I was really wanting to see a show so I went to Leicester Square and said "what can I see tonight for less than 30 pounds?" I bought a 25 pound ticket to We Will Rock You. Then I made my way over to the British Museum. I was wrong about the "14 more trips" thing. I've decided I'm done with it. It's huge and yes, there's a ton of stuff in it but since I don't stop and read everything, well, okay, since I don't stop and read anything, it actually goes by pretty quickly. I strolled through the displays I hadn't seen on my previous visit and when the museum closed, I walked across the street to Starbucks.



I love Starbucks. I feels so much more at home when I'm in Starbucks. Seriously. I am comforted just by the sight of a Starbucks. It's a little odd. Anyhow, I read my book and enjoyed the Starbucks atmosphere until it was time for the show to start.



It was such a bizarre show. I mean, really strange! I had no idea what the story was about and it was just weird. It's set in the future and it's supposed to be a time when instruments have been outlawed and everyone listens to the same regimented music and they aren't allowed to make their own music but there's this group of "Bohemians" aka rebels, who try to make their own music and are on a quest to bring rock and roll back to life. It was ridiculous but funny and of course the music was great. Everyone likes Queen, right? I was SO glad that I went!! I just love being in the theatre. I can't really even describe how it makes me feel except that I feel so alice in there. I just get this huge surge of energy and excitement and emotion. It's the best. I love being on stage and I get SO excited for the people who are performing and they just looked like they were having such a wonderful time and I wanted to be them. Even though the show was weird. I had a blast.



Upon returning to the hostel around 11pm, I met my roommates for the night -- a large group of students from Spain, Germany and France who are all attending the same school in Ireland this semester. We talked for a while and they invited me to go out with them around midnight... I politely declined and went to bed. They came back more than a little tipsy around 3:45am. At 4:15 I had to sit up and tell them to either go to sleep or leave the room. They were whispering but 10 people whispering is not exactly quiet.



Next morning, I was on a train bright and early and I was in Bruges by noon.


Bruges is beautiful! It's referred to as the Venice of the North because it has lots of canals and people think it's super romantic. The map I was given at the hostel even has little hearts all over it, which are supposed to mark "places to kiss." That seems like kind of an odd thing to put on a map but... when I would walk by those places I had to check and see if there were actually people kissing. I just think the idea of having a map dictate where you kiss is really funny.


There are horse-drawn carriages EVERYWHERE! I was particularly fond of this one. I love how huge and amazingly strong those horses are. I wanted to pet them but they didn't have time to stop. I think they're amazing. The carriage rides are expensive and I didn't want to go on one by myself anyway. Plus, it's hard to pet the horses when you're in the carriage so... what's the point? No, really, I would like to go for a carriage ride someday. Just not alone.

The marketplaces are so great! I love pedestrian areas with just a bunch of people milling about. The Christmas market was all set up and people were ice skating and it was just lovely.

The buildings here have so much character! I just wanted to take pictures of ALL of them. So... I did. I walked around for quite some time with no particular direction in mind. I walked through the various markets and at one point I bought myself a hat (finally! I've been looking for one for weeks! Now my little head will stay nice and warm and I can hide my hair whenever I need to) and a gigantic Asian pear, which I carried around in my purse until the following evening.

This is the Belfry tower. I climbed it because it seemed like the thing to do. There were 366 steps, I think, so about half as many steps as climbing up the Eiffel Tower. But these steps were scary!!! It was a spiral staircase the whole way up. It was steep and I was feeling very trapped and claustrophobic. Breathing was difficult because not only was I out of breath from the climb but I was a bit anxious about being in such a tight space. People were coming down at the same time I was going up and it was just a bit crazy.

I was glad I did it -- of course. The view was great! And the bells were ringing while I was up there. I don't think they ring at any particular time necessarily but a guy sits at this thing that looks like a piano and "plays" the bells and he was just playing random songs. I really liked it.

I was also quite happy to be back down on the ground. I felt pretty accomplished though, so that was good.

I walked around Bruges for the rest of the afternoon/evening and it was just beautiful. The weather was perfect (lucky me!!! When Paige went at the same time last year it snowed! I was so scared I was going to come back half frozen and while snow would have been beautiful, I was happy not to see any) and it's such a pretty and friendly place.

Waffle on a stick dripping with warm chocolate?? Right, as if I was going to pass THAT up! It was tasty. There are waffles everywhere in Belgium. And chocolate, too, which makes it a pretty great place.

I spent the next portion of the evening walking around the market place, drinking mulled wine, which I actually quite enjoyed, especially in that atmosphere, and looking at, but not buying, all of the cute things in the marketplaces. Once I had walked around these particular areas three or four times each, I decided to head back to my hostel and guess what I did.... I took a shower!!! Wahoo!! This was the first of TWO showers that I took on this trip! And I changed my clothes too. Huge improvement from Paris ; ) It was only 7pm after I was all clean and everything so I walked around the corner and sat in a pub with hot chocolate and a piece of apple pie. Excellent dinner. I read my book there until I decided it was a late enough hour that I could probably go to bed without feeling too lame (uh.... it was... um... 9. Yeah, 9 o'clock.)

Back at the hostel I ended up going down to the bar with another girl who was staying in my room (Stephanie from Toronto, also traveling alone) and we hung out down there talking with the bartender and the owner of the hostel and it made for a far less lonely evening. I very much enjoyed Bruges.

Sunday morning, I caught a train to Brussels. Brussels is a city that takes a long time to wake up. I felt like I walked around for a while before I found a place where I could sit down and have a hot chocolate (p.s. my eating habits on this trip were really bad. I didn't eat much and when I did it usually involved chocolate.) The buildings in the Grand Place area were pretty cool so I walked around there for a bit until my bike tour started at 10am. They were using that big thing to decorate that ginormous Christmas tree. Unfortunately, they were using those hideous blue lights that are so piercingly blue it hurts your eyes to look at them. Yikes. I'm glad I wasn't there to see the finished product.

The bike tour was okay. Word(s) to the wise:

1. Brussels is not so wonderfully flat as Paris. This makes for a slightly more strenuous bike tour.

2. Do NOT try to do a bike tour with a huge hand bag over your shoulder. You will probably have balance issues and you may be decently uncomfortable.
I don't like to leave my bag at the hostels. I don't bring much with me and I don't like to let any of it out of my sight. Having my bag bumping against my knee the whole time wasn't the greatest. There are a lot of really wonderful buildings to see in Brussels and again, the weather held out for me. We stopped part way through the tour and had some fries. In Belgium, they dip their fries in mayonnaise. Actually, they pour mayonnaise over the top of their fries. I don't think this is the greatest but as long as it isn't too globby and is just a tiny bit and you can't really taste it, then it's not gross.

I DID get to go to the Musical Instrument Museum. It was my favorite part of my time in Brussels. It's pretty fun. You put on headphones and walk around the museum and when you stand in front of different instruments you can hear what they sound like. I didn't discover until the very end that they have these guides for each room that are in a bunch of different languages but that's fine because I probably wouldn't have read it anyway. I just liked seeing all of the cool instruments and listening to them. It was fun watching people sort of dancing around. Everyone was listening to a different kind of music (depending on what instrument they were standing in front of) and it seemed like people couldn't help but move to the beat a little bit. I was doing it too but that's not really a big surprise. I wanted to keep this one. It would be a nice addition to my collection.

When I was finished looking at all of the instruments (and wishing I could take them home) it was pouring down rain outside. Since it was getting dark I decided to brave the rain and start looking for my hostel. More words to the wise:

1. Take your rain coat. Yes, your trench coat is cuter but your umbrella probably can't handle the windy conditions and you'll wish you had a waterproof jacket with a hood.

2. Take a padlock in case your hostel as lockers you can use.

****

I was at the hostel at 5pm and I was SUPER hungry. I went outside and walked for about a block and a half. At that point, I discovered I was freezing cold and it was VERY dark. Not only that but my hostel was in an area where pretty much everything was closed down (5pm on a Sunday evening, why would anything still be open? I mean, really...) and there weren't many people about. I decided that I wasn't super comfortable making the 20 minute walk into the city center and then back again in the freezing cold darkness and all by myself. So I went back in the hostel, took a shower and got in bed. There, I ate my ginormous Asian pear, listened to a sermon from church on my ipod and fell asleep to my music. I felt really lame about that but... I also felt safe, so it was probably the right decision. No point going out if I was just going to be anxious the whole time.

****

I woke up the next morning, found a place to eat a waffle and drink some hot chocolate, walked around Brussels in the rain for a couple of hours, bought 4 very expensive but very delicious chocolates and hopped on the train. Heading back to my temporary home.

****

On the train the next morning I was SO happy to be arriving in London. Really. I was incredibly excited about it, which surprised me. I think I'm sort of starting to "own" London. I'm beginning to figure it out and to know where things are and when I use the subway I don't do that walk-really-slow-so-I-make-sure-I-can-read-every-single-sign thing, I just blaze on through because I know where I'm going! And it's a great feeling! It made me even more excited about the fact that I get to see Seattle in just a few short weeks. I love that coming home feeling and being in my comfort zone. I'm glad that I'm starting to let London be part of my comfort zone. Just in time for my departure, right? I guess that's perfect for when I come back in the future.