Belgium. And Getting Home.

These are some very out of order pictures from my time in Belgium. Mostly we just hung out at Elizabeth's.

My new amazingly delicious favorite snack. Good with peanut butter too. Elizabeth said she would send me some soon.

Fancy schmancy home made ice cream from an ice cream shop nearby. Hands down the most delicious meal. And it was served to us with menus and a French waitress. It's ice cream.

Some treats we made, Nutella cupcakes,

And pepper jack cheezits.

A very pretty avenue to the airbase.

Look how miserable (but great) this weather looks. Also admire the crookedness.

And our dog sitting adventures:

These are just a few that I remembered to take pictures of. We had our hands full my entire stay. 

We did plan a day to train to Brugge, a very beautiful city about an hour away. But the one day we can make it work, a torrential downpour appears ALL DAY. And since neither of us have umbrellas, well, it's not really an option anyway. And it's so fun to touristy around while soaking wet. Belgium just didn't want me to go anywhere this time. Next time.

So I left Belgium and started on the very long ride home. I'm now in Mass with family, so I'll consider this home for now and say the journey was for the most part, hassle free. It did help that most of the way was in English, but here is a little how my endless day went.

Catch 10:17am hour-long train from Jurbise to Brussels Airport and arrive two hours before my flight leaves, because early is better than late.

Farewell weird leprechaun singers of Belgium. I got video too. But I don't know how to post that in here. 

There was an encore.

3 hour flight from Brussels to Reykjavik.

2 hour layover.

6 hour flight from Reykjavik to JFK.

Now it's 7pm local time, and 2am my time. And I haven't spoken in like 12 hours. (I really don't like traveling alone.)

After getting on the wrong train and circling the airport terminals for a good half hour despite all the signs in English...I get on the right train and make it to the place where my hotel shuttle picks me up. Finally check in the hotel at 9pm.

I fall asleep at 10pm and set every alarm I have to loud and repetitive, because who knows what jet lag will do. Alas, I wake up almost each hour, and by 4:30am I'm just wide awake and decide to get up. I have four hours till I leave the hotel, so I get ready and eat breakfast with the utmost slowness.

Take the E Train from nearby station alllll the way to Penn Station which takes about an hour. Then realize I'm still too early for my train, and so I people-watch at the station for two hours. The announcer for the station sounds like Dave Foley, so the wait is rather enjoyable. 

The train has wifi and outlets, and I take a moment to appreciate traveling in a first world country once again.

Oh! And I have working cell service.

4 hour train ride later I arrive in South Station, Boston. And it's been raining all day along the way. My aunt picks me up and I'm with family!

So as long and boring as that small part of my journey was, I'm very glad there were no crazy stories to relate, because I'm so done with those.

Wetness

I'm going to tally up how many posts are about rain. They're sadly adding up.

So today was interesting. (Didn't end up going to Brussels yesterday, sorry.)

In the afternoon, Elizabeth dropped us off at the Mons main station. According to confusing website details, the busses stop at the same place the trains to, since it's a relatively small town. 

All of today it was absolutely pouring out, and we hadn't walked around in the rain with our packs on yet; that was a super duper fun new experience.

Our bus was a half hour late, and for that hour before, we weren't even sure it was the right place since nobody inside the station knew where EuroLines buses stop. (EuroLines is like Greyhound at home.) And once our bus finally arrived at 3pm, we walked up to it and Tessa suddenly couldn't place her passport. Much searching ensued in the two minutes the driver allowed us, while I stalled by putting my baggage on, etc...and then she found it! That was extremely stressful.

Rain, busses in traffic, rain, border control check, rain. 

Three hours later we arrive back in Paris! It's starting to feel a lot like home base now. But this station we are at, we immediately realize, is somewhere in the city, and we aren't sure where. Thankfully there was a Metro connected to it so we hopped on. But it wasn't so easy because the ticket machine thingy, that lets you through? Wasn't working. None of them were. So we, and the people around us, kind of slipped through the "out" doors in a very complicated manner that took a good five minutes. This station was so ghetto and scary we hopped on that train real fastlike.

Then our connecting line/stop was down for maintenance for the week. Of course.

Off the next stop, we look at a dozen maps and pick a direction. Hopefully to the Metro line that will take us back home.

At this point we weren't even sure what the difference between the rain and our sweat was, so that was miserable. 

We walked for a good 25 minutes, through the red light district, down some cool looking alleys, and across puddled streets, and finally made it.

Finally 30 minutes later, back on Didot street where Micheline lives, we buzz in, knock on her door, and she answers...in French, and goes on for a whole minute, in French, looking at us like, why are you staring at me silently? Tessa and I look at each other, because she knows we don't speak French. We just keep staring at her for a whole minute, dripping on her doormat, and then finally:

Pause. "Oh! You are someone else! You are backpacker girls! Come in! I completely forgot you were coming back..."

Us: ..........

"Let me think, I don't have your room anymore but we will put you downstairs and you no pay! I'm so sorry!"

We were wondering the whole way over, if she had forgotten we were coming; yes she had. But we got the downstairs mysterious rooms. This place is endless, and has about a million passageways.

So yeah, that was our crazy day. If you didn't skip to the end here, thanks for reading. ;)

Right now we finished eating and are now talking to Micheline's newest houseguest who's French, and taking our room, and he is telling us about his favorite US rappers. ....

Now I get to sleep, and hope it's sunny tomorrow so we can go up in the Eiffel Tower! *crosses all my fingers*

Past few days..

I wonder if I warned you enough that this Mons week wouldn't be full of exciting adventures. Apparently you need something to go with your morning coffee.

Well the rain has finally cleared up, but it could be back tomorrow. The past few/couple days (what day of the week is it again?) have been pretty in eventful, sorry. Mostly Tessa and I are chillaxing in the Military housing and reading way too much. And sleeping. Eating. We know when El Camino comes, all this luxury of soap and couches will be gone.

The light is misleading here, so we tend to keep going to sleep at about 2am and waking at 11am. Really, it doesn't get pitch dark till about midnight. So since the light is misleading, we meant to go to the store again for food today when we realized it was almost 8pm...and since Europe, everything is closed within walking distance.

Still figuring out what dinner will be. (9pm)

Yesterday we did venture out into the rain into the City Centre of Mons. (We are about 5 kilometers out.) After waiting for a bus for 40 minutes in the rain, and then wandering around in the bleak weather...not much happened. I dubbed this the most depressing town I've been in, but I think it wouldn't be bad at all if the rain hadn't been our constant companion. No hard feelings, Mons.

A few highlights of that day out:

The most delicious waffle I have ever tasted. I can't even explain it enough to do it justice. Caramelized and surprisingly filled with chocolate (it would have been amazing without it though) after one bit each, Tessa and I instantly regretted buying only one to share..it wasn't that big, only about the size of my hand, open wide. The waffle of awesome disappeared into our warm bellies instantly.

We found a sort of consignment shop next to the waffle shop. Tessa figured out people's clothes here in Europe don't really wear out enough for thrift stores since they are super fashionable and hang everything to dry. So this store had some class. It was also fun to sift through all the weird Euro styles and go "That would never leave the house in the US." For future Europe trips, I am bringing an extra suitcase just for thrift clothing, to see what I can pull off, upon returning.

Also, I think it was just me (okay only mostly me) but we got super paranoid waking around. We were pretty sure the entire population had gone on holiday to a less depressing part of the country or world. This lead to believing everyone left (I swear there were only two dozen people left in town) was stalking us. From rough translation skills, we think there is a college in town, hence all the young people. And they were pretty friendly. Or laughing at us behind our rain-jacketed backs. At one point while we ducked into the entrance of a movie theatre to look at some French movie-posters, a guy walks by and separates from his friends, and sticks his hand out to us, speaking rapid French.

Both of us just kinda looked confused or horrified, maybe a mix of the two, because when he saw our reactions his hands when up in apology, and backed off, laughing with his friends in what sounded like more rapid French. (I'm saying French, but it could very likely have been Dutch.)

We spent the next ten minutes cracking up and trying to figure out if he was hitting on us, or going to mug us. 

Anyway, Mons is interesting.

Mons

It was a quick train ride from Paris, and now we are in Mons, Belgium. Everything looks...mostly the same as France. And hey look, our overcast weather followed us here.

We are staying with a family friend, Elizabeth. Her husband is in the military so we are hanging out in US Military housing on the outskirts of town. Being around English and friends from home make it feel like we are cheating on our trip...but it's free!

Brussels is only two hours away and we are all probably going to take a day trip there this weekend. Now I have to do some research because I never expected to go to Brussels. I just want some waffles and chocolate while here, then I'll be good. Maybe a few old buildings.

Our 62 pence peanut butter jar is almost gone, thanks to the chocolate we bought in Paris. Update as I'm writing this: we just finished it off.

We are able to do laundry here. Like actual laundry. Elizabeth has a washer. Washer! And dryer! (Though I would be just as happy with only the former.) So our clothes will smell a little less hippie backpacker now. Hand washing only does so much with Dr Bronners.

Whoa have we really only been gone like nine days? This blog post sounds kind of desperate and pathetic now.