Je Suis au Jardin

10:15 PM Brussels

                Andy finally posted a blog today!  I bet you all don’t even want to read my post now!  This morning we had to say goodbye to our wonderful bed and breakfast in Paris.  It truly was worth the money (yes, it was the most expensive place we’re staying on this whole trip) and if I ever come back to Paris, I will stay here, without a doubt… and I DO plan on coming back!  Marie has the most beautiful personal garden I have ever seen and really takes pride in taking care of it herself.  She has a little sign on her door that says Je Suis au Jardin (I am in the garden).  I told her how much my mom would have appreciated all her hard work J After having breakfast and saying farewell’s to Marie, we departed for Gare du Nord, which is the biggest train station in Paris, and I believe just translates to North Station.  From this station, you can get on any line of the Metro as well as the high speed trains to Germany, Belgium, and parts of Italy.  The train to Brussels leaves approximately every hour and it cost us €76 each.  This wasn’t included in our train passes… actually, our very expensive train passes won’t come into play until we get to Swizterland.  This is just the way they worked out – France isn’t even included as a country you can pick when choosing what pass to buy!

                Last night, Andy spent a lot of time making sure we knew where we were going and wouldn’t get lost in Brussels.  I think he had had enough of wandering around lost in the rain or darkness!  Boarding Gare du Nord is kind of like boarding a plane for Easyjet… they don’t tell you the dang platform (or gate) ahead of time!  You have to go around like a goon asking people where to go.  We wandered aimlessly for a while only to learn that our train had been there all along.  The conductors, however, are extremely friendly and all speak English! We got the cheapest tickets we could get were actually pretty comfortable (still way better than LOT Polish Airlines seats!).  Those high speed trains seriously book it through the country side! It went along the highway and it seemed like the car’s speed was zero compared to ours – so awesome.  For those of you who like numbers (and can still only picture English units, like me…), Paris is 189.8 miles from Brussels and the train made it there in approximately an hour and 15 minutes… or 1.25 hours.  That means that the average velocity of the train was 237.25 mph, DAMN!

                The train station we arrived at is called Brussels Midi or Zuidstation.  Andy says that he when he reads signs he can’t tell if it’s a German word that he doesn’t know or if it’s Dutch.  They are very similar… sort of a French/German hybrid.  To me, it just sounds weird. Ha. Brussels Midi is nice because it actually has announcements and signs in English!  We needed to take the M2 to Botanique and there was an announcement saying that there was technical failure on that particular line, but it shouldn’t have been at our stops… WELL… nothing can go perfectly smoothly for us, can it?  We get on the M2 and take it to two stops before the stop we need at Botanique and the conductor gets on the speaker and says something in Dutch.  Thank goodness for Andy, who was paying attention, and managed to make out that the train was turning around and going back to Brussels Midi!! He didn’t say it in English! We hopped off and walked along where the subway was supposed to take us (it’s all under construction and not working) and managed to find our hotel.

                This one is really swanky! I got it for a great deal on booking.com – likely because it’s brand new and we’re only staying one night.  Normally, this would have been far out of our budget (almost double!).  We’re SO happy have to have a real bed (Marie’s place was wonderful, but that was still a pull out bed!) and private bathroom – you can’t take these things for granted!  We also have a similar heated towel rack that we had a Marie’s.  These are great for drying clothes!  We’ve been hand washing most of our stuff in the sink and these heated towel racks for great!  Andy is washing his jeans as I write this.

                I’m so excited to sleep in tomorrow; check out isn’t until noon and our train to Amsterdam isn’t until 4 – the 2 was sold out!  After we checked into our first hotel of this journey, we dropped our stuff off and went to see the Royal Palace, just down the street.  There is a beautiful park along the way – nothing spectacular (I love Chicago and Grant Park… it is hard to impress me ;) ) but still, very pretty.  Along the way we passed some very official looking embassy buildings.  Brussels is sometimes referred to as the “Capital of Europe” because it is the main center for the European Union (EU) and, in fact, we see many European Union flags flying from all the buildings.  It’s too bad that we’re here on a weekend, because we imagine these streets are flocked with government officials from all over the world during the week!  Andy joked that the flag manufacturing companies do well here – there are different flags flying from every building!

                After exploring we sat at an outdoor pub for some Belgian beer.  Gosh I love beer. After a first round of Belgian wheats, we hopped next door, where they had full meals as well, and had more beer with some meat and potatoes J  One thing I’ve noticed about Europe is that it’s very pricey to eat out but the standard for food is much higher.  The quality (even at places like diners and pubs) is exceptional but you do pay for it! We eat about one meal out a day or less.  It’s not hard to only eat street food, but we have been enjoying a few sit-down meals as well.

                Just like any other city, Brussels has some dodgy alleys as well.  We try to be careful where we go, but it seems that any neighborhoods that are mainly immigrants (Turkish, Eastern European, African, Middle eastern, anything really) tend to be a little bit more questionable.  We bought some beer from a mart that was definitely questionable… but there was no where else to buy beer except the bars (with questionable people in them… ha) so whatever.  The guy working reception at our hotel is SO nice! He loaned us a bottle opener for the night and we’re enjoying beer that is quite expensive to get in America for relatively cheap (mainly Leffe, Duvel and Chimay Blue). 

                I’m really hoping not EVERYTHING is closed tomorrow, given that it’s Sunday.  I really want to get my parents from Belgian chocolate but did not even that think that we’d be here on the weekend and nothing would be open!  Worst comes to worse, they will get Swiss chocolate instead! Tonight we’re in a classy hotel, tomorrow we’ll be in a youth hostel in Amsterdam sharing a room with 30 other people (literally… 30).  We’re very excited and enjoying each city for what it is J We have everything mapped out for tomorrow and it should be very easy to get to… I’m curious to see what trains will break, catch fire (etc) to make things difficult for us. Tomorrow will tell!