Belgium (day 2)

Hello everyone!



Landing in Dublin was fine but we both felt like death. I loved the accents and people were nice but it's never nice to be up at 5am and realize the sun is coming up so your night died somewhere unknown cause you crossed the date line. We got to Paris fine and had 'lunch' in a place near the train station, with a man who I plan to write a short story about. Even though I dont write. His teeth are giving me nightmares. He was very 'I was once a hot young lounge singer and now I never really grew up' if you know what I mean.



Sam and I are now in Brussels, we arrived without TOO many incidents yesterday...apart from a very very awkward realization period where we first went to the wrong hostel on the complete oppisite side of town and then found the hostel we made reservations in was a really questionable area and ending up coming back here with our tails between our legs and asking for any space they had. Woo! But now all is well. We walked around Brussels center trying to avoid falling asleep, and we had lunch in the center next to a flea market.



I tried to take come money out of an ATM but there was this whole scenario with a hippie woman who was secretly a man (or maybe not so secretly) and a family of teenagers who may or may not have been teenage parents. But they were playing the with atm buttons and laughing. I swear they were just standing there listening to the clicking and taking up space. not a welcome sight, needless to say.



We came back around 9 and realized that we hadnt slept in over 30 hours, so even in the nearly broad daylight complete with chirping birds, we died on our beds. how excellent.



today we went to antwerp which was really cool. The city was named after a guy called Brado who cut off his hand and threw it into the river when Caesar tried to take over. It was named after his hand 'handwerpen' but it got shortened. So there were huge hand sculptures everywhere which made me really excited. And I bought a little hand pendant to wear and creep people out when I get home, but its totally awesome. We also went to the Paulus Kerk and Onzelieve Kathedraal which was cool too. Saw lots of Reubens and other old, guild guys' paintings. Always cool. our daily art lessons.



we also did a lot of window shopping (and some real shopping too). Antwerp has a very very cool fashion scene, pretty modern and interesting but MAD expensive stuff. I'm enjoying it. Flemish is really hard to understand, even though some of the words are really close to german. it's driving me a little mad, cause it reminds me of when I was an exchange student and didnt understand when I needed to...it's getting better though. I can speak french here and in Bruge, so we'll live.



Sam ate the Mussels and french fries that Belgium is known for a little over an hour ago while I avoided fish. We had waffles in Antwerp so we're doing a pretty good job on the mental to do list.



the city is really pretty. I have really enjoyed my time here, though it feels really really small. i think by wednesday I will be really ready to hit Amsterdam. A few years ago i would have told you that i wanted to live here, but now I dont think so. it is really too small. Lovely anyway.

So tomorrow is supposed to be hot and sunny, unlike the rain today, and we are headed to Bruges and the local art museum here to check out the surreal art scene, on my mom's recommendation.

BYE!