Pictures

Sorry for the lack of pictures everyone. Unfortunately, I have not had access to a computer with the capabilities to upload. I will post some as soon as I can! :)

Paris: May 25 and 26

Monday morning, we got up early to repack everything and get ready to catch the bus to Paris. We arrived so early that we were able to hop on a bus that left an hour earlier than planned. :) This was a good thing since it took almost 4 hours to get there. We arrived, hopped on the metro, got off on the wrong stop and walked probably .75 miles to find our hotel with all of our stuff. I was joking that we would end up at the top because I always did when we were in Paris. Well, we checked in and the man told us we were in room 31... on the 6th floor... up the spiral staircase... with no elevator. It was actually kind of funny as we each had about 40+ pounds of stuff to carry with us.

Anyway, we checked in, bought some groceries for lunch, took a few pictures at Notre Dame de Paris, and just wandered the area. Eventually, we hung out in an internet cafe for a while trying to figure out the details of the rest of our trip. We walked around, got a crepe for dinner, and walked around the Latin Quarter. We almost went home but decided to go into a bar along the road because they had Sangria on special. We made friends with all of the hosts and finally left a little after midnight. Unfortunately, it was raining and I didn't have and umbrella so I walked a couple miles or so in the rain... not pretty.

We hopped in bed and slep the morning away on Tuesday. After getting organized, we didn't make it out to the city until around 3, but we still managed to grab some pain au chocolat, head over to the Arc de Triomphe, walk over to the Eiffel Tower to take some pics and then take the metro to where we thought the Moulin Rouge was. It's really too bad nobody in Paris seems to actually know where it is. We asked about 5 people and after piecing everything together... we realized that we still had about a mile to walk. We finally made it there but just took some pictures since tickets for shows were running up to 180 euros. Too rich for me. I think the plan is now to head back to the Latin Quarter to find a nice dinner, head home, and then catch a flight to Morocco in the morning. :)

Brussels: May 23 and 24

We made it to Irina in Brussels without too much hassle. The metro is under construction, so we have to take a bus every time we want to go from central station to her house, but it's not terrible. Anyway, we arrived and it felt so good to be in the city again. The three of us (Megan, Irina, and I) ran some errands around town, and decided to go catch a movie to relax for the evening. Then, we just wandered around town, got some gelatto and Belgian fries and hung out in Grand Place for the evening.

When we got back to Irina's that evening, she tried to teach us a Russian card game, but Megan and I were having the HARDEST time figuring it out. I think we finally got it in the end.

Then, in the morning, it was time to go back to my old church in Brussels. We got up early, stopped off at the bakery, and hopped on public transport all the way to church. When I got there, I was able to see Thomas, Tornike, Erika, Edjun, Damien, Sajjad, Patrick, ...everyone! It was wonderful! :) Unfortunately, there was no young adults group meeting afterwards so a few of us decided to go out to lunch. Damien, Megan, Sajjad, Irina and I ended up wandering around Brussels following Sajjad for almost an hour I think trying to decide on a place for lunch. Finally, we ended up eating at the same place we always went to when I was living there last year. Afterwards, we found Megan some Belgian chocolate and went to visit the Delirium (home of over 2000 beers). Finally, we got some ice cream again and relaxed in a park for a while before deciding we should go back and meet Irina. Surprise though... Irina called and said Brigitte would be able to come meet us so we turned around and met the girls at central station and went out for some cocoa at the Exki. The people were so nice, they let us stay until over a half hour after they closed... just the four of us catching up. Then, back to Irina's to practice some cards and get to sleep.

Improvements

Ok, things have gotten much better. Well, I arrived in Belgium after the last train back to Amsterdam so I had to stay. I was supposed to have met Megan near baggage claim but she thought I had missed my flight or something, so she went back to Amsterdam. The ticket booth was already closed, and I almost missed the last train to Brussels Centrale. I hopped on the train, found the conductor and paid him on the spot and then found a nice guy on the train who let me use his phone. I got ahold of my good friend Irina from my old church in Belgium. We were supposed to stay with her this weekend, but she was nice enough to let me stay with her once I arrived in Belgium. She was amazing and came to meet me at the central station, brought me back to her house and I FINALLY got to take a shower and have some mint tea, relax, and get some sleep. Although.. at this point, I still didn't know yet that Megan had made it to Amsterdam.

I checked my email, found out she was there and decided to take one of the first trains there in the morning to try to meet Megan by 11. Irina and I got some delicious croissants, and headed for the train station. There were some delays, so my train didn't get into Amsterdam until almost 11:30. I started walking towards where the hostel was and was lucky enough to find Megan in the street. United at last! :0)

We spent a few hours trying to be good tourists in Amsterdam(seeing all the essentials: canals, tulips, clogs, etc.). Then, I went to call my friend Sara to tell her we were coming to meet her in her city, but I didn't have a working European phone. We ended up calling from the police station because nobody seemed to know where the payphone was. We arrived at the train station in Den Haag (Sara's city) and hopped in her friend's car to head to the beach. We tried some Dutch pancakes at a cute little restaurant and umm... Megan and I started feeling really odd, but we decided to go on a long walk through the paths in the dunes. Our two groups got seperated, and eventually we all ended up meeting on the beach, relaxing, and playing in the water of the North sea a bit. It was nice, and by the end of it, we had probably more than a 10 km or at least 6 mile walk on the beach.

I was so jet-lagged and exhausted by that point so Sara made us some dinner and I fell asleep really soon after. Then, the next morning, we slept in and took a train to visit this cute, traditional Dutch town called Delft. We had lunch along the canals, had our first ice cream in Europe, and bought little wooden shoes.

Finally, we took the train back to Den Haag to explore a little bit. We decided we wanted to try Heineken here but most of the places weren't open. We walked into a little street cafe and ordered a beer. They said ok, but couldn't seem to find them. Finally, they gave them to us, but they were warm - so we choked them down and went to meet Sara after she got off of work. We went to this AMAZING Korean restaurant and tried some really interesting foods. We all left to walk around Den Haag for a bit and see some more of the sites, headed back to Sara's to watch a movie and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, Megan and I will be headed back to Brussels to see Irina and all of the good people at IBC. Things are looking up!

A trip with Amber: CHAOS

So - first they didn't have me registered as having purchased a ticket when I arrived in Minneapolis. Then, I was already there a few hours earlier than normal since I came with a friend who was on an earlier flight.

Then, we boarded on schedule, but sat on the plane for 2 hours while the air conditioner did not work... it was over 100 degrees for 2 hours. Then they had us get off so they could do maintenance work, and finally had us get back on at 10:30. I rode between a Turkish man named Rem, and a Hungarian grandpa named Peter.... who didn't speak any English and needed alot of help figuring everything out with the delays. It was a little chaotic, but we got along well. Didn't arrive in Amsterdam until more than 4 hours after I was supposed to and then was delayed on my flight to Brussels until 9:15 that night. I'm frantically trying to find a place to stay in Brussels since we will have missed the last train to Amsterdam by the time I arrive. Off to try to catch my flight to Brussels. Here we go again...