Bonjour!

Saturday, Mitch and I decided to wait in a very smelly line to go to the top of the clock tower in the center square of Brugge (for those of you who saw the film "In Bruges," it is the one featured in the movie!). The tour was great, but if you ever decide to venture to certain towns in Belgium, prepare yourself for the smells that accompany them ;) Afterward, Mitch convinced me to see yet another brewery but it ended up being a hidden gem within the town! Our tour guide had the best sense of humor and the beer was delicious. Brugge is definitely a town worth visiting, although its people dont necessarily think too highly of it (according to our humorous map created by locals). However, we were very happy to stay an extra night! We ended up at a different hostel for the second night and it was quite a fun experience; most hostels have bars/restaurants attached. If you do decide to visit Brugge, this hostel gives out discounts and free beer samples! At sunset, we went for a walk underneath old windmills and enjoyed the view of the center square from a distance.

Sunday, we took a train into Brussels to see the city for the day and meet up with Mitchell’s friend, Ludi. Spotting a hop on, hop off tour bus, we thought we would get to see a bit of the city in the short time we had there; well, yes we saw a lot but it was interesting jumping from seats missing backs to seats with no audio working. FYI, if you can spend a lot of time in the city without the use of the bus, that is probably a better option J However, we saw the major sights and were able to connect the dots of what the places represented between working audio and the guy sitting next to me. We met up with Ludi for lunch and, after discovering our shared passion for “One Tree Hill,” had an even more exciting lunch of fish and mussels! Mussels is considered a delicacy food and is quite popular. So is paying to use the public restroom!

After relaxing in the infamous central square for a bit and eating waffles (a must!) we caught our train to Lille in order to catch another train to Paris. If we had not asked about lockers for our backpacks, we would have not known that there are two train stations and the one we came into was not the one we were leaving from! We arrived in Paris by midnight and had an overly enjoyable time figuring out Paris’ metro system; our awesome hostel makes up for the time of confusion and pain of lugging our backpacks around. For those of you who are wondering how I am doing it (because Mitch naturally can lug around 25 pounds on his back) I am pushing forward! I may send some things to our friends in Amsterdam to lighten the load for the future weeks (where only clothes for hot weather are necessary) but, besides the muscle I just pulled last night, I am pretty proud of my packing skills ;)

Today (Monday) we were ready to explore Paris! Now a bit more familiar with the metro, we toured Notre Dome and the Louvre. Both were great without long lines and Mitch really liked the audio at Notre Dame. I have to say I enjoy showing him places to visit and being as much of a tour guide as possible; it makes this trip a little more personable and fun. We love local café’s but were happy to find a subway with the exact same menu for lunch! The French can be a tough crowd, but our experience has been fantastic so far! The laundromat was a little interesting, considering the manager could not speak English and after so many oui’s (yes’s) back and forth we were getting nowhere; finally we understood how to operate the machines. Yes, we know how to do laundry and yes he was brilliant and had to literally help us out! We are slowly learning French phrases…thank God! While I am interested in learning simple communication in French, I am excited to speak Spanish in Spain!!

Well, I am looking forward to wine and cheese underneath the Eiffel Tower. Au Revoir!

-T