Is this your first time in Belgium?

I am home in Rouen after my first trip EVER to Belgium! It was amazing (-ly expensive), but I'm so glad that I went! I honestly couldn't imagine a better group of people to travel with too - I had a blast with everyone, and I am so happy that I got to know these wonderful people even better :)

So, where to begin? Currently, it is 2:23am, and I have just gotten home from the gare. I have to pack, shower, and be at the gare AGAIN to leave for Paris a little after 8am tomorrow (today) morning, so I'm thinking I might just pull an all-nighter and sleep on the bus. Train? I don't even know how we're getting there. But I will be there, on time, at 8am.

I went to Bruxelles, Belgium this weekend (Friday night & Saturday) with Allie, Emily V, Leslie, Mikayla, and Charlotte. I love each of them. We left from the gare in Rouen on Friday afternoon after classes, and took the train to Paris, where we then took the metro to another train station, and then took that train to Bruxelles. My first time on a train was pretty sweet. The seats are way comfortable (not to mention, bright purple and orange), and you have an awesome view of the scenery as you zoom along the tracks. Well, at least I did on my train from Rouen to Paris. Paris to Bruxelles, on the other hand . . . that was an interesting trip. Because France is -- well -- France, two train-fulls of people were herded onto one, single train due to the fact that the first train was running 40 minutes late. Our train (the second train) actually arrived before the first train, and therefore was allowing people from the previous voyages AS WELL AS people who bought tickets for our voyage to board the same train at the same time. We were told that we could wait 40 minutes and there would be another train, but I had a Bikram yoga class to get to in Bruxelles that I was not about to miss.

Fast-forward to five minutes of pushing through sweaty crowds of French- and German-speaking people: Allie and I are sitting down, knees pushed up against our chests, hugging our backpacks, in the aisle of a train, almost literally sweating our asses off. Welcome to the French public transportation system. We made small talk with a Parisian college student who was going to Bruxelles to visit her boyfriend, and a woman with a newborn baby, until we heard that the controlleurs were giving away seats in the first class section. We quickly abandoned those friends, and followed the man in the silly purple outfit towards the first class section, crashing into people in every which direction (this train was a zoo), only to arrive to find that all of the seats had already been filled. Merde. The controleur was very apologetic though, and offered us free drinks (Perrier. Yummy.) and told us we could hang out in the kitchen area. This is how Allie and I ended up riding the train to Belgium on the floor of the first class kitchen. We also named everyone in our car. Roberto, Herman, Fritz, and Alejandro - you will always be in my heart.

So when we (finally) arrived in Belgium, Emily and I booked it to the yoga studio, while everyone else found the hotel (we figured we would cross that bridge when we got to it). I can't even express the feeling of joy I felt when I saw the giant, orange "YOGA" sign on that cute Belgian street. My heart started racing, and I felt like I was going to be going home for the next 90 minutes. 22 Euro and a having-to-look-at-myself-in-the-mirror-in-yoga-clothes later, I was in my beautiful heated room, lying in savasana, ready to begin class. Everything else was gone. It didn't matter that I had probably had a croissant every day that week, or that my exercise had been a joke for the past month, or that I had spent all day traveling and power-walking through train stations - I was in savasana, and I was so happy. I felt like I had my yoga high before the class even began.

To make things even better, the teacher was so. freaking. cool. He was the most relaxed, easy-going, but distinctly different yoga instructor that I have ever had. If my muscles hadn't been persistently reminding me otherwise, I could have forgotten that yoga is such hard work. Also, his Indian accent was awesome. What was really awesome though, was that he had me demonstrate my back bend in front of the whole class! "That's the posture!" he said to the class, after helping me make a few little corrections. It was the coolest thing ever - I'd never demonstrated a posture in front of a class before! And it was in Belgium! How awesome is that? The rest of the class wasn't even that bad. I at least didn't have to sit out at all, though some of the postures definitely felt harder that usual. I could barely stay in Balancing Stick, and when I got to the floor series, my spine strengthening series was pretty embarrassing, but at least I got through it! I'm proud of myself. I'll only be doing more yoga in Paris, and I can't wait :)

So, after the class, I felt so relaxed and happy, but I also got extremely homesick for about an hour afterwards. I guess I'm just used to coming home after yoga, showering, eating (preferably Chipotle), snuggling on the couch, and going to bed. All I wanted after that yoga class was to go back to my house and sit on the couch with my family (and eat Chipotle), but instead, I had to go back to a hostel/hotel room. I am definitely glad that I did the class, but it was also really hard to deal with the homesickness that it caused for the next couple hours.

So, when I got back to the hotel, it was definitely time to shower. Mikayla and Allie watched 27 Dresses (yesss) while I "showered." Why would I put the word "shower" in quotation marks? Well, you know how most showers have shower curtains? Yeah, not this one. You also know how most showers have a shower head? Oh yeah, not this one either. Shampoo? Nope. Conditioner? Negative. A bar of soap and a faucet? Yes. I literally kneeled in the bathtub, frantically splashed water all over my body, and used the bar of soap to wash myself - yes, this includes my hair. Needless to say, today has been an extremely beautiful hair day.

After the shower, I was starving (luckily, so was everyone else), so we went to the only restaurant that was still open and that didn't look sketchy as fuck: a Chinese place a few doors down from the hotel. Here is where we met our new best friend. We don't know his name, but we do know that he speaks 4-5 languages, feels very strongly about the differences between teaching and translating, thinks Tibetan is completely unrelated to any other language in the world, likes Tin Tin, and has a horrible case of amnesia. "Wait guys - I thought it was just a different waiter every time." No - it was him, the waddling penguin man in the red apron, who literally asked us 4 TIMES if this was our first time in Belgium. I really didn't care though because I had tofu for dinner, so I was automatically the happiest person alive. Heaven on earth = Bikram, tofu, and water. Speaking of water, have you ever been charged 13 Euro for two bottles of tap water? We have. That was seriously the most outrageously overpriced thing I have ever bought in my life. 13 Euro for tap water. We may or may not have acquired a few items from the restaurant in exchange for the water rip off. Yes, some of these items were probably free anyway, but we're still badasses.

So after the restaurant extravaganza, we walked around Bruxelles a little bit, exploring the city's night life. I will sum it up in one word for you: sketch-tastic. I never felt actually threatened walking around (in general, Bruxelles is a very nice, clean city), but there are definitely a good number of people who stare, who call out to you, and who ask to show you around the city. In a creepy way. It's best to ignore everyone, stick with your group of friends, and find a nice cafe/bar somewhere, get a table, and sit and people-watch. This is exactly what we did (except instead of beer, we got waffles with ice cream on top. Hey - it was Belgium afterall). After some solid people-watching (and refusing to give our cell phones to barefooted men who were tripping on acid), we walked back to the hotel. Being in bed had never felt so wonderful.

Waking up, on the other hand . . .
I woke up around 9am, and got up, dressed, and went downstairs with Allie and Mikayla for breakfast (included for free! yay!). Luckily for us, there was a wonderful assortment of two kinds of bread, and three kinds of jelly. And some orange juice. Long story short, we ate lunch soon after leaving the hotel.

We all met up, figured out how to pay for the rooms, left our bags in the lobby under the chairs (apparently, that's where they're the safest), and went out to explore the beautiful day ahead of us. Belgium is the most beautiful, precious country, and everywhere we went was amazing. The weather was also PERFECT, which I'm sure helped the experience greatly. I'm so glad I didn't waste space in my backpack packing rain boots and a rain jacket. So anyway - we went in a museum about historic Bruxelles and Belgium, walked around the old part of the city, bought and ate some Belgian chocolate, got a delicious organic lunch, bought and ate Belgian waffles and ice cream, bought out a street market, probably ate some more chocolate, and probably ate something else disgusting and delicious. Awesome day.

After all of this exploring, we decided it was time to see the EU building (still don't know what to call that, but also have no desire whatsoever so ever go back - here's why). So, we had to take the metro to get to the building (about a 5-10 minute ride), which spit us out in the sketchiest metro station I had ever been in in my life. It wouldn't have been so terrible if it weren't for the fact that it was under construction, so there were no lights anywhere. It was about 7pm, so it was getting dark out, and I literally couldn't see ANYTHING at one point when we were walking up the stairs out of the station. Creepy as fuck.

When we finally made it into the evening dusk, the sight of all of the European Union flags in front of the huge, glass building was striking. I was so amazed and so happy to be there. We took some photos, looked around, and then sat up on a ledge by the flags to eat our delicious dinner (more food from the organic restaurant. NEW FAVORITE PLACE EVER). We were all talking, enjoying our food, and enjoying being in Belgium, the seat of the EU, when suddenly someone in our group said, "Get up. We have to go NOW." I didn't ask questions; I just grabbed by backpack and booked it over to the other side of the street with everyone. What the hell was going on? Well, someone by the metro station (a young teenage boy on a skateboard) apparently had a gun. One of the girls in my group saw it, told us, and we got out of there ASAP. We immediately switched to speaking in French, quietly, while walking speedily away from the metro station. We found a giant (nice) hotel, and walked inside, asking the man behind the counter what the best way to get to the train station was (it was almost time for us to catch our train back to Paris). He said the metro. We asked them if he could call us a taxi. Long story short - we took 2 taxis back to the train station, got there safely, got on our train, ate chips and laughed about my tiny tongue, and got off the train in Paris. There, we took the metro to the next train station and waited at a cafe until it was time to board the train. We got on, eventually found seats, and made it back to Rouen safely. From Rouen, Allie, Charlotte, and I split a taxi to our houses, and now here I am :)

Overall, our little voyage to Bruxelles was amazing. It was beautiful, delicious, fun, exciting, and most certainly memorable. We saw some amazing things, ate some spectacular food, and had an awesome bonding experience. Even though parts of it were scary, we all worked together and made it through every situation safely. I absolutely LOVE the group of girls I traveled with (and I love our matching headbands/hair wraps), and I highly recommend Belgium/Bruxelles as a country to visit! I am so happy we had the opportunity :)

Well, it's currently after 4am. I think it's about time to pack for Paris, don't you?
Also, I will have my laptop in Paris, so I will be updating this as much as I can. Don't worry!

Bisous!
Love, Josie