tumbling after You

Weekend highlights.

• So many things to eat. Belgian chocolate, waffles, beer, mussels, and frites. I think we hit all the specialties.
• Saturday night, music festival in Bruges. Tons of young people out and about. Walked around after dinner to digest all those mussels. Stopped for awhile at a stage that was blasting 90’s rap. Some rapper from Miami. Ridiculous back-up dancer guys with hand motions like the Ginyu Force. Middle-aged crowd going crazy on the dance floor. Most notable quote of the night: “This song is about RACISM!”
• Survived my first hostel experience. Bunks with curtains, so it was like a tiny room. Each with a light and power outlets. 25 euros per night. Not bad! Except that…
• I came back to the hostel at 12AM to find someone sleeping in the bunk I claimed earlier. My bags were moved to the floor. No lights in the room, so it was difficult to see which bunks were free. Freaked out for five minutes. Finally found one that looked like it was occupied, but thankfully it wasn’t.
• Leaving from Bruges to Brussels, it turns out we were supposed to print our train tickets in France. I just had my confirmation page printed. Luckily, the comptroller didn’t care and stamped it anyways.
• Leaving from Brussels to Paris, mad scramble to find wifi in order to pull up a friend’s ticket on the laptop. Finally got it five minutes before departure. But then, the jerk bus driver would not accept tickets that weren’t printed, unless he could take the laptop with him(?!). I asked if he had a list of passengers, and he reluctantly pulled it out. After checking their passports, he finally let my friends get on. Not that hard, man…
• I have concluded that most Parisians must hate their jobs. Because customer service is non-existent.
• Safely arrived back in Paris with 0.02 euros left in my pocket. So glad to be back in a city where I know the language (kinda) and how things work. Stepping off the bus really felt like home :).
• So many times where we could have gotten stranded in Belgium with ZERO cash between three people. PTL that we got back safely.
• National Holiday on Monday (Assumption of Virgin Mary), no work! Slept and bummed around, did not leave my room for the entire day. All markets were closed, so I split an entire box of Special K chocolat noir for lunch and dinner…