London. Again.

London in 36 hours. Whoah.

Julie and I had both been to London on seperate occasions, I went back in October and Julie had started the month earlier with five days on her own, so it was not essential that we had to see all of the tourist sites but tone thing was essential. We had to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing.  Most of you know my unhealthy obsession with Doctor Who and the chance of seeing my two favorite actors from Doctor Who playing my two favorite characters in my favorite Shakespeare play, was not something I was going to miss. To get lottery tickets you normally wait outside of the theater about two hours before the play, but instead this theater had tickets out on lottery at 10:00am. Julie and I had to get  from my friend Amber's house in North London down to central London so we left at 9:00, our host too drugged up from her recent surgery to come with us. (I promise I will come back Amber and we can have a great time!) After waiting in the lottery we got one ticket and one standing room ticket and I will say it was the most fun I have ever had watching a play in my life. They placed the play in the eighties, but kept the traditional dialouge. It was brilliant. Catherine Tate and David Tennant did such a good job and they have such over the top acting styles that it was very appropriate for a Shakespeare play.

 Now comes the complicated stressed running around part. After we got the tickets at 10:30 Julie insisted that we go get pictures in front of Big Ben because she didn't have a camera before.

Voila. 

After we ran around getting these pictures with a disposable camera because we forgot to charge the camera, we of course had to go Hogwarts briefly.

 After we got back from Hogwarts it was getting late and we had to head back to Amber's house to pick up our luggage. Here was the stressful, costly, part of the whole day: We had to check my luggage at the train station while we were at the show because the show wouldn't get out until 10:30pm and we had to get Julie on a train by 11:00pm to get her to the Birmingham Airport before the last train left, even though her flight didn't leave until 8am the next morning. She spent the night in the airport.

After making sure my sister was on her way, I took my bags (no wheelies, just fifty pounds of dufflebag) on the tube to get to a shuttle stop and I arrived at my airport at 2:00am for my 9:00am flight. I spent the night in the airport.

Our day in London was hectic and stressful but amazing all the same, a pretty good example of London itself.

She was making a David Tennant Face. FYI.

Bruxelles.

I have been putting off my last couple of stops and while I attribute that to being extraordinarily busy , I suppose you could blame me for just not wanting to wrap up this blog. However we are close to the end and  I promised to write about the places I've been... so here we go.

Trekking in the rain.

Brussels (Bruxelles), Belgium: A stressful, fun and exciting 36 hours. The last stop Gaby, Julie and I made before returning to Paris for a "layover." When we arrived after an enjoyable two part train ride, we had a mini panic attack. In comparison to the other capitol cities we had visited, it was small. (Like everything else in the country). It was the most modern looking city as far as architecture and the wettest and coldest weather we had seen since our first stop in Munich. Our panic attack was caused by the crappy planning and inability to book a hostel and the tourist office being closed when we arrived at 6:00pm. Long story short, we walked around Brussels for a few hours in the rain looking for a broom closet to sleep in. We finally found a nice hostel/hotel that put us up last minute for a decent price. We showered off and headed out to the famous Brussels Red Bar where they had over 2,000 types of beer. I got an 11% beer that tasted no stronger than an Amstel Light and was the same color. After drunk arm wrestling (Julie and I got caught in a tie) we wandered home for the night and got ready for our long day.

Burger Vending Machine

The next day we saw all of Brussels' tourist attractions which consisted of  a little statue and a courtyard. We also got two waffles each throughout the day and had traditional hot chocolate and french fries (which originated in Belgium... go figure) Wahoo!

Then for something else to do we went to a flea market where we snagged awesome traditional beer mugs from the places we had been and Julie found a pretty silver cup. After this fun detour we went back to the hostel to gather our things and headed back to Paris on a train that gave us one hour to explore Lille which is a beautiful little city in the North of France and we were able to watch the reflection in the glass windows of a church in the main town square.
After a nap on the train, a trek back through the Parisien subway and a quick walk back to Corinnes, I took twenty four hours to say goodbye to Paris.

Brussels is a major tourist town for rich old ladies.

Hot Chocolate

11% Love.

You did this to yourself.

We got waffle #4 with powdered sugar and I blew on it and the sugar proceeded to fly up into Gaby's face and make her choke on her waffle. Cute Story.

Next Post: London in twenty three hours. 

The project.

As some of you may know, I have been working on a project from my last few months in Paris. I am going to display all of the photos as my final post, but I thought I would post one part as a taste of what I have been working on. I hope you like it! A lot of effort went into this! The top is an original postcard without any editing. The bottom is a recreation.

Please comment on it if you like it!