Therefore, ladies and gentlespoons, I present to you for your entertainment: all that I remember from my trip. More or less.
Alsjeblief means PLEASE in Dutch and is not a sneeze. Interestingly, Dutch is not German and Flemish may or may not actually be Dutch. Watching the movie 'in Bruges' WHILE in Bruges is pretty cool, but some of the jokes don't translate. But just because Colin Farrell is Irish I could marry him...
The Gentse Feesten is a music festival in Ghent. I was only able to go for one night but it was absolutely amazing, and we listend to a salsa band while sipping Mojitos. Interestingly, we managed to make the alcohol tent shake by jumping up and down on the concrete block anchoring it to the pier. People kept looking around, confused, but no one figured it out that it was us, mwa hahahaha. I didn't get to bed until 4 AM, and somehow thought I would be on a train to Amsterdam at 6.30 the next morning. Think again. Interestingly, the day after I was there a building blew up when a truck hit a gas can, but thankfully only two people were injured. Still, Ghent was gorgeous and the music was fantastic. I know what I'm doing next summer....
Paris, and likely France as a whole is one giant tourist destination. What, pray tell, is the point of building Disneyland Paris if the entire fricking country is a theme park? Visiting Notre Dame is like touring Epcott itself---tourists of the world, unite! Still, there are lots of lovely corners not innundated by sneaker-toting, overweight Americans (watch ,,In Bruges'' for lovely commentary on tourists, heh). After a few days of Belgium, though, it was nice actually speaking and understanding the language de jour--my Flemish leaves lots to be desired, though my French was okay. I even played tour guide for a bit, though I was apparently unable to find the Notre Dame. We spent our evenings on the banks of the Seine and at Montmartre with some bottles of wine, some Belgian beer, baguettes, cheese, and snacks. There was a firebreather at Montmartre, and on the Seine there was the (somewhat random) combination of tango, folk dancing (looked like organized hopping around), and a bachelor party. There was also some young dude distributing hand wipes, who ended up (later in the night and severly inebriated) telling me his life story. ,,je suis chanteur, je suis skateboarder..." and even had (half) of a skateboard to prove it.
The hostel we stayed in in Paris was quite good by hostel standards and phenomenal by Paris standards (woe unto ye who does not read hostel reviews.....eeek). Only downside: a bit far out on the end of the metro in the 20th district, which wasn't shady, just--- far out. But the metro runs until 2 AM, so you can always get home--- except on the days it doesn't run until 2 AM, namely Sunday, which is when we were on Montmartre. We found ourselves considering several closed metro stations and a bus stop at Pigalle, where we considered the merits of taking a taxi halfway across Paris for seven people versus taking the night bus. I argued for the night bus and figured out which ones to take, but the whole project took about 2 hours and involved stuffing the ladies of the group (interestingly, there were two named Kelly and two named Agnieszka) into a phone booth and letting the guys drive off the homeless dude at Gare de l'est at 3 AM. Yay. He was harmless, homeless, and annoying.
Amsterdam is gorgeous. It's called the venice of the north, but I prefer it to Venice because people actually LIVE in Amsterdam. Lots of bikes, canals, bikes, canals, bikes, water, weed, bikes, and canals. I had an amazing host (all of my hosts were amazing) who took me to a singer-songwriter evening at her favorite place in A'damm. We also went to some fantastic cafes (NOT coffeeshops) with ecclectic furniture, fantastic food and great atmosphere. Must go back, must go back.
More coming.
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