Belgium

Aah, Paris...

Belgian Beer Festival

After about 12 hours in London, we shared a cab with an older couple - also from San Fran- to the train station and boarded the train to Brussels. Me not understanding time changes, I got us tea about 5 minutes before the train arrived because I thought we had an hour. This was a really nice train.

When we got to Brussels, we stepped into a huge crowded Farmer's Market type thing right outside the train station. I bought a mango - mmm - which we feasted on while we walked 20 minutes to the Grand Place. The beer festival was awesome and we jetlaggedly drank a bunch of different kinds of beer. I had lotsa fruity beers - cherry, apple, raspberry, pink grapefruit, banana, etc. Chris had a bunch of different kinds as well.

We had all our stuff with us and it was drizzly and we were tired, but all in all Im so glad we got to be there.

Europe: Are we there yet?

With a twinkle in our eyes, excitement in our hearts (and a bit of fear in my gut), Chris and I boarded the plane that would take us to New York. From there we would go to London for about 24 hours and then to the continent for our first ever, once in a life time, magical, adventurous, life changing, fabulous backpacking trip through Europe!!! As we neared JFK, the captain told us that we would have to circle a bit because of backup due to Tropical Depression Ernesto. I didn't get to worried that we'd miss our connection because there were alot of others on the plane headed to London too. As soon as we got off the plane we started running to the terminal - Chris leaving me behind in the dust. We all got to the terminal and Chris was no where in sight, but our plane was there at the end of the tunnel. We told the lady at the counter and she made a phone call and started checking us in - until the plane pulled away from the tunnel!!!! She told us that the pilot must have made the decision and once it started leaving, there was nothing that she could do. It was right about this time that Chris came running up - apparantly he had been lost and running around the airport while all this was happening -he shouldve stuck with me ; ) I told him the bad news and so began the long wait until the next flight and the confusing airport people all telling us different things about what was happening. In the end, we didnt get on the last flight out that night, but got a free annoying cab ride to Lucy's place in Brooklyn. It was good to see Loody, although she spent most of the time trying to find us something to eat. We had a short nap and headed back to the airport - this time we got on the plane and made it to London around 10 pm - missing our day to explore London, but SOOOO glad to be there anyways.