More Fries Please

This weekend started very early with only about 4 hours of sleep. Saturday morning I hopped on the bus to go to Central Station for a 7:01 AM train to Brussels. However, no way could things go super smooth for me. As soon as our bus arrived at Hbf I realized I had left my passport and everyones trains reservation back home. So I jumped into a taxi, luckily he was the nicest man ever, and he sped me back to my house and back to the station. I saw a little bit of panic in people's eyes as I walked in with about 4.5 minutes until our train left. But I made it. That's what is important. A couple of hours later, we (Gabe, Kathryn, Alana, Carter, Juliette, Dae, Drake, Emily, and myself) make it to Brussels, where we struggled a little bit finding our Airbnb, but we did find it. We immediately headed for the town. As soon as we got off the metro, it was like the city came to life. It is my favorite city so far! I did not really know to expect from Brussels except for good food, and let me tell ya, it did not disappoint. We went to lunch first and got a waffle for dessert. It was a little crispy with powered sugar and a delicious chocolate syrup to pour over it (my mouth is watering just thinking about it). Following lunch we walked around a little bit and found a gorgeous park across from a beautiful palace-like building I don't know the name of. We ran across a small cocktail-to-go stand that had a couple of guys playing the guitar and singing. So, a couple of us bought a drink and headed for a shady area in the grass. I could have spent all day laying in that park. We put on some music and just hangout for about two hours. When we woke, we headed out for the next thing on our to-do list: get French fries. We found a stand selling fries with about 15 different sauce options. After hearing a couple of reviews, I went for the Brazil sauce.. no regrets, it was very tasty. We continued walking until we ran into a gorgeous view that was picture perfect. After one too many pictures, we wandered around some more. We ended up in the Grand Place. The square was surrounded on all sides with beautiful, old buildings that made everyone stop and stare. We kept walking until we found a chocolate shop, where we all bought chocolate from either at that moment or the next day when we returned. It was about dinner time at this point, so we stopped at a nice little bar and grabbed a little bit of food. This was one of my favorite nights. The nine of us just sat and talked and shared a lot with each other. I love listening to other people talk about their own lives, so this night was right up my alley. It was pretty late when we realized we should probably head back to the Airbnb, where we continued our deep conversation then got some rest.  

The next day began a little later. We had a good, carb-filled breakfast in the Grand Place before entering into the end of mass at one of the churches. We got to hear the organ being played as people were exiting, and it was beautiful and powerful and filled the room. Afterwards, we found another park that we laid in for about an hour or so. We then made our way over to get some more fries. These were even better than the fries we had the day before. After thoroughly enjoying them, we decided to do some souvenir shopping. We were running a little behind, but we did end up making it to our platform for our train back to Köln. However, our train was canceled.

None of us could really understand what we being said over the PA, but we noticed everyone's facial expressions and body language change a little before they all charged down the stairs to information. After talking to someone, we realized we only needed to catch a couple of different trains, a bus, and then we should be home about two and half hours later than what we had planned. yay. So that is what we started out doing. We caught the first train that took us to Liege. When we got off, Jules and Carter went to the information desk to clarify what the heck we were supposed to be doing. The remaining seven of us just stood outside waiting, until we see Jules frantically step through the door and tell us to follow her. We did not really know why she was running, but we followed in the same manner. She then told us we were catching a Thayls train that would take us to Köln, but it was leaving in 3 minutes. 3. THREE. All nine of us, luggage in hand sprinted through the train station without a care in the weld what we looked like to the people around us. We make it on to the train. *huge sigh of relief* So, Thayls trains require seat reservations, we however, do not have a reservation. We have a luggage area and the spaces by the bathrooms between carts. No complaints though. It was only about an hour and a half of a ride and it really was not awful. It definitely could have been a lot worse. At about 9:00 we rolled into Cologne where we waited on a platform for a train to Bonn. This train was only delayed 50 minutes, which felt like nothing compared to what we had just been through. We got onto the train which was absolutely packed. So packed one guys backpack was blocking the doors from shutting so he just continued to push everyone until he sort of, not really fit. There was no AC, which made this ride a wee bit smelly, but it took us to Bonn and that is all I was worried about. I made it home, packed my bag for Hannover and Norderney, and went to sleep. Minus all the travel difficulties, this was one of my favorite weekends so far. 

-Hailey