A Four Hour Exploration

Yesterday, despite having been shown around Bruges by a friend of mine on Sunday, I wondered the city for close to four hours without truly knowing where I was heading. I purposely set out in a different direction so I wasn't surprised or concerned about not knowing. I went down familiar streets, but never with any real destination in mind.
Throughout the day, I visited another church and paid 4 euros to see a museum within a cathedral. For lunch, which I had around three, I ate an Italian vegetarian sandwich with pesto and mozzarella with fresh squeezed orange juice on the side. After running across a map of the town, I started making my way back to the bed and breakfast.

Brussels to Bruges

After a good two hour free tour in Brussels, I hung out with a couple of other people to explore the city some more and we visited the palace of King Philip for free. Afterward, we went to lunch and got a sandwich with Belgian fries on it and then picked out some things to make for dinner as well as a few varieties of beer to try. That evening we had a small party in the kitchen and I got to try various Belgian beers which was fun. I was careful not to over do it since we were aware that the beer is stronger here.

On Saturday, I left Brussels in the afternoon after walking to some of the places we went to on the walking tour to get pictures. The bus ride was short and pleasant. Upon arrival with the help of a British couple, I got a taxi ride to a friend's relative's Bed and Breakfast. I have stayed two nights now and have helped around the house mainly cleaning the cabinets in the kitchen. My next stop will be a hostel on a boat in Ghent.

Walking Tour of Lille

Despite not getting much sleep last night between going to bed late and having the fire alarm go off, I was up around 8:30 and decided to go on the free walking tour of Lille after a couple cups of coffee. It was really fun because our guide was funny and sarcastic. The whole thing was in English since none of the people in our group were French. There was a German lady, someone from Wales, and Aussie couple and another American from Manhattan. The tour lasted from 10 to 12 and then I hung out with a few others in order to be sociable and since I was a bit concerned about finding my way back. We learned a lot about the history of the city and that the French were often cheap skates when it comes to building structures except for the time they spent the equivalent of 4 million euros in order to compensate a Protestant architect who won an anonymous competition to build a Catholic church. Tomorrow I will be heading to Brussels.

A Sunday Adventure

Today was pretty interesting. Yesterday I claimed to be 25 in order to get a discount for a train ticket and then heard (in French) what sounded like I'd have to verify my age to get on the train today. With all the what if's going through my head last night, I decided while just 3/4's awake this morning to attempt hitch-hiking. (Sorry to my parents who hate hearing about this kind of risk.) Everything went really well. I had 4 really nice people pick me up and during the last one, we stopped at her house for a major lunch with which they offered me beer. Since it had already been opened and poured in a glass for me, I accepted. (I'm not a beer lover.) They had given me so much food I forgot to think about dinner until after everything closed. Being a Sunday, all the stores are either closed all day or close very early. I ended up finding one tiny hole in the wall that was open and bought rice cakes and "la vache qui rit" or laughing cow cheese. This hostel is really cool, I just hope I have good luck with sleep.

One More Night

I'm staying one more night in Calais and then will go by train to Lille. After three nights there, I plan to head to Belgium.
Today after visiting Cap Blanc Nez, I wandered the town looking for a place with an available room for the night and was lucky to find a room for a reasonable price. By the time I got here, I was a bit tired and just hung out in my room for a good portion of the day. I look forward to writing about the new adventure that awaits me tomorrow!

Bristol to Calais (with photos)

Yesterday was a long day of travel. I woke up around 6 am and walked through the rain most of the 3 miles up to the bus stop where the National Express Coach was going to be. Along the way, I got myself breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and coffee. During this time I also made sure I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom in case the coach didn't have one. The bus was due at 8:30 and was to leave at 9:02, though perhaps because of the rain, it didn't arrive until 9:10. This was the first leg of my three part journey to Calais. I got off in London around 12:30 to pick up the next bus and had just enough time to get another coffee and go to the bathroom. This next bus brought me all the way over to Dover. (That rhyme was half intentional.) During the whole trip the sky was overcast and dropping varying amounts of rain but I was able to read and listen to my iPod. It seemed ironic that for my whole stay in the UK there was a drought and the moment I left, it decided to act the Britain again.
The greatest part of the journey was the ferry ride to Calais. Although there wasn't much to be excited about by other people's standards, I am lucky enough to find each new experience thrilling in it's own way. So I was inexplicably excited to be on a ferry, crossing the English Channel on a gray, gloomy evening. The waves weren't rocking us very much either; it was a smooth ride that could have been considered boring yet I enjoyed every minute of it. I got some fun pictures and had a very engaging conversation with someone in order to keep them distracted enough not to start panicking. They had heard crazy stories about a ferry that wasn't able to dock for 6 hours because the waves were too rough to safely approach its destination and about people on board getting severe sea sickness.
When we got to Calais around 8 pm, I ended up waiting close to two hours for a taxi ride because the people who got rides before me weren't going close enough to my hotel for it to be worth sharing. In the end with just 35 minutes to spare before reception closed at 10:30, I ended up getting a free ride with a couple to whom I vented a bit about my predicament. This wasn't the intention behind talking, I was just too tired to keep these thoughts to myself. I had been on the move in one way or another since 6 am and had waited in the rain at the beginning of my trip and then again at the end and I just wanted to sleep.
Today, I slept til 8 or 8:30, walked all the way to the beach and got myself a breakfast on the way there, then walked along the beach for a while. The feel of the sand was unique at one part of the wide beach. It felt softer than normal and I don't mean soft as in my feet sank into it, I mean soft as in a silk sheet with a high thread count. (Don't misinterpret this as me knowing what that's like in person. I only learned from other sources.) Just the same, it was exceptionally soft. My lunch and dinner today has been bread and Camembert cheese. It didn't take long to fall back into my French eating habits. When I came back to the hotel, I perused Facebook, but also tried to consider where to go next. I've decided it will be a last moment decision when I take a look at the train options tomorrow. I'm thinking seriously about Brussels and it wouldn't be too hard to get there or to find a place for the night. We'll see what the day brings.
Calais has been a wonderful place to explore and there were many unique things to take snapshots of and I ended up with another hundred or so photos by the end of my explorations.

A Walk Through Bristol

Today, after breakfast, I sat around for maybe half an hour before getting out and about. I wondered through Bristol for a good 2 hours. There are many cool buildings, coffee shops and even a Pizza Workshop where you can learn how to make your own pizza. I walked past at least three places where I could get more cheap books and ended up buying The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgewick and The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly for £1.50 each. Unfortunately, I spent much of the rest of the day sitting on the couch trying to make plans to take a ferry across to France and browsing Facebook. Although, I did also get laundry done today. Tomorrow I plan to go into an art exhibition that seems free and maybe check out the local library just for fun.