My Travelling Blog

Day to day posts about my travelling life

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Mariah enjoying her Belgian waffle

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Our Belgium hot chocolate!

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Day 10 - Beer Beer Beer

In the morning we rushed on down to train station to get our tickets to Brugge. It actually wasn't that hard to get tickets (For Once!) and there was a Starbucks in the train station so we could get some coffee before we left. On the topic of coffee, I'm pretty sure Gibbs is addicted to these shots of espresso. I went over them before where there's nothing else but straight espresso and a packet of sugar and I swear that's all Gibbs drinks! Shortly after the train showed up and we made our way to Brugge. It was quite a smooth morning so far and we were on our way to Brugge. They gave the last stop call and politely everyone to exit the train. Uh oh... This isn't Brugge. Also on a side note Belgium was very French orientated so I could normally read all the signs but suddenly everything was it Dutch. We were confused. So we headed to the nearest information booth and I asked "so uhh, this ticket is supposed to take us to Brugge but we ended up here and I'm not sure where we are," to which my response was laughter. Not just her either the lady in the other line had a good chuckle. We were almost to the border of the Netherlands! And we were both 1 hour from Brugge and 1 hour from Brussels. Don't even ask me how that happened! So she directed us to another train and now we made our way to Brugge... At least I hope! We made it! Unfortunately it was a bit harder than we thought. The trip was well worth it though Brugge was beautiful and way more touristy than Brussels. I swear Brugge was run off of chocolate shops they were everywhere! The choices were endless! They had every kind of chocolate! No matter what you wanted they had it. Waffle shops were also on every block. There was a few touristy sight points. They had 2 cathedrals which we checked out but asides from those main points there wasn't all that much. They had a few canals that went through the city which was pretty cool. We wanted to go on a boat tour but they were closed when we found the place to get tickets. I guess that's what happens when you take the wrong train. We ended up finding this really big Chocolate shop and decided to sit in. They had like a restaurant/café shop were you could sit in and order drinks. Gibbs and I ended up getting these hot chocolate drinks. They were really cool it was melted down chocolate and a little bit of milk and for a stir stick they had a spoon which a piece of chocolate at the end. You would just keep stirring until the chocolate dissolved and then you would drink it. Wow! Best hot chocolate I've ever had and they had so many different combinations you could choose from! I decided to leave before I rot out all my teeth drinking hot chocolate. After seeing all the big sights and Mariah having her authentic Belgium waffle we decided to head back to Brussels. The train heading back actually went to the right direction this time. Thank god! So we headed right back to the hostel. Supper time! I ran straight to the kitchen only to find all my food had been thrown out. What the hell! They had a rule where you have to name and date everything you put in the fridge which I did. I wasn't the only one; they threw out Gibbs' food as well. Mariah was the last one standing and even though we spent most of this trip picking on her she gave us her last 2 pizzas. So Gibbs and I figured we could at least give her a day off from heckling after that. After we finished eating we all decided we should hit up that bar the group from last night was talking about.  The bar was actually pretty hard to find considering all the hype from the tourists. We first ended up going the wrong way entirely and following signs that had "brewery" posted on them. Considering it was the only brewery/bar we've heard of we figured those signs would be the right ones. Guess not! So we headed back the other directions after asking a few locals. We ended up coming across some beautiful building. Weren’t exactly sure what it was but it looked very cool it even had these spotlights moving around on it and people were crowded around. We then overheard this British girl telling her boyfriend about this bar and how they had to hurry up. Gibbs ran over and asked them where they were headed. Turns out they were also going to delirium and lead us there. Really nice folks! We finally found in some weird back alley area but when we walked in all 3 floors were packed! Keep in mind this was a Wednesday. The beer menu was overwhelming. They had the favourite 25 section and the “have to try,” 10 sections, there was just too many! For our first beers Mariah and Gibbs got the classical house beer. I however was told by a guy from the night before that the peach beer was a must! So I walked up and ordered it only to have the response "Yea sure, is it for you or your girlfriend?" ZING! Right in the feels. I just laughed it off because honestly the beer was delicious! After that I just went down the menu for the favourite 25. Gibbs and Mariah however wanted to head back early because we had a train in the morning. I however decided to stay; there were way too many beers I haven't tried yet! That and it was like 11. *Old western music* One sheriff left in this town. This meant I didn't have Mariah to initiate conversation for me. It was all me! So I decided to get another beer and try and sneak in with a group. After scoping the bar out and mentally dealing with all the what ifs I just decided screw it and walked up to a random table and opened with a "Hey guys!" Luckily for me they all spoke English! These guys were all locals which was pretty cool. We even had a few conversations in French when they found out I could speak it. Being their main language they preferred to speak it. They actually knew one of the bartenders and got me a bunch of sampler beers so I could try out a few more. They eventually all went out for a smoke and I decided to move onto a different table. The next table I joined was kind of a funny story. At first it was 3 Germans guys so I sat down and did the introduction thing. Once again really nice inviting guys. Suddenly out of the woodworks like 8 more came out and sat down. They were a football team and decided to head out for beers that night. Then the one guy pulled out a deck of cards and they started playing "take um to the races" which is like one of my favourite card games! They were surprised I knew the game. So I ended playing this card game with them for a few hours. It was really weird because they would all speak German to each other then when it came to me they all just switched to perfect English. God only knows what they were saying about me! Another awesome thing was they kept getting rounds of beer and everytime they would yell to the guy "Don't forget the Canadian!" So I basically drank for free. At first I declined but they really wanted to buy me a beer. Quite a few rounds later I decided it was time to make the walk or at this point the crawl back home. Now if you would have asked me for directions back to our hostel 4 hours before this moment I'd be able to take you there no problem however I definitely wasn't in very good condition at this point. I was on the right track but I think I added a few extra lefts and rights here and there. Now on the way back it started to rain. It wasn't too bad at first but then it really started to pour! So I hopped a locked patio fence and took refuge under a tarp covered patio set. Not one of my proudest moments but I slept out the storm... That's right I passed out under restaurant patio furniture! Judge away! When I came to there was people doing their morning jogs, cars heading to work and then there's me. After what seemed like years I made it back. It was like 6:30 at this point and we had an alarm for 9:30. Gibbs was awake when I walked in and asked how my night was. My slurred response was "Fucking awesome, but now it's time for bed" and I swear I passed out before my lifeless body hit the mattress. Successful night? I'd say so! 

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What is this!? An elevator for ants!?

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Pictures from our hostel in Paris!

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Day 9 - Rainy Belgium

      The morning greeted us with some more of the mysterious bed bug bites. The weirdest part was I didn’t get any of the weird bites just Mariah and Gibbs. I was just really hoping that these bugs wouldn’t follow us back home! Either way we had a train to catch so we had to get going. We did most of our packing the night before so we were pretty quick to get out the door. We said our goodbyes to our Japanese friend or as he would call it “Sayonara.” We headed down to the lounge for our free breakfast and then made our way to the metro. The thing here is that the train station that we were using today was not the same train station that we came in on. This being said we had no clue where it was or how to get around it. We were really rolling the dice this morning. We knew it was a train station in the north end so we ended up taking the train station to “Paris Nord,” should be good right? Well it was! Good call on our part. Thank god to because we were kind of stressing out that morning due to the lack of planning. The train station was pretty easy to manoeuvre so our morning went pretty smoothly (That’s a first!) Another bonus for this morning was that our train ride was only 2 hours! Shortest one yet. And after our booking incident in Toulouse we remember to book our seats ahead of time!

        Belgium greeted us with cloudy skies and a little bit of wind. Looked like rain and once again we were caught umbrellas… You’d think we’d learn by now! We made a swift dash out of the train station because it turned into a race against the weather. The skies only began to look worse and worse and with our shitty logic we decided it would be a better idea to speed through the streets in search of our hostel instead of actually stopping somewhere and buying an umbrella. Idiots… We found it! And thank god we did because it was looking like it was about to start pouring. Walking into the lobby we were all swept off our feet. The place looked amazing! It was pretty much a hotel. And considering the whole "bed bug" incident we needed this. On top of all this they had a booking issue so they upgraded our room to a 3 bed from a 7 bed!! We Skipped on over to our room and our jaws hit the floor. 3 decently large beds! Clean white sheets, blanket and nice fluffy pillows! This was the best part, TOWELS!! We finally didn't have to all use the same shamwow anymore. (Thanks again Shannon!) It was a dream come true, I could get used to this. They even supplied body wash and hand soap which doesn't like much but it's kind of a big deal! We all decided to head to the nearest super market and grab some food for the days to come.      Once we got back down to the lobby it was pouring, once again you'd think we'd learn to buy an umbrella by now! I decided to rent one from the main desk. Thank god I did! Gibbs on the other hand decided he didn’t need one and Mariah at least had a raincoat. Not sure if he regretted it too much but man was it pouring! Luckily for him the supermarket was pretty close to our hostel. We all ended up getting the backpackers special, frozen pizza and sandwich stuff. Once we returned we decided to hit up the kitchen and make some lunch. Just like our room the kitchen was awesome! Tons of room! We all ended up making some sandwiches. By the time lunch was over the rain had come to a halt but what I’ve learned from my time in Europe that means nothing! Rain comes and goes every 20 minutes it feels like. So at this point we all decided to part ways for the day. Figured it was a good idea since Paris was so rushed and jammed packed. Mariah ended up going for a walk around the hostel and Gibbs did the same after hanging out in the room for a while. I took the time to catch up on my journals cause as you all know I'm kind of slacking (You can't blame me! There's not a lot of down time when you do 7 countries in 31 days!!)       Time flew by and I decided it was time for a break and supper! I ended up cooking up a pizza which was delicious! After filling up my stomach I decided to head back to the room and give my eyes a rest from blogging. Soon as I hit the bed I was out cold. The backpacking life can get pretty exhausting! I woke up to a text from Brandon telling me to come down to the hostel bar. I figured it was time to get out of bed so I slapped on my shoes and headed down. Both Brandon and Mariah were there sitting lounging out. We all decided to get a round of beers and talk about what each of us did for the day. The bar was surprisingly packed. The table next to us ended up getting a plate of nachos and I swear the second they came into sight Mariah didn't take her eyes off them. Oddly enough this is how we met that group of people. The one guy noticed that Mariah was undressing the nachos with her eyes and called her out on it. Shortly after they invited us to come sit with them so we did. There was 2 guys from the states that were down for a rave called Tomorrowland, 2 of the girls were from BC and were down backpacking  just like us and lastly there was a girl from the UK who had a few days off and had never been to Belgium so she came down to check it out. When we asked everyone what they thought of Brussels and what we should do they all told us Brussels isn't the place to be and we should make a day trip to Brugge. It was only an hour away so we figured why not. They also told us that we need to go to delirium which was a bar in Brussels with over 100 beers available! Shortly after everyone started to head to bed so we all joined and hit the sack. Pretty relaxing first day.

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The Notre Dame!

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The Louvre!

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The bridge of locks!

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Day 8 - The Mysterious Bed Bugs

        When I woke up Gibbs had already left and came back from the Eiffel Tower. I guess the view was amazing! I was kind of jealous but I'd say my night out was worth. Mariah however was still in bed and she woke she was a zombie. After a very long morning of getting ready we briefed Gibbs on the night before and made the decision to head to the Louvre. It was at this point where Mariah and Gibbs both started to notice weird bumps on their bodies. They almost looked bed bug bites but they were smaller and after a thorough inspection of the blankets we couldn't find anything. Weird!  The Louvre wasn't that hard to find! Finally a location where we didn't have to go through hell to get to! And the best part was there was no line! That's right folks! No line at the Louvre in tourist season! God bless. It was huge! Way bigger than I thought, we only ended up doing 1 wing out if the whole thing and it still took us a good 2-3 hours. Of course we did the wing with the Mona Lisa. It was cool to see but in reality all you really see is the gigantic crowd massing around the Mona Lisa. With a little bit of time left  in the day we decided to skip the other 3 wings and try and squeeze in the Notre Dame. Luckily for us the Notre Dame is just down the street from the Louvre. On our way there we got to pass the Lock Bridge. It's just a normal old bridge but covered in locks and I don't mean like a few locks here and there I mean covered! Apparently they had to start cutting off the locks because they were affecting the structural integrity of the bridge. That's a lotta locks! After passing over the bridge we were greeted with the Notre Dame. It was pretty awesome! Personally I'd say the cathedral in Spain was nicer (can't remember the name at the moment) but it was still pretty amazing none the less. It was a pretty quick trip considering at this point Mariah hit full hangover and needed to pass out! That and it was getting pretty late.         There was a metro station right by the cathedral that made everything easier. Once we returned home we figured it was time to laundry considering we were sniff testing our clothes every morning to see what we could wear! We all decided to chill at the laundry mat down the road and chat up while the laundry was being done. It was during this chat that we decided else needed to start living a little cheaper with home cooked meals and such. So I took upon myself to cook Gibbs and I some ramen noodles with fried sausage. The taste of ramen noodles brought me back to my university days! Mariah on the other hand just said screw it and ate out by herself. By the time I finished cooking the meals Gibbs had returned with our clothing, perfect timing! Dinner is served. I honestly thought it tasted like crap but I guess Gibbs liked it. During dinner we sat down with a guy who apparently worked for Microsoft. They put him up in Paris for a few days for work which was pretty cool. The weird thing is this guy finished half a loaf of bread making whip cream and Nutella sandwiches while we were sitting with him. Good I'd imagine but just that for supper? Anyway after that we all decided it was time to pass out because we had a train in the morning. Successful last day in Paris!

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Posing in the garden

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One of the nicest fountains in the garden if you ask me!

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Gotta rub um' for good luck!

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Gibbs and I after the rainstorm

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Day 7 - The Never Ending Palace

       So we woke up a little bit earlier today because we were planning on heading to the Palace of Versailles. Apparently it was an all-day thing. It was kind of out of Paris a little bit so we had to buy a train ticket for the Palace train which was surprisingly pretty cheap. So we thought "Hey let's be the smart ones and head over a bit earlier and miss the rush!" Seemed like a good idea. We ended up getting there at about 9:30ish which was a bit later than we wanted. We still had the had the hopes that we beat the rush... Boy were we wrong! When the door for the train open I swear people were falling out it was so packed. We barely squeezed through! It was like a can of sardines for the rest of the way there, there was even more people that came on after us cause we had 3 more stops till the Palace. We arrived and not a moment to soon. We burst outta that train like your uncle Jim's belt buckle after a large thanksgiving dinner!       The first thing we notice was that it was getting pretty dark and cloudy and almost looked like it was going to rain. Now after out Toulouse incident you'd think we would have learned our lesson and purchased an umbrella. Well not only did we not so that but we also laughed at the guys trying to selling umbrellas right outside the train station. "I bet they're going to be outside the train trying to sell umbrella," we laughed to ourselves as we walked outside. "5 Euro! 5 Euro!!" Was all you could hear.        Looking back we REALLY should have bought one and you'll are why in a bit. So we continued our walk, umbrellaless of course, and found the Palace with ease. I mean it's a Palace plated with gold I imagine it would be pretty hard to miss! It was huge! With that being said so was the line. There was a line to get to tickets to get in and then there was a line to use your ticket to get in. We waited in line for about 2 hours. Yikes! The line was made up of like 5 connected s' which weaved thought the giant courtyard in front of the Palace. Our entertainment for the wait was watching people trying to cut into the line and then getting sent back by security. They took lines very seriously! Once we finally made it through we were blown away. It was huge! And people aren't kidding when they say it's a Palace of gold, there was gold everywhere! The whole thing was overwhelming we didn't know where to start! I ended up making the call and said we should head for the gardens. This was mainly because I wanted to see Mary Antoinette's village in the garden. Back in the day she had a small village build inside her garden (Yea it's that big) and she would hire actors to live there. She would then visit this village and all the actors would pretend to be happy giving her the false pretence that all of France was happy. She also had a mini palace built in the village as well. So we made way for that. We got distracted by all the beautiful sights in the garden. It was like a street/block system and each "block" hade like a hedge wall. In each of this "hedge buildings" we'll call them, there was a different type of scenery. Some would have a few fountains and maybe a big open area for dancing and others would have a few fountains and maybe a stage for plays. Point being there was a lot of fountains! Anyway back to the whole cloudy/rainy day thing. Here we were innocently walking around the gardens and suddenly BAM! Huge rain storm! It was pouring! Luckily for Mariah she had a raincoat in her bag but as for Gibbs and I well we had nothing but the T-shirts on our backs. We tried to tough it out but it just started pouring harder. Just when everything was looking grim we got waved over by a family who was tucked away in a corner with a few umbrellas. They let us take refuge in there umbrella palace. We were still getting hit by some of the water pouring off the sides of the umbrellas but it was still so nice to get out of the rain. They spoke Spanish so between our broken Spanish and their broken English we kind of had a conversation. Really nice people! Finally the storm calmed and we went our separate ways after thanking them a million times over. After wandering around the garden for a few more hours we found the village inside the palace garden. It was so awesome! The village wasn't that big maybe like 10 buildings and a small pond but man was everything so beautiful! All the gardens were well maintained as well which really added to the whole beautiful old village vibe. The village even had a swan that roamed around; I even ended up feeding him. (Grass of course!) Now the palace closes at 6 and we were already running low on time so we attempted to make a dash back to the palace. Every route we seemed to take just ended up taking us somewhere else that was too cool to just walk by. So after seeing all these beautiful sights on the way back in was 6 when we finally made back to the main part of the garden. Not even to the palace! So we just gave up on seeing he inside of the palace and ate at the restaurant. So just to give you an idea of how huge this place was, we were there for about 6 hours and we saw maybe half of the garden and didn't even get to see the inside. HALF OF THE GARDEN!! THAT’S IT! The place was gigantic. After eating we heading back to the hostel.       The train wasn't nearby as packed in the way back. Thank god! We arrived back at the hostel greeted by our very shy Japanese roommate. Chatted him up for a bit but he ended up heading out. Which have me the idea to go down to the Eiffel Tower and have a few drinks. Judging by how packed it was the night before I figured it would be a good time. That and the fact that you can drink in public anywhere in Europe! (As far as our trip went.) Mariah thought it was a good idea and decided to join me. Gibbs however respectfully declined my generous offer, mostly because he wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and if you don't show up right as it opens you're looking at a 3 hourish wait. Mariah however thought she could do both.. You'll see why this is so funny later. We made a quick pitstop at the supermarket to grab a few beers we've never tried and went on our way.     The crowd was a little disappointing this time around, probably because it was a Sunday. The nice thing about large tourist monuments at night is there are tons of those annoying salesmen except this time they have drinks. So if you haggled them down you could get a Heineken for a euro.. Not bad! So as soon as we got there we stocked up. It was kind of boring at first until the scenario really hit us... We were drinking underneath the Eiffel Tower! Not something we get to do everynight. As the night progressed we figured hey lets go meet some people. We heard a few groups speaking English so we figured why not approach them. Now it all came down to "You say hi!" "No you say hi!" So we ended up leaving it up to Rnjesus and playing a chance game. But before I could start Mariah and her liquid courage stepped up to the plate! She walked right and gave a friendly ol' Canadian HI! They were so friendly! The group consisted of 2 American girls, 2 Australian guys and 2 German girls. Everyone was super nice! Now here's where I knew Mariah wasn't gonna make it to the Eiffel Tower in the morning. When we approached them and they made room in the circle for us we saw 4 6packs of Heineken and 3 bottles of champagne. They then proceeded to say "Help yourself!" Uh oh! The night had begun and it was off to a good start! One drink turned into half a dozen and then some! It was an awesome time! Here where things took a little dip on the roller coaster. Little backstory when the cops show up to big locations like this you can see all the salesman pack and up and break out into a sprint. So we saw 5 of them running past us and we all started yelling "Oh police!" Kinda joking around and then all of the sudden the guy in front of the pack got thrown to the ground by the 2 behind him! They both started swinging for his face. Bam! 2 solid connections. At this point we all started backing away; keep in mind this was right beside our group! Then guy number 4 came in and broke a beer bottle on his face! Smash glass everywhere! Now the one girl we met, Zoey, had her back to the whole thing and was completely obliviously so I had to run back in to the mix and escort her out. I think when she saw the whole thing she froze and wasn't moving away! And just when you thought the whole thing was over guy 5 came in and drop kicked him right in the face.. Out Cold.. Then they all made a break for it. It all happened so fast! A few of us immediately rushed to the guy to make sure he was ok. He came to but he was in rough shape to say the least. Some other German guys came in and started helping him out by taking the glass out of his face. I think he finally came back to reality because he finally responded to us. "I can't go to the cops sorry, I must go" then ran off. Crazy.. I really wonder what he did. Taking the positives we met some really nice german guys. Shortly after we went back to drinking and socializing. After an hour or 2 our group went from 8 to what seemed like a good 30. People would just start walking up to the group the louder and later it got. It was a really good time! Also this is where Mariah and I became best friends (I'm not sure if she wants this story in here but I'm throwing it in haha). So due to the sketchy vibe of the Eiffel Tower garden she felt scared to pee alone.. Yup you guessed it, we became pee buddies. The only thing missing was a girls bathroom. But honestly it was needed in an area like this especially after that bottle incident! So after this moment we truly became "best friends" and it was a good face palm story for Gibbs in the morning! But it was getting late like 4 am late so we said our goodbyes and headed back to our hostel.      So just to let you guys know I knew how to get back I even had a map on my phone. After explaining the way to get back Mariah decided to argue with me and was 100% sure it was the other direction! So I figured you know what I'll teach her a lesson and let her lead. Bad idea! So after 30 minutes of phrases like "I'm sure it's this way! At least I think it is"  or  "Maybe it was a left back there, we should still be fine" I confessed. I told her I had a map the whole time and needless to say she wasn't too happy. Like a few smacks to the arms unhappy. Ouch! But here's where the problem came in.. I no longer knew where we were. Whoops! I managed to get us back in area ish but we were a lost cause. We ended up waving the white flag (When in France :P) and got a cab. When we finally got home it was like 5:30.. And Mariah wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower. Needless to say she didn't make it! 

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Nice view, and I'm not talking about the garden ;)

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Are you not entertained!!?