After a very busy winter break in Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, I made it back to Belgium in one piece on January 5th. I spent two evenings catching up with Mai, both of us struggling with French since I spent all of break speaking English and she spent it speaking Estonian. Then Sunday morning, I was leaving grey Belgium again.
I took the Thalys (the Belgian High Speed Train) to Paris, where I would spend the next few days. My high school friend Nesrine met me at the train station, and we started on our voyage. We had not seen each other in two years, so we had plenty of catching up to do. We took the metro to the Latin Quarter where we had some good French coffee and a crepe. I was now completely content.
Then we walked, and walked, and walked. I arrived in Paris at 10am and another friend of ours was not arriving until 2pm, so we had time to kill. We would walk, hop on a bus, ride it until its last stop, get off, and walk some more. Please note: I am still carrying my luggage.
At 2pm, we met our friend Adam and his younger brother Derek at the train station. The four of us then went to check into their hotel. After doing that and leaving all of our luggage there, we went to Opéra Garnier where we bought lunch and started our initial “tour”. This was Adam and Derek’s first time in Paris, so Nesrine (who has lived there for 7 years) and I were their guides. We spent the rest of the day walking and pointing out sites and landmarks.
Monday, I met Adam and Derek at the Opera for a day of tourist fun (Nesrine had school, so she was meeting us later). Adam wrote out a list of places that he wanted to see, so we started with that. We went to a variety of sites, before meeting Nesrine and her friend Sebastian. That night, we went to dinner with a number of Nesrine’s friends at a Spanish restaurant that was not far from Centre Pompidou (modern art museum).
Tuesday, I met Adam for lunch at the Jardin des Tuileries (by the Louvre). Derek couldn’t join us because he came down with a bad cold bug. After two hours, I was on my own. So I wandered around, taking it all in before I had to head back to Mons. I met Nesrine at 5pm for a late afternoon tea before I went on my way to the train station.
Back in Mons, nothing exciting has been happening. It is exams right now, so I have nothing to do. I went shopping on Wednesday with Mai looking for jeans for me. We left with pj’s and shoes for her. Otherwise, I’ve gone to the gym. I went to see the movie “The Prestige” (sadly, dubbed in French, but it still was fantastic). Today, I went to Brussels to meet Wendy (another Fulbrighter) for lunch. This week I’m going to try to go into work. THEN Wednesday night it’s off to Madrid to visit Jeff! My first time in Spain! So watch for more pictures after this week.
