Brussels

July 25-27th (2nd stop)


Alex, Sarah and I only had 2 and a half days in Brussels but luckily I knew a lot about it and the rest of the country before arriving by train from Paris. I knew it was the capital and that the Belgian people made great chocolate and waffles, they could speak France's language and had pretty well the same flag as Germany. There weren't any free tours so we would have to discover it as the new world explorers did, by looking around. And since none of us knew a word of flemish we stuck with french. The most impressive thing I found about this city is that everyone knew multiple languages. The man at the info booth who found us a good hotel when we arrived was fluent in 5 languages, our waiter who told us the water wasn't potable (it was) and served us bottled water instead also knew 5 languages and the manager of the chocolate shop we visited 3 times spoke 10. Yes, as in 9+1. This made me feel quite inadequate with my native english and decent french and inspired me to take on a third language seriously. Living in North America, spanish would be the obvious choice if I could only roll my "r"s....


Back to the city. It was beautiful, had great food and felt much smaller next to Paris, with drivers who didn't aim for us. Predictably my favourite part was the square (Grand Place) which Victo Hugo called the most beautiful of its kind in europe. We fortunately walked into the large cobblestoned square just before some evening show where the town hall is light up in different colours while music plays and a narrator talks to all of the tourists in...flemish. Grand Place is lined by 4 old buildings, each full of statues, decorative carvings and gold higlights and the main focal point is the town hall's narrow white stone tower that kept us oriented during our stay.

We spent much of our remaining time discovering that the extensive prior knowledge I had of the place, was all true.

Capital. We gave up looking for the parliment buildings but after visiting the EU headquarters and finding out that NATO was based out of there as well, Brussels is very much a capital city.
Chocolate and waffles. We visited the Chocopolis chocolate shop 3 times in 2 days and after Sarah ate more than her half of our delicious waffle a fight ensued.
Like France. Not only do they share the language but they both have impressive Arc de Triomphes. The french one is much older and grander but the belgian arc's surroundings compliment it far more than a busy car-packed roundabout does.
Like Germany. They do have the same flag while the belgian Arc de Triomphe and german Bandenburg Gate have the same quadriga statue up top. (Same = just short of identical)



Other highlights:

-St-Michael and St-Gudula Cathedral: This church that I hadn't heard of was a great surprise. Just east of Grand Place, it had my favourite interior of any church I'd seen so far.
-Mannekin Pis: Europeans are strange. I didn't find this famous landmark of a boy urinating very interesting but because I was eating my undersized waffle half in the meantime, it wasn't a waste of time or money (its free). There's also a famous statue of a girl peeing which is unforturnately not next to a waffle shop.

-Tintin: I watched Tintin growing up and always figured it was a french thing. Turns out it's belgian and I payed 22 euro's for the only shirt I'll buy on this trip. I didn't used to but when dealing with a 22 euro shirt, I'll be seperating my white and black laundry.
-Palace of Justice: nice to walk past and behind it is a great view of the city.

Brussels is a great city to walk around, enjoy a musical flemish trio in a park or appreciate buildings built with care, plus tasty food is never far. On the 27th we flew to Berlin, and although Sarah was concerned about the regular plane noises, we landed safely :)

Paris

July 21st-25th (1st stop)

My first day in Europe kinda took me by surprise. I had finished working at camp for 5 weeks where I didn't have much time to think about anything else and then the day after I left Bowen island I ended up checking into a cheap french hotel and walking the streets of Paris. My first day in Paris was my only day alone in europe so far and it was a nice period to get acclimatized. Knowing that I would be seeing the traditional sites with Sarah and her friend Alex over the next few days I just walked around, past countless bakeries and sandwhich shops, listening to a language I hadn't heard in a while and to the constant hum of scooters and enjoying loads of monuments/church facades that date back to before my country was even a country. All this only 2 years after living in and learning about Calgary, a city of 1 million people that wasn't even discovered by pioneers until the 1870's. Let's just say I found it fitting when I walked past my first ever palm tree later that day and sat down in the Luxembourg gardens to listen to an ochestral play the Disney tune "A Whole New World". TV by the way does a really good job of portraying what palm trees look like, I wasn't even surprised when I saw one. Until I realized that Paris is farther north than Ottawa, aren't they a hot climate tree?

Over the next 4 days we, as predicted, saw most of the traditional sites, and took in everything in between. We enjoyed the outside, the inside and the view from the top of the Notre Dame cathedral all on seperate days. What it lacks in colour compared to the Notre Dame Bascilica in Montreal, it makes up for with history and its incredible detail. I won't bore you with any facts but one, it took 200 years to build. I'm talking years with 365 days each!

We also went on our first free tour, which we discovered isn't that strange of a thing in Europe. They toured us around the city, showed us loads of great sites and filled us with history and knowledge I may have been too lazy to look up myself. It was a great introduction of the city and also began an extensive World War lesson which was updated at nearly every european stop after Paris. The police department downtown still has bullet holes from WW2 which I found incredible.

Here are some of the other highlights:

-Ham and Cheese crepe: I had never even thought of a savoury crepe; I hope to try this with pancakes upon my return.
-Not the Louvre: if you spent 30 seconds on each piece in the Louvre it would take 68 days without pause to finish, so we surrendered in advance and didn't go.
-1900 World Exposition: Although I didn't attend, I wish that I had. Practically half of Paris was built for that exposition including the most beautiful bridge there, the equally impressive Grand and Petit palaces as well as Paris' metro system.
- Eiffel Tower: Oh! you've heard of it? well I liked it. We visited in the evening and its really nice up close and light up. Sitting there in front of it was also a strong reminder of how not in Canada I was.
-Staying dry: The weather was great and I was very tempted to jump in the Seine river since I travel in swimsuits until I discovered that still today, during especially heavy rainfall, city sludge is added to the mix.
- Signing the song "Champs Elysees" while walking down the same famous street and having someone close by join in.
-Tour story: Finding out that during the Germans' retreat, Hitler ordered a commander to have Paris decimated and the commander for whatever reason, staged it, saving pretty well the whole city.

Having a few days before meeting a friend in Berlin we picked up train tickets to Brussels for the next day and that was our visit to Paris in brief. We missed Versailles but I plan to see it before Canada happens again.

Europe prologue (July 20th)

-I'm already starting to feel like Tom Hanks in "the Terminal", only the soundtrack that follows me is self-sung and consists mostly of french rock that Ben and I have been introducing to our american camp friends. Last night I grabbed the bus around 9:30 from UBC to the airport. After having my ticket printed I found a nice spot in a corner behind an automated departures ticker on a quiet carpeted second floor. I fell asleep with my head on my backpack and my arm through my hiking bag and slept surprisingly well. At 6 am I repacked, brushed my teeth in the bathroom and walked to the check-in line. The big 7 lane plane took us to Montreal where I had a layover before our departure at 6 pm for Paris. I'm in for a long one, so very glad I decided to fly to europe instead of australia.



-We've flown past my homeland and I'm seeing Newfoundland for the first time. The sun behind us is a vibrant orange and the horizon is spectacular! Layers of bright red, then orange on top, yellow, a thin layer of wispy clouds and then a purple and blue sky. Wow! I'd definitely like to sleep on top of a mountain and enjoy a similar sight one day.



-I just looked over at the screen in front of the empty seat next to me and saw a line between Montreal and Paris and our plane halfway between the dots, this is exciting!



-We're just descending below the clouds now while "fix you" has come on in the Coldplay concert, good timing. Some rays of morning sunlight are piercing the clouds above the sea of roundabouts, this trip is going to be interesting.