a hastily written recap...
last week began in brussels with penny, alpha male and aj (newly nicknamed 'the renaissance man' as he seems to know something about everything, with his speciality subject being fine dining). the weekend passed in a glorious drunken haze of novelty photographs, rants about politics, in-jokes about communist architecture and the turkish morality police and of course, the requisite hangovers. more detailed versions of the weekend can be foundhereandhere. it was wonderful fun and i am beginning to think i might be over the solo travel thing.
monday the team headed back to london and work and i head to brugges, a town about an hour train ride from brussels. it is a beautiful little medieval town full of canals and cobbled streets. i hired a bike to explore during the day and spent the evening in the hostel bar baiting wanker travellers to say stupid things. fun times.
tuesday i took the train to paris where the weather was monumentally shit but i managed to have a glorious time anyway, though with more museums and galleries than lying in the sunshine people watching.
most surreal moment:
discovering 3 german punks laying daisy chains and crying at the grave of samuel beckett at the montparnasse cemetery.. punks! daisy chains! samuel beckett! weird!
best breakfast:
on my last day the sun finally came out.. i went to the market down the street, bought a 22 euro hunk of cheese and a baguette and ate it in the luxembourg gardens. then i ate a chocolate eclair. yum.
closest i came to death:
some turkish guys staying at the hostel had hired scooters for the day. i dared them to ride around the insane 6 lane roundabout going around the arc de triumphe. they double dared me back. apparently turkish double dare rules mean you have to perform the same dare *twice*. they all launched themselves into the traffic with much gusto and horn beeping. i watched them with dread and hoping they would forget i was meant to go next. they didn't and i drove at 20km an hour right around the outside, almost on the footpath and was still terrified for my life.. who designed this insanity?!
most valuable travel item:
my earplugs! not only does it block out the pneumatic snores of the 60 yr old born again christian sharing your bunk bed but you can also put them in when wandering around art galleries and get fed up of hearing idiotic da vinci code interpretations of every religious picture on show.. pop them in and voila! the soundtrack to your arty wanderings is only the intensified sound of your breathing. i'm taking them with me everywhere from now on.
best movie moment:
i was browsing the shelves of shakespeare and co when george the ancient and legendary owner got me to help him move a stack of harry potter books. while we were fussing around moving things, his cup of coffee which was perched precariously on the stair banister fell off and onto an obnoxious brit alterna-girl. she came up the stairs all huffy at us, and we giggled together like schoolgirls at her histrionics..
perplexing:
sand font is a popular choice in mainland europe.. ugh.
monday the team headed back to london and work and i head to brugges, a town about an hour train ride from brussels. it is a beautiful little medieval town full of canals and cobbled streets. i hired a bike to explore during the day and spent the evening in the hostel bar baiting wanker travellers to say stupid things. fun times.
tuesday i took the train to paris where the weather was monumentally shit but i managed to have a glorious time anyway, though with more museums and galleries than lying in the sunshine people watching.
most surreal moment:
discovering 3 german punks laying daisy chains and crying at the grave of samuel beckett at the montparnasse cemetery.. punks! daisy chains! samuel beckett! weird!
best breakfast:
on my last day the sun finally came out.. i went to the market down the street, bought a 22 euro hunk of cheese and a baguette and ate it in the luxembourg gardens. then i ate a chocolate eclair. yum.
closest i came to death:
some turkish guys staying at the hostel had hired scooters for the day. i dared them to ride around the insane 6 lane roundabout going around the arc de triumphe. they double dared me back. apparently turkish double dare rules mean you have to perform the same dare *twice*. they all launched themselves into the traffic with much gusto and horn beeping. i watched them with dread and hoping they would forget i was meant to go next. they didn't and i drove at 20km an hour right around the outside, almost on the footpath and was still terrified for my life.. who designed this insanity?!
most valuable travel item:
my earplugs! not only does it block out the pneumatic snores of the 60 yr old born again christian sharing your bunk bed but you can also put them in when wandering around art galleries and get fed up of hearing idiotic da vinci code interpretations of every religious picture on show.. pop them in and voila! the soundtrack to your arty wanderings is only the intensified sound of your breathing. i'm taking them with me everywhere from now on.
best movie moment:
i was browsing the shelves of shakespeare and co when george the ancient and legendary owner got me to help him move a stack of harry potter books. while we were fussing around moving things, his cup of coffee which was perched precariously on the stair banister fell off and onto an obnoxious brit alterna-girl. she came up the stairs all huffy at us, and we giggled together like schoolgirls at her histrionics..
perplexing:
sand font is a popular choice in mainland europe.. ugh.
posted by melissa the kisser at 4:12 pm
2 Comments:
Oh Melly mel, I love your recaps...
Shakespeare & Co!
Scooters sound hilarious also. i can't wait for us to do some travelling together...
J.E.A.L.O.U.S.
And I completely concur, solo travel has limited appeal these days.
Post a Comment
<< Home