ok so maybe brussels wasn't all bad...

the food was good. the restaurants were rather nice, and the beer was great. can't really complain about the music museum too much, and the pastries were awesome. and there's that one area... Grand Place, which is the main square. that looks really nice. at night. when the weather is good. and i guess i understood their french, which is a good sign. they speak more slowly than parisians do.

but even so, brussels has got nothing on barcelona. more on that later... we are in paris now, and on the way to the louvre. we're staying at the Hotel Utrillo, and so far, it like a very nice hotel.

brussels

dear brussels,

so sorry you suck. the weather is crappy, the subway is sketchy, and everything for some reason seems more difficult and less enjoyable here.

i guess it's hard, since the last city i was in was stockholm, but come on. this is ridiculous. granted, the musique instrument was pretty cool, as was the brewery, but both were pretty difficult to find and the music museum was basically useless after the 3rd floor. don't know why i wasted my breath getting up there. the atomitron should have been amazing. whose idea was it to not make it about the chemistry, but about the history of a building instead though? i should've just looked at it from outdoors. what a waste of time. i felt bad for the people who worked there; they must've felt like crap taking my money. the hostel, centre van gogh, is, however, ok. but it was also impossible to find, and the lady at the info desk didn't really want to help. at 10.20pm. from a train/subway station with no info or directions to speak of.

i know i'm not coming back here, and that is sad. but i'm betting barcelona will be better tomorrow. well, it'd better be, anyway.

good luck, brussels, maybe yoiu will become a better place. maybe. i doubt it, but maybe.

london, stockholm

so london seems like FOREVER ago. in reality, we flew out on monday. merely a week ago. got into london fine, and immediately went to see the sights, starting with buckingham palace. the subway in london is so fantastic. but i was so dead on that tuesday, that we decided to let me take a nap in the park in the afternoon so that i could revive myself. well, about ten minutes after i lay down and closed my eyes, it started raining like you wouldn't believe. first, we hid under a tree in the hopes that it would pass... but it just got worse and worse and we ended up drenched and running for shelter. not a good start.

but it got better from there. after the rain (haha) we went to the Portrait Museum, which was fantastic. but it was starting to get late at that point, so we headed home after that and were in bed and asleep by 9. 2 hours before my 4 year-old cousin, haha.

the next day, we saw a bunch more of the sights. we ended up seeing a billion museums, all of which were fantastic. we saw the natural history museum, westminster abbey, the imperial war museum (a ton better than the name would have you believe!) and went to a couple of pubs for dinner. all in all, i can't remember all of the details anymore, except that it was fantastic. also got to see my good friend Shain and his girlfriend in london, which was a wicked treat.

friday was our goodbye to London. we had a flight at 6:30 the next morning, so we took off to the airport for the night. it was a lot more tiring than i thought it would be, but we survived and live to tell stories of it.



we arrived in stockholm at around noon on saturday, and promptly checked into our hostel, The Red Boat. it has a much more complicated name in swedish, and a website, but you'll have to look it up yourself if you really care. the hostel is really nice actually. very clean, and comfortable, but slightly on the pricey side... but everything is in stockholm, so no surprise there. stockholm has got to be one of the most picturesque cities in the world. it is very colourful, and has a beautiful river running through it. we are staying right by a bridge (on a boat) that takes you straight into the old part of town, which is very charming and beautiful. mostly we have been walking around exploring the pretty old town, but we also took a boat trip around the islands (stockholm is made up of many islands linked together by bridges), which was beautiful.


next up is brussels, belgium. we leave tomorrow. good beer and chocolate, at the very least!

This blog is for my big fancy europe trip.

If you didn't get the joke, don't worry - that means you're much cooler than me.

Travel itinerary coming soon!!!