...I leave for Paris with ample time and do NOT miss my train. It's a perfectly boring and uneventful but very stress-free trip....my train to Paris stops a couple hundred meters past the expected boarding zone which involves me and a couple dozen others running frantically behind it with our bags. Surprise!...I unwittingly bypass some 200 Asian tourists dutifully waiting to clear passport control and use a "premium access" lane next to them. Nobody stops and...

...I land in Paris, survive a longish passport control line and find out my backpack hasn't made it to Europe...I go to the city, meet Hugh for an excellent early dinner and board the train back to Brussels half drunk. Hopefully my bag will turn up soon!

...I struggle with readjusting to the European reality complete with Parisian rain, sulky shop assistants, small coffee sizes in Starbucks, hauling my suitcase down 3 flights of stairs to find left luggage at a Paris train station etc....I meet Hugh and his wife-to-be, Olga, for lunch and it is a most pleasant occasion...I spend half a day playing with photos from the trip at a Starbucks in Paris...I take a walk around Montmartre and take a few nice pictures...I ...