Sorry it took so long to continue the story! Man do hose waffles take a long time! I started the story from the begginning: So, its 11:03 am and im hopping on the train from Edinburgh to London waving goodbye to my new best friend of Scotland, Josh. I'm not sure what the hell or even why im heading back there, except for the sole purpose of evil return tickets (to which i now despise). Time passes and as I begin to come closer and closer to London I begin to feel my stomach flutter with an array of butterflies. "Where am I going? Who am I going to stay with". Time passes and i arrive in London, oh the hustle and bustle of busy London. So, Im walking, more like trodding, around the city with my two hundred pound packpack, pissed off and wanting to set it on fire. I finally find an internet cafe (funny how when youre searching for one you can never find it). I sit down at the rickety old computer and, VIOLA! there it is, my friends moms home number. (My friend Dionne from school in NY told me that if I was ever in trouble and stuck in London, to call her mom and that she would take care of me) YAY! So, i call the number and speak to a darling little English woman who is "more than happy to let me stay". She gives me bus directions from Trafalgar Square to her home in East London. So, im off quick as lightning (my packpack trying to catch up behind me). As I arrive in Trafalgar Square to my excitment and suprise, there is a huge movie screen playing a live performance from the Royal Opera of Swan Lake. It was so romantic (my backpack and I held on to each other in pure delight). It was begginning to get dark and I did not want to leave Ms. Harrison waiting, so I jumped on the 159 bus and headed for my temporary "home sweet home". Long story short, I arrived at Ms. Harrisons which turned out to be your typical cosy little english house and had tea, crumpets, a bath and then bed. Its amazing how these simple things are such a highlight to ones day when backpacking. So, from Ms. Harrisons house I had no plan. I only knew that I was supposed to meet up with my other backpacking friends in Brugge, but that wasn't for another two days (two days is like two weeks in backpacking years). I started to look for tickets to Brussels. Finally I found one! A coach ticket for 14 pounds, pretty amazing I thought. I looked at the departure and arrival times and was suprised and confused to see that the voyage was 8 hours long. "Hmmmm", I thought "A train from London to Belgium should only take two hours" Alas, I booked the ticket straight away anyhow. The morning rolled around, guarded with pink and white blankets of clouds and a blue background to comlement them. I say my farewells to Ms.Harrison, Mark (her son), Tabitha (tha cat) and a couple of workmen who where there and probably didn't even notice me in the first place. As I arrived to the train station to catch my coach a lady behind the plastic screen at the reception desk told me "You're in the wrong spo' luv". She points me in the direction that I need to go and after about ten minutes of walking I begin to get nervous. My feet are yelling at me and my freaking three hundred pound backpack (somehow it accumulated an extra 100 pounds from the day before) was mocking me from its high up piggy back position. I look once more at my Itenerary "EuroLines", ok, so there's a EuroLines dipicted in front of me, but they are certainly not trains, they're buses. For those of you who know me well, you know that I absolutely hate and detest buses, partly because I get really car sick and mostly because (and this has proven to be true everytime) ALL buses smell like throw up, there is always a crying baby and never any toilet paper in the bathroom. And this bus had all these things and oh, so much more. This, ladies and gentleman was the day that I learned the differences between Coach (bus) and Train (...uh..train). And thus, I will never confuse the two again. So, I drag myself onto this "coach" and collapse into the first open seat that I see. There was a Japanese girl with a British accent sitting in the window seat. She introduced herself as Maiko and I introduced myself as "feeling really ridiculous and stupid because I thought this would be a two hour train ride to Brussels, oh ya and my name is Stephanie" in my classic motor mouth sort of way. She giggled mutely with her hands over her mouth and soon we became best bus buddy's for the duration of the trip. Our bus buddy freindship made the drive fly by and before I knew it, we were pulling in to Gent, which is a small town about 1 hour from Brussels. Here came the Butterflies again, I was beggining to worry. Maiko was on her way to Munich and more than once the thought crossed my mind to follow her there (I mean after all, we were best bus buddies, you can't get any closer than that). 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 43 minutes, 48, 52, 55, 59 minutes.... Brussels lurked in the near distance. It was dark, dessolate and droling. I was officially scared. I had failed to plan anything around Brussels, because after being in bright and friendly Edinburgh, I thought it would be simple to find a place to stay and people to hang out with. Au Contraire. There were no "Village people" running around in wooden clogs, no chocolate fountains or Waffle Houses, no "it's a small world after all" playing in the distance. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It looked like the financial district in New York and you would never see me there, even if it was raining candy. I clung to Maiko like a spider to its web. She looked terrified. "This is not what I expected." I whispered "What should I do? I don't know where to stay or anything". Maiko opened her mouth to say something as the bus came to a scrrrreeeeching halt. And then, (this is the moment of the hour). A young man, I call him the "Irish Saint" called out to me from the belly of the bus. "Does someone need a place to stay?" I kind of sunk down in my seat, who was this guy? "Because if you do, I'm going to a hostel now and I'd be happy to pay for the cab there" he said. Oh, I pepped up, this was good news. "Ya ok, I'll go", I replied. I said my goodbyes to Maiko and before I knew it I was arriving at the Van Gogh Hostel of Brussels with my new best friend Dave from Dublin. We shared travel stories and details of the cities that we loved and hated over multiple rounds of Jupilers (cheap Belgium beers). We were then joined by some other backpackers and ended up having a evening swollen with laughs and stories. Oh, how I love this lifestyle in its many curve balls and fantastic adventures.
I spent the next day exploring Brussels and then headed off to Brugge, where I met up with two friends from NY who are also backpacking. Brugge was amazing, I would highly, highly reccomend it. On Monday my friends split off for Amsterdam and I came here to Antwerp. Now I am in Antwerp, Belgium staying with my friend, Karim's family. Its been great BBQing and learining Dutch whilst speaking a mix of french and english. I've realized that people are my passion and I love to experince and see all sides of life (with as little negativaty or judgement as possible). Next stop is Amsterdam. I leave Friday morning to meet up with the other backpackers that I met in Brugge. Wow, my hands are tired. Well, at least its a break for my feet! Ciao Cheers Salut! -Stephanie