Bits of this and that

It’s been ages, I know.

A finnish friend of mine, Jussi, visited Brussels as one of the last spots of his interrail, so we met by a cup of ice coffee last Wednesday. Feels ridiculous, that we have not seen each other in ages while both being in Finland… and then we meet in a café HERE.

I took off to Paris on Friday. For a while it seemed that I might not – somehow I had managed to book such a train ticket that I should have printed out the confirmation e-mail (before this, all I’ve needed when picking up Thalys tickets has been a code). Well, sometimes it is handy to be blonde – playing stupid in front of the train manager got me into the train without buying a new ticket (double the price as my first one was), which would have been the normal way to handle this kind of an occasion.

The train was packed with people. I sat next to a woman who was propably in her seventies, and once we got started with the conversation, we kept talking until our train arrived at Paris Nord. She had travelled in like a million interesting places, told me stories about Africa for example, and was really interested in Finland and our culture. We also changed opinions about tourisms negative effects on the economies of countries like Cuba for example. I was in Paris before I even noticed.

Never stay in a hotel that’s north from Gare du Nord. Never. Unless you are very keen on Indian people and urinating on the streets.

Weekend went past really quickly, sightseeing mostly (or in fact I did see the whole city, as I visited tour de Eiffel), and enjoying what the variety of restaurants in Paris has to offer. But I got to admit, I still have not seen Mona Lisa! Yet, I dunno what’s the big deal with the painting, I know by heart how it looks like. And I’ve also seen plenty of Japanese tourists and their cameras, so…

On Sunday we went to Disneyland!!! Gosh, it was fun, the park is absolutely lovely and I felt like I would have been ten again. Now I just feel like watching all my favourite Disney movies…like Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and of course the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy! I bought some Tinkerbell stuff, surprise surprise! Oh, I got to eat my favourite breakfast in Paris, a large cup of café au lait with a croissant! Três bien!

On Monday I ate in this Italian place by Lac du Genval, a mistake! The food in that place is TOO GOOD, I felt like a stuffed pig afterwards. I noticed that I, by accident, used three different languages while having conversations with the waiters. Nicely done.

In Finland I am used to taking all the plugs off the wall whenever there’s a thunder. For some reason, it is not necessary in Belgium (anyone to explain me why’s that?). I found this out after Keasar wondered why all the lights were off and the tv was not working when he came home on Monday.

I keep on making longer and longer walks with the sticks and a backpack with some weights in it. Today’s walk took me 3,5 hours (after cutting away like a half of the tiniest toe on my left foot I was really able to walk as long as I wanted to, FINALLY). I love walking in those forests…I saw like a million of those gigantic snails we have there, loads of little rabbits and about twenty deers altogether.

Laura has been a bit sick today, so she stayed home. Hopefully she’ll be fine on Saturday, as they have a Fancy Fair at the school and the kids are gonna perform a Jungle Book dance! Laura is Baloo. She loves to dance and perform so it is really important for her to be able to participate.

I ordered some new Lonely Planets today and will. for sure, visit a book store a.s.a.p to get something to read, I am dying to get something intriguing to read. Like any Yasmina Khandra or Paolo Coelho book would make my day now.

Well, someone’s off to bed now, I’ll add some new pics anytime soon.

~ by Inka on June 4, 2008.