My day was a particularly clumsy one, and it definitely started out that way too! I was going down the elevator to meet everyone downstairs to check out when a man with a really shiny gold vest and tuxedo got on the elevator at the second floor. I got totally flustered because of the shiny man and got out at the second floor, not realizing I hadn’t made it to ground floor yet! By this time, I decided to just take the stairs down a couple of floors. I was so close to making it to the ground floor safely, but I missed the last two stairs, wiped out, and got a nice big scrape on the top of my foot. I blame it on the shiny man!
We walked over to the EU Parliament to take some photos and to see the beautiful architectural design of the building.
We took all sorts of transportation to get to Grand Place in Brussels. At some point, I remember Dayna getting caught in the doors of a bus! :( We had to carry our luggage around while we all went souvenir shopping around the different side streets. Note to self: never, ever, ever take that grey bag again! For one thing, it looks so sketchy if you leave it out in the middle of nowhere… Someone would for sure call it in for being a suspicious bag… So that would be problematic! Also, the straps are only long enough for it to be a handbag, there is no shoulder strap, and absolutely no wheels. The way to carry it least painfully is to hug it as if you were holding a baby…. So that’s what I did! I justified the pain by telling myself I was building character :)
Anyways, after about an hour of buying Belgian chocolates and other souvenirs, we met up with Kirsten and got a bit of freedom from carrying around our luggage. We enjoyed listening to some street performers (especially this enthusiastic man!) and even got to go into H&M and New Look. It was great fun!
At some point throughout the day, we were on the metro and it definitely gave us all a jolt when it stopped way too fast way too quickly! It was literally as if the driver saw a big, shiny, unlabeled red button and decided to push it to see what happened. First of all, I’m notorious for not holding on to any poles to keep my balance, and today was no different! If it weren’t for Jason and the strangers surrounding me, I would have definitely face-planted on that metro. After all was said and done, though, I was laughing so hard that I cried and everyone was trying to make sure I was okay and not too shaken up from the whole ordeal.
It was finally time to head back, so we took our two hour journey on the Eurostar back to London! I was planning to be really efficient and work on my essays on the train, but ended up napping and listening to music instead… which I think was much more enjoyable anyway :)
When we returned, we were all starving, thirsty, and tired! So we were definitely excited when Louisa met us up and took us to Wagamama – a very modern Japanese place – in Putney. It was very delicious! The weirdest thing was that they put wasabi sauce into the fudge cake… not sure how I felt about that, but the rest was good! Speaking of cake, we were discussing Emma’s birthday TOMORROW. Malik, who’s not particularly fond of chocolate cake, asked why we couldn’t have poundcake instead. He (unintentionally) made a hilarious pun! POUNDCAKE in LONDON… okay, really bad pun, but still :)
To top off my epic struggle of a day, I 100% wiped out while trying to board a bus that would take us from Putney to Roehampton. I couldn’t see my feet beyond my “baby” (luggage), so I didn’t take into account the gap from the curb to the bus… definitely sprained my ankle and confused the bus driver to no end! Without missing a beat, Dayna said, “Jamie! You didn’t mind the gap!” This made us all crack up because we always joke around with each other by saying “Mind the gap!” since all of the London transportation systems say that phrase constantly over the intercom. Maybe I should listen more!
After an exhausting, but amazingly and totally fun, trip to Brussels we all came back and pretty much conked out! It is definitely times like these when I am able to reflect on how lucky we are to be in this program. I have no doubts that it is going to be one of the highlights of our lives. :)
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