So here is my travel journal from my backpacking trip to Europe. It's more involved than my day log stuff that's already been up the site. There has been some complaining (you know who you are) that my daylog was rather boring and that it focused too much on the details of transportation. I can't promise that this is less boring, but's there's certainly a hell of lot more of it. Occasional parts of the journal have been omitted to protect the (not-so)innocent. These parts really weren't that common, but hey - use your imagination. Keep in mind that this is a journal and things like punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph breaks, grammar, and spelling may or may not been a part of the writing process. Not to mention my almost criminal use of parenthesis. Like my pictures, the writing is quite erratic as far as consistency of content. The journal style kind of mutates over the course of the trip. Read at your own risk.
 4/28 Cincinnati 4/30 Paris 5/02 Paris 5/03 Paris 5/04 Bayeux 5/06 Toulouse 5/07 Barcelona 5/08 Barcelona 5/09 Madrid 5/11 Salamanca 5/12 Salamanca 5/13 Barcelona 5/14 Portbou 5/15 Narbonne 5/17 Nice 5/18 Venice 5/20 Naples 5/21 Rome 5/22 Rome 5/24 Florence 5/25 La Spezia 5/26 Lucerne 5/29 Interlaken 5/30 Interlaken 6/03 Amsterdam 6/04 London 6/06 Salisbury 6/09 Nottingham 6/11 Edinburgh 6/13 Kyleakin 6/15 Dublin 6/17 Dublin 6/23 Hamburg 6/27 Brussels 6/29 Berlin 7/01 Prague 7/02 Munich 7/03 Munich |
6/27 - Brussels, Belgium I think my journal format of setting an entry on the day it was written is a bit flawed, as I've been rather lazy in my writing lately. I'm back in Brussels, killing a few hours while I wait for the next movie showtimes at the Kinepolis, by the Atomium.  Being here in the first place is to kill time until my night train to Berlin leaves at 11:30 or so. Oddly enough, all of the movies start at exactly the same time, and I missed that time by 15 minutes. I would have been here earlier, but getting money, and subsequently change, for a locker at the train station was a very long and painful ordeal. Let's see, where did I leave off... I left Hamburg on tuesday morning and headed to Cologne, as a way of making the trip to Brussels more interesting. I wanted see a museum there, but there was also the Dom (the big cathedral there) that Alice had recommended. The Dom is unavoidable when you leave the train station, it blocks out your entire view. I climbed up the 509 steps to the top of the tower, and it was painful. The view was great though. It boggles my mind to think about how they built such intricately carved stone structures, hundreds of feet high, with such limited tools. After that I went to see the Museum Ludwig, which a large Picasso collection and disappointingly (I thought there were more) only one Dalí. I then got back on the train and headed to Brussels. I managed to get in to an HI hostel there without a reservation. At this point I've pretty much given up on making reservations, because I'm tired of buying phone cards. So far I haven't had to sleep on the street or pay for a hotel room. Unfortunately, the next morning, I found they had no room for the following night (apparently there were a bunch of school groups in the city or something). I managed to get the last bed (before cancellations and no shows) at the Centre Vincent Van Gogh hostel, which as far as I could tell has nothing to do with Van Gogh. Regardless, it's I think the cheapest bed I've had, €9.50, including a nice breakfast. I started my sightseeing with the Belgian Comic Centre. I was immediately grinning when I walked in, having seen the life size Tintin figures by the ticket counter. The experience was a bit diminished after that, because I couldn't read any of the comics or captions on the exhibits, being that they were all in French. There was an English guidebook you could read, but it wasn't that informative. I left happy though, because I spent about an hour and a half hour reading Tintin books(in English) in the reading area. After a bit more wandering around, I stopped in the MIM (Musical Instruments Museum) , which was really cool. They give you a set of headphones, and whenever you walk in front of a display, it starts playing music using the instruments on display. I wandered for a while longer, stopping by the Manekin Pis. He was dressed in a little military uniform, and was well...not very interesting. went through the botanical gardens on my way back to the hostel. They had an exhibit outside of photos and descriptions from families all over the world, which was actually quite interesting. Back at the hostel I sat around talking with a rather international crowd: an American(me), a Canadian, an Australian, a Czech, and a Dutch. We all sat talking til about 2 am; very interesting conversation. The next day I headed to Ghent, mainly to see Castle Gravensteen (sounds kinda like Wolfenstein, doesn't it). Fairly nice castle, well restored. It included a small museum of instruments of torture, many of which were actually used in that castle. Having seen that, I went on to Bruges. After finding a hostel, I took a much needed nap, before going out to a dinner of mussels and fries. I'm not usually a huge fan of mussels, but I felt I had to try them in Belgium, and they were quite tasty. After that I went out bar hopping with some guys I met in the hostel. This morning I explored Bruges. I went to the Groeninge museum, because was supposed to have paintings by Hieronymous Bosch. It was a nice collection, if somewhat small. After that I walked around some more, did some emailing, and decided to come to Brussels to see a movie. And that leaves me here at Brupark (a small amusement park), listening to a merry-go-round blare the same music over and over again.
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