9.14 am

We arrived in Paris under a gray sky threatening rain. The train ride took about 6 hours - 3 on the slow train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and 2 on the super fast train from Brussels to Paris. Looking out through the window on the high speed train is interesting. You see something kind of interesting in the distance - maybe a church or a monastery, maybe a clump of cows/sheep/horses - and by the time you've figured out what it is it's already five minutes behind you. Adam took some video from the train, which we may try to edit and post if it's not all a complete blur.

The metro system in Paris was easy enough to navigate - very well laid out, and everything more or less labeled, with large maps of the whole metro system everywhere. Plus, my wonderful boyfriend had already looked up all the stops we needed, so it was painless. Getting to the hotel, on the other hand... The metro stop where we are lets out into a 6 or 7 street roundabout/intersection. The street signs are little plaques on the sides of buildings that you can't really make out from across the street. Which meant we ended up going in a rather large circle before we figured out where we needed to be.

9.20 am

When we left the hotel for dinner and a bit of evening sightseeing, the threatened rain had arrived. Paris in the rain is not so much fun. It blows every which way, and we only had one umbrella between the two of us. Which means that if he holds it I tend to get wet because it's too high, and if I hold it he can't see because it covers his line of vision. Even so, we both wanted to see the Tour Eiffel at night, so we hopped on the metro and, after a little misstep, found our way easily enough. When we got off the metro though, it wasn't dark enough for the tower to be lit, so we found a little bistro for dinner. It was fantastic. He got this smoked duck breast/goat cheese/poached apple on baguette thing, and I had the French onion soup. By the time we left the tower was all lit and sparkling with disco lights. Kind of like a fairy tower.

9.23 am

It is still gray and threatening rain today, so we've compiled lists of indoor and outdoor things. I am determined not to let a little rain ruin Paris for me. First up, a tour of the catacombs, and we both want to see Sacre Cour. He wants to walk on the cobblestones on the Champs d'Elysses where the Tour de France riders go through, and I want to see all the haute couture fashion shops. With perhaps a museum or two thrown in if the rain starts.

2.21 pm

Sitting in a food court in Brussels Zuid/Midi, surrounded by piles of luggage. We grabbed the earlier train from Amsterdam, so we’ve got almost an hour before the train for Paris leaves. Which is good, since our train was running 25 minutes late – so if the train we’d meant to take is late as well, we would have missed the connection.

I could have spend another week in Amsterdam. There were a ton of things we wanted to do and didn’t get a chance to – the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Amsterdam dungeon. And I would happily have gone back to Kuekenhof to see the flowers a week later, and the windmills at Kinder-something, and the city in a city at Madurodam….

8.29 am

Adam arrived safe and sound yesterday, although it took him forever to get out of the baggage claim area because the airline didn't post what carousel their baggage would be on. We hopped in a taxi to go to the little Bed and Breakfast, since we weren't entirely sure which tram stop it was on. The B&B turned out to be an apartment in the city - I think these guys probably rent out their second home to guests. Which means that for the same price as a teeny tiny hotel room, we have our own bedroom, kitchen, bath, and garden/patio area (currently not so useful because it's drizzling). Total score!

8.33 am

Off to find breakfast, and then we're planning to go see the Diamond museum, and maybe the Van Gogh if there's time. I wouldn't mind getting to actually see the paintings upstairs - last time I did the "colors of the night" exhibit and that was about all I could handle for an afternoon. There's also the vodka museum, where for the price of a cocktail you get to learn about vodka and get a free drink. And of course Grasshopper, the (in)famous club/restaurant/bar). Then to Den Haag this afternoon, to meet up with some of my coworkers for a drink and maybe some kite time.

8.41 pm

My last night in Den Haag. Although I am ecstatically happy to be leaving this apartment (and the world's worst shower, and the party-till-6am-and-skip-class-the-next-day-neighbors), I'm not so thrilled about going. The thing is, I'm just starting to get to know the city. It stays light out until 9:30 at night, and all the plazas are filled to bursting with people having a drink or some dinner. Over the past few days, the last of the buds on the trees have unfurled into shiny green leaves. The garden outside my window, winter-bare when I arrived, is now in full bloom, white, pink, purple, and yellow blossoms. It's warm out now, 22 degrees some days, and I can walk home from work without a jacket.

The past few days, I've been finding new little restaurants that I'd like to eat at and remembering that I won't have time. It's strange - when I got here I kept telling myself that it would pass quickly, but the first month dragged. Now, it's not so much that it feels like its flown by as that I never had enough time in the first place.

8.46 pm

And yet I'm also excited to be moving forward. Almost two full weeks of vacation with my duckie - we've never had more than a few days before. Paris and Lyon, a country I've never been too, and then Barcelona and a country I've wanted to go back to since I left it eight years ago. I remember sitting on a bridge in Granada (I think it was Granada, but perhaps it was Seville) looking out over the water and thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to come back when I was all grown up. I remember taking the train through the Spanish countryside, the carriage rocking back and forth on the rickety tracks, looking out the window and wanting to backpack through the hills.

Then to New York, where I plan on seeing my first Broadway show, and eating good sushi again, and getting my hair and my nails done because for once in my life I'll be able to afford it.

12.58 pm

About to bite into the third of the twelve chocolates I brought home from Belgium. The first was from Neuhaus, where I asked the lady behind the counter to pick four of her favorites. It was a dark chocolate shell with a creamy dark chocolate filling. Absolute divinity. The second was from Pierre Marcolini. I had picked those out - a violet, a cassis, an earl gray, and a something. I ate the something. Much to my disappointment, it wasn't very good - almost sour and sweet at the same time. Not what I look for in a chocolate. This, the third, is another of the Neuhaus. It smells dark, and has Neuhaus imprinted on the top, with a little crown. Here's hoping for another sublime chocolate moment.

10.17 pm

Just home from a day of sightseeing with the family. The Kuekenhof in the morning - truly gorgeous and worth seeing, but a but much to take in all at once. It's set up so that you wind your way through beds of tulips and narcissus and hyacinths. In the gardens are sculptures made of bronze and glass and steel and even plywood. Then in the afternoon we went back to Amsterdam and did the Anne Frank house. Which, quite frankly, makes me feel angry and upset the way I always do when exposed to any sort of holocaust memorabilia. Not for what happened to the Jews and the others in the death camps. But for the fact that human nature hasn't changed at all in fifty years - that we're torturing people and then telling the torturers that they won't be pardoned, that the right wing hardliners will be in charge of the next Israeli government not because they won the most votes but because they put together the best coalition, and that these people deny the Palestinians a right to exist - even as Hamas works in Palestine to gain legitimacy with the people by giving them food and healthcare and guns in order to claim that Israel has no right to exist. I wonder sometimes if we've learned anything at all since coming down out of the trees.

10.23 pm

I plan to spend tomorrow packing. The idea is for my parents to take two of my suitcases back to the States with them, and then mom will come down to New York or at least send the suitcase with all my work clothes. Which means, I suppose, that I'm going to be sans blow-dryer, and keyboard, and all the other things that won't fit into my itty bitty carry on suitcase.

I'm of mixed minds about leaving. On the one hand, I love this internship. Even the days when it drags are still more exciting than days of listening to lecture and taking notes on readings. On the other hand, I want to be back in a country where I understand the culture and I understand the language. Where I know all the little social cues. And where I can buy Annie's mac and cheese in the grocery store.

2.37 pm

My office is a cozy 26 degrees, according to the thermometer in here. What that translates into is that between the heat and the brilliant sunshiney day outside, I’m having difficulty getting off vacation mode and into work mode. Waking up this morning hurt, even though my alarm didn’t go off that much earlier that I was waking up over the long weekend. It’s something about having to get up and get ready, rather than choosing to do so.

2.42 pm

Thank god for Google. I’m currently looking through a UNC handout on the passive voice, since I’m rather certain that most of the sentences my boss has flagged in my current project as “passive” aren’t. Still, my mother always says that discretion is the better part of valor, which I will take in this case to mean that I should be sure about my grammar before I leap. Or something to that effect, anyway.

3.20 pm

Microsoft Word, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…

The thing that really gets me is that even when I know exactly what I want to do, Word is sure it knows better. Especially when what I want to do is in any way remotely connected to pagination or section breaks. On the other hand, maybe it’s just a PIBCAK issue…

4.03 pm

Back from my whirl-wind, not quite 48 hour tour of Brussels. All in all, I'm glad that I went - but at the same time, I'm absurdly glad to be back home.

The trip got off to a rather rocky start when the conductor on the train to Brussels informed me that my ticket was no good for the train I was on and I would have to pay her 80 euros. I was furious, mostly because the website I'd bought the ticket from had been mostly in Dutch and the ticket itself said it was good for travel on any train. It didn't help the conductor didn't speak very good English and I don't speak any French. In the end, she only charged me 18 euros - and I still didn't know what was wrong with my ticket!

The train station in Brussels was ridiculously confusing. I had expected to arrive in Brussels Central and ended up in Brussels Zuid, possibly because I had, in fact, been on the wrong train. The guy at the information desk helped with the ticket situation - apparantly, even though I'd bought the ticket through what looked like a Thalys website, it was only good on intercity (IC) trains. He wasn't so good with getting me to Central. He told me to go buy a ticket at the window, so I waited in a room packed with sweaty, smelly people for about 20 minutes - only to learn that the ticket I had used to get to Brussels was good for travel between the train stations too, and I just needed to go upstairs and hop on the next train.

The best part about the whole thing is that they didn't even check my ticket on the way home!

4.25 pm

The city herself more than made up for my travel difficulties. Although I spend the better part of the two days with my head in the guidebook, trying to figure out exactly where I was, I did manage to figure out the layout of the city by the time I left. My directional sense being what it is, I didn't realize that all the mini maps in my guidebook were oriented in different directions, which made for some interesting times.

I did not try either the mussels or the fries. I did, however, have a Belgium waffle (hot off the grill, with little bits of caramel in the dough and powdered sugar on top, like a little bit of heaven on a paper plate) and lobster (with champagne and truffle sauce, although I was reminded that lobster ends up being a great deal of work for very little meat). I'm not a big beer drinker, but I did have a raspberry lambic (delicious!) and Jupiler (went well with my fried scrimps, but not my favorite).

I also have chocolates from three gourmet chocolatiers (Pierre Marcolini, Neuhaus, and Wittamer) that I intend to savor slowly over the next two weeks.

1.45 pm

I'm sitting in the square outside my apartment building, the one with all the bars and restaurants that's filled with tables in the middle, sitting at a table in this square, looking through the Brussels guidebook I just bought, eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of white wine, when it hits me: I'm in Europe. And I realize how quickly indeed places become familiar, so that this is no longer Den Haag, in The Netherlands, thousands of miles from where I live. This is home.

11.37 am

Still waiting on the wind. Windfinder says it's blowing about 5 knots right now on the beach. I am pondering whether tossing a nickel into the water would encourage the wind gods to produce a stiff breeze.

It's been a remarkably good weekend. Friday I had the day off, so I rode my bike up to the beach with my kite. There wasn't any wind when I got there, so I settled for a beer and a chicken sandwich, then sat on the sand and listened to my ipod speak French at me. Friday night I saw "The Reader" - excellent film, although rather cynical in a thought-provoking sort of way. I'm still not sure if I liked it. And last night was dormapalooza, which was simply much too much fun, especially after we started roasting marshmallows over tiki-torches.

11.49 am

My shopping list for today: strippenkarten, guidebook for Brussels, something for breakfast for the next few days, kleenex, and garbage bags. I'm at that strange not here for very much longer but still need food and other stuff in the house point. Which means, I suspect, that once I cook most of the food in my fridge I'll either be living on pasta and cheese and sandwich meat or getting lots of take-out.

11.58

Blow, wind, blow.