Europe Trip

I could write forever on this topic, and I know that pictures are far more interesting for everyone, so I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking on this one (with some comments of course). In a nutshell, however, Lydia and I took off for about a week to go to Bruges (Belgium), Paris (France), and Amsterdam (Netherlands).

But first....


Getting to destination #1 - Bruges, Belgium:




















Getting on the train to Belgium, Lydia and I thought we were totally set, because we had a Eurorail pass, which was good for 8 days of unlimited travel in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, and France; this, however, was not the case (we ended up getting kicked off the train).















Still in Germany, when the ticket man came by, we got a bit of a shock. Apparently, the Eurorail passes aren't just get-up-and-go tickets, in most cases, you actually have to still reserve seats on the train, and depending on the train that you get on, this can still be quite expensive (i.e. 15 Euros per seat for Thalys trains, the most expensive of the mandatory reservation fees). Our Thalys official wasn't very happy with us just hoping on his train, so he kicked us off in the beautiful Aachen (still in Germany) train station.







< the beautifl Aachen train station







Whilst waiting the 2 hours for the next train, which we had to reserve, I managed to slice my hand open on some sort of metal shard that was sticking out of an elevator button.




















* Note to any future Eurorail travelers out there: When attempting international travels, make a reservation BEFORE you get on the train, otherwise you might end up in Aachen. Also, when making a reservation, try to avoid Thalys, which is by far the most expensive (although there is no other choice when going into Paris).

After our Aachen experience, we managed to get to the absolutely beautiful Bruges.