I was ill for about two weeks last month... the first time I've been properly ill in France. It's really horrible being away from home when you're ill- first of all because you don't have your mum to look after you- 2nd because you have to do all those things like going to the doctor, explaining your symptoms, (in another language) trekking down to the pharmacy to pick up your medication. I cried at least twice. I don't like this growing-up-and-having-to-take-care-of-myself thing. Having said that, Nico was very good to me, bringing me paracetamol when I ran out,and making me eat oranges for the vitamins!
I picked up my antibiotics on my birthday and instantly felt a lot better! It was my 21st and I wanted to do something special I'd remember, so I got the day off school and we (Meredith, Susan, Nico and I) went to visit one of the castles the Loire region is famous for... the chateau at Azay-le-Rideau. It was a sweet little chateau- not the nicest I've visited- but charming, with its red framed windows, surrounded by a moat. I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open, so had several cups of coffee and felt slightly more awake! It was Miriam's (the German assistant at my lycee) birthday on wednesday so we had decided to have a joint party that night to celebrate, though we were both knackered by the time it came to it! The theme was formal/fancy dress so we had a range of 'interesting' costumes, from 80s to... well i'm not even sure. !
On Monday Chris and Camilla came to visit, which was lovely. Birthday presents included trashy magazines and the biggest bar of chocolate I've ever had in my life! The next day we took the bus to Chambord and spent a good few hours there, taking funny photos, looking round the chateau, and lying in the sun outside. Tuesday was also Pancake Day, so the evening involved some delightful crepes! On wednesday we wandered round Blois and had cakes in a lovely little tea room, and in the evening had dinner at La Scala. !
The week went really quickly and before I knew it, it was saturday afternoon and Susan, Mehdi and I were on the coach to Brussels. It was only a 4 hour trip but Mehdi was getting pretty stressed about the screaming baby that we had the good fortune to be sat next to! We got off a stop early, I think, in a not-very-nice-bit of the city. We started walking towards our hotel, only to find out half an hour later we were going in the wrong direction. After asking a couple of people to help us we started walking in the right direction towards this big cathedral type thing- we had to take an elevator up to the top of the building and cross a little bridge, which Mehdi later christened 'The Bridge of Hope'- since it took us away from what could only be described as 'the ghetto'. We then walked down what's probably the longest street in the world (our hotel number was 312 and we started under 100) and, 10 hours after leaving Blois, arrived at our destination! The hotel was basic but fine. We watched TV for a bit then went in search of dinner. We were staying right next to what seemed to be the Turkish quarter, and had a very cheap but nice meal in a Turkish restaurant, then went back to sleep!
We decided we had had enough of Brussels (we missed the good bits, apparently) and decided to head to Bruges... which was lovely- small, quaint, very touristy- a bit like Amsterdam with its canals. We found our hostel (which was called The Snuffel!) relatively easily. It had a nice atmostphere and we had a room to ourselves, since it wasn't busy. We headed out that afternoon for a huge lunch and looked round town for a while. It started to piss it down with rain so we ducked into the Chocolate Museum and spent a good half hour or so looking at chocolate sculptures and the like, followed by some gorgeous hot chocolate in the Café Verdi. It started raining again, so we went back to the hostel, played some Uno, and in the evening had some dinner in an Italian restaurant. It was Sunday night and there didnt seem to be much going on, (
(and we were tired!) so we went back to our room and played Monopoly.
Monday was Susan's birthday- we felt we'd seen enough of Bruges so we headed out to the Coast- we arrived in a little town called Oostende. It was freeeeezing, but nice to see the sea. We still hadn't eaten any waffles at this point, but when we tried to order some in a tea room, were told they weren't served in the morning. This made Mehdi very grumpy, but we stayed all the same for some Café Bresil (coffee with Amaretto). Wandered along by the beach and found a stall selling sea food- the bloke was friendly but seemed surprised to see any tourists at this time of year (we were quickly learning february isn't the best time to see Belgium) Susan and I tried some sea snails, which were surprisingly nice! After that we'd had our fill of Oostende and took the tram along the coast to see another town called Blankenburg- which turned out to be even less happening than Oostende. We stayed about 10 minutes and decided to go back to Bruges... where we finally had our waffles- all sugary with Chantilly cream... mmm! In the afternoon we took the train back to Brussels, found our hostel (modern, clean, free internet, widescreen TV) and went for dinner at a nice pizzeria across the street. Susan and I stayed up to watch a film downstairs, then the next morning I was up bright and early to catch my plane to London. !
Impressions of England, having been away for a while. Everything is so expensive. People are different.... less friendly. But it's nice to be able to communicate without having to think about it. Everyone is more stressed, more concerned about work. I miss France, but it's nice to be home.
