Wandered around to some more cathedrals, saw the Manneken Pis, the pissing boy statue iconic of Brussels - he was dressed in football kit that day (in light of the Euro Cup). The Belgian police uniforms are kind of dashing. Was kinda beat by this point, but I really wanted to check out Grand Place/Grote Markt, the central square.
As I was searching for it, I was totally thinking, 'this better be worth it' (little did I know at the time, I would probably double the amount of walking I'd already done by the end of the night). I wandered down an alley and came up alongside one of the building's sides, and thought, 'okay, not bad, the statues on the wall are kind of cool.' Then I stepped out of the tunnel formed by the alley and into the square and just damn. Wow. It was breathtaking. None of the pictures I took do the place justice, so...you'll just have to visit and see for yourself :)

There was a huge stage set up for the Jazz Marathon, the buildings enclosing the square were all beautiful (in different ways), and the atmosphere was just really lively and chill. (Brussels in general seems to have a very chill, laid-back vibe.) Also checked out the old Stadhuis van Brussel (there was a wedding going on!), which was very nice and historic, much like everything else in Brussels. There are tons of artists too, and paintings of the city being sold in the square. If I weren't backpacking around, totally would've picked one up.
Wandered through the market (there were some really cool crafts, and another jazz band), checked out Eglise Sainte-Marie-Madeline Magdalenakerk, went back to Grand Place, wandered up through Place de L'Abertine/Albertina-Plein, Mont des Arts Kunstberg...
Photo below was taken at Eglise St-Jacques sur Coudenberg. Wanted to explore more, but it was starting to get late so I dragged my weary self back to Central Station and began figuring out the ordeal of how exactly I was going to make it to the hostel. There was a nice guy at the bus stop with really dark hair, really pale skin, a kind smile and deep, soulful musician eyes. He didn't know how to get to the hostel either, but was helpful about Brussels public transit. Managed to decipher the map to figure out which bus to take and what stop to get off, yay!

On the bus, some cute Turkish guy from Paris ended up sitting beside me. We were talking, and I mentioned that I was going to Paris in July, and he was all like, "I'll show you around!" In North America, phrases like that get tossed around pretty casually, so I'm just kind of like, "haha, sure." And then he gave me contact info - guess he was actually serious. So then I get to the hostel finally, look in the mirror, and realize there's a squished bug on my face. Yeeaahh, haha.
I got into the hostel room and was a little freaked out that I'd have to take a top bunk. I've always slept on the bottom bunk, either at camp or back when I had a bunk bed (since I used to fall off the bed when I was little). So this was a slight panic moment, but on the bright side, less chance of theft if I'm on a top bunk, right?

Met some cool people at the hostel. There were two guys in the kitchen, one from Nepal and one from an island near Madgascar. Ended up hanging out in the backyard with a varied group of guys from different places - L.A./California, Montreal, Barcelona, Argentina, Russia... (The way he said 'Barcelona' with a Spanish trill - something like 'Bar-thay-lo-na'? - was definitively cooler than the regular English way.)

It's definitely be a fascinating experience, backpacking. There's kind of a level of being able to relate to other travelers and have really intriguing conversations with random strangers at a grass roots level. While traveling with family is comfortable, it's not quite the same - I mean, do I really need sharks in the lobby and full spread Western breakfasts every morning? Maybe when I'm older, I'll appreciate that sort of thing more - but at this age, maybe it's not so bad to push boundaries and seek out raw experiences by stepping out of comfort zones.

I had to climb up onto the top bunk in the dark. But I made it! :)

Just said goodbye to A & N, two of the other interns. The office already feels lonelier without them.

N & I started on the same day, so we went through getting security tags & introductions together. Met A half an hour later as we were given a quick tour. It's crazy to think that this was 5 weeks ago.

It might not seem like you'd get that attached in the span of a month, but coming to a foreign country like this by myself for the first time, it was comforting to have people who'd gone through similar experiences and could relate. It was kind of like having two older sisters, in a way.

V finished her internship recently as well. In some ways, the whole intern culture is a bit of a revolving door of meeting new people, having them in your life for a short period of time, and then dispersing to different parts of the world again, embarking on the next great adventure.

Thanks for the great times, ladies - it's a small world, I'm sure we'll see each other again some day! :)

So behind on so many administrative things, just thinking about catching up is a little intimidating. Haven't been doing the best with recapping either...but I don't want to go too out of order. But here's week 3 (starting May 19th). Some of the memories already feel like they're receding into the past, pushed aside by new ones.

Grabbed one of those German sausage + round bun things for a snack and then settled down by the water. Somehow, lying there in the grass among the ants and goose poo, was kind of nice and peaceful. (It really was better than it sounds haha.) The sky was a phenomenal gradient of blue; the photo barely does it justice.

But anyway, picked up some bio gurken and headed back. On the U-bahn, saw a couple stations advertising Ménage à trois - and what do you know, the next day was the last for the display! So of course I had to head over to the Bundeskuntshalle on Sunday.
Had a couple transportation fails that week. For example, while not really paying attention (or expecting other buses to go through the stop) somehow managed to get on the wrong bus and ended up some place new... adventure! There was also one night where I was supposed to go check out a WG (flat-share) at 7:30, and possibly another one at 8:30, but somehow, writing down the addresses in a rush that morning, I managed to reverse them.

So basically I showed up at the 8:30 that I was maybe-going-to-drop-by-maybe-not at 7:30, only realizing my mistake upon arrival. And considering they were about 3km apart, there was no way to get to the other. *sigh* The people at the supposed-to-be-8:30 were all pretty nice. One thing one of the guys said kind of resonated - we were talking about furniture (and basically just the necessities of bed, desk & chair) and how living abroad, you learn to settle for a lot less and lower your standards. Which I suppose is true - and maybe not a bad thing.

^ This post reads like a fumbling mess. Whatever, it's 2 in the morning, time to crash. G'night!