Sean and I had an adventure this morning that felt like a bad joke - like we were suddenly a part of the Griswold family and everything that could go wrong did. We got up early and checked out of our hotel in order to head to the train station so we could get to the Stockel market. My mom's high school friend, Liz, lived there for a few years while on assignment for Boeing, so Sean and I wanted to explore the area and in particular, visit the Saturday market. Yesterday afternoon we had missed one of the routes on our hop on/hop off bus, but our tickets didn't expire until 10:54 am today. We had to make a decision between the bus or visiting the market, and the market won out. When we got to the station, we realized we were at the wrong one - after already paying to lock up our bags for a few hours. We removed our bags and headed to the correct station. Because we had already used what little change we had for the previous lockers, we didn't have any money to once again lock up our bags. We stopped in three different shops and no one could provide change. Sean finally popped into a cafe and bought a drink, requesting coins that we could use.
With the bags locked up, we then started searching for our connection, except that we couldn't find it. We stopped and asked about four different people who worked at the station and no one was able (or willing it seemed) to help. We finally found a line where we could buy tickets for the metro, but as we were about to ask the questions we had, a domestic dispute broke out and the teller ran out to break up the situation (which had begun to get physical). He then came in to call the police, so by the time he got around to us, he wasn't really in a mood to help and he directed us back to the buses. Frustrated, and running out of time to do anything, Sean and I decided to give up on the market and try to make it back in time to catch the hop on/hop off bus before our tickets expired (we had started this adventure at 8 am and it was about 10:15 am at this point). We grabbed the next train to the station we had come from, which was set to arrive at 10:30. At 10:30 we were still sitting on the tracks...15 minutes later, still sitting. A woman came around to tell us that there were people on the tracks so we couldn't get going (Sean and I bet that it was the crazy couple having the domestic dispute earlier). Finally, at 10:50 the train started rolling away from the station, and fortunately it was only a 5 minute ride back. We caught the bus just in time, but snuck in the back since technically our tickets had expired 5 minutes earlier (I was so frustrated at this point that I didn't even care). At least we were able to see a bit more of Brussels before we departed for Paris.
After all that, I was probably a pretty easy target for falling under Paris's spell. While our hotel isn't anything special (I may "forget" to take pictures of this one), our location can't be beat. We are just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower and just one street away from Rue Cler, a little market of shops perfect for assembling an authentic French picnic. For dinner, Sean and I strolled up Rue Cler and stopped at a shop that looked enticing to buy a rotisserie-roasted chicken and roasted potatoes tossed in herbs - we had it back in the room with a small bottle of red wine we had brought with us from Italy. It was a delicious meal and a relaxing end to our hectic day.
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