Bruges and Paris

This morning I went on a walk before breakfast to get some alone time to myself. I ended up getting lost, but made it back to the hostel no problem just in time for breakfast! We packed up our rooms and drove into the city of Bruges. We got out and had 5 hours, from 9:00 to 14:00 to explore. The weather was kind of ominous, and began to rain about a half hour later. I nonetheless got a pin for Bruges, a bar of Belgian chocolate that says “Belgian Chocolate” on it, and an extra pair of sunglasses for the latter part of the trip. In the late morning I went to a café with Haley, Sam, Elsa, Kyra, and Eric to get dry and warm again. A few of them wrote postcards and got those mailed afterwards (something I will do in the coming days too!). With the rest of our free time we ate some lunch, went inside a church, and checked out a few clothing stores. One of those stores was a cool shop that sold vintage items. I even tried on some things just to mess around and have some fun. We couldn’t do a whole lot else because it was pretty wet and cold, but I enjoyed what we did have time for.

A little more from Bruges

Then we drove to Paris. The bus ride took a little over 4 hours, and the weather had cleared up a bit. We first stopped at our hotel and got our room numbers. I will be staying with Tyler, an exchange student in Croatia from Canada for the next 2 nights. However, he isn’t arriving until tomorrow by plane because of complications with his passport. We ate dinner in the hotel and had a briefing about the rules and plans for the coming days. For the hour of free time we had afterwards I went out with Crash, Johnny, Sam, Emilie, and Emily for a walk to see the nightlife. I am so excited for tomorrow when we have a guided tour in the morning by bus! Especially since I was in Paris 3 years ago, it will be very interesting to see the same sights from the perspective of an exchange student! 

Paris at night