Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Saturday, July 23, 2011 Brussels to Paris

Most important for today.  Elaine’s birthday today!!

We slept until 9:00 am. Reba and Bridget left much earlier to go to the airport. We have not heard from them so assume they got on the flight to Newark NJ.

We took the subway from the hotel to the train station to get on the 12:15 pm train to Paris. The trains run every hour to Paris but they were all sold out of tickets until 3:15 pm and no senior tickets available. We decided to go with the full price ticket and get back to Paris. We purchased the tickets and then looked for a place for lunch.

We were walking outside the train station in Brussels after buying our tickets and I saw this OUTSIDE ON THE STREET - a Portable Plastic Open Urinal Unit, “four man” urinal unit. I probably would not have paid any attention to it but I saw a guy standing there using it! I have seen some combo MEN and WOMEN Restrooms (sink area in the middle with men stalls on one side and women stalls on the other side). REALLY this is a bit much – on the street?

Outside Urnial at the Brussels Train Station

We got went by this as soon as possible.  We found a restaurant with free wi-fi and had a really nice lunch and got caught up on our emails, etc. We got to our train car and there were a lot more people trying to get on the train than any train we had taken before. We finally got on and there was luggage everywhere and we could not find the seats with the numbers we had on our tickets. I found a conductor and ask him about it and he said there were no more seats. I said aren't these reserved seats? He looked at our tickets and then told us to come with him and he would put us in FIRST CLASS. I said lead the way!!! What a nice treat for my birthday. We got free wine and snacks and wi-fi on the ride in First Class. WE FORGOT THAT THE TOUR DE FRANCE WAS ON SUNDAY so that was the reason all the trains were so full.

No comments:

Post a Comment