Forget Paris

Okay, so the last time we wrote we were on our way to Brussels for lunch, then on to Paris. We decided that we had to do laundry, and of course we had to at least pass through the Red Light District, which meant that there was no way we would make it to Brussels for lunch. No problem, we thought. We would be there in time for dinner, and then on to Paris. Things did not go quite as planned.

Our first problem was the fact we missed the train to Brussels that we were planning on going on. We were at the station in plenty of time. We were at the platform. We watched a train pull up, and sat there while it loaded up people, sat for awhile, then pulled away. A few moments later, we realized that-oh crap- that was OUR train. (imagine exclamation marks- we cannot seem to find them on the keyboard.) Luckily there was one more train in about an hour, so we decided to take it. About this time we also found out that to go to Paris on any train required reservations. Well, crap. We ran upstairs to make reservations on the Paris bound train, but the line was so long we did not even get close to speaking to somebody. We decided to get on the Brussels train and make reservations in Brussels for the last train to Paris, or if that did not work, we would stay in Brussels and do a mini tour of it before heading off to Paris. We got on the Brussels bound train, and before we even got to the next stop, we realized that we would not make it there in time to make the Paris train. It was getting late, we still had a few hours to go, and we did not have hotel reservations. Something (guardian angel, said Cathy) gave us a bad feeling about this plan, and we got off at the next Amsterdam stop and went back to the hotel. We would get on the morning Brussels train, do the mini tour, then off to Paris...or so we thought.