The European Extravaganza!

Sleep(not)Well in Brussels... HP 6 more traumatizing than ever!

First off: Catherine and Taryn - DO NOT STAY AT SLEEPWELL IN BRUSSELS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The YHA hostel is probably all booked up, since it was booked when we tried to get it 4 months ago, but seriously, if for some reason you feel like staying for extra time in Brussels (which really, what's the point? There is nothing to do there... at all. Seriously), splurge and get a hotel. Why, you might ask, should we get a hotel and not stay at Sleepwell? BECAUSE THERE ARE BED BUGS!!!! Thankfully neither of us were savaged too badly (although I did get a nasty bite on my big toe that swelled up for two days), but the sheer terror of finding bugs crawling around your bed is enough to haunt you forever. Laura smashed one with her fist after seeing it scurrying up the wall at 5:30 am, and the blood... oh the blood. The suckers are hard to kill... unless they are filled with you! Ew! Then they explode very easily... Seriously... the terror. It is still fresh in our minds.

Also, we were being all mean in our last post and were not letting you in on the truth: Brussels sucks. There is nothing there. Go anywhere else. Even Vienna. We would move to NAPLES before ever returning there. The Manneken Pis was... well, I don't know who is reading this blog anymore and don't want to offend anyone, so let's just say it wore no costumes and was way too tiny. And the Grande Place is fug. Super fug. Clinton and Stacey need to go and give it a makeover or something. Honestly... save your hard earned euros and just go somewhere else. We are very sorry that this SPECT thingy is in Brussels... because it is so bad.

OK, moving on... we have never been so happy to leave a place, but most especially because after being chased from the hostel by the vampiric bed bugs, we knew we were going to London. The Eurostar ride was quick and painless, just as we expected. Once we got to Waterloo Station, we managed to get tickets for the Tube, and began our journey up the Northern line (BTW Dad, some of the British pounds you gave me were no good... out dated or something... but I changed them over at a bank for crisp new 20s, so no worries). We wanted to transfer at Leicester square onto the Picadilly line, but alas, this was in the heart of where one of the bombs went off. After verifying with a man that we were not at Russell square (where we wanted to go) but were in fact at Leicester Square (which incidentally, we knew but he didn't seem to understand us at first), we were told we would have to take the bus. Of course, no one in the station could actually help us, either in terms of where to catch the bus, which bus to catch, or how much it cost to take said form of transportation. We hauled ourselves out onto the street and decided we would try to catch a cab. They were all full. So we did what we do in every city we visit, and we walked... from Leicester Square to the British Museum (when we told a girl in Bath about this, she was shocked). We of course did not have a map, and so we just used tourist signs to navigate our way there.

After checking in, we then found our way to Oxford Street where we found the Waterstones. We couldn't figure out why no one was there for Harry Potter, so we finally asked someone where we should queue up and she told us that it wasn't this branch, but the other Oxford Street location that was doing the big party. So we ran. Through the streets of London. And finally, we made it to the other location, where quite a long line had formed.

We waited in line for 6 hours for the book, and while we might not have been the first ones to get our grubby little hands on it, we were numbers 290 and 291, which wasn't too shabby when you think that there were over 2000 people there. We had to endure a scary dirty family next to us (anyone who has read the book: they seemed like Morfin et al.) and an annoying, whiny Canadian dude from Manitoba who was behind us. If we thought we were upset about our place in line, he was a hundred times more. And a billion times more annoying.

Whatever. We got the book, and the stamp saying we had received it on opening night. We were indeed, Very Important Potter fans. Neither of us could read it because we were in such a state of shock, so we wandered home (getting lost along the way and having to approach a bobby for help... who also took a while to locate himself on the map and offered to buy our books for £1... we offered to stay lost) and went to bed.

Next day, we got up and went to Hyde Park (after stopping in at Marks and Spencers for some snacks). We spent the day in the Serringetti grass (so scorched!) reading the book and listening to some band warm up. We thought the stage was perhaps left over from live 8, but we had in fact been smack dab in the middle of an REM concert. Awesome.

Not enough time to tell you about our adventures in Bath. Just know that I had a moment as I finished the book in the bus station. Such tears! We both think it might be our favourite book yet. If you haven't bought a copy, do so.

Update later.

posted by Steph @ 12:13 pm