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After packing a few things and talking to Mindy on the phone, I left for the airport very early in the morning to catch my flight to Chicago.

I was running a little later than I had planned, but check-in was a breeze because I used one of those kiosks and I didn't check any luggage.

In Chicago, I had about a five hour layover. I ate at McDonald's, talked to my Dad on the phone, sat around, walked around, and talked to Mindy during the layover.

The guy who was supposed to sit next to me on the flight to Brussels ended up sitting elsewhere on the plane. And so I was off to Belgium, finally!

The flight to Belgium was not too bad. It lasted about eight hours, but I slept as much as I could--about three hours. The in-flight movies, however... Those were bad.

One of the cool things I saw from the plane was a ship in the Atlantic Ocean that had this ridiculously bright light that lit up everything around it. In the vicinity of this ship was a bunch of smaller boats.

I think I also flew right over London, but I can't be certain.

I arrived in Belgium at about 7:30 AM local time (11:30 PM mountain time). There was a thin layer of fog over the area when we landed, and the sun was just barely beginning to rise.

Mindy met me in the airport. It was so nice to see her. We rode the bus and a tram back to her apartment.

After I dropped my stuff off at her place, we went to the grocery store, bought some Frosties (Frosted Flakes) with my euros, ate said Frosties, and then I walked with her to class.

While she was in class I just hung out in her school's computer lab where I looked up trains to Paris and wrote some e-mails telling everyone that I had made it safely to Belgium.

After her class, we took the bus downtown. We visited this old stone wall from medieval times. We visited Grand Place, which is basically at the city's center. We also visited Mannekin-Pis, which is a small statue of a little boy taking a piss. It's a fairly famous Brussels landmark, and people often dress up the statue in various outfits. This time, however, he was pissing in the nude.

We got great waffles from a place next to Mannekin-Pis.

While Mindy went to her evening class, I went to the grocery store and just hung out.

Later on in the evening, I took a shower and fell asleep faster than I ever have before.

After a well-deserved, long night of deep sleep, Mindy and I got ready to spend the day in Brugge, Belgium, which is a small, old city in northern Belgium.

We stopped at the grocery store to get some food and water, walked to the Etterbeek train station and bought two train tickets to Brugge.

The train ride to our connection was interesting because we had no clue where we were half the time. In fact, we didn't even realize when we finally reached the Midi station (Zuidstation), which was where we had to switch trains. So, we just sat on the train for about 10 minutes until we finally realized that the train wasn't going anywhere and that were at the Midi station.

We rode the train to Brugge. The Belgian countryside is fairly scenic, but not very exciting.

When we arrived in Brugge, we walked from the train station into town. Cobblestone streets and old buildings abound.

We found the Markt after wandering around for a little while. The Markt was very nice. It wasn't too crowded, but it was definitely bustling. Mindy and I had seen the film "In Bruges" a few months before, and a lot of it was filmed in the Markt.

After eating Doritos for lunch, we found the Burg area, walked into an old church, and then we found the canals.

After buying a waffle and some chocolate from a small sweet shop, we boarded a boat to take a 30-minute canal tour of Brugge. The boat tour was pretty cool.

After the boat tour, we headed back to the Markt to go up the Belfort, but it had already closed. I was a little disappointed because, of all the things I wanted to do on this trip, I think going up the Belfort was one of the things I looked forward to most.

After getting denied at the Belfort, we just walked around a little more, and then rode the train back to Brussels' Central Station. We couldn't figure out how to get back to the Etterbeek station via train or tram, so we walked to a bus stop and rode the number 95 bus back to Etterbeek.

We found that the locals in Brugge speak English much more readily than the locals in Brussels. It was probably because Brugge is more of a tourist destination than Brussels, which also has lots of tourists, but it has way more going on than just tourism.

At night, Mindy made me a nice macaroni and sauce dinner, and then we went to sleep.

After the long day yesterday, we slept in until about 11:00 AM. With nothing much on the agenda for most of the day, we joined her roommates on a trip downtown.

After we got off the bus, however, I sensed that Mindy's roommates weren't particularly interested with having our company, so we split up and went our separate ways.

Mindy and I walked to Grand Place where I bought some awesome frites (French fries).

We then walked to Mannekin-Pis. This time he was wearing a costume!

We got another Belgian waffle, and went back home so we could get ready for our overnight train trip to Paris to meet up with Steve.

We took the number 95 bus and then the number 27 bus to the Midi station (Zuidstation) because the Etterbeek train station was closed.

After we picked up our Thalys train tickets, I ate a slice of pizza at Sbarro and just relaxed in the Thalys lounge before boarding.

The train ride, which goes 180 MPH for the hour and a half ride to Paris, was rather smooth and comfortable, even though it was crowded and Mindy and I were sitting across from each other instead of next to each other.

I slept part of the way to Paris. We met Steve at our destination, Paris' North Station. Interestingly, there was no customs or immigration after we got off the train.

I drank a Coke at McDonald's (and confirmed the existence of the Royal with Cheese mentioned in the movie, Pulp Fiction) while we sat with Steve and planned out our night.

Shortly after getting kicked out of McDonald's because we had beer, we set out on foot toward the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) Basilica, which I had never heard of, but Steve really wanted to see.

There was a massive crowd there, sort of inexplicably. And less than five minutes after we arrived, suddenly a fireworks show began, which was frenzied, ridiculously energetic, and just plain awesome. Welcome to Paris!

After the fireworks show, we walked back to the North Station. After pounding a few beers, we all had to use the bathroom, but we couldn't find any! Of course, Steve and I didn't really need a bathroom, but Mindy did. Since the public bathrooms in Europe are not free (seriously, they charge money to use the bathrooms), when it's late, they just close them altogether. McDonald's did have an open bathroom, however. Of course, the mechanism to collect money and control access to the men's room didn't work, so I ended having to use the women's restroom.

So, after my first hour or so in Paris, it was clear that the place knows how to party. It was also clear that the place is as dirty as Doug had described (if not more so).

From the North Station, we took the subway to the center of Paris. We first walked to Notre Dame, which was dimly lit, but fairly impressive nonetheless.

Then we walked along the Seine River toward the Louvre--the famous museum from the Da Vinci Code and the home of the Mona Lisa and other world famous works of art. Along the way, we caught our first glimpse of the (unlit) Eiffel Tower at around 2:00 AM. We also saw some of the largest rats I've ever seen scurrying amongst the garbage down by the river.

From the Louvre, we walked the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe. That was a long walk. I was actually kind of hitting the wall by the time we left the Louvre at around 3:00 AM, but I kept going. It took an hour to get from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe! Even though it was after 3:00 AM, the bars, clubs, restaurants and the street itself were still packed with people.

After photographing the Arc de Triomphe, we walked some backroads to the Eiffel Tower. I cannot tell you how annoying it was that they didn't keep one of the world's most famous landmarks lit late enough so we could see it lit. It made the night feel rather anticlimactic (but it was still very fun).

The Eiffel Tower was being guarded by a group of three Uzi-toting French soliders strolling along a sidewalk adjacent to the massive landmark. I sensed that they didn't particularly like the fact that we just walked right through them because they were walking too slowly.

Nevertheless, there it was: the Eiffel Tower! It had sort of an eerie look to it because of the lighting (or lack thereof). I took some pictures the best I could, but they didn't come out particularly well. The small, flexible tripods Steve had bought for Mindy and I were nice, but the extreme angle needed to capture the height of the tower (we were practically right under the thing) rendered the tripod mostly useless in this situation.

After photographing the Eiffel Tower, we hopped on a subway train back to North Station. Since we got there a little early, we stopped at one of the restaurants outside of the train station. Steve ate, but I just wasn't in the mood for food at this point. Instead, I had a Coke that cost $4! It did wake me up a bit, which was nice, because I was extremely exhausted and cold.

On the TV near our table was a preseason NBA basketball game happening on the west coast of the US. It would've been only about 9:00 PM there! Weird.

Shortly thereafter, we boarded the Thalys train back to Brussels. Both Mindy and I slept the entire way back.

It was very cold in Brussels in the morning. I was chilled to the bone. The wait for the number 95 bus after we rode the number 27 was difficult, but we made it back. We tried to watch WALL-E in bed, but I fell asleep almost instantly.

We woke up early in the afternoon. For the most part, I felt completely rested. What I needed, however, was some food--some American food. So, we rode the bus downtown to eat at one of the few McDonald's restaurants in Belgium. McDonald's never tasted so good.

After eating, we walked around Brussels again. We visited some spots we hadn't yet visited the last few days, such as the the Royal Galleries of Saint-Hubert, which is basically a shopping mall. By Grand Place we saw this old guy playing American songs on guitar with such gusto that he had quite a crowd watching him.

On the way back down to the bus stop, we stopped for a beer at one of the million patio restaurants in the city.

At night, I ate some Frosties cereal for dinner, packed up my stuff a little bit, and Mindy and I just hung out for a while before falling asleep.

I woke up in the morning, packed the rest of my stuff, and headed off to the airport via the same tram and bus routes I took when I arrived.

After sadly saying goodbye to Mindy, I made it through customs with no problem and flew back to Chicago.

The flight was fine. I didn't sleep at all because it was daytime. The in-flight movies were terrible again. Don't bother seeing "Speed Racer" or "August Rush".

Interestingly, the route they fly to and from the US goes very far north before heading south again. In fact, we flew so far north that we nearly flew over the southern tip of Greenland! I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Greenland, but I didn't see it. I'm not sure if it was because it was covered by clouds, if we didn't actually fly over it, or if I just wasn't paying attention when we did.

My layover in Chicago was even longer this time--almost six hours. I talked to my parents on the phone, ate at McDonald's, and talked to Mindy.

I was pretty tired by the time I boarded the flight back to Salt Lake City. In fact, I don't remember a single second of the flight back to Salt Lake because I slept the entire flight.

It was very cold when I arrived back in Salt Lake at about 9:15 PM local time (5:15 AM Brussels time). I got off at the wrong bus stop in the airport parking lot, so I had a long, cold walk to my car. I drove home from the airport to conclude my long day of international travel.