So it turns out all I had to do was go to the Belgian train website and book a ticket on the Eurostar from there and not from Eurostar’s actual website in order to use my debit card. All is well. Now I just have to wait a month and a bit…

One thing I’ve been inspired to do is visit an old bookshop and buy an old-looking book :D. I love old-looking books. The inspiration comes from a blog post I read by the blog One Book on the Shelf. The writer lives in London and wants to visit all the bookshops she can find and write a post on each of them. She’s already recommended a couple of places for me to check out!

This morning I finally got around to continuing my viewing of Band of Brothers. I’m almost half way through having watched 4 episodes. I then booked my ticket to London. I ended up chatting on Facebook with another friend from university who is studying is Salzburg (Austria) right now and is actually spending this weekend in London. She thought I was going to be there this weekend as well and said we should try to get together. That would have been so cool. She says I should come visit her in Salzburg (I wish!), but that’s a little harder to swing. There are no direct ways to get there. I would have to take a train to Munich and then from Munich have a bunch of different options (based on speed or scenery) and the possibility of multiple trains before reaching my destination. If I flew I would have to also take the train. It’s all so complicated for me. And it would take a really long time. I could probably actually drive there faster than flying or on the train. 8 hours. That’s like driving to Elliot Lake from New Dundee. I have never driven that far myself, but I’ve been in car rides longer than that since I was a kid. But there’s the issue of time as well here: I could leave early Friday, spend Friday evening, all day Saturday there, and leave again Sunday morning. It’s not really worth it. Also, I don’t actually know, but I get the feeling Austria gets more snow then Belgium…so you run into weather problems as well. And mountains…I don’t think I should drive in mountains. If we had discovered we were both over here a few months ago maybe we could have worked something out, but I don’t think it will work now. I’d love to go (my Mom would be so jealous!), but I’m just not sure it’s feasible at this point. Plus…I would totally get lost in all that train/plane switching around :P.

On another note, I think my ticket for home is booked. My Dad emailed me a few times today to let me in on prices; how come a one-way ticket is so much more expensive than a round trip? If I understand correctly, he ended up booking a round trip ticket on British Airways – I flew here on Jet Airways, which was a non-stop flight (the only one from Toronto to Brussels) – so I probably have a layover in London. I guess someone’s going to be missing their flight back ;). I don’t have all the details yet, but I think it’s December 29. I think I’m leaving here December 29…because Ontario is 6 hours behind, I would get there when it’s still December 29, right? Ha ha, I’m useless! It’s a good thing my residence permit is good until January 31, 2012!

This time last year I was also in über-organizing mode: I had to get everything organized to come here – criminal record check, contract signed, passport updated, international driver’s license (actually, that was Dec.), so many horrible pictures taken for permits and the like, high school transcript acquisition for proof of previous French experience, doctor’s check, my one mid-term for my last university course that I forgot about and therefore couldn’t graduate June 2010 as planned…is that it? I can’t even remember, it feels so long ago. At this point last year actually getting here seemed so far away. Now the time is speeding away from me at an alarming rate! I’ve tried to take my aunt’s advice (thanks Aunt Wendy ^_^) and enjoy my time here as much as possible instead of missing home. When my cousin Katie was in France for 8 months she missed home and wish she could be there; then when she got home she wanted to come back. Unfortunately you can’t have both and so I have to do my best to enjoy what I have when I have it! I am so very blessed to have been basically handed this opportunity and I’m trying to live up to that by making the most of it. I could have done a much better job of that, but I think I’ve done okay.

I also look at it this way: if I never would have done this, I most likely never would have started a blog.  Therefore I would never have made friends with all the wonderful bloggers I’ve been so fortunate to have connected with!

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