14 may 2005

(Ten days go by. My parents come to visit, we go to Belgium. We see Bruges, a walled medieval city, and at night some folks I met on the internet give me a whirlwind tour of Bruges nightlife and Belgian beer. We go to Brussels and get to see the royal glass houses, a series of impossibly big and blooming greenhouses that are open to the public only four weeks a year. I take the speedy Thalys train to Paris. I meet Paul from NYC. We stay with his sister Marcia, who is working there, and Paul generously accommodates my landscape architecture itinerary: Luxembourg Gardens, Tuileries, Promenade Plantee, Parc de la Vilette. The last is surprisingly fun despite much of the criticism in landscape architecture literature, by the way. In case you were wondering. We walk around for hours on end to the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dam, and all the other expected places. We eat many, many crepes. Mostly with chocolate but some with cheese and mushrooms. Paris is fun and exciting and the store windows are marvels, but it makes me happy, once again, about the Netherlands, where the people are friendly and there are lots of bicycles. We take the speedy Thalys train to Amsterdam. We hang out and do that not-really-your-normal-life-cause-you-have-a-guest thing. We eat more crepes, but they are slightly thicker and we call them pannekoken.)