On exploring, stressing and planning.

I just placed a coat on the seat next to me because I realized that my lovely friend from the other night was not kidding when he said that he comes to this bar every day...

I would recommend traveling solo to anyone that has the guts to do it. There is so much that I have learned about so many people and places that I don't even know where to start. Also, it is amazing how much I have learned about myself. I didn't realize how important it is to me to know what I am looking at and exploring, until I went to Europe without my sister, Julia. In the past, she was always my personal tour guide that read up on every city before arrival and smoothly recited facts about everything we saw. 

Now, I spend hours reading up on cities before I visit them. I've realized how much I love it. I am totally now the annoying girl that spouts out facts at random, but hey, someone's gotta be that person, right? Like, I literally know that people don't care and still can't stop sharing my excitement about good deals and beautiful sights and good places to eat. Some people call me their personal "travel gnome," and others simply don't respond... And I just get way too excited when I find other people that love planning. 

That is definitely a problem I have run into. I am used to planning for trips with others who want to plan ahead and know what they are getting themselves into. But here, I have stumbled across some amazing people who don't want to plan and that trust me way more than I want them too. I ask help for picking a place to stay and the answer is... "I'm sure you'll make the right decision!" I ask where they want to go... "Well, where do you think we should go?" While I do love planning, I get so stressed out thinking that people are going to hate what I choose, but so far it has worked out OK!

Now that I'm done pretending that this is a diary, let me recap the last few days...

Monday. After lunch, we split into teams and headed into brussels for a cultural exercise. Without getting too into it, I'll just describe it by saying that we had to (in two hours) discover the history, sights, culture, nightlife and religion of the Belgian people... by talking to the people in Brussels. Thankfully, the day before, I had gone into Brussels and done that walking tour of the sights of Brussels, so I was prepared to report on the sights. The problem was that we had to take pictures with all of the sights. Thankfully, Amy immediately told the group that my iPad would be of better use with me using my Rick Steves' guidebook than me sitting at the Starbucks in town on the internet. So, her and I set out to take pictures with every single sight in Brussels that we had time for. Of course, we made time for waffles (with strawberries, bananas and dark chocolate. To DIE FOR). 

Monday evening:
All of the girls went out for Jillisa (one of the missionaries) 's birthday at the Italian restaurant across the tracks. The 18 of us enjoyed everything from pizza and salad to calzones and pasta. When I got back back to the Zav center,

thankfully someone was running out to get beer, so I was able to settle in with a Belgian brew while applying for jobs.

*Recap of the week continues in the next post..!