Last stop Lille and Belgian border

Pulling into one of the most northern cities of France in the dark, my faithful travel companion Beth and I came to the conclusion that there were in fact two hostels listed under "Lille", and that OUR hostel was in fact not in Lille at all, but in some podunk suburb outside of the city that no French man or woman could tell us efficiently how to get to by car. While I believe that collective patience had been tested on the majority of our night time city arrivals, we both took the easier and more carefree approach to the setback by negating the fact that the other hostel had even been paid for and to just get a new one within the city itself. We decided to park the car in a pay spot which was free at night, and I had a wonderful time speaking with two silly cooks on their cigarette break in my broken French that had gotten us around for the past few days, asking them if we could legally park there without being towed. From what I remember, the conversation spawned from parking to drinking, "making the party", and some other nonsensical banter before we wandered off into the city to find a new hostel.

January in the north of France means cold and rainy, but with some insiders' tips we headed directly to a cozy restaurant called Le Broc', which specializes in fondues and all sorts of other tasty cheese platters. Being cold and rainy, the steaming pot of melted cheese with potatoes and meat that I ordered was insanely spot-hitting, but poor Beth had fallen victim to immune system failure (AIDS), couldn't eat her food, and was absolutely miserable. Even though she wasn't well, we still stayed out for a beer and a friendly bar tender invited us to a drink and spoke to us about his time in Spain before we retired to our pleasing new hostel.

The next day I took off on my own because Beth couldn't quite hack life outside of the bed and saw the main square that boasts a giant Ferris wheel and the Grand Palace, a theater, the Citadelle of Lille, the cathedral of Notre-Dame-de la-Treille de Lille (quite a name, I know), and an unnecessarily gigantic shopping center to buy stuff for more magic sandwiches. The city still had ornately adorned Christmas decorations which made the cobblestone streets that much more beautiful.

We managed to hit up a large weekend market in a suburb of Lille that was full of tents with clothes, art, books, food, and the most chicken rotisserie machines I've ever seen. With just enough time to peruse the market, have a bit to eat, see some nasty pantless man on the subway and grab our things, we easily caught our train to Brussels.

What a weird city. I've heard many European people say that Brussels is the ugliest capital city in all of Europe, but I'll be damned before I give them credit for their comments. The city sure doesn't have a consistent flow to it, with gothic, neo-classic, modern business and plain block-style buildings all packed in next to each other, but this did nothing to give me a bad impression of the city. We trotted randomly about the city, seeing the Manneken Pis (famous bronze statue of a small boy peeing into a fountain), Grand Place (central square of Brussels), Brussels Stock Exchange (no explanation necessary), and in the evening went to the Delirium Café which has 2,000 beers on tap and is full of posters, plaques and advertisements of beers through the years. Beth was not capable of continuing, but I decided to stay out and drink absinthe with random people I met in the street until terrible hours of the morning. This absinthe is serious business, 80 proof, that you take in shots traditionally by pouring the shot over a cube of sugar, setting it on fire, dropping the cube into the shot and taking it. This sends you on a mind bending drunken night with 3 Dutch men who were raised on farms, hate pigs, love to talk about how cheap the Dutch are, and have no sense of time, and /or sanity.

Beth took off for her plane earlier than I did so, alone, I single-handedly (and moderately still confused from the delirium bar-absinthe challenge the night before) took down the famous french fries and waffles of Brussels. I was also able to visit the Cantillon Brewery (one that specializes in Kreik style fruited beers) before heading to ANOTHER ON TIME RYAN AIR FLIGHT! Bus to plane to bus, oh wait, no buses available ´cause Zaragoza hates buses to Logroño past 7pm, just the last train that goes to Logroño which leaves at like 2 in the morning and costs a fortune (but does give you pillows, blankets, headphones, ear plugs, toothbrush, travel bag, and electric reclining chairs).

What a trip.