Random Thoughts From Elaine: Day 13: It's too soon...

to say au revoir to Paris. This was our last day in Paris. We had a late afternoon train back to Brussels. So we did what we did on any other travel day. We slept in and checked out late. We had pretty much covered everything we wanted to do and this last day was to a catch-all for the missed things. In reality, I think we covered much more than I had originally planned. So for today our first stop was the Galerie Lafayette aka shopping heaven.

It was a 5 minute walk to this store and it's well known for it's amazing dome which was really quite breathtaking.

As you can see from the last picture, it's also known for housing every brand known to man. Full on mini stores of every big name designer: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Hermes, Cartier, everything you can think of and they carried a lot of merchandise. The Galerie actually has two buildings one for men and one for women. We only stayed in the women's because the hubster was tired of shopping. The fabulous thing about this place is it's on stop shopping, but all purchases made could be counted towards the global tax refund.

I ended up purchasing some amazing motorcycle boots from the french brand, Mellow Yellow. The leather was luxurious and I love them. I also bought Shu Uermura eyeliner. I love this stuff and they stopped selling it at Nordstrom. Figured I might as well and then a chunky silver ring to get me to the refund level.

My boots

Once we finished shopping and filing the paperwork for our refund, I remembered that I wanted some boba since we saw some people drinking it the night before. We walked over to the shop and I got my French boba. It was pretty much the same as on Convoy St here in San Diego, but way more expensive!! It was the experience!

BOBA!

Yum!

We still had some time to kill, so I suggested that we go to where it all started and see the Eiffel Tower during the day. We hopped on the metro and headed towards the tower.

We took a different route for a reason I can't remember and we past these picturesque buildings. I would totally live here if the opportunity came up.

It was easier to take pictures when it's not dark out.

My FAVORITE picture of the entire trip. LOVE

We were getting cold and tired, so we decided to hightail it back to the hotel and just hang out in the lobby until it was time to go. We thought we could exit the park at the end, but there was a race being set up and the end of the park was blocked off! So many extra unneeded steps, but we were rewarded with this wonderful picture. A man taking a woman's picture where it looks like they are trying to have the Eiffel Tower penetrate the women. CLASSY!

I actually think this was the second pose. She adjusted herself because I think looking over this shoulder would get her good side...

We used one of our last remaining metro tickets to get back to the hotel. The hubster promptly relaxed on a couch in the lobby while I packed away today's purchases and printed out our tickets for our flight home.

We rested up, then gathered up our things and headed to Gare du Nord, retracing our steps from 5 days ago. We arrived with plenty of time and we hung out in the station eating pain au chocolat. The train ride was uneventful and we rode second class this one and only time. The first class experience is definitely better, but not worth the price difference for this particular journey. When purchasing tickets for the other train rides, the price difference between first and second class was a few euro, but not the case for this ride. I think we bought this one a little later than the others which we bought at the 6 month mark.

We arrived in Brussels at the Midi station. Since we had already been to this station, we knew where we were going. We took the metro to La Brockere which was the station we had used previously and walked to our hotel. It was easier to find than the original hotel since we had our bearings, but the hotel was under construction and we almost missed it. Once we checked in and had a chance to catch our breath, we went out looking for chocolate since we didn't buy any on our first visit.

The original shop we wanted to purchase from was closed, so we went to the only one that was open. I guess that's the different between Wednesday night shopping and Friday/Saturday night shopping. We slowly realized that our €30 would buy us a lot of chocolate. The original plan was to send the last of our Euros buying chocolate, but I forgot to calculate the €15 we'd need for our train tickets to the airport. We ended up with a small box for me and 5 bars for gifts.

Once we spent the last of our Euros, we went searching for dinner. We walked down that same row of restaurants and we picked one that looked busy. This was our biggest mistake of the trip and I hate how we ended our last night in Europe. It was a terrible experience. We had the worst service ever and we had grown accustomed to the lack of service in Europe, but this was far and beyond terrible. We definitely fell into a tourist trap. The food was terrible and it took forever. I think because we asked about the advertised prix fixe menu that we got shitty service. Even though the food sucked, it made for good pictures.

The hubster ordered salmon and I ordered a seafood tower that looked amazing everywhere we walked by, but really didn't live up to my expectations. The end of our meal was the shittiest waffle we've ever had. To tope off the shitty meal, the fucking waiter had the balls to ask how much gratuity to add even though service should be included with the price of the meal. He stood there over the hubster until he wrote in the amount. What a jackass. It almost makes me never want to come back to Brussels. What a shame!