live and learn

so we did not quite make it to bruges as planned. me, meg, our new friend marciel from mexico, mike and trevor go to the train station planning to go to bruges but soon realize the ticket counter is closed so the only tickets we could by were out of the machine and the wonderful security guards told us - go to liege! its great!... the LAST time we ever listen to the security guards. we bought our 5 euro tickets to liege and hopped on the train. we were pumped and excited thinking we were going to this great city because well- the security guard said so! we had heard bits and pieces and we thought it would be just a nice weekend. not quite.

so we arrive in liege and have a taxi take us to a cheap hostel. we check in and everything is great and there are people at the bar downstairs. it looks like a castle and our room is awesome. so far- we like liege. we go out to a main strip of bars and have a really nice time until we have our first encounter with the french belgians. we try to buy fries and a kabob and we pay and wait for our money- they never come. the man starts screaming at us in french saying we never paid- took our food and threw it away! we got into quite the argument to end up foodless and cold on the streets. we head home.

the next day we wake up and go to the aquarium. its a pretty pathetic aquarium but they had some interesting fish and taxidermy that kept us occupied for a few hours. we found this lime green giant eel that was extremely fascinating at the time. it continues to haunt all of our dreams. it was unlike any eel any of us have ever seen. i will have to post a picture when mike loads his pictures. but i must warn you- it is veryyyy scaryyy!!!

ok so sure lovely day at the aquarium, we head back to nap and then the plan is to go out for a lovely valentines day dinner. here is a piece of advice- dont bother trying to communicate with ANYONE in a french speaking country. literally NOONE would speak english. not a single person. we tried going to 4 different restaurants for dinner where we were abruptly turned away. it was fairly early and none of us could understand why we could not be served. every restaurant we went into they would say "COMPLETE." we started to get really upset and 2 hours later we finally found our way to an italian pizza place where still no one spoke English- but they were at least kind.

we ended up going to bed early after dinner and leaving early the next morning. the french are mean people who treat you terribly and refuse to acknowledge your existence. the boys had a really tough time accepting people being so mean. it was the first time any of us had experienced such discrimination for being american. we hated every minute of it and could not wait to go home. 

i dont think i will be going back to liege ever again.