France, Brussels and Amsterdam

I failed to mention in my previous post about a key happening on the journey from Barcelona to Chateauroux. There was a french guy sitting directly behind me who was the loudest breather I have ever heard in my life! On top of that, he breathed through his nose and to add more insult and thus maximum amplification of sound, he had a nose the size of an small-medium apricott. I almost lost it. Not even my iPod could fully block out the sound of his breathing. Luckily that was only a 4.5 hour journey.

In Chateauroux, Audrey and I drank a lot of French wine. There was one local wine called Touraine which I really enjoyed. In addition, I ate so much French cheese and fresh baguette to last me until my next time in France. I never knew cheese could be so good. Anyway, I went to her school and met some of her students and teachers. Then, for about 25 minutes, I played piano for the music teacher who is a blind french man. He played for me as well. What I found most shocking and impressive was that he played classical music. I feel that Jazz is easier to play when blind because one can just improvise (i.e. Stevie Wonder\Ray Charles). Whereas, with classical, one has to read the music and all the corresponding details that accompany the notes. He played the 1st movement of the moonlight sonata and just missed 1 note. Other than that and the cheese and wine, we went to a nice dinner where I had a french steak or ''boeuf'' as they call is.

Brussels was good. We went to the Grand Place and has mussels and frittes (freedom fries with mayonaise). We then proceeded to walk around and view the entire city while eating Belgian waffles. We decided not to do any museums as they take time and since we were only in Brussels for the day, I wanted to see the city. We also saw the Mannekan Piss, which is the little statue of the boy peeing.

Amsterdam was ___________ (fill in the blank). But in addition, there were 16,000 crazy Scotts because of a soccer match between Scotland and Holland. As you can imagine, tons of Kilts, drinking, and singing. I learned a few Scottish soccer songs but mainly, they just sing whatever comes to mind.

Pictures: coming...