Travelling.

It’s the feeling you get when you order hot chocolate at Starbucks, the man asks for your name and you answer: “Clémentine,” and hi says: “Oh, yes…” because you do it every day. When you feel so sorry for the dogs belonging to the man begging on the corner that you buy them food. That’s when you’ve fallen for a city and started to make it your own. That’s when the real journey begins. When you smile and they smile. When people in the little shops knows what you’re going to buy, before you buy it, when people come over to talk to you randomly on the street, when everything’s new and you need help to explore. This is when the journey begins. Love.

Mari Clémentine

Waffles and flats - Brussels

So yesterday I learned a couple of things:
1. Belgian waffles are really yummy.
2. The shops and museums here close waaaay to early (6 – 7 pm)
3. Don’t wear high heels if you’re not staying only in New Street.

I can’t say we did much progress with being cultural yesterday either, breakfast-coffee at Starbucks, chocolate tasting, Belgian Waffles at Grand Place and dinner at McDonalds. Well, we’re broke travelers, what can you expect?
    I did some more shopping and we were going to the chocolate museum, but as I now know it’s closing at 16.30. Who goes to a museum at 16.30 when the shops close at 18? I’m starting to sound shopaholic, probably because even though I write that I go shopping every day I haven’t really been buying that much. Well, well…

     It’s our last day in Brussels and lesson learned – no high heels. I rather wear flats because all of a sudden you’re walking a street that looks like this:

Mari Clémentine

Picture of a City - Paris

I was walking around the Latin Quarter in Paris letting my eyes soak in everything I saw and the nose fill with the smell of autumn in the city of lights. As I had did in both, summer, winter and spring I told myself: “There is nothing more beautiful than Paris right now” and when I headed into the Jardin du Luxembourg with a Starbucks in hand, I knew I never wanted to be anywhere else. It wouldn’t help much in four weeks, but at that very moment I just sat down on one of the old green benches and watched students from LLG pass as they quit school. There is nothing a trip to beautiful Paris can’t cure and as I fetched my notebook I wanted to lock the moment inside the paper and I did.

  

So what has this got to do with everything? Well, I love Paris. And this was my experience last autumn, just running around the city of my dreams, writing and drinking hot chocolate, but now I’m going to Brussels and everything’s new… Wow, wow, 2 more days to go people! I’m so excited to just... not go to school. Yeah.

                                         

Mari Clémentine

Homesick.

I’ve bet you’ve been when you’ve been away from you family too long. I know I have. But never before while travelling. It may be strange how I nearly cry on the plane every time I have to leave Paris, but it’s still the truth. Of course it’s always good to come home, but I’ve never really missed it, like in that I’ve wanted to go home in the middle of a trip. This time I did. It was weird in a way, but maybe it was good as well. Human. Missing my friends, my dad and my boyfriend, and most of all missing my cat.
    I never went home though, and I’m happy I stayed. The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. I don’t want to finish the book in a long time, but being home at last, I’m eager to read the next chapter.

Welcome, welcome!

Sorry for about no pictures and bad quality, talking 'bout old times now and digital cameras did not exist back then, but I promise it will get much better from now on!

The first time I was travelling anywhere my parents and I went to Copenhagen in Denmark for a couple of days in the summer holiday. I was six years old and we took the boat. While there we went to the zoo, the Tivoli, up and down the main street many times a day and we ate red hot dogs.

A six-year-old me getting my picture taken at some fun Tivoli-shop

The first time I was travelling by plane we, my mom and I, were going to Gran Canaria. I was 10, the five hour flight was terribly long, but I was so excited I didn’t care. It was supposed to be a typical beach holiday, just chillin’ on the beach, but even though my mom was sure to keep me active in the child-care-fun-club-thing (Bamseklubben ayeee!) where I made a bunch of friends, one that I still have, I was set to explore the island. Therefor we went on a bus trip around half of the island, we went dolphin-watching and camel riding in the dessert. I also had an adventure on a donkey, but that’s another story… This anyway is where my obsession with travelling started and even though I’m still in school I drag my mom around the world every now and then.

At a banana plantation at Gran Canaria

So join me as I climb and camp on the Great Wall of China, try to have full conversations in French at the steps of Sacre Ceour, go to school in Brighton, hang out with old friends in Italy, get mistaken for being French in Hong Kong, meet the whole world on a boat in Halong Bay and sing karaoke in a bar in Bugibba.

Mari Clémentine. –tine like in sin, not time.