I’m back! And I am sleepy. I’ve honestly never had jet-lag this bad before, despite the previous international travel I’ve done. Maybe the reason I’ve been trying to crawl under my desk at work and take a power nap is because we did too much on this vacation. We hit 4 cities in 9 days, stayed in 6 different hotels, took 5 trains between 2 countries, and went to bed around 1am every night. I have about a billion pictures to show you guys, but I’ve only uploaded a few from the very first day because someone left her macbook charger in a hotel in Ghent but didn’t realize it until she was in Bruges 3 days later. That someone might have collapsed on the floor of the hotel room and cried like a baby over it too, who knows.
The good news is that last night I went to the Apple store and shelled out $80 for a new one, and I would’ve gone straight home and edited photos all night but I had a hot date with my mom. She had made a huge pot of meatballs and spaghetti sauce so I wouldn’t have to worry about fending for food when we got back, so we had a girl’s night last night. You might be wondering where Boyfriend was for all of this; if you guessed that he had to wake up at 4am the morning after we got back to fly to Mexico for 3 days for a business trip, you’d be correct. Oy.
So, yes, pictures are coming, I promise! Starting Monday I’ll do a humongous (I’m probably just delirious, but that word looks wrong. Is that really how it’s spelled?) post each day of photos from the trip. I’m more excited about it than you are, trust me.
In the meantime, let’s talk about a topic near and dear to my heart: shopping! Obviously I didn’t do a ton of it on the trip, because I was too busy professing my love for the Eiffel Tower or imbibing sour cherry lambics all afternoon. And because, hey, I was on vacation! I made one pit stop in Bruges to a Mango store to eye some mint colored jeans, but that was it. Even in Paris I didn’t buy anything! Unless you count macarons or a tiny Eiffel Tower keychain.
I realize that vacations aren’t about the things you bought or the material items you bring back with you, but rather the things you saw and the memories you made. But if that were entirely true no one would have invented the terms “souvenir” or “no foreign transaction fees.”
Or plopped a Zara Home store a 5 minute walk from my hotel in Brussels.
Yes. A Zara Home store. I didn’t even know they had such a thing! All of my impressive self control flew right out the window when I saw it. I dragged Boyfriend inside and commenced the most materialistically satisfying half an hour of my life. Here’s what I managed to come away with:

Pillow / Tealight Holder
The pillow acted as a nice padding agent to cushion the beer we backed in our suitcase to bring home, and I’m keeping it far away from Fitz, Fabric Destroyer Extraordinaire. I’ve already lit a tealight in that candle holder, and I know I’m a total Crazy Candle Lady but seriously, it’s beautiful. And it was only €7! I could have spent the whole day in that store, but Boyfriend must have been allergic to some fragrance in there because he was sneezing uncontrollably so I took pity on him and made it quick.
However, here are some other goodies I spotted which I would have been more than happy to bring home with me, and that I’m slightly kicking myself for not snatching up when I had the chance. Read more