And truth be told, I’m not really nervous. This year Regionals was my thing. I was aiming to do well there, and anything above that is just a bonus. So I’m going to go, have fun, watch some other people skate, and go out and do my best without stressing out too much about how well I do. If I make finals, great, and if I don’t but I skate my best, then that is great too.

I do have a few things to do to prepare for the competition, though. Well really only one thing. Putting rhinestones on my outfit so that I’ll be even prettier. I started last night, and it was really tedious, and frustrating, and I got glue all over my fingers. But I have to say, it does make the outfit sparkle. So that’s a bonus.

Finally, Nationals are going to be streamed live over the Internets. I’m not sure if my event will be one of the ones streamed, but if it is, I will post a link so that you can all watch me precisely go around in a circle. Which I know is what you all want.

Anyway, I guess I’m prepared. I have more practice tonight and tomorrow, but let’s be honest. At this point I’m not going to make any great strides or anything. At best I can hope to fix a few small issues, and get my various steps a little more ingrained.

What I am not prepared for, and I don’t think I can be prepared for, is the mental aspect. The things I’m doing aren’t that physically complicated. It is difficult to do them well, but they aren’t insanely tricky. But mentally, they can actually get you. There are a ton of things that you have to remember, and in the end, it is a mental game. This has been reinforced to me the last several days by my coach and several of my fellow skaters who keep telling me that you have to be mentally tough.

Well here is the thing. I am not mentally tough. I am the absolute king of psyching myself out. I can psych myself out of anything. And it has already begun for skating. I’m already convinced myself that I’m going to screw up a takeoff or something, and that will surely make it a reality, which only convinces me more, which only assures it even more. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

So I’m going to do my best, but I really don’t have any clue what my best is. But hopefully I’ll have some fun, and it’ll be an adventure regardless. And honestly, I don’t really care what position I come in. I mean, after all, it is just roller skating.

Anyway, like always, I have been neglecting this. And as cliche as it is, life has been really busy lately. It should calm down pretty soon, though. Regionals are coming up in 2 weeks, and after that I should have more free time to devote to other things. Then again, there are so many other things, that perhaps it is wishful thinking to think that after Regionals things will calm down.

Which brings me neatly to the second part of my summary. I can’t thank Frans, Maria, Jeannot, and Figaro enough for what they did for me. They opened their house up to some strange American from the other side of the Atlantic, and couldn’t have been nicer to me. They went out of their way to make sure I was enjoying myself, to make sure I had delicious things to eat, and overall to make sure that I had a great trip. And especially Frans, who took 8 days and basically gave me a personalized tour of Belgium and Paris. So thank you.

Now what did I think about Europe? That’s really hard to summarize. It is like asking what someone thinks of America. Unless you are just going to take a stereotyped view of the world, it is impossible to answer. So maybe it is best to say that Europe met all of the expectations that I had for it, while at the same time being completely different than anything I could have imagined.

I think that Americans can have a tendency to romanticize “The Old Country”, and think of it as castles and old buildings and cobblestone streets. Basically we think of it just as how we left it. And that is certainly there. In Paris it is there, in Brussels it is there, and certainly in Bruges it is there. There are churches that have been around for almost 1000 years. There are curvy streets that were clearly laid out before anyone had ever thought about something like a car. There are castles where you can imagine being a Duke in the middle ages, lording over a field of serfs. That is all there for your consumption.

But just focusing on that misses a lot of other things. The high rises, and the restaurants with food from all over the world. There are modern transportation systems, and lots and lots of funny looking French cars. LOTS of funny looking French cars.

So really, it defies all expectations. You don’t know what to think. You don’t know what to look at. And when you are trying to capture it on film, or in blog posts, you find yourself completely at a loss. How do you capture Paris? I’m certainly not Hemingway, and so I don’t even know where to start. And I was only there for 3 days. You could spend 3 months there and still not know what as going on.

How do you capture a place like Belgium, with language and political issues that still don’t make a lot of sense to me?

I guess all you can do is focus in on the little snapshots, and that is what I tried to do. And it is also what I liked most about the cities and the people. Because in the little snapshots that you see, you realize that we really aren’t all that different. The people listening to their iPhones on the Metro in Paris aren’t that different from the people listening to their iPhones on the subway in New York. The people cheering for Anderlecht aren’t really that different from the people cheering for the Cardinals. The drivers stuck in traffic after a long day in the office are the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

So in the end I came away overwhelmed, and confused, and in awe. But I also came away with a feeling that the world is a much smaller place than I thought it was, and I kind of like that.

Except for all of the funny little French cars.

Well the people of Gent have turned their city center into one giant construction mud pit. They are in the middle of rebuilding parts of it, and then also building an underground bicycle parking garage. So for those of us who had decided to visit, we got to walk around in the mud. Fun.

Now, there were some interesting things there. We went in a very lovely church that is apparently very Spanish influenced. I have to say that the churches over there make our churches look kind of silly. Some quick Googling has led me to learn that this was the St. Bavo cathedral, and inside is a very famous piece of art – Lamb! And I saw it.

Then we toured a very old castle, which made me very glad that I don’t live in a period where people have to live in very old castles. And we also saw some construction equipment.

In fact, construction equipment was pretty much the main thing that I remember about Gent. That and the mud. But we did have a nice lunch, and I accomplished some shopping, so all in all, not a bad day.

The rest of the day was mostly just packing, and then watching some Fawlty Towers. It was a pretty relaxing end to a very nice trip.

I know that this is short, but I’m very tired right now. Tomorrow, however, I shall write a sort of epilogue, summarizing my thoughts on the trip, if that is really possible.

- Driving in Europe looks like it is a pain in the ass. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Bruges, and probably close to half of that time was spent just trying to get across Brussels. Once we were on the motorway, it was fine. But when you are actually in the cities, you are screwed.

- Bruges (Brugge) is maybe the most beautiful place that I have ever been. Frans said, and he is correct, that it isn’t Disneyland, it is real. But you can see that this is definitely what Disney is going for in places. Except there is something way more amazing about being someplace that is actually 600 years old, as opposed to someplace that was built 40 years ago to look 600 years old.

- The Church of Our Lady in Bruges is the most beautiful church I have ever been in. And without realizing it, I saw a statue by Michelangelo that is in the church, but I was so overwhelmed by everything else in the church, it was hard to focus on any one thing.

- I had an amazing lunch of garlic mussels and fries. You have to love a country where you get a big pile of fresh fries with every meal.

- Some chocolates were purchased. And I think some of them will even make it back home without me eating them.

- The art museum in Bruges that we went to was much more civilized than the Louvre. Smaller and much less crowded. You didn’t constantly feel like you were about to get run over by a large group of tourists.

So yeah, overall I really enjoyed Bruges. And it definitely made up for me missing Amsterdam. In fact, I think that I would have been very sad had I not gotten to see Bruges, or only gotten to spend an hour there or so. For a plan B, it was not a bad one at all.

Then today was Gent. More on that later.

Well, when was the last time you were at a sporting event where –

- The supporters for the home team stood the whole match, singing different songs, yelling different chants, booing when announcements were made in the opposing team’s language, and giving the finger whenever the opposing players were announced?

- The supporters for the opposing team had to be kept in a different section, entirely inaccessible to the rest of the stadium?

- The whole crowd lives and dies with every touch of the ball?

- The crowd, after a goal, all chants in unison the players last name after the first name has been announced?

- At the end of the game, when their team is about to win, holds up their scarves and starts singing a hymn?

It really was an incredible experience. And I don’t think you even have to like soccer to get wrapped up in the emotion. Especially when the home team wins 4-0.

Oh, and did I mention that we had front row seats, and a perfect view for the first goal of the game, which happened literally right in front of us?

Yeah, it was amazing. Thanks, Frans!

I guess I’ll just have to come back some time to visit Amsterdam.

Anyway, the day started out with breakfast again, and then Frans and I headed off to Sacré Coeur, which is a basilica and also the highest point in Paris. I was told not to walk to the top, but to walk down. Well somehow we messed up, and we ended up walking up like a thousand steps to get to the top. And from there we had some amazing views of Paris, even though it was raining on us the whole time. I would say overall the weather has not been great while I’ve been here. I have seen the sun maybe twice, and it has rained quite a bit. Oh well. I knew that that would most likely be the case this time of year.

After going inside Sacré Coeur, we then headed to the Louvre. The highlight of the day happened on that little journey. The Paris Metro can get pretty crowded, and while a group of people was trying to get on, I guess some guy cut in front of a couple of women, because they started yelling at him. And then as the doors started to close on the Metro, one of the women spit right in the guy’s face. It was hilarious.

But back to the Louvre. I have to be honest – I thought the Louvre was terribly disappointing. It was WAY too crowded, and there was WAY too much art. It was impossible to know what to look at, and if you really stopped to look at anything, you ran the risk of being run over by a hundred people. But I did get to see the Mona Lisa, kind of. There were probably 200 people standing in front of it, so I couldn’t get very close. But hey, at least I can say that I have seen it.

At this point our feet had pretty much given up on us, so we just went back to the hotel and picked up our luggage and relaxed in the lobby for a couple of hours. I was only in Paris for 2 and a half days, but it is amazing how worn out you can get in that amount of time. Well then it was time to go to the train, and this time, luckily, our train left on time. It was slightly delayed getting back to Brussels because of an accident that happened on the tracks last week, but we made it back, and I made it back alive, so that is something.

Today, I believe, is a little bit more exploring of Belgium, then a soccer match tonight, and then tomorrow I am off to Amsterdam for two days, and then home. Time really flies.

Anyway, we started off with breakfast at the hotel, and it was pretty good. I had some pound cake and a croissant. And from there we headed off. Our plan was to first go to the Arc d’Triomphe, which we did. And it was a pretty impressive site. Then we walked down the Champs Elysees, which was very nice also. Then we were going to go to the Louvre. And we did. And we got there and the sign said that they are closed on Tuesdays. So we had to activate Plan B. This meant going to see some churches. The first was the Sainte-Chapelle, which was actually built as a private chapel for the King of France, and housed relics from the passion of the christ. The second was Notre Dame, which was spectacular and amazing. Finally we saw Saint Severain, which is a very old church, but inside they were filming a movie or a commercial or something. It was most bizarre.

Then we had lunch at Brasserie Balzar, hat tip to Laura for the recommendation, which had very, very good French food. And we were served by a waiter in training, who was apparently doing everything wrong. He had my chicken pointed the wrong direction on the plate, he didn’t wipe the edge of the plate properly, he didn’t approach the diners from the correct side of the table. Poor guy.

So at this point my feet were hurting pretty bad, and we came back to the hotel for a midday rest, which was perfect. My feet had a small chance to recover.

A few hours later we met back up and headed to China Town, which is a lot like a China Town in any big city. But we did get some Chinese food for dinner which was very good. I had sweet and sour chicken, but so what?! It was damn fine sweet and sour chicken.

Then we hopped back on the Metro and headed back to the Eiffel tower to take a river tour of Paris. And somehow we timed it perfectly such that right when we got to the boat place it was time for the next tour. And the tour was wonderful. Paris is a very beautiful city by night. And it was even nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the weather some. And then there was the tour guide who gave all of the announcements in French, English, Spanish, Italian, and Russian.

So at this point is when my feet decided to completely give up. Somehow we made it back to the hotel, though, and that is where I am now, writing this update.

Day 2 in Paris was definitely a good one. There is so much to this city, and I have only barely, barely scratched the surface. Tomorrow is Sacre Coeur, The Louvre, and hopefully a crepe from a street vendor.

Ciao!