Travels: How my travels started

It seems only a couple of weeks ago that I started travelling. The end of october 2011, right after my birthday, I started walking from my house to Santiago de Compostela. Little did I know that I would never see the Spanish border during those 6 months I had set aside for this. I even barely made it to the French border for that matter. When I look back at it now I see this period as the beginning of a new chapter in my life. The beginning of a different lifestyle: the lifestyle of a traveller.

In those 6 months I met many wonderful people and saw many beautiful places. In a nutshell what I did:

I walked to the border of Belgium from my hometown, Leuven. When I was a little bit over the border, in Valenciennes, I couldn't go any further for several reasons: I packed my backpack way to heavily, so my legs and shoulders were really sore, up to the point that I had to rest every half hour of walking. Also I was using Couchsurfing (CS) to spend the night and I couldn't find any hosts close enough in the north of France.

So after recuperating for about a week in Mons, I had to change my plans. I decided to stop walking and explore France a little bit, starting with Lille. After a couple of days of sight seeing I went to Paris. Although a big, busy, expensive city it turned out to be a wonderful experience and I stayed there for several months. A couple of weeks with Elias, one of my friends from Leuven who lives there, and a few months with Laurel, who I met through CS, and is now like a little sister to me.

After being some time in Paris I was drawn to England for some reason. I really wanted to go there, so I booked my train ticket and went to London. I stayed there for more than a week after which I took the train to Cambridge to visit Dan, a couchsurfer that I met in Paris, who was studying there. Turned out to be a great experience!

In Cambridge I decided to surprise Chelsea, a CS friend whose birthday it was, to show up at her party. I booked my way back to Paris, where the party was. I stayed there again for a while, before my thoughts were going to Bretagne, a region I really wanted to visit.

I started in Rennes, stayed there fore about a week before moving on to Vannes, where I wanted to visit another cs'er that I met in Paris. After Vannes, I went to Quimper to then finish the trip by going to Brest. My 6 months were nearly gone, so from there I went back to Paris for a couple of days and then took the train back to Brussels and Leuven.

When I think back of those months I still get a smile on my face. It was a superb way to see how wonderfully spontaneous life can unfold. It are those little things in life that you would never have suspected to happen that I like so much. Some things from the top of my head: Drinking Russian wodka under the Eiffel tower with a Polish guy, going into the catacombs with an Australian guy, going to a famous cemetery with an American girl, going to a Canadian bar with an Hawaian guy, eating chinese food with a Canadian girl, go to a psytrance party with a portuguese and a turkish girl, going to a squat with a Serbian guy, etc. Those things and many more I will never forget.

Now, after those 6 months, I am actually still travelling! It has actually become a lifestyle that I wouldn't want to trade in for all the money in the world! :)