As most of my followers know, the majority of the group set off to Paris for the weekend via bullet train earlier this afternoon. Since they didn’t leave until four, my little group had plenty of time to visit NATO in the morning and continue exploring the city before they abandoned m-, I mean left for France.

Our Friday morning began with a very early appointment with two NATO officials. The first was with Allison Hart who gave us a briefing on what NATO actually is and does and explained their overarching political and military purposes. Our last official was Eric Povel who gave us a very interesting and detailed discussion on NATO’s operation in Afghanistan. Normally in these time of scenarios I would include quotes and bits of information for the talk but we were specially told not to do such things. Apparently they are a little touchy when it comes to the dissemination of information; that, and we went through security processing under the direction of an incredibly terrifying and strangely erotic security guard…I’m pretty sure she had to be a former Iraqi special ops leader or part of the Russian KGB. I totally would’ve tried to make a move on her but I’m completely certain that she could paralyze me with her pinkie finger, or just shoot me with her revolver…I guess that would be her choice.

(I apologize for no picture here but as part of our security processing, we weren’t allowed to bring our cameras or cell phones into the NATO HQ. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with Ms. Russian Cerbachev, or whatever her name was.)

After our appointment and a much needed cold shower, my group went out to grab a bite to eat. Seeing how it was only our second day in Belgium, we decided to throw caution to the wind and just chow down on waffles. I don’t think words can describe how unbelievably delicious the street waffles are, but they were heavenly. I decided to keep it bare bones and simply put powdered sugar on mine and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

Coincidently, the waffles place we went to (which only cost 1€ by the way), was right next to Manneken Pis so we got to see the little guy doing his thing.

From L to R: Mr. Pis, me, Tony and Jacob

We continued walking the streets and window shopping until we had to return to the hotel so the Paris people could get packed and ready for their trip. Since I’m such s fantastic friend, I walked them out and I was completely ready to stroll the city solo. I began my journey not far from the hotel, there’s actually a large vein that runs right near here and I was completely ready to go into unknown territory, when I was stopped. A strikingly beautiful and sweet French blonde caught my eye and she started shouting “Monsieur, Monsieur!” and started waving. Naturally I thought she was acknowledging someone else but then she came up to me and started talking in French. Since I know very little French, I waited until she stopped talking and was able to squeeze out a little and not-so-confident “Oui?” Apparently she picked up on my accent because without missing a beat, she said: “You don’t speak French do you?” I lightly grabbed her arm and told her how great it was that she spoke English and asked if I was lost (keep in mind that I tried my hardest not to look this way, but…whatever) after just a touch of awkwardness, we began a very lovely conversation. Considering how cold and windy it was, I invited her to grab some coffee and we retreated to a nearby coffee house where we spent about an hour learning about each other and simply having a great time. As our conversation dwindled down, she asked me if I wanted to join her for dinner and I politely declined and said I had to be going to meet up with my group at the hotel.

So we kissed on the cheek and went our separate ways.

When I got back to the hotel, the remaining nine of us started drinking and went out for dinner. Afterwards, we went to a bar called Delirium where my friend Neha and I, got juuuuuust a little drunk….

That’s Neha with Chris’s (the guy making the terrifically awesome face in the background) 2L beer.

Just to let you all know, the remaining nine of us consist of Neha, Chris, Christy, her husband Pat, Egan, Becky and myself. Those eight others are part of the EMBA program and decided to stay in Brussels for the weekend. We’re planning on hanging with each other the entire weekend and together, we have been having a remarkable time!