Jordan's first day on his own (April 30th)

Awoken at 3 am with a tap on the shoulder, Scott was ready to go. This would be the last time I would ever see my friend...for one month. I got up and we hugged it out followed by a final Strength and Honor.

He had a big day ahead of him. Once his flight left Brussels at 7 am he would have about 21 straight hours of travel. Or at least that's how it was SUPPOSED to be...I'm sure you will read a lot more about his adventures from his blog about April 30th.

After going back to bed, I got up and began my first day as a lone traveler.

I headed toward the main part of the city and I honestly had no idea what I was going to do. Scott and I had always tentitvely had an idea of the days festivities, but today I was at a lost. Who knows what the day would bring?

I actually went and got a waffle at the same exact place that we had gone the day before. I sat for a good long while and contemplated my travel choices.

I really wanted to go to Greece and Spain and then head back up to Scotland before going to stay with Nath in Dublin. However, our travels in the first month, as Scott put it, "gutted" me. I was back in the middle of the circle we had just completed around Europe. So it would take a good long while to get to really anywhere I wanted to go.

I must've changed my mind at least a dozen times within the next 24 hours. Prague, Vienna, Corfu, Venice, Geneva, Nice, Marseille, Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga....I didn't know which ones to go to or how to do it most efficiently.

I knew I had to make a decision, but I just couldn't choose. Finally one was kind of made for me. Ryanair, the discount airline in Europe, didn't fly at all in Greece. Therefore, I couldn't go to Greece unless it was by boat, which would take about 22 hours from Venice...not looking forward to doing that one day and then doing it again a few days later.

So I had chosen Spain. It felt nice to have that narrowed down.

A few more decisions loomed, but ultimately I had decided on Heidelberg, Germany, a university town of about 150,000 that had a castle and a pretty amazing old town.

Ok! I had made a decision and I could enjoy the rest of my day.

Now, I was in need of a beer.

I was really excited to be in Belgium because they have ridiculously good beer and I wanted to try as many as I could before I left. Walking past bars and into beer stores, I had sensory overload with the plethora of beers to choose from.

Finally I found a cafe that had...get this...over 2,000 beers!!!!! Dear Lord!!

It was called Delirium cafe. Delirium was also the name of a beer, which I had heard from many sources (I think Jessie told me about it first) that it was absolutely fantastic. So went in there and had my very first Delirium in Delirium. Awesome!!!

After my delicious beer, I realized I couldn't really afford to have another one (expensive!), so I made my way up north where Scott and I had seen advertisements for an exhibit the day before.

The exhibit wasn't of some grand Belgian or even European painting that was famous around the world.No no, the exhibition was for STAR WARS!!! Bam!

I walked into the exhibit and immediately saw a giant timeline of all the major events in the Star Wars series, from the birth of the galaxy to about 30 years after the first filmed movie, A New Hope. Pretty darn interesting.

They had scale models that were used in the films and replicas of space ships and some costumes. Videos were all around showing the marriage of filming the actors and adding the special effects. There was a video you could make where you could dress up as a Jedi and engage in a lightsaber fight with your best friend that I was totally going to do.......but oh wait!!!.....my best friend wasn't here anymore!!!!!!! Dangit Places!

The exhibit was amazing and it made me really want to go home and watch the movies, but alas that will have to wait a few weeks.

My night was relatively tame as I didn't meet up with the 3 english guys we had played pool and talked sports with from the night before, so it was an early night for me.

But all was ok....not a bad first day. (that rhymed)