Lazy Day

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This was our most relaxed day, I didn't even get 10,000 steps! We went to a nearby cafe for a buffet breakfast. There was a huge selection, not just the usual German breakfast. In addition to a few different types of buns, pretzels, meats and cheeses there was cereal and yogurt and fruit and pudding. There was soup and pasta and sausage and bacon and eggs! It was wonderful we probably ate too much but at least we got our money's worth. Back at the apartment we grabbed our bags and parted ways with Sebastian and Lisa, them to go soak in the Köln hot springs and us to get on the train. We made it to Belgium with no problems. We did buy a few (read a lot) more Belgium chocolate before boarding the train back to Paris. Our second train trip was just as uneventful as the first, at least until we crossed the boarder back into France. Once we were back in France we had three policemen come into our train carriage and ask for our passports.
Now it is a good idea to have your passport on your person when you travel, however, as all the places that you go in Europe warn you there are pickpockets everywhere (although I have yet to see any), so you don't want to bring a lot of valuables with you. Typically when we travel Ed looks after the passports. Now Bev and Ed had their passports on them because when we had gone back to the C&A store they wanted to see passports and some of the purchases had been made on Bev's credit card and some on Ed's, however neither Mike or I had put anything on a credit card so we didn't need ours at the time. Now is it the fault of the person looking after our passports or the people who own the passports, well who can say, but the point is Mike and my passports were in the apartment in Paris!The policeman was not impressed, Mike and I pulled out our Drivers Licences to show him but he kept insisting on seeing our passports! We explained that they were back in Paris and that we had just gone to Germany for the weekend. He gave us a strong warning that we must have our passports for travel, but he did let us go and continued down the train with his colleges. We made it the rest of the way back to our apartment with no further surprises and Mike and I both got our passports out so we would know where they are.We didn't have any real inclination to do much else even though it wasn't all that late. Bev and I stopped at the patisserie to get a baguette, so that we could have that with some cheese for a snack. In the end we got pizza from next door and brought it back to the apartment for dinner. We played a round of Pandemic and went to bed.

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