Memories

I'm not gonna lie,

I've been dreading writing this post. 

Because writing down something that makes you sad,

just makes it that much more real. 

But I've decided to address this situation like a bandaid. 

Share it (aka rip off bandaid),

and move on (aka heal). 

As you've probably already read in some of my previous posts,

the mister and I recently got back from a trip of a lifetime. 

Eighteen glorious days in Europe. 

"Yeah, we feel reaaaal bad for you Natasha"

I know, it sounds pretty much perfect,

and it was,

except for one minor glitch. 

Day Sixteen. 

We're on the train from Amsterdam to Brussels. 

First class. 

Giddy with excitement because the Thalys folks just fed us an awesome breakfast, 

(it's clearly the little things in life that please us). 

Everything is going perfect - 

we hop off the train and onto the metro,

in route to our posh hotel, in the center of Brussels....

And then I look up, and all I see is Erik's face turn white. 

At first I'm confused. 

"What's wrong? Are you choking on something? I told you to leave the rest of the croissant on the train!"

Long story short, it was at that time that we realized that we left our brand spanking new dslr, with over thousands of pictures taken in the span of the last 16 days on the train. 

The train that dropped us off and kept going to Paris. 

Obviously I don't have to explain how devastated we were about this sequence of events. 

We laughed. 

We cried. 

We begged anyone who would listen at the train station, the lost and found desk, the customer service line of every train company in Europe to help us. 

In a flash, thousands of candid captures were gone. 

So as much as I would have loved to share those photos with you,

I simply can't. And that sucks. 

But here's what we learned. 

What happened to us was unfortunate - a freak accident. 

But no one died. No one got hurt. 

We STILL had an AMAZING trip,

and the important parts are the memories in our heads, not what was captured on a camera that would soon be filed away on a hard drive anyway. 

I kept a journal throughout our trip,

and I captured some of the details that I wanted to look back upon in the very distant future.

In it also are some details that I would still like to share with you.. 

some recommendations of the places we visited, restaurants we dined at and people we met. 

I personally love getting tips from other travel bloggers,

so I figure I'll jot them down in the next few weeks, and hopefully they'll serve some purpose for anyone who's planning to travel to any of the countries we visited this time around. 

That's all. Sorry for the essay.

Maybe now I could move on.