BELGIUM

Yes, I went to Belgium this weekend, and it was amazing! I left on Thursday with Joe and Dana, following my Atelier d’ecriture class (which I love). We met at the Gare du Nord, and then waited around for the train to arrive, turns out we didn’t need as much time to figure out the train station as we thought we did. Then, it was on the train and off to Brussels, where we then switched trains and headed to Bruges. The trains were actually really nice, and very easy to figure out-we didn’t have any problems, despite the fact that in Bruges the main language is Dutch (ack!). We arrived in Bruges after dark, and set out to from the train station, map in hand, to explore the city at night. The weather was nice, and the city was quiet and gorgeous, so we wandered around admiring all the pretty old buildings in this neat little town. Hungry, we picked up some of the infamous Belgian fries for dinner-delicious, and then went off to find the hostel and get settled in a bit. We stayed in the Snuffel hostel, a cheap but descent hostel with a nice bar area, free breakfast and sheets, etc. Plus, it’s called Snuffel, which is adorable (almost as adorable as “Snuggle”, which Joe kept accidentally calling it). We also went to find some Belgian beer, and ended up in a club that was having a “jungle party”, basically with lots of techno-ish music and lots of smoke and jungle decorations, pretty fun. We all slept well, and woke up the next morning fairly early to catch the free breakfast and get going. Again, we walked all over town, stopping for waffles for lunch, and headed into the museum of the city to check out the building and learn a bit about Bruges. It was really gorgeous in the morning, and there were so many nice houses to see, not to mention all the old cathedrals and such we got to check out. We even walked to the edge of town to see the windmills, as well as a couple sites, including a wall containing bullet holes-where 12 men were killed by the Germans in one of the world wars, as well as one of the original entrances to the city. Not long after, the weather turned cold and rainy, so we sought refuge in a fancy restaurant and ordered some hot chocolate, and lingered there to warm up and rest our feet. Afterwards, we walked around some more before heading to an amazing dinner of traditional Belgian food, where I ordered some delicious cherry-flavored beer (Kriek) and Mussels, yum! We then headed back to the hostel to hang out, as it was really cold and rainy, and to take advantage of the cheap bar. We ended up playing a drinking game and having fun just talking and hanging out, and then we went to bed at a decent hour. Saturday, we finally did a boat ride in the morning (Bruges is known as the “Venice of the North”, as it has lots of canals), which was gorgeous and really fun. Of course, we picked up some chocolate and such throughout our stay in Bruges, and overall it was really great, such a cool little town. After the boat tour we set out to find the train station, to get tickets and head to Brussels.
We got to Brussels at around noon, and walked around a bit from the train station and found a place for lunch. We then walked around some more, checked out the main square (which Victor Hugo called the most beautiful of all Europe), and then headed over to a parking garage that has one of the best views of the city from the top, very cool. At 4, we headed out to find out hostel to drop off our bags; it ended up being really nice, great for the price, and reminded us of a “Real World” kind of house. We even had a bathroom and shower in our room (gasp!), very exciting. We then headed out to wander around and find some dinner, where I got Mussels again (yesss), and we saw Mannequin Pis (I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it), the famous fountain featuring a little boy peeing, hehe. At night, it was the “Nuit Blanche” (white night) in Brussels, which was really cool. Basically everything just stays open really late, and there are different events going on around the city-lots of music and such. It was a really good night, we got some Belgian beer from a grocery store and spent the night walking around, stopping occasionally to listen to music or check an event (including this crazy performance art exhibit, where women dressed as snow white walked around and did weird things…crazy Belgians). The next morning, we got up pretty early again and headed over to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, where we saw a range of art including a painting by Dali, as well as the famous “Assassination of Marat” by David, one of my favorite paintings. We then headed over to get one last waffle before heading to the train station. We then hurried over to the station, which was pretty miserable as it was cold and raining, but we made it to our train on time, and then it was back to Paris. Ah! So yeah, the trip was really great, we saw so much and all had a really good time. Plus, traveling and everything went amazingly smoothly, and the hostels turned out to be nice despite their cheap rates. The food was so great, Belgian chocolate and waffles are truly amazing, and of course the beer was great. Dad and Uncle Alex would have had a ball. It is nice to be back in Paris, it was funny, I even kind of missed it while I was in Belgium, it’s starting to feel like my home away from home. Alrighty then, well I now need to take care of homework and such for tomorrow, sigh. Hope all is well,
Brit