A Belgem

Today Nate and I took a day trip to Bruges. What a pleasant surprise
it was when we got there.

The train took only an hour from Brussels, so we slept in a bit, and
when we got to Bruges it was sunny and warm, quite a change from the
weather so far this week.

I got a Belgian waffle in the station in Bruges with chocolate on top
that was so good I'm not even sure how to describe.

We then made our way to center city where we got our bearings for the
day and went into the church with michaelangelo's Madonna with child.
This is one of the only michaelangelo pieces outside of Italy, and was
as always amazing to see.

From here we went on a brewery tour of the last running brewery in
Bruges. The amount of breweries in Belgium has dropped dramatically in
the last 80 years or so, from 3000 to under 400 I believe was the
statistic. Bruges itself used to have a modest double digit amount of
them, but now only has the one, which is still family owned and run.

It's amazing to hear how much goes into making a beer, and how
passionate these Belgians are about it. They argue that everything
from ingedients used to how it is bottled to how it is served and even
what type of glass it is served in makes a difference for each beer.
And they say it with such conviction that you can't help but believe
you understand what they're talking about, and can actually tell the
difference when they let you taste some of their beer at the end.

After this we did a lot more walking around, a little shopping in gift
shops and chocolate stores, grabbed a light dinner at a pub and headed
back on the train for Brussels.

The city had such an old world feel, and it feels like that on
purpose. We were told while standing on top of the brewery that
nothing can be more than 4 stories tall, and new age "ugly" things are
not allowed to be visible from ground level, like satelite dishes for
tv. There are some canals that provide for really scenic photos, a
couple awesome belltowers, and lots of small quaint side streets that
are frequented by horse drawn carriages. Seriously, the horse drawn
carriages outnumber the automobiles on the streets.

I love day trips that aren't well researched and turn out to be one of
the coolest places you've seen.

Also, hope the title didn't confuse anyone. I know quite well how to
spell Belgium (and even if I didn't spellcheck would correct me) but
it is another one of my poor attempts at a play on words.

Bus tours and Johnny Depp

Just a real brief update. Today was the last day that Becky and her
roommates were with us in Brussels, so we went tourist-style and got
on a tour bus for Brussels. It's the first tour bus I've done in
Europe, a bit expensive personally, and felt a little lacking, but
with the status of the weather up in the air (literally) it was a safe
bet to guarantee seeing all the sites, getting some info on each, and
not getting stuck in rain.

This took up a good part of the day, and then te girls were on their
way to the airport. Nate and I headed to a local movie theater where
we saw Alice in wonderland. It's the first American film I've seen in
3 months, and they played it in English, with French and flemish
subtitles. I was happy to sit in a theater and enjoy the movie. I
thought it was a good movie, with some great visuals and pretty solid
acting. The subtitles were a bit distracting, and I actually found
myself automatically reading along with the French ones. I actually
understood most of it, especially with the English translation being
spoken over them, but in the movie there were some heavy accents and I
actually was able to tell what was being said by looking at the French
subtitles.

Bruges tomorrow for the day, have a bit of a cold, again, so I hope
that doesn't slow us down.

Belgium, where the Easter bunny stocks up

Happy Easter from Brussels everyone.

A (quicker than yesterday) update on my trip.

Woke up this morning to go to Easter mass, in French. Probably my last
foreign language mass before returning to the states. It is giving me
a chance to brush up on my french before Quebec though, so that's good.

I'm not one to get homesick, and I haven't been homesick at all these
past three months. That's not meant to bash being home, I'm excited to
be home again and see everyone, but I don't ever get overly emotional
about wanting to be home. As I was sitting in mass today though, I had
two spells of homesickness.

The first came during the sprinkling of holy water. The music was so
serious, and the look on the priests face stern. I imagined what mass
at immaculate conception would be like today, flowers on the altar
with a pond setup, everyone happy and singing loudly, and for the
sprinkling, I can imagine father alex walking up the aisle, flinging
waves of water at the crowds of people, soaking himself and those in
front of him while the choir sings "we shall draw water joyfully,
singing joyfully... Etc." you know how it goes. A stark difference
from the church I wax in, though it was still very nice.

The second spell of homesickness came while singing the alleuehia
before the gospel. The version they sang is exactly the same used
often at immaculate conception. So of course, to all the Belgians
around me surprise, belted out every note of it.

After church, food, candy, repeat. The weather was spotty so we had
several small meals. Whenever it got bad, we took shelter in a pub or
restaurant. This tactic was not easy on our wallet, as we found
Brussels is not exactly cheap. Multiple Belgian waffles, Belgian
chocolate, and a couple Belgian drinks later, we foud our stomachs
full and wallets the opposite. We visited a couple sites, the peeing
boy, which is a statue of a peeing boy, yes riviting I know, and the
square in front of the grand palace which was stunning.

The chocolate shops here are overwhelming. The streets are lined with
them and they pump out a chocolate smell onto the sidewalks that makes
it hard to resist going in every single one. With bad weather
constantly looming we hopped from one store to the other, with stops
at a pub or restaurant whenever we felt we needed to satisfy our
hunger to keep from buying pounds of chocolate (let's be honest, it
didn't completely stop us).

I think I just repeated myself in those last two paragraphs. Oh well,
bottom line is we ate, a lot. Which is what we would do on Easter
anyway, so there, it was justified.

Tomorrow, less eating, more touring...or just more touring maybe.

P.S in my blog last night I completely forgot to mention that we went
to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Really a moving visit, always an
incredible story and to walk though it in person brings it to another
reality for me.

Amsterdam the weather

Just arrived in Brussels after a three hour train ride from Amsterdam, so I'm going to keep it short but the hotel here in Brussels has free Internet so I'll post more extensively over the next four days.

Friday can be considered a travel day, all day travel day that is. Our flight was delayed over an hour, leaving us sitting in the airport for a good amount of time. The flight was only an hour long once we finally did board and take off, barely any time in the air with the seatbelt sign off, I think I got through four songs on my iPod before I was told to turn it off again for landing. Once we got to Amsterdam a train took us to center city, then a tram to our hotel, with some confusion thrown in there with which tram to take, causing an unnecessarily long walk to our hotel. Who knew we would ever be so excited to see a holiday inn?

Today we woke up early to eat and then catch a free tour of the city. The tour was great, our (austrailian) tour guide knew the city well and had lots of great stories and history for us, but unfortunately the weather refused to cooperate. It went back and forth from sunny skies to torrential downpours and sometimes both at the same time. It made for wet and uncomfortable touring over three hours, but I never felt bored by the tour. Nate met up with us after the tour, he and I will be traveling together until the 7th, becky and her roommates leave brussels on the 5th. We then found shelter at a restaurant for lunch and waited out the rain. When it cleared up we explored the city canal streets more, seeking shelter whenever and wherever necessary when the rains came.

Around 8 we headed back toward the train station and caught our train for Brussels shortly after. A busy and wet day, but we had a lot of fun and I found Amsterdam to be a pretty cool city.

Welcome to Londontown

I arrived in London yesterday around 3:30 after a somewhat shaky flight over (never, ever take Alitalia, ever) and met Becky in the airport. From here we attempted to take a taxi back to her apartment, but found that it would cost 60 pounds (about 100 US Dollars, if not more) to get there, so we opted for the much more affordable Tube.

The Tube:

Since I've been here, I've had a very good experience with London's well known subway system. The system is pretty comprehensive, clean and overall user friendly. It helps that everything is in English, which has really been a pleasant change from Italy and all of the other places I've visited so far.

Speaking English Again:

I still haven't gotten used to this yet. Even at dinner tonight, when I was given my food I said Grazie and si. It seems to be all of the knee-jerk reaction sayings that still come out in Italian. It messes with my head to go somewhere and be able to ask someone anything I want without having to think about it. Actually, I still do have to think about it because I have to tell myself that I don't have to try and speak a foreign language to ask the question, so I have to think about not thinking about how to ask the question I want to ask. Confusing? It sure is for me.

So on Wednesday after we dropped my luggage (all of it that needs to make it home to the states that is, so 2 carry ons and 2 checked bags) Becky and I went to get some dinner. We walked around looking for a restaurant we wanted to eat at and chose a place called "Bountiful Cow". I realized at that point how much I missed steak. I don't mean to say I didn't have beef in Italy, because I had it on a few occasions and it was very good, but I mean I missed having a real steak. I ordered a 14 ounce T-Bone steak, and ate very last ounce of it (So...yeah all 14, minus the bone, which makes me wonder, is the bone included in the weight of the steak? Because that wouldn't be very fair now would it if they counted the bone towards the weight). It was incredible. Not to mention the first real french fries (or chips as they call it here) I've had besides McDonalds if that counts.

Today involved checking off a couple must-sees on our list for London. First on my list, Krispy Kreme. I love donuts for breakfast, and when I saw a Krispy Kreme yesterday I put it at the top of my list. I wasn't disappointed.

Coffee though, left much to be desired. I'm not used to having such a large cup of liquid when I order a coffee. I ordered a Cappuccino and was confused that I had to specify what size. I had two coffee's today and I already miss the Italian coffee, but I guess I'd have to get used to that at home regardless.

We went to the London Tower after breakfast. The "Tower" is actually basically a park with a bunch of different towers that made up a fortress back in medieval times. Seeing all the different exhibits in the towers was a lot of fun, and it was beautiful weather out.

My favorite exhibit was the weapons and armor exhibit. As a kid, I always loved swords, and this exhibit had tons and tons of swords from different eras and styles. I feel like Becky was getting tired of me stopping to read and look at all the different weapons and armor, but I couldn't help feel my inner-child coming through while looking at the exhibit.

From here we went to the London Eye, where it began to rain, in true London fashion. What would be touring london without a little rain? The eye was really cool, I got some great pictures from the top (to be posted when I can transfer pictures) and it kept us out of the rain for a little bit.

We then made a stop at the Aquarium. It was fun to walk through the different exhibits, and of course to avoid the rain yet again.

We walked over to Big Ben and checked out the area around it, but the rain got harder and it forced us to go underground into the tube to head back to Becky's apartment.

We went for Chinese tonight with Becky's roommates and her roommate Stacey's parents. I've always heard that the best food in london is the different ethnic foods, so I was excited to have Chinese, and this place, called "Noodle Oodle" didn't disappoint. It's always a good sign when you go to a restaurant and see locals eating there. I had some great spring rolls and LaMein (guess the british translation is different).

Overall I've had a great time in London so far. Tomorrow afternoon we head to the airport again to go to Amsterdam and then Brussels, so I'll try and post as soon as I can depending on my internet availability.