Thursday, July 29, 2010

Belgian chocolate, waffles, and french fries= Paradise!

July 23rd

This morning we left Hotel Inner (definitely NOT a hotel) and headed to Brugge, Belgium. We were pleasantly surprised to see a double decker bus waiting for us. Jenny and I scored a seat on the bottom level with a table and empty seats across from us. We’re good…I know. I wish I could tell you that we used this time to catch up on the blog…but as most of you can see…that’s not the case. We’re just easily distracted with movies, snacks, etc. What can we say? Once we arrived in Brugge, our TG led us to the center of town, where we went in yet another church. Jenny and I feasted on French fries (a Belgian delicacy) with an assortment of sauces: Jenny—stew and mayonnaise; me—garlic alveoli. Delicious! We didn’t have much time here in Brugge, so Jenny got yet another waffle and then we hurried back to buy some Belgian chocolates before we had to leave. Don’t worry Albey family…I got plenty to bring home! So then we were off to Brussels.

Once in Brussels, we checked into our hostel Generation Europe. This one was considerably better than Amsterdam…it had windows!!! After we got settled our TG took us down to the center of town and directed us towards the infamous mannequin piss…which is in fact a statue of a little boy peeing. Not quite sure why it’s so famous. We actually almost walked right past it. But anyway, then we all went to dinner and had “mussels in Brussels” which were delicious. We went from dinner to Delirium, a famous Belgian beer bar which serves over 2000 different kinds of beer. Mango and cherry for me, classic Delirium faves for Jenny. Fun fact: Delirium holds the Guiness world record for the largest variety of beer in one establishment as of 2004. Jenny and I decided to leave earlier than the group (as we usually do) so we set off towards Generation Europe. Well somehow we got turned around…the streets are pretty confusing in downtown Brussels…and we ended up in a pretty sketchy part of town. So using our good judgment, we saw a taxi with his light on and jumped in. So as we’re pulling up to the hostel, our TG and some others from the group are walking up. We left like a good 20 minutes before them. Embarrassing.

Tomorrow we are headed for Paris! I can’t believe it’s finally here!

L&J