Alllright lovelies, who's excited for another stirring blog post?
Sooooo the theme of this post is my trip to Belgium and it is entitled "A hairbrained scheme" because that's exactly what it was. I literally turned to my friend Chloe one day and said "do you wanna go to Belgium next week?" and she was like "yes, yes I do." And so we went, along with our friend Allison. The entire trip was done sort of last-minute (i.e., very few reservations made, tickets bought, or plans organized in advance) but we pulled it off. Here's photographic proof:
The first town we went was Ghent, a smallish city by most standards, but pretty large for Belgium (the second largest municipality in the country with the fourth largest population!). The town was rich and prosperous during the Middle Ages and is now largely dominated by the huge University of Ghent, with 32,000 students (not bad for a town of only about 600,000!). Above we have St. Bavo's Cathedral, one of the main buildings shaping Ghent's skyline/city center. It is also home to the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a famous altarpiece by Hubert van Eyk and his more celebrated brother Jan van Eyck.
The theater
I don't remember what this is...
I really wish I had at least one of these tote bags...
Probably the best beer in the world... maybe... There could be something better out there...
Graffitistraatje...a street that taggers constantly make over with fresh graffiti.
Those of you who saw the previous post will understand my fascination with international
postboxes...
Castle Gravensteen
A chapel (and torture chamber?) in the castle
Chloe + Bordewich = Chilewich! Get it?!?
It also sounds like it could be a fabulous sandwich...
Puppets!
An old-timey cash register that we found in what I can only describe as The Museum of Random Shit...
More from that place...
The next day, we went to Bruges, an extremely picturesque city full of canals and whitewashed houses. The entire city center is, in fact, classed as a UNESCO World Heritage site which leads to the city being overall very toursity and not seeming at all like a place where anybody real lives or anything resembling normal, daily life occurs (i.e., there are no gas stations or grocery stores), but it was still very beautiful and a great place to visit. Also, the weather was sunny and warm, about a million times better than in Ghent, where it was gray and rainy and I spent the majority of the day looking and feeling like this http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QbZ3AMRd6wQ/TBxussffT0I/AAAAAAAAARA/fDL7gxU5d1I/s1600/wet-cat.jpg.
But anyway...here's Bruges!:
What a cutie...
The girlies lookin pensive
Burg...
Burg again...
Markt
Monks love chocolate, macaroni, and booze...
How to say "I'm drunk" in French...
Belgium's two favorite foods...combined!
These are all made out of chocolate. That's right, Meghan Napier, chocolate...
Yup, this one too
Krieks all around!
For the final leg of our journey, we visited Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of the EU (who knew?). Brussels was...not like the other cities that we visited. It was a decidedly modern place and apart from the town center, had few historical buildings or landmarks, although it did have quite a few cool museums. I especially like the Museum of Musical Instruments, where they gave you an audioguide that played samples of all the different instruments on display. T'was awesome. Here's some photos:
Belgian waffle, obviously...
This shit is amazing...
That's all for now! Stay tuned for Amsterdam!
