Bed & Breakfast Ter Heis Knokke-Heist

... city. Awesome architecture and canals winding around the city, as I took tons of pictures as always and just enjoyed the city.

Apparently Brugges had a movie made recently with it as a location; I'll have to check it out sometime. The main "art" piece I saw was a Madonna with Child from -the- Michaelangelo from Italy. It was quit nice, as were the countless other paintings and sculptures I saw in that ...

Today I said goodbye to rainy, rainy Bruxelles, and took the half hour train (8 euros) to Gent/Ghent, where I met up with my first host ever, Johanna. She was the first couchsurfer to welcome me into her home back in 2007, after I had finished my year in South Korea, in Beijing.

- Before going to Ghent, I actually made a stop in the Musical Instruments Museum in Bruxelles ...

... on the final 3 or so hours of our trip to Brugge near the coast. We were a little late arriving....we were supposed to meet up at 7:30pm for the awards ceremony at 8pm, but we didn't make it to the bar until 9:30 - oops! We received our medals and bottle of cheap wine for finishing, then went off to find some dinner.
As it was now past 10:30 we had to go for the first restaurant we could find, and we went to a place selling Argentinian food of all things! I'd never had ...

... at the end.
We also toured the local De Halv Maans brewery, which offered good views at the top and pretty good beer. And we found the newest idea in take out--fast food pasta! They cook fresh pasta right in front of you, add a sauce, put it in a cup and give you a fork, for 3 Euro. We think it would take off at home.
Oh, we haven't mentioned chocolate yet. Brugge also has a chocolate museum which ...

I saw the film "In Bruges" when it came out at the cinema a couple of years ago, and thought it looked like a beautiful city. So when Annabelle (the teacher in charge of me at school, and a good friend) suggested going for the day, Erin and I jumped at the chance.
The advantage of living so close to the Belgian border is that almost everywhere in Belgium is not much more than an hour away, and so we have no excuse not to see a lot of it!

We arrived in Bruges around 11.30 ...

We made our way from Gouda to Brugge. Brugge is a beautiful town that holds a lot of its older architecture and feel. With its canals and its medieval buildings it is a great town to spend the day exploring and taking pictures. Once again a drizzly day we lucked out and managed to get a few hours of sunshine to take out our cameras.

Our campsite was about 15 minutes out of town so we took a bus that took us directly to the city ...

(Steve)
Belgium was one of those places that wasn't high on our list of things to do but ended upbeing one of our favourites. Staying in Bruges rather than Brussels was probably the reasonbut we also managed to find an assortment of hidden treasures thanks to a helpful local mapmade by locals. Our hostel was called snuffel - the best one in town if you ask. They had a bar that offered 25 different Belgian beers and was a cosy ...

... t resist anything that has the word gang in it's title. So we chowed down on some delicious spinach and cheese quiche and then devoured the gang bangers and watched Dr. Phil on TV. Jenny, Shellie, Jake, and Alli all came over later too, we had a few drinks and they all went out. I'm tired and not really in the going out mood, so I stayed behind and attempted some Anthropology homework... it's not going well though. Anyway, I should probably get back to it!

Bruge proved to be (as I´ve heard over the last couple months) the most touristy spot I have seen in the two months of my journey. The city is known for its medieval architecture (dating more from the 19th and 20th centuries), and the crowds come out to take boats down the extensive canal network and enjoy the Flemish culture and Belguim delicacies. The joy of this stop for me was the relic that ...

... smaller and less touristy than Brussels, with a nice atmosphere, cool little shops and impressive churches to boot (though, admittedly, we are starting to get a little cathedral-fatigued...inevitable I suppose). And now we're in Bruges, probably the most tourist-filled town we've been to so far, but understandably as it's pretty, surrounded by canals, there are horses and carriages trotting around, more huge big cathedrals, and best of all - every second shop is a gorgeous ...