Empire Ostende

... English detective show or something. We had a great night out and ran back to the hostel in the rain.<br>We walked all around the town and saw little parks and local areas to the north of the town where people actually live. Around town there are heaps of chocolate shops and even a TinTin shop! The clothing stores are all fancy and there are mouth-watering pink-decorated candy stores.<br>Our visit to Ghent was nice too. It is ...

... here. "A church!" you say. I know I know you would think that i got my fill of churches in Italy and Spain however I have not been to the church that boasts to be the proud owners of a vile of Christ's actual blood! Yep you read correctly, they claim that they house the DNA and blood of Christ. Now, I'm no doctor, I gave that dream up a while ago, but I'm pretty sure that 2000 year old blood would have evaporated by now. But ...

... a really really bad stomach ache from them &#8211; knives stabbing me type pain. So that kinda killed the night unfortunately, I wasn&#8217;t sure if I was going to start feeling sick or what, so Megg and I headed back to Bruges (don&#8217;t worry I was fine though!). Note to self DON&#8217;T EAT BRUSSELS MUSSELS.<br><br>Jac and Bec came to Bruges for the day, so we met them for breakfast (I had a pancake!) before we headed off to our final backpacking destination - Paris!

... my first propeller plane flight.<br><br>We then made our way to the train station to get our plane to Brugge and we were on our way! The train took us through the inner suburbs of Brussels and since this was our first taste of Belgium I was looking out of the window at our surroundings. <br><br>One particular sight caught my eye, I was looking out the window and I saw a scantily clad girl leaning against a bench through one of the windows of a building we passed! I did a ...

... and I see some people crowded around a corner and there it is. All 18" of it. Is that it? And somebody dressed him up in a little costume&#8230;.snap. What now? I decided to locate Central Station first because I was leaving for Bruges from there, then walked to the "Upper Town&#8221; where the museums and palace is. One thing I can say for Brussels, and Belgium in general so far, is that they&#8217;ve got art placed everywhere in ...

... waffles. My friend and I split a banana, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate syrup-doused waffle, which was completely gone in about the span of 49 seconds. Our other friend got up from the table for a split second and basically missed the entire thing. After we scraped off all the leftover powdered sugar and chocolate sauce on the plate, and drank the rest of the sauce in its cup (I&#8217;m sad to say, that is totally true), we were ready to head off again.

... is another cute little bar. So after we ate we went across the street and had a couple beers. We also saw our tour guide from earlier that day there.<br><br>The next day it was rainy but we walked around the city anyway. It was just too cute to not explore. We walked to the edge of town and saw the dutch windmills then walked back into town for some chocolate and went on a shopping ...

... city center of this city built in the 13th century was alive with the unrestrained energy of the youth of today. It was a blend of age and youth; and it worked. We were getting close to the time to return to the ship, so we started walking from the central city square back toward the train station. Within a couple of blocks of the square we passed a large temporary stand selling hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, and soft drinks. Harriet stepped up and ordered some French Fries and ...

... see a product taken from start to finish. Somehow I don't think that 190 cows would support 5 workers in NZ though! Gouda is a really green area, loads of farms and associated services - it had a bit of a small town feel about it, but at the same time some kind of sophistication. One thing that did really amaze me was the bird life in the area - everything is nesting at the moment so where ever you go there's an ...

We headed to Brugge (or Bruges for you Walloons) for a quick weekend to break the January doldrums. Brugge is 3 1/2 hrs by train, so we headed out early Saturday morning and back Sunday afternoon. The old center of Brugge has been transformed into almost an entirely tourist-driven town. There ...