Grand Hotel Belle Vue De Haan

... other Churches.

I did have a couple of moments with brief drizzles, but overall I had some beautiful, sunny weather and I enjoyed a few hours of walking around Brugges (while eating a delicious waffle for part of it), before returning on the 25 minute train back to Ghent.

Which is where I am now, and I'll go eat at a friend of Johanna's house for dinner tonight. It is, by the way, definitely ...

... cuisine before (nor was I really aware that they had a particular style of cooking) but I have to say it was one of the tastiest meals I've ever eaten - I was impressed! I had a glass of Sangria to go with it too, and it was sooo good!

We spent the rest of the last evening of the rally in the bar with the others, having a few drinks and a good time. It was a late night too - not getting back til gone 3am! Overall it was a great time, we met some great people and had lots of fun.

... 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 ...

... has been preserved. After our nice walk through there we walked to the more modern area of the town and discovered a separate square with the most unusual statues in a fountain. It seemed to greatly contrast the medieval feel of the city and was almost shocking. We enjoyed them greatly though and took some pictures with the ducky of course!

After spending some time sitting at the steps in the market square we made our way up ...

... chocolate, and fries. French Fries actually originated in Belgium, and two stalls sellthem in the middle of Bruges outside the belfry tower in the same location they have been selling them for the last century. Apparently there is a long running rivalry between the two and locals often argue who sells the best fries - we couldn't really tell the difference.
From Bruges we went on two day trips to Ghent and Brussels, and poked ...

... 1st original beer was invented there, it tasted like ****.

We had to walk around looking for another hostel the next day – ours was all booked, so after doing that we decided to go ultra-touristy and go on a boat ride! Apparently the boat driver was speaking English, but we couldn’t understand a word he was saying, so we just sat back, enjoyed the view and took heaps of photos because we are tourists and that’s what tourists do. After that we ...

... 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.

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 ...

... riding past it on a horse (see pictures). We had a great time just walking around and seeing the nice scenery for the afternoon. In the evening we were all pretty tired so we just watched some tv then went to bed. On Sunday morning we walked around the corner and attended the church that meets in the school very near to Becca's house. The service was pretty contemporary, and there were some familiar tunes, but of course, no English. But it is nice to just be around people ...

... Oops. Oh well. Ach yah. Brugges is very cool. It is still very medieval, and dutch. We spent the day touring the city, eating chocolate, having coffee, internet - expensive, and playing crib due to rain. We ate lunch by some windmills on the canal. (not as cool as dutch windmills though) Next stop is a Belgium Waffel somewhere. cya.