Hotel Belfort Kortrijk

Hé hé !

L'Amérique latine, nous voici nous voilà très très bientôt !!!
Plus que quelques heures avant le décollage...
L'excitation et l'appréhension sont 2 émotions qui se battent en duel en ce moment.

Le départ est prévu à 20h ce lundi 7 décembre de Paris CDG et l'atterrisage le mardi 8 décembre à Buenos Aires.
Nous en avons rêvé et ce projet va enfin devenir réalité.

Nous partons tout équipés : les 2 v ...

I slept really well last night at Johanna's place (yes, I promise to make entries -even if they're short- for past days/cities). Then this morning I took the bus under a light drizzle to the Ghent main train station. There I paid my 6.6 Euros for a round trip (weekend price) to Brugges (Brugge/Brujas), which I had heard so much about.

I had quite the positive attitude, even as the rain fell against my ...

... riding the bus with my huge backpack. Things always seem tougher and the rides longer when I have to haul it around with me. I won't miss it that much, I'm afraid. Anyways, it was acutally only about a 10 minute bus ride to the area where Johanna lives,and I found her apartment right away.

I greeted her and we had some really nice conversation, and she made some delicious ...

... the amazing Louvre, with the Mona Lisa and thousands of other pieces of art, as well as the Chateau de Versailles. Anyways, Paris was amazing, and now I'll be in Lille for a couple of days..

My European trip is coming to an end in about 2 weeks or so, when I leave from Dusseldorf on the 8th of December to Fort Myers Florida. But before that I still have a bit of Netherlands and Belgium to enjoy..

... huge damage during the war and required significant reconstruction. Some parts of the original buildings still stand, and show shrapnel damage, and some of the statues in the church walls are badly damaged.

Next stop after Ypres was at the Hooge Crater Cemetary. This cemetary contains the graves of nearly 6000 soldiers, many of whom were younger than I am, and a lot were only engraved with 'A British/Australian/New ...

... attention to detail.

Back on the road, we headed further north and crossed over the border in Luxembourg. We stopped briefly at some motorway services, but as we were running short for time we didn't get the chance to stop in Luxembourg city. Going through one village we did see a pretty cool house on top of an outcrop of rocks, which looked great all lit up, but it was hard to get a shot which did it justice.

After crossing over into Belgium we stopped for gas, then ...

... went for a wander around the Beguinage and the little streets of the city before stopping for lunch in a restaurant on the main square, which was really nice and served local traditional food which was really great.

We wanted to go up the clock-tower but the queue was far too long and we decided that we could go back another day during the week when there weren't so many tourists!

The Christmas market had just started in Bruges so we spent quite a while wandering ...

... were not up to doing much; After a few days at the seaside we travelled to Kortrijk the home of my grandparents; Kortrijk is a lovely city on banks of the Lisse River; The are many lovley cafes here along with interesting architechture; We had a few nice days to visist with family from here; Unforetuently we only had a few days and had to return to the USA on the 10th of July.

... like this where you realize how wonderful it is to be able to live your dreams and do the things that you have always wanted to do. There's nothing better! Off to the Jeruzalem Church - it wasn't open yet so I sat outside and ate chocolates until it did (but only to kill time, not because I wanted to!). When they finally opened I saw that there was an admission fee - no thanks! Over to the Burg to finish off the sights that ...

... concerts, art, and a nice outdoor restaurant in a courtyard. Not to worry, though, I wasn't converted - the whole place creaked way too loudly to ever consider a lifetime as a nun (putting aside the obvious other problems) there. Even with earplugs, which along with the sleepshade are my bestest evening\morning company, the place was loud. And not airconditioned. It didn't occur to me that I would need the AC in Belgium, thinking that it was "Northern ...