Hotel Het Gheestelic Hof Brugge

... 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 ...

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 ...

... 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 ...

... fuel in Dijon, which (at least the parts we saw) didn't look all that great, in contrast to the rest of the country which I thought was great.

Our final stop in France was in Metz, where we grabbed lunch, had a quick walk around the markets and I bought a crepe with strawberry jam (delicious). We had a walk through St Stephens Cathedral - a massive church whose construction started in around 1220 and finished in 1520. It is a very spectacular building, incredibly tall and with ...

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 ...

... English detective show or something. We had a great night out and ran back to the hostel in the rain.
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.
Our visit to Ghent was nice too. It is ...

... tourism in the town. There were a lot of chocolate stores spread around the place, and one of them had some very promiscuously shaped chocolates contained in the front window, this just hammered home the fact that I was now in Europe, and not “politically correct” England!

After wandering around the town for a few hours, I went back to the hostel, chatted to the people in my dorm room and went and had dinner with them. We had a voucher for ...

... awesome. And seeing what I do, when I want, without having to worry about someone else's wishes is great. But having that one special person with you to experience all that there is to experience is something that I would also like. Do I have any doubts about what I'm doing? Not at all. There is a reason for all that I feel and experience and these feelings are just part of it. When I'll be home I'll wish that I was travelling. When I'll be travelling ...

... hotel would, when you enter it not seem like a 1 star hotel in Bruges because it is almost always full booked and thus has an excellent management. This hotel is certainly worth the money and is good choice as a budget hotel in Brugge. Hotel Asiris in Bruges is a 2 star hotel in Bruges with an excellent reputation ...

... but the view of the city is worth it. Then we took a boat ride along the canals, and the Belgian guy who took the tour was quite funny he loved Australians and kept telling jokes just for us, or aimed at us, which we laughed along with. A visit to Belgium wouldnt be complete without a brewery tour, so we visited Staffe Hendrik breweries. The beer was six per cent and we had two with lunch, then we had to walk up lots of ladders. Sara was a bit drunk and I ...