Hotel Pavillon du Zoute Knokke-Heist

... drizzling quite a bit here in Gent, but that's ok...

Tomorrow I'll try and brave the weather (here's hoping for some more sunshine) around Gent. My last full day in Belgium, since on Monday I take a train out to Dusseldorf, to spend my last night in Germany and Europe with my first hosts. Then, I leave around noon from the Dusseldorf airport to Fort Myers, back in the states. Last 3 days....

... is the largest collection of musical instruments in the world, and for only 4 euro (with a student card discount), I spent a good couple of hours visiting the hundreds and hundreds of musical instruments, which automatically play 2 or 3 short pieces through your wireless headphones as you walk around the different exhibits. -

It was "fun" (quote marks intended for ...

... driving) but the motorways were so good - 3 lanes each way, hardly any traffic at all, and really smooth. The motorways in France have a speed limit of 130kph in the dry, and 110kph in the wet, so either way they were faster and more direct than the meandering country roads with a 90kph limit.

Part of the way along, we came across team Les Pompiers, and they drove past us waving our aerial at us! We soon caught up and received it back though...at about 130kph!

We stopped ...

Brugge may be a fairy tale city, but the thing they don't tell you is that the whole place smells like french fries! The Flemish like to fry everything from meat to fries to waffles...twice. When we arrived in town, we had JUST missed the beer festival (of course) that had taken place all weekend long. So we did the next best thing, and went to a pub that serves the most Belgian beer. 't Brugge was ...

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 ...

... started forming in the 12th century and although they devoted themselves to God and the Catholic Church they were not nuns and were able to marry and keep their property. They eventually changed their beliefs and became more of mystics and were eventually thought to be heretics and were condemned by the church. They have since greatly declined in numbers and the Beguinage in Brugge is no longer functional. It is beautiful though ...

... the bar that we had met during dinner at a local restaurant called de Hobbit.It was a tiny little place with little tables. Steve had ribs and I had lamb with feta cheese- delicious! We also met an older British couple at the bar that we sat and chatted with as well. They were very nice and had interesting stories about Europe. The man looked like he had time-warped out of the 70s or 80s and he looked so British to me, like from ...

... so were going tomorrow afternoon to have a look around. Jessica came over for lunch today and we made salad with RANCH DRESSING! My mom sent me some powder packets in the mail and I got them last night and made one today! So worth it. It was probably the most delicious thing I've eaten in days! Anyway, after the heavenly meal, I had class. Drew convinced me to volunteer with him to do the next presentation which means we have an hour long ...

... was laboured enough!!! So you see, I´m not sad, but excited and relieved. I felt like I was walking just a little bit lighter knowing I had finally resolved it all. As for Bruges. Amazing little city: I´ve done absoltely nothing except enjoyed wandering and getting lost. This place is the Cesky Krumlov of the West. Fairy-tale like without a doubt. This keyboard is doing my head in and I am probably typing about 10 words a minute so I will tell you more about this place when I can ...

... pull over. He made us open the back of our van and had a bit of a look in our cupboards at our cooker and food supplies etc (!) but once he was satisfied we had no cigarettes, we were free to go... Brussels was cool, big and impressive, and we were lucky enough to stumble across the massive flower carpet that was being displayed in the city's Grand Place. It was made from 800 000 begonias, and is only there for 3 days bi-annually, so the town was packed with tourists. There ...