Hotel 'T Koffieboontje Brugge

... s nickname "Venice of the north". It is full of little canals and narrow streets, like some of the other old towns we have seen but this one had a character and vibe that we really understood.Chocolate, love it (we bought a box and ate it in a day). Waffles, love them. Beer, Steve loves it. Fries, all good (we tried two different kinds- one with "special sauce" which turned out to be mayo, curry ketchup and onions, and one with ...

... I'm wrong. Who knows? (Probably historians, or doctors shh.) <br><br>That's it, I got on a train and headed back to Amsterdam for the night. It was a whirlwind trip through Belgium but so has the rest of this trip so why would this be any different. <br><br>Oh I did stop in Antwerp and had a Belgian waffle. I had three bites and threw it away it was so sweet. But I'm sure everyone else would love it. <br><br>Update soon!<br><br>Dina

... 1st original beer was invented there, it tasted like ****.<br><br>We had to walk around looking for another hostel the next day &#8211; 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&#8217;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&#8217;s what tourists do. After that we ...

... cobbled streets, red shingled roofs, canals, and historic buildings. <br><br>We first walked to Bruge's cathedral, which was still great to see despite all the cathedrals that I&#8217;ve been to already. We then headed toward the main plaza along with the bunches of other tourists flocking around Bruges. On the way, we had our first truly Belgian experience: waffles. Needless to say, I was ridiculously excited, and my waffle-chocolate sauce ...

... for beer and the corresponding glasses...because every beer in Belgium has a specific glass that you are supposed to drink it from. We spent as much time as we could in Bruges before we had to head back to Brussels to catch our plane and we still needed more time in Brussels to meet up with a friend from Clemson. I was sad to leave Bruges. It was definitely an amazing place to visit. <br>

... of the Holy Blood. In the 1300's a vial came to Brugge that is supposed to contain the blood of Jesus. Every day they bring it out for people to see it change from a solid to a liquid during an hour of the afternoon. Today it was between 2 and 3pm. Scientists say it does that because of the afternoon temperature change.<br><br>Our lodgings for this evening were in a large dorm room at the Snuffle Hostel. We have to ...

... the beer tasting I met groups of Slovenians and Romanians, both countries I have now promised to visit. We had a fun night out, one of the Romanians a little too much fun, and ended up getting my first taste of delicious Belgian fries as well. <br><br>The next day&#8217;s train trip to Rotterdam was a bit of a struggle, but I got through it. <br><br>This was a long blog. Proof of how much I liked Bruges. Expect the next one to be much shorter. I promise.

Couldn't log on at the hotel overnight so sorry that this post is 24h late. Another good night in the Novotel and a full breakfast to follow. We shared that with the TV personality Ian Hislop (Have I got news for you and other programmes) who we suspect was filming another programme about WW1. It rained...again...almost all day. We went into the trenches at Vimy Ridge, the British and German fron lines ...

... Maastricht Center for TransAtantic Study) rocked out to some Vanilla Ice and the entire bar started chanting U.S.A!! Fredel, I wish you would have been there for that!! Okay..back to Brugge... The next morning we all woke up in the same room in the hostel--turns out two of the boys were too scared to sleep in a room with 3 strangers from China who slept with the lights on in the other room. All excited to find some Belgium waffles for breakfast, we headed into ...

The theme of this trip will be "early morning showers and day trips." Shower's at Phil's flat are a bit tricky.... the hot water takes forever to warm up and the pipes leak after a few minutes into the kitchen. We've divided our showers into 'teams' at night and in morning. I'm in the morning team. The three of us relay through, leaving the water on for the next one to save us the ...