Hotel de Nieuwe Doelen Middelburg

... br>We took in the sights on our way and I immediately loved the place. It is a gorgeous little town, full of cobblestone streets and canals, almost like a mini Venice and without the tourists.

We got our water and some Belgian chocolate and made our way back to our accommodation to sort out dinner. The owners, Kevin and Tiny, recommended a small restaurant near them where they said that they ate regularly so we went to check it out.

It was a nice place with a bar, a ...

... my feet and I needed the protein recharge. Snap, snap, snap, snap…photos done and I’m done with the Grand Place. Chocolate shops everywhere. Yes, it’s good. Yes, it’s better than See’s. But they’re in every nook and cranny and you start to feel like you’re on Mainstreet USA in Disneyland. So I struck out to find the peeing boy statue which is Brussels’ other claim to fame. Through winding ...

... ice cream combination was ridiculously delicious. After that, we continued to the main plaza (where the climax of In Bruges occurred, for those interested – it was crazy to be where it was filmed!). There, we walked around the bell tower, the Medieval Belfort, and admired all the fantastic architecture, including the beer wall that displayed every beer brewed in Belgium – a landmark in wall construction, I’m sure. We skipped lunch ...

... I have seen since being here. I'm wishing now that we had ventured inside, but our time there was very short. We will just have to travel there again in the future.


After leaving Cologne we arrived in Brussels, Belgium and took the subway to the area of town where our bed and breakfast was located. After a little confusion, due to an absence of any sort of sign or marking of the building, we found the B and B and we ...

... leave Brugge. We did redeem ourselves by climbing the Belfry which is a medieval tower which formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other dangers. It is 83 metres high and there are 366 steps up a narrow space-not for the faint hearted. The tower actually leans 1 metre to the east. Before we climbed, Katelyn had complained about the bells ringing constantly but we realised that that was ...

... So, in honor of this Dutch Holiday, we had a Sinterklaas party this evening at our teacher's house and everyone had a secret Sinterklaas person. We had to put our gift inside of something that made it hard for them to get to it, so I buried my gift in a pan of chocolate pudding. We also wrote poems to the person about them or about the present we had wrapped up for ...

So my dad's coming tomorrow! I'm sooo excited! Today I bought some flowers to spice up the room, washed the sheets, and alerted my house again that if they see a strange man around, it's probably just my dad! He's arriving on the 1pm train and Bill Kirk, my teacher, told us we won't have class in the afternoon so I'll be able to hang out ...

... in celebration of Christmas. Then we moved over to Bagijnhof where there was a party at number 12. I found a guy dressed up as Santa Clause and we took a holiday picture together. After that, we all went to the official party at Schuttershof, which is a dance club in town, and danced the night away. It was good fun! I'm glad we got to celebrate Halloween, even if it wasn't the same, it was just as fun!

... and whatnot, maybe they just think tourists like that stuff. Anyway, after the canal tour we decided to check out an old brewery called Waterhouse on the Beerfront that serves over 150 types of Belgium beer. The time passed rather quickly there and we almost missed our bus! Luckily Leah remembered where the bus station was, becasue no one else had any clue. We headed home and ate some dinner and I went to bed.

... everyone reads it! Anyway, now I have finished the second one and hope I am lucky again and find the 3rd one in English here. Kind of a fat chance, since I happened upon the last one on the tiny shelf of English books at the book store last week and it was the only one. Well, tomorrow is class, so I better get to reading my Anthropology book...