L'Auberge de Bouvignes Dinant

... we left there to get some lunch and we found a chip shop and Todd had the traditional chips and mayonnaise and I had chips with ketchup. The mayonnaise by itself was amazing but I’m not too sure about the chip/mayonnaise combination. We then continued at the market, I had a crepe made with chestnut flour with brown sugar for dessert. The food is good, but my body needed vegetables by the end of the weekend! The abundant amount of chocolate shops is ridiculous ...

Hi,

Gisteren zat onze K3 meidengroep (Karen, Karolien, en ik) met ouders en broer bij het reisbureau Lotus van Meneer De Groen.

Deze meneer heeft al veel gedaan om ons verblijf in Nepal zo aangenaam mogelijk te maken.

Nu is het alleen nog wachten op antwoord van onze stageschool en dan zijn we zo goed als klaar met alles voor Nepal!

Ook ...

... pee. There were chocolates and all kinds of souvenirs of this statue, but we wanted to see the real thing, so we eventually found it and were a little bit disappointed in the size of it, even though we had heard that it was small and disappointing. The rest of that day was fairly relaxed and I was actually feeling really shizer, so we had an early dinner (of Mussels in Brussels!!) and then went back to the hotel and just chilled ...

... surfing host for 2 nights. She is a Hungarian/Italian who has been in Brussels for 5 months to head up a cycle lobbying group within the European Community. They have a pilot program to increase public awareness and promotion of bicycling in 5 European cities. She is a huge bike enthusiast herself and is loving her new job. I was also met by her two Polish couchsurfing host friends and their guests from Madrid. We were whisked off to have lunch in the European ...

... because my french hasn't improved that much since the 3 or 4 month mark (it's now been nearly 8 months, grrr stress :S)

About the only time I went out of the house was to go to the neighbours house to ask them if I could borrow a lemon. They invited me on that Saturday to do La Descente De La Lesse with them, because it was one of the son's birthdays. It's near a town called Dinant, and you go down a section of the river in a kayak. It was great ...

... of trees and hundreds of small farms. There were small bars every couple of kilometers right on the water which we, of course, had to stop at. The only experience that I can compare this to was floating down the Salt River outside Phoenix on inner tubes with several of the people on the race team. Basically a big party while kayaking down a fairly placid but beautiful valley. Highly recommended!!! Lots of incredible places to stop along the way for a romantic picnic or frolic, ho hum...

... if ever in Burges! Very nice people and a wonderful atmosphere...really gives you a true Belgium experience. Frites (french fries) was our last endeaver of the day before we hopped back on the bus and headed home. They were really very good...I had a werid tatar sauce on top of them, that I would never think to put on fries, but all in all very good! The train ride home was a long one, but I slept most of the way so it was wonderful!

... could've fed me for days, literally, and I won't even comment on the size of Yannic's calzone. Everything was delicious, though. And the atmosphere was unbeatable. I was really glad to have been able to get a taste of both cultures of Belgium even despite the short amount of time I had to spend in the country. The train ride back to Brussels was fairly uneventful. We walked around the centre of town with the idea of getting one last ...

... called Decoma. After the horse pastures, turn right and drive past the stables. After about 300 m on this road, take a left; after another 300 m you will take the road to the right. The road soon gets much narrower and you drive through several (very pretty) houses. It then opens up and you are driving through a field. Keep driving, you will see the forest right in front of you and you can take the road straight into it.

... they rebuilt it after WW1. We bought a map for a tour of the battlefields and graves. It's quite scarey looking at names and ages of men who are long forgotten that are the same age as you. Then reading the books, which showed their addresses, and seeing people who would have lived around the corner from you. It makes you think how lucky you are, especially when you hear that cows are still blown up as they stumble across ...