I have been in Belgium now for four days and tomorrow leave for Den Haag (The Hague), Netherlands tomorrow. Seems only befitting that I will be out of the country on THEIR national holiday, like I did for France (was in Lux; returned to Lille, FR the day-after). Belgium is truly bilingual, and I've got neither French nor Flemish (AKA Dutch for the most part, with a national twist). But this is high tourist season and I have found English speakers in both Bruges/Brugge (that bilingual thing extends to how they name their cities, train stations, and street signs, too) and [View Full Entry]

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Oh my gosh--I was on Brussels 88.8 FM Radio, for a LIVE interview yesterday! I had just barely made it into the town center after getting off the train from Bruges, checking in at the youth hostel, and walking into the very fun "Use-It/Tourist Office for Young Travellers." There was a party going on in there, or at least the four people inside were super jovial and had apparently JUST moved their offices into the formerly-next-door-library's archive storage room (operation was previously headquartered in an out-of-the-way town called Ghent). A young woman working for the radio station was in t [View Full Entry]

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Back to Belgium Still under the rain, I just love summers, don t you??? :) Doing my last things here (preparing the trip, writing mails...) and can t wait to leave D - 3 [View Full Entry]

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De ciudad en ciudad, de país en país, las vacaciones se venían transformando en una máquina de gastar energía. Por supuesto que, usando una famosa frase argentina, "sarna con gusto no pica" o "calavera no chilla". Pero un día de relax no viene para nada mal. Y dado que nos gustan mucho los juegos de agua, decidimos pasar un día en el Oceade de Bruselas. Se trata de un bonito parque acuático, situado en el Brupark, un área muy grande con distintas atracciones. Como es una zona donde la mayor parte del año hace frío, se t [View Full Entry]

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BRUSSELS & BRUGES I far-welled Paris good bye and boarded a train for the hour and half journey to Brussels, where nine years earlier I was fascinated by it's magnificent central square, GRAND PLACE. It was a passing visit en route to some place else, and I wanted to experience and feel the same buzzing atmosphere this square had offered back then. This imposing 15th century market square of superb art Nouveal and Gothic architectural buildings flanked on all four sides lived up to my expectations again, as i remembered it back then, it felt like I had not left. Diners [View Full Entry]

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Happy late Fourth of July!! I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend and got to see beautiful fireworks (because I didn't :( ). I'm sure you are wondering what I did for the holiday because I know the title does not give it away! I went to England, London to be exact. I had to get up super early on Friday morning to get to the train station at 6:30 in the morning!! I didn't expect to go through border patrol or customs to get into the UK. We didn't have to for France and the UK is part of the [View Full Entry]

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Nuestro próximo destino fue Bruselas, la capital de Bélgica y el centro administrativo de la Unión Europea. Es considerada la capital de la Unión Europea, con lo que eso implica: mucha gente de distintos países conviviendo... y mucho tráfico! Veníamos de pueblitos pequeños de cuentos, cuando entramos en el caos vehicular de Bruselas. Por momentos pensamos en ir a buscar otra ciudad, pero con un poco de paciencia pudimos llegar a la estación de trenes y conseguir al [View Full Entry]

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After our detour to Ghent, it was onto the main destination of the day: Brussels. The train journey was only half an hour, and again very easy. We amused ourselves on the journey by watching two middle-aged women who had apparently never been on a train before and just looked completely out of their depth-the concept of stations, luggage racks and all the general train stuff that you can think of were just completely alien to them! One of them looked like she'd had copious amounts of plastic surgery, so maybe all the botox had messed with her brain...I don't know, [View Full Entry]

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Just the first entry, to test and begin the blog :) [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday (6/26), after class, two girls from my class (Karlie and Erin) and I left Brussels for Paris. I was so excited. These girls were the perfect company as well. Karlie is from LA and attends San Fransisco State University. She is hilarious and we are very similar; needless to say, she kept the trip entertaining. Erin is from Iowa and goes to Bradley. She is very quiet, but had quick witty responses to anything that Karlie or I said. My first international train ride wasn't too eventfull except the group that was sitting near us had at least three [View Full Entry]

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