June 12, 13, 2008 BRUSSELS, Belgium Another 3 hour drive and we are in Belgium. This is the first real “rain out “day we have had. ( double header tomorrow I guess ). Awoke to clouds and drizzle and drove through rain most of the drive. Maybe better tomorrow. We have been In Brussels before and liked it very much. Very civilized, great food with lots of variety, and a relatively safe city and of course lots and lots of chocolate. Not such a big problem for Alice but I have a real weakness for all things chocolate. ( and they [View Full Entry]

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Checked out of the hostel and put my stuff into storage at the station then went for a look at the cathedral. It is a big and spectacular building but it isnt decorated that impressively. Of course I had to climb to the top lol. Starting chatting with an English girl and Japanese girl while up there, the English girl was gorgeous :) Had a drink with them and will hopefully catch up with the English girl at the end of my trip. Train journey to Brugge was a bit... strange. First train to Aachen was 15 mins late (in Germany [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour tout le monde, Je suis finalement arrivee, sans aucune embuche, a Bruxelles a l'heure prevue aujourd'hui. Je suis partie de l'aeroport de Quebec vers Detroit. L'avion n'etait pas tres gros ni tres rempli... J'ai eu une tres belle vue de St-Augustin au decollage! Le terminal dans lequel j'etais a Detroit est immense!! Il y avait meme un tram pour se rendre d'un bout a l'autre! J'ai fait un tour pour passer le temps. Le vol entre Detroit et Amsterdam a ete long surtout qu'on n'avait pas de petites tv dans nos bancs... J'etais assise a cote d'un enfant qui arretait [View Full Entry]

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Well well well. Another week passed in Belgium. I really can't believe it. It is like I just got here yet I feel like it's been more than 2 weeks. Oh 2 weeks. I feel like there is so much more that I want to do here! Let's start off where I left off in the last blog. Last Wednesday (6/4) was the grand premire of the 'Sex and the City' movie. My host sister got me a ticket over a month ago for the extravaganza. It was also 'Ladies at the Movies' night. Only women were allowed in the theater [View Full Entry]

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WooHoo! I made it through terminal 5 at Heathrow airport! All bags showed up just fine. As I had only 7 hours (later close to 10 due to the flight being delayed) in London before flying to Brussels for a work meeting I stowed my carrying on at the Left Luggage, and trudged home with two big bags filled with clothes, new shoes and a Swifter Sweeper. Had lunch with a co-worker then headed back to Heathrow Airport. I was quite impressed how much more comfortable I am in London after a bit of time away. Granted, this shouldn’t have been [View Full Entry]

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I have now been in Brussels, Belgium for nine days and only recently did I get a chance to go out and really see the city. On Friday (May 30), Dadou took me to the Grand Place. This is like the iconic Brussels landmark. It is really overwhelming as well. From Tuesday through Saturday, there are flower merchants in the square and every two years they cover the whole square with flowers in a beautiful mosaic. It's too bad that the flower masterpiece is done in August and not in June or July when I could see it. We didn't stay [View Full Entry]

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Ahhh, the capital of European Union! What a lovely place! And the Mannekin- Pis ain't that big! lol to be continued... [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour1 Cest aujourdhui notre derniere journee de voyage a bruxelles la se,aine de stage a passee vraiment vite jen reviens pas1 cest long a toute raconter je ne peux pas resumer ca ici mais je vais essayer de faire les grandes lignes... on a ete a lotan, la plus grande organisation militaire mondiale, cetait vraiment nice, jai meme diner en compagnie dun etzt major francais hahaha on a rencontrer aussi le delegue general du ac a bruxelles, yetait vraiment gentil et a fait une conference interessante aussi aujourdhui nos sommes alles faire n petit tour a brugge une tres belle [View Full Entry]

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One Emptied appartment, One Major car Crash, One quick bus journey, one long ass wait in a airport, one sleepy flight and a CONFUSING train ride and we're finally here.... Everything leading up to this in the past few days almost made it seem like fate had a different plan for us and we were trying to fight it!!!but as soon as our plane touched down on the brussels runway, not even the rain outside could bring us down no longer...our trip had began and no amount of bad luck was gonna keep us back....it had begun...Once we landed though we [View Full Entry]

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I have made a few observations about customs and actions of the people in Brussels so far. I don't know if all of them can be compared to the people of Belgium as a whole or not. I will hopefully find out for you. Lets do this in a list: 1. When you greet people (even if it is the first meeting), you 'kiss' on the cheek. Well, it's more of that you touch the other person's right cheek and make a kissing sound. Now, if you really know the person, you do double; but I have yet to experience that. [View Full Entry]

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