sorry guys laundry is finished...as is my diet as i just had yet another kebab dinner. i loves me some curried meats. such class... anyways after the awe inspiring trip to the peeing statues we decided it was time for some traditional fair. or at least sina's stomach told us so. we go to a restraunt along the perimeter of the floral carpet and decide it best to sit inside away from the noise pollution that was saturday afternoon in brussels. of course we ate some belgian waffles and beer for dinner. what else would we eat? these waffles were insane [View Full Entry]

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As they say here in Brussels, Bonjour! Yes, apparently they speak French (and Flemish) here in Belgium...I did not know that until we got here! This is the first city I've every been in where French is one of the main languages spoken, and I've learned more French in the last two days than I ever managed to learn German. And by that, I mean I can now say 2 things: merci, and au revoir. Hey, thats more German than I ever really managed to pick up! We are now in Brussels (and by 'we' I mean Bethany, Stephen and myself) [View Full Entry]

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Hola como ya lo había pronosticado estuve en Bruselas, Bélgica un país muy hermoso y bien internacional mas que Suecia diría yo, en este país encuentras emigrantes de casi todos los países del mundo, la gente es muy cordial y se hablan casi todos los idiomas. Bélgica esta dividido en 2 regiones la parte donde las personas hablan Dutch (holandés) y la parte francesa. En Bruselas las personas por lo general hablan frances pero a la hora de hablar ingles cualquier persona te puede sostener una conversación no hay problema, otra cosa que me impacto es que casi el 80 % [View Full Entry]

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Well we finally made our fist trip across the ditch to Europe. Yes a weekend in Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp and we are impressed. Our trip started on Friday morning 7am at St Pancras Station, where we boarded the Eurostar. It was a sharp contrast to airports, we arrive 30 minutes before departure not 3 hours, check in is relatively easy and with in 20 minutes you are sitting in the train ready to leave. The only hiccup was secrurity, who took my swiss army knife because it was considered dangerous in the present London climate (there is a knifing every [View Full Entry]

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We are now having a wonderful evening with the London cousins. Jennie met us and Josie and Sarah had cooked tea.The older girls are showered and out to meet 'locals'. Catriona is dying after last night's tough train trip so she's off to bed. I am enjoying the luxury of washing some kit out and getting it dried. We were so exhausted after the night Berlin - Bruxelles train that arrived at 6am! We visited the Grand Place and Mannekin Pis by 8am and then sat drinking coffee and reading until the Cinema opened and we could slink inside to sleep. [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday (30.7.) I got up to another hot, sunny morning (surprisingly no sore muscles despite the immense physical effort!), packed up my bags and loaded them onto my bicycle and headed for the train station. There I encountered my first problem of the day, when I couldn't print out my Eurostar ticket for some reason. Luckily I was allowed to board the train with just my email print-out of my reservation. My bike was loaded into the back of the train into a wee compartment to which only the conductor had the key. I thoroughly enjoyed the train ride (wow, someone/something [View Full Entry]

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While traveling around the world we choose our destinations to give us great memories of this epic journey. Most times we will pick winning locations, other times we pick some less than desirable locations. Brussels falls into the latter category for us. We board the train in Paris and head towards Brussels. The train ride is quite nice and we take full advantage of our Eurail Pass and sit in the first class section. After a relatively short train ride, we arrive in Brussels. Our arrival date is the 18th of July. Stepping off the train, we give ourselves a few [View Full Entry]

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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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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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