You would think that, being twenty minutes from the French border, citizens of western Belgium would speak French. But that would be too easy. Belgium splits itself up, linguisticall, by North and South. In southern Belgium, they do indeed speak French. But in northern Belgium, where I was in Gent, they speak Flemish. D'oh. The most interesting part was, after conveying the fact that I don't understand Flemish, people immediately switched to English, instead of French like I expected. It seems to be the second-most spoken language there. Odd, but nice for me. The intent of the trip [View Full Entry]

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Hi there, So ... I'm back since Wednesday but I still haven't finished my blog. So the next days you will find the rest of my earlier stories translated and I will finish what I started and that is my stay in Quebec untill September 7, even though I'm back in Gent. I hope you will enjoy it, any comments, please send them!! take care, Ann. [View Full Entry]

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Gello, Nog enkele uurtjes en ik ben ermee weg. Ik ben vandaag te weten gekomen dat ik er maar 7u over zal vliegen ipv 8u, dju, een uur minder om te slapen ;-) Ik ben nog volop aan het pakken en 5 dingen tergelijkertijd aan het doen maar ik heb er me al mee verzoend dat ik waarschijnlijk niet zo veel zal slapen vannacht. Oef, eindelijk vakantie!! Ik kijk er wel naar uit. Voorlopig is mijn plan hetvolgende: morgen rond de middag landt het vliegtuig in Montréal. Dan heb ik enkele uurtjes om mijn weg te vinden naar het treinstation en [View Full Entry]

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we needed a break from the big cities. and gent was perfect. we were welcomed by lovely sisters jolien and cynthia. very friendly. perfect english. and of course they speak dutch and french as well. jolien showed us around her house, a lovely retro place. fleamarket finds in every nook. but tastefully put together. eclectic. i can see my place looking like this. she has an attic and a basement, a water closet. a BACKYARD. now that's a change from paris. her beautiful cats alain and dalida. a famous french duet sung by the two. alain currently purring my lap. he's [View Full Entry]

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Exactly a month of travelling, everything OK till the day before yesterday, a day curiously full of setbacks... I had peacefully pedalled for 74 flat Kms and I was only 22 Kms away from Gent, stage's final for that day. A puncture at the rear wheel, apparently nothing serious. I decide to push the bike up to a gas station where I could have changed the tyre without being then forced to inflate it manually. I took a few steps and the inner tube came totally out of the tyre, which in turn lost its natural place inside the metal rim [View Full Entry]

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FANTASTIC festivals & parties :D! Seriously though, I do believe it's the oldest city in Belgium. Medieval through & through. [View Full Entry]

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After a busy first day of the holiday, we were up at 7am fully rested and ready to do our first bit of Interrailing! Our hotel was only about a five minute walk to Lille Flandres Station, and in our ever-lasting panic of things going wrong, we were there about half an hour early to make sure our train was on the board and we knew exactly where we needed to go. Admittedly, we had gotten there early in the hope of finding breakfast too...but soon realised that would be a rather fruitless search given it was so early on a [View Full Entry]

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Hi folks! This entry is merely an attempt to see how this site works. Within less than 24 hours I'll depart from Brussels to New York and from there out I'll fly to Lima, Peru. I'll be staying in Lima from Tuesday the second until Saturday 5th of July and will fly from Lima to Pucallpa. I'll join a group of fellow adventurers to go deep into the jungle to stay in a Shipibo village. During our stay we'll learn about shamanism, we'll have a look into medicinal and psychoactive plants and we'll have the oportunity to join in an ayahuasca [View Full Entry]

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We made our way from Torquay to Dover which was quite a drive. I think it took about 5 hours. Our ferry wasnt until 4am the next morning so we stopped at a reststop and had a few hours sleep. Boarded the ferry which only took 90 mins to cross the English channel. Arrived in Calais, France then started driving towards Belgium. We stopped at a rest stop on the way for a bit of a sleep cos we were quite tired. When we woke up I realised that I had left the headlights on so the battery was dead flat. [View Full Entry]

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I was there in 2006, in Gent. The Cathedral is impressing, the streets are very neat and narrow, a bit too tidy and boring for my taste. Everything is rather comformist, and the rest looks like Holland. [View Full Entry]

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