WAFFLES!

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It's taken me longer than I would have liked to update on my recent travels. This weekend I stayed in at the Castle and went to Nijmegen for a day trip. It's a nice town. Really, we only went shopping. But I found a new coat for 20 euro (the zipper on my old one broke). The rest of the time I've been more or less alone in the castle except for a few of my friends. Nothing too exciting has gone on. I was supposed to go to Ireland but I cancelled. I needed a weekend of rest to be healthy and ready to go to London and then to Paris. We leave early Thursday morning for London. It's a mandatory Castle-wide excursion for about a week. And then I'm making a pit-stop at Stonehenge for a day then over to Paris to see the Louvre and Versailles. I can't wait!

Anyway, here's what happened last weekend:

Belgium's most famous tourist attraction is a little boy peeing. It sort of symbolizes how I feel about the place. Not necessarily that I want to pee on it (although when I was particularly irritated it did cross my mind) but the whole place felt dirty and shady. I mean people, buildings, everything. And not only when the weather is cloudy, it feels that way even in the brightest of sunlight.

I'm misrepresenting Belgium, probably. But from what I saw, the good parts (though few and far between) were good and the not good parts (not necessarily bad but just not good) were very, very bad.

In short, we ate a lot of waffles, looked at a lot of architecture and bought chocolate to bring home. Oh, and a cop pinched me. I tried crossing the street when I didn't have a signal and he grabbed my arm and yelled, "STOP!" For the rest of the trip I was terrified of crossing the street.

Before Brussels we went to Maastricht, a city in the South of the Netherlands. It's full of interesting history, architecture and culture. Rob Dückers was our guide. He showed us around a couple of churches including the church of St. Servatius where he used to be curator. This meant we had special access to areas of the church and an expert for our guide.

Overall, it was a pretty low-key weekend despite the fact that we were travelling through all of it. Honestly, though, I didn't really enjoy Brussels. The people seemed generally rude and I didn't feel too safe walking around. This is probably because the first weekend we were here a group from the Castle got mugged in Brussels. I didn't find much I really was interested in besides chocolate and I'm only interested in that for so long.

Basically, I saw the touristy sights that you have to see when you go to Brussels (Le Petit Julien) but I have no reason or desire to ever go back.

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Photos

Seagulls Attack!
We were standing on a bridge and then a flock of seagulls attacked us. It was great!

I want to hear the canon!
According to Rob, D'Artagnan (one of the three musketeers) died somewhere over here. This is also where Nicole was almost run down by a bicycle while she was taking a picture.

Cat!
This is the cat we played with while we waited. Probably not the best idea.

Cat 2
Nicole couldn't tame this one. Disappointment!

Hell's Gate.
Prisoners were kept in here back in the day. Just to scare people away.

Organ
This is from inside of the Church of Our Lady in Maastricht. I tried to get a good picture of the statue but lighting was tricky. The story goes that in 1930 something they were supposed to parade the statue through the town but because the weather was so bad they cancelled the parade. And then the next day they found mud on the statue's cape as if she got up and walked herself. It was cool.

Churches!
These are the other two churches we toured. The one with the round-ish looking section was St. Servatius. The other one was used for the "common people" a long time ago.

Sissy Boy Homeland
A store we found in Maastricht. I finally understand where all of my guy friends came from.

Beer
This is the ceiling of the little pub we stopped in for a beer. I liked the decorations so I took a picture. It's decorated for Carnivale, in case you were wondering.

Meaghan and Creepy statue guy
This is Meaghan playing with one of the creepy statues. Obviously.

The Man
St. Servatius himself. He has one of two keys to heaven, you know. Don't get on his bad side.

The Class
Not really. I just felt like I was on a school field trip. It was kind of nice, actually.

Wanna-be artsy photo
I like red doors.

Tomb of St. Servatius
Don't worry, he isn't actually in there. He was at one point but then they moved him.

Above the tomb
They buried people along the center line of the church. The richer/more important you were, the closer you were to the line.

Vending machine beer
When I first walked in to the hostel I saw my friend Kyle and I also saw the beer in the vending machine. Before I said, "hi" I did a double take of the beer. And, yes, I drank it.

Statue in the square
the next morning: Brussels

Sunny!
We ate waffles outside! The weather was so nice.