Mini Reunion

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A fantastic few days in Brussels and Ghent. The mini-reunion kind of came out of nowhere - Ayca happened to be in Brussels at the same time as Saartjes bday. Added to this, Victoria was coming up from Madrid and Kai was coming from Germany, so I figured I'd tag along.

Flew into Brussels on May 2nd and was met by Ayca. Apparently they had started the festivities the day before but nevertheless Ayca had enough energy to come out and meet me. We spent some days in Brussels just walking about mostly. Nights were spenting having a few. Belgium is one of the few fantastic places where even their poor man's beer is great. Much Jupiler was had.

We tagged along with Saar to Ghent and crashed at her place for a few days. Ghent is a great place. Almost completely students it seems. And a sizable 'little Turkey' where we had some good eats and reminisced about Turkland. We ended up spending an afternoon in Brugges but found it rather zoo-like with busloads and busloads of tourists.

Eventually everybody left. I said bye to Saar in Ghent and left to meet Ayca who is interning at the EU parliament in Brussels. Goodbyes are tough but hopefully this one won't be another 3 years.

In good show, the airplane was delayed by 3 hours or so, leaving at 2AM. Excellent. They gave everybody 16 euro vouchers to eat but the only place open at night was the beer bar. Essentially everybody was just clearing out the flats of Stella Artois, I was no exception. Helped to liven the mood and sedate people on the plane afterwords......

Pax

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Photos

brussels
Kai beneath the atomium. Man's homage to Iron. I find it suitable.

Brussels
Brussels by night. Rest assured that many bars were visited.

Brussels
Toxic! Absinthe bar.

bikes
Ghent - student central. Awesome place.

brugge tourists
This sums up our 3 hour stay in Brugge. Please excuse it if you feel it is misrepresentative. But the busloads of them kept coming.....