Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges,Ghent

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I arrived in Bruges (Brugge) from Paris and hopped on a train to Antwerp (Antwerpen, Anvers) to meet my host Sil Van, who had tried to surf my couch in Kelowna during snowboarding season. We toured around Antwerp quickly - saw the Markt, many beautiful areas including central station and of course the zoo where there had been an attack on a woman by a gorrilla(/ape?) earlier that month after the lady had been making faces at it for weeks, believing that they were friends?! I tried a belgium chocolate covered waffle, Kriek beer (cherry) and smoked apple tobacco from a Schicha(?) (similar to a hooka?). Sil Van hosted me in the capital of Belgium, Brussels, (Brussel, Bruxelles) where I had my first garden fresh strawberry of the season and had a home cooked meal prepared by his mom. We toured around Brussels that evening - saw the Atomium (the giant balls made for an expo), sampled some more Belgium beer at a Brown Cafe ( brown because the smoke has turned the walls brown) where we met up with his friend Sara who bless her heart set me up with my host in Bruges the next night. Sil Van did a great job of giving me the whirlwind tour in the limited time I spent in Brussels before I hopped on the train back to Bruges the next afternoon.
I was only intending on spending one night in Bruges....but it turned into three after I discovered how beautiful Bruges itself was not to mention the fact that my incredible (black market couch surfing) host, Olivier, lived in the country in an old farm house by the ocean with bunnies and goats (not lying) and drove into Bruges every day to his sandwhich shop that he owns in the heart of Bruges. So I got the best of both worlds - tourist by day 'local' by night...not to mention the excellent bicycle tour I was given through Oostduinkerke, which included the horse fisher (you have to see it to believe it) and gorgeous sand dunes. Belgium really is an interesting, tiny little country... has some separatist issues like Quebec, between the Flemish and the french...I never knew which language I was going to get. Oliver entertained me every night with his childhood friends and the last night he out did himself with a road trip to Ghant, a college town that knows how to party. I forgot that most mightclubs don't close at 2am... so when we left and people were on their way to work it was a very strange and 'tragic' feeling as I knew I was headed on a bus to Amsterdam that afternoon 😊

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Photos

Antwerpen
Outside of the zoo

Famous statue
They had statues of a little girl and a little boy hidden away in the city - seriously???

Brugges
One of the beautiful areas I was constantly stumbling upon