My favorite Bowling for Soup Song

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'Belgium'...well, maybe it's 'Girl All the Bad Guys Want', but nothing ruins a song's appeal like too much Grammy praise and radio overplay...except maybe if it's being performed by Nickelback. Those guys are no-talent-ass-clowns. In any event, let's go with Belgium, since that's where this is all leading anyways.

As options are limited for a weekend trip, medieval city hopping next door in Belgium seemed like a good idea. A three hour train ride on Friday night got Eugene, Bec, Shruti, Lesley, and I to the hometown of Spurs guard Tony Parker and supposedly the ever quotable Dr. Evil.

Vegetarian sensibilities among the girls and the fact that Belgians aren't predisposed to post-sunset economic activity limited our choices and caused us to pick fast food for the first evening's fare. If you think McDonald's is crap, then I invite you to sample the Quick Burger in Brugge for a reawakening in your appreciation for American fast food and a redefinition of poor customer service. The paroled middle school dropout with a hair pick at Jack in the Box has nothing on our Belgian, who insisted that all burgers need be ordered first and who had to consult several sources of information in order to process the following order: "I'll have the #1." All was forgiven with Belgium afterwards, as the Kwak, Leffe, and fruit-flavored beers flowed at a local pub. Check out the funky Kwak glass!

On Saturday, we did what there is to do in Brugge, which is apparently to revel in it's oldness. Fair enough: we visited a church housing one of the few Michelangelo works outside of Italy, took a canal tour with a bunch of cute education majors studying abroad who insisted that everything (including me being from Texas) was either 'cute!' or 'fun!' (note to self: go back in time and become and education major), and had a few beers at the local brewery. We also visited a pretty cool chocolate museum, which involved some hella-good free samples. Dinner was at a cool place with wood-fed grill, and we ended the night over all varieties of Leffe's at Cafe Leffe. After a full day of quality touring, I felt saucy enough to try the herring served at Cafe Leffe as a cocktail snack. For the record, this is a mistake you only make once.

On Sunday, we were off to Ghent, where we saw more great medieval architecture and toured a castle complete with an armory and torture exhibit. The whole time, Marcellus Wallace quotes kept ringing in my head, even without a pair of pliers and a blow torch as part of the exhibit. The greatest part about going out and staying in a 'typical' (aka kinda lame) European hotel, is that even the Mercure Den Haag starts lookin' pretty sweet when you get back!

Combined pics from Shruti's, Eugene's, and my cameras are HERE

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Photos

Customer dis-service
Bec and Lesley will now present a facial interpretation of how much we enjoyed our first meal in Brugge.

There's a line...
...between funny pictures and quality posed pictures. Unlike Oracle databases, this, Shruti fails to understand.

That's a keeper
Looky..old stuff and a nice group shot. Back there is city hall and the Church of the Holy Blood, where a few congealed drops of Jesus' blood are apparently housed.

Chocolate Making Demo
This guy told us lots of interesting facts about the making of authentic Belgian chocolate, including the fact that it's gotta be 45% coco powder to qualify, and that white 'chocolate' is a fantasy (since it doesn't meet that requirement. The really important part, however, was the samples at the end!

Beers at Cafe Leffe
Aw c'mon Eugene...it's so easy. All ya gotta do is sit there with your huge, tasty Leffe beer and smile WITH YOUR EYES OPEN for the pic! Strike one man..don't let me catch you messin' up another good blog pic again.

Never again
Pickled herring. Made my entire half-liter of Leffe Blonde taste like vinegary fish. No thank you, sir!

Castle tour in Ghent
That's Bec's butt I'm pretending to kick. Here I thought I was all sneaky, but let me assure you I received a swift smack in the arm for the prank pic. Worth every bruise, I say.