"When in Belgium"

There is nothing more than I love than Belgium!! I guessed something extremely different, and was more than happy then what I was expecting.

On Thursday, Alexis, Katie, Lindsey and I hopped on a train with some other Abbey-ians and arrived in Paris around 9:30 pm. We had to take the metro to arrive to our hostel which was located in North Paris in the Pig Alley District. We checked into our hostel, which was basically a hole in the wall, but did what it needed to do: let us sleep! We found a little burger joint and had a quick dinner there. It was the best burger I've ever had! LOL. We then arrived back home and hit the sack before midnight.

Friday morning, we woke up at 5:30 am to arrive to Gare Nord. We again had to take the metro, which I love, and we got to the station with about 30 minutes to kill. Several espressos later, we were seated and on our way to Belgium. Alexis and I had seats by each other we dozed off and slept for the whole hour train ride. When we arrived in Brussels, we had to catch another train to Brugge, which was where our hostel was. Luckily for us, our Eurostar ticket allowed us to use any Belgian train! We saved about 50 bucks!

Another train ride later, we arrived in the lovely town of Brugge. Brugge is a town about an hour north of Brussels and is so cute!! We caught a bus to the Markt, which is sort of like the town square of Brugge. Alexis took charge and led us to what she thought was our street where our hostel was. 45 minutes later, we realized that we were no where close to where we needed to be! I laugh at it now. There was me, holding a HUGE fold out map, Alexis, standing on a street corner trying to decide what street we were on, and Katie and Lindsey who were trying to stay warm. A old German man passed us and asked if we needed help and luckily for us, he spoke perfect English. He showed us that we were about a mile and a half in the other direction. Alexis was not allowed to navagate any more and the whole experience was so funny!

We finally arrived to our hostel (which only would have been a 5 minute walk) and immediately set out to find some lunch. We were famished! Down the street from our hostel was a little cafe owned by an extremely nice woman. Juliette's served breakfast and lunch and we all had a great lunch there. We found out then that water was not free in Brugge, and for the rest of the trip, water was at least 30% of our meal price!

We went shopping after that and of course, I found yet another H&M. I only bought a cardigan Mom! Brugge has lots of little shops and we spent the rest of the afternoon doing just that. We went back to our hostel around 5pm and took a well needed power nap. We were SO tired. We then got up and found a little restaurant that was located in the Markt. It was incredible. Sort of pricey, but well worth it. 3 courses for about 20 euro (tax, tip and beverage included). I had this cheese appetizer, lasagna and mouse for dessert. Katie went after the famous mussels and Alexis and Lindsey had some chicken thing. It was a great dinner and we all had a great conversation! After that, we found this street which is famous for its bars and its nightlife. We went to two bars and had a great time. We again called it early and were asleep by 12 am.

Saturday we slept in a little, grabbed a cheap lunch and headed out to see the historical Brugge. We went to several little souvenir shops, took pictures all around the city and took an amazing boat tour through all the canals. Our tour guide was a hoot: he looked just like Chef Boyardee. He spoke perfect English, which was a plus. Most of the people there spoke great English and were by are the nicest people I've met on my trip so far. Katie, Alexis and Lindsey are chocolate fanatics and we stopped at several chocolate stores. They all spent so much on Belgian chocolate. I sampled a bit, it was really good! We went back to our hostel for another nap and went out for a quick dinner again. Not as good as Friday night, but we went to a little bakery and sampled of course a Belgian waffle. We went to bed again early because we had to be at the train station by 7 am.

Yesterday was basically full of travel. We arrived back to Brussels and had about a 3 hour layover before our train to Paris arrived. We met another american student there so that was pretty cool. She was from Philly and was studying in London (which I positively cannot wait to see). After we arrived back to Paris, we were fortunate enough to catch the train back to Montrichard with 2 minutes to spare!! About Abbey-ians were on that train so we were all happy to see one another there. We arrived back to campus around 8:30 that night and I got to talk to my family on skype for the first time since I've been in Europe. It was AWESOME.

I'm so tired from this past weekend, but it was amazing. I love Belgium and I certainly want to go back soon!! We leave for Paris in one week! We stay there for one week, and then we are off for 14 days on our own! I'm a little nervous, but I am SO excited!! :)