european adventure: belgium

april 25:

after well spent days in london, my travels continued on into belgium.  we took the train that goes under the english channel.  we passed kings cross on the way to the train station.  um.. can you say harry potter?!  i think i secretly thought j. k. rowling made all those things up.  it made my love for hp grow much stronger.  the passage to the wizard world was right there!  the train ride was probably around an hour ish.. one can't be too sure, time flies when you are having fun/sleeping/braiding hair/and such.

^waiting in the station for our train to come^

^we're on a train.^

^sometimes taylor braids my hair.^

but we sometime thereafter made it into france to then take a bus ride into brugge.  brugge is such a quaint little town.  we just wandered the streets and window shopped.  also, chocolates everywhere.  they are so so good. 

^holly, taylor, stacy, myself.^

^brugge has weird trees. ^

^i have an obsession with doors apparently^

april 26:

we spent most of the morning driving into ghent. driving isn't so bad when you have gorgeous landscape right out the window.  we went to ghent to see st. bavo's cathedral here, and also because it has a piece by van eyck in the cathedral.. and we are all a bunch of nerdy art students, so it was a must to see that. the ghent altar piece was amazing.  van eyck was such a great artist and sure knew how to use oil paints. current obsession: cathedrals.  they are so big and beautiful. there was a man playing the harp in the apse of this cathedral.  cathedrals have such great acoustics.

^it only looks gloomy because of the rain... it really was amazing.^

also another favorite was architecture. simply amazing.

after st. bavo we headed into brussels.  also another cute town.  brussels isn't quite as small as brugge or ghent so there was a little more to do there.  like more chocolate shopping.  actually we went to the royal museum.

^inside the royal museum^

 basically the only piece in this museum that i was dying to see was the death of marat by jaques-louis david. amazing. 

also the fall of the rebel angels:

 i became obsessed with the cobble stone streets.

we spent a lot of time in the square.  it was rainy, but fun.  in the square we just ate waffles.  or we would window shop... people watch.. and then eat more waffles.

but i think the reason that belgium was created was for the waffles.

^i'll take the lot! too many options.^

we practically hung out with our professors the entire time in brussels.  actually i think that they just wanted to hang with holly, stacy, taylor and i.  we're too cool.  we headed for the famous waffle factory.  we all loaded up on our waffles and right close by is the manneken pis.  i was expecting a big monument of it, but it was so little!!!

^this kid is EVERYWHERE.
...if i were in charge of choosing the town mascot, a peeing boy wouldn't be the first thing to come to mind...^

brussels was so rainy.  but that didn't deter us from being fun.  we were soaked by the time we got back to the hostel later that night.  we met some friendly drunk boys at our hostel walking up the stairs to our room.  poor thing, we was so taint (thats what they say in london for tipsy) that he almost tripped down the stairs. we also hit up the disco in the basement.  it mainly turned into a zumba dance party.  

zumba dance party was a good way to end the rest of our stay in belgium. we headed into france the next morning.  more to come soon.