Belgium, Brussels and Brugge!

This past weekend I went to Belgium and saw the cities Brussels and Brugge! It was an amazing experience, that was completely different than my experience in Spain. For one, it was FREEZING!! I'm talking winter cold, where in Spain it's barely fall. It was an interesting experience coming back all bundled up from Belgium with 3 layers, scarf and fall coat to the Spain weather and changing into shorts and a t shirt! The thursday night before I left my dance class had a "practice" session at a local latin club. Melissa, Alba and I went and it was so much fun! There were the very advanced couples, but there was a place for everyone to try. The ages ranged from young to old. I practiced my merengue and salsa. Some locals taught me the bachata. Overall, it was a success! :) The next day I left for Brussels, Belgium. It was a bit chaotic getting to the airport, but we made it! When Ally, Lynn, Bianca and I all arrived Belgium we were shocked at how crisp, cold and clean the air felt. We were all very hungry after we dropped our luggage off at the hostal, so we found a restraunt with reasonable prices. This is where we recieved another shock...everything was in french! (Note: the 2 languages in Belgium are french and dutch). On top of that, no one spoke english or spanish, so we did what anyone would do...ordered what we knew. I got speghetti bologanise, lynn got pasta, and ally got pizza. We were so stuffed, but it was well worth it! We also realized that Belgium people make everything from scratch..it takes a bit longer but you can literally taste the difference! From there we went exploring in Brussels. The first place we went was the "atomium" which is their version of "the eiffel tower" it basically looks like a bunch of molecules, but nevertheless we can say that we have been there! From there we went exploring around the city around downtown and eventually ended up in the main tourist area of Brussels. We saw a church, shopped, and tried all of Belgium's musts. Including...french fries(the belgium way), belgium waffles, stella artois beer and chocolate! The french fries were topped with ketchup, mayonnaise(europeans are crazy about this...) and onions, they were amazingly fresh, and a direct quote from a couple locals we met "they are amazing, fresh, not frozen". They were very good! The next thing we tried was the belgium waffle, they were huge and topped with sweets. Lynn and I split one with strawberries and chocolate...yea it was pretty much amazing! By then we were extremely stuffed but happy! We found my favorite part of Belgium...The Grand Place. It is a huge square with gigantic buildings with the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen! It was magical and astounding at the same time it left all 3 of us in awe. From there we went to see Manneken Pis, this statue had a huge build up because there were huge sounveniors dedicated to this monument, and when we got there he was extremely small...it is basically a little boy peeing, with many different legends of why it is Belgium's national symbol. We ate dinner at a restraunt and tried Belgium's beer Stella Artois and it was amazing! I was suprised, but I found out that Belgium's beer rivals Germany's... By then we were ready to go to bed.

The next morning we left for Brugge, which is on a train 1.5 hrs away from Brussels and is termed "Northern Venice". It was extremely beautiful! We wondered around the city got lots of pictures of churches, canal and the beautiful architecture! We frequently saw horse drawn carriages and wooden shoes as well. We even stumbled upon a wishing well. :) Then we were all famished and freezing, not entirely sure where we were stumbled into an awesome local restraunt! It was the most amazing food for nothing at all! And on top of that the owner and waitress spoke english and kindly read us the menu. I was able to get hot chocolate and scrambled eggs! Note: I have not been able to get scrambled eggs since coming to europe, bc everything is fried eggs. The owner kindly pointed out where we wanted to go next, which was a cheap souveniors place--this took forever to find and was not that exciting. Then we went to see one of the panorama views, the cheapest one, which consisted of climbing a hill by a huge windmill and looking at the view. It was definately an experience! From there we headed toward the touristy part of Brugge and saw the church of the holy blood, which was a church dedicated to worshipping Jesus' blood, the church was beautiful, but the concept was a little creepy, nevertheless we all went up to see the vial of the supposed Jesus' blood. Then we went to find a cannon left over from the war of 1631 left behind upside down stuck in the ground. No one knows how or why it is like that, at first we couldn't find it, but after asking a few other people, we found it! Just a quirky thing we saw. From there we went to a chocolate store where an american artist bought chocolate and had people run around naked covered in chocolate for pictures in the Vlamingstraat and the opera house. There lynn introduced me to the yummy chocolate covered orange peels...yum..! Throughout Brugge there were numerous kissing spots marked with red hearts painted on the ground. From there the 3 of us went back to the hostal exhausted to get ready for our flight in the morning. Overall, Belgium was amazing, random and different. There wasn't one set nationality there, there were many different people. I wouldn't say that Belgium was my favorite country or city this far, but it has the best architecture so far! As of now, I'd say Barcelona is my favorite. Upon returning home and promptly changing from layers to tshirt and shorts, I discovered that the men who are working on our plumbing, did something wrong and that we couldnt use the shower. So, Melissa and I feel gross did what we had to do and washed our hair in the sink. Lol it was definately an experience that I never thought would happen in Spain. Overall, I had a great trip and I am happy to be back in Madrid! :) This weekend I'm staying in Madrid because Midterms are next week, then the week after I am off to Venice with my grandma!

Hasta la vista!