Beer, Fries and Chocolate? What more could you want? Throw in great coffee, raw food, decadent architecture, quirky customs and the most friendly people on Earth and you've got Belgium (or more accuratley, Ghent).
Becoming accustomed to www.blablacar.com, we took a carshare on a rainy afternoon from Paris to Brussells where the circles of our travels began repeating on themselves. We made rendezvous with a Taiwanese lady who we met in a canoe on the Lake in Pokara, Nepal. Mai has been living and working as an artist in Brussells for 22 years. It's so strange and wonderful to be seeing an old friend on the other side of the world, albeit another English speaking human who we spent half an hour with for the sake of convenience.
Mai gave us a brief tour of one of the most grande squares in Europe before we settled in for a cozy beer in the most ornate room that I've ever worn a t-shirt and shorts in. Lauren and I commented that we immediately felt a sense of ease in Brussells in stark contrast to Paris. We tried some local dishes and felt at home amongst warm stews and absurdly grown white asparagus - something a little more rustic than the refined peasant food of France. Mei took us back to her designer apartment (DIY), and with so much style, took a knife from the draw and proceeded to sharpen it on the bottom of a ceramic mug. We shared stories of India and Nepal over Leffe and cured meat and blew off our early morning ride. It turns out that you can get anywhere in Belgium in under an hour for 7euro by train. We lightened our load, leaving some bags behind and boarded the train to Bruges / Brugge.
Bruges is an astonishing little village, perfectly preserved as an outdoor museum of the 13th Century. The second zone of the city is modern, and that's where we had our most creepy couch surfing experience to date. We stayed with a very strange man indeed. He was harmless, but his house smelled of cheese balls and had pictures of him with famous people or latino women. He had a printed piece of paper on his door which cautioned ''Don't EVER wake me... unless it's for sex or the house is on fire''. We half expected to wake during the night and see the glimmer of his teeth and eyeballs as he watched us sleep. We didn't wake to such a sight and as far as I know, he slept in his room, sans sex with another human. As you can imagine, we got out of there ASAP in the morning, stashed our bags in a locker at the train station before learning the art of frying a chip and making chocolate. It's as underwhelming as it sounds, but Andalusian Sauce (actually from Belgium) is delicious. A side benefit was learning the history behind the term ''French Fries''.
Next stop on our whirlwind tour of Belgium became our favourite town in Europe. Ghent. The mediaeval feel of Brugge with the addition of a university creates ambience and a ''lived in'' feeling. Ghent boasts its own 12th century fortified castle which has only been taken twice - once in the 1950's by students who were protesting beer prices. Beer is a way of life in Ghent. On a sunny summers day you will see the city filled with people, drinking out of brew-specific glassware on the canals. On weekends it's common to see a mobile bar powered by men drinking beer careening over the car-free cobblestone. We were witness to many raucous bucks and hens parties (Lauren signed a hairy man's stomach) and we've been told that O-week is brutal.
One evening we left our wallet in a cafe. When we ran back with our CS host, Steijn, much to our dismay, the cafe was closed for the long weekend. By chance, the owner arrived, a little tipsy, she let us in, found the wallet with all the money in it and gave us a round of beers to celebrate.
We caught up with Bri and Lilith both in Ghent and Antwerp. Inter-city travel is like suburban travel for Belgians. It was great to drink Belgians best coffee (usually from Caffienation) with friends from home, throw disc again and always eat frites (chips). Our CS host in Antwerp also gave us a full expository of European Gin, which was most welcome on these stormy nights which left Antwerp looking like a warzone.
We returned to Brussels only to be exploited by Ryan Air. We will never use a budget airline again.
Becoming accustomed to www.blablacar.com, we took a carshare on a rainy afternoon from Paris to Brussells where the circles of our travels began repeating on themselves. We made rendezvous with a Taiwanese lady who we met in a canoe on the Lake in Pokara, Nepal. Mai has been living and working as an artist in Brussells for 22 years. It's so strange and wonderful to be seeing an old friend on the other side of the world, albeit another English speaking human who we spent half an hour with for the sake of convenience.
Mai gave us a brief tour of one of the most grande squares in Europe before we settled in for a cozy beer in the most ornate room that I've ever worn a t-shirt and shorts in. Lauren and I commented that we immediately felt a sense of ease in Brussells in stark contrast to Paris. We tried some local dishes and felt at home amongst warm stews and absurdly grown white asparagus - something a little more rustic than the refined peasant food of France. Mei took us back to her designer apartment (DIY), and with so much style, took a knife from the draw and proceeded to sharpen it on the bottom of a ceramic mug. We shared stories of India and Nepal over Leffe and cured meat and blew off our early morning ride. It turns out that you can get anywhere in Belgium in under an hour for 7euro by train. We lightened our load, leaving some bags behind and boarded the train to Bruges / Brugge.
Next stop on our whirlwind tour of Belgium became our favourite town in Europe. Ghent. The mediaeval feel of Brugge with the addition of a university creates ambience and a ''lived in'' feeling. Ghent boasts its own 12th century fortified castle which has only been taken twice - once in the 1950's by students who were protesting beer prices. Beer is a way of life in Ghent. On a sunny summers day you will see the city filled with people, drinking out of brew-specific glassware on the canals. On weekends it's common to see a mobile bar powered by men drinking beer careening over the car-free cobblestone. We were witness to many raucous bucks and hens parties (Lauren signed a hairy man's stomach) and we've been told that O-week is brutal.
One evening we left our wallet in a cafe. When we ran back with our CS host, Steijn, much to our dismay, the cafe was closed for the long weekend. By chance, the owner arrived, a little tipsy, she let us in, found the wallet with all the money in it and gave us a round of beers to celebrate.
