Belgium D1

Easter weekend and what better way to celebrate with waffles, beer and chocolate! So after meeting up with Nat and Melissa the night before I got home at about 1am, packed, slept and woke up at 530 to catch teh 6am train....
I missed it by 2 minutes and had to wait an hour for the 7am train... ah no biggie...
but was excited as this was my first international train trip! The plan was to meet up with dave and them in Brussels, Brugges the next day and then Ghent after that. wahoo!

by the time I got in ... got off the Gare do Nord which happens to be beside their red light district (go figure.. in Belgium) in Bruxelles and surprisingly found my way to the MC house. Met Pedro, the VP of exchange from Mexico but he was heading to Brugge for the chocolate festival and I set out right away to eet Dave and the gang in the centre.

the main language spoken in Brussels is French though I think most speak Flemish as well (like dutch without the spitting hacking)
Like Geneva it seemed the streets were super empty until I got closer and closer to the older part of the city where most of the main attractions are. Now the square with the palace was hyped up for me unfortunately but was still amazing nonetheless!

by now it was about noon and had to meet Dave and gang at the royal palace. unfortunately I thought the main building in the square was the palace.. but nope! I found out it was a hotel or government building of some sort and had to sprint to the real meeting place. So when I thought I was there.. I found out I wasn't... good thing I had a cell phone and eventually found nic, dave, hester and becs from Dubs!
decided to head to a big park to possibly have lunch. since bec's was crippled from her soccer practice, hester's aunt gave her a transport card and was handy for all of us to go along too.


by the time we got to the park, was too cold to stick around, so snapped some pics, then decided to head to Hester's place (well her aunts) to make some lunch.

after a little lunch, Dave and I decided to head out as I wanted to explore more but the girls were tired and stayed in. Dave and Nic arrived the night before so they saw lots and were actually heading to Brugges on sat night. Hester, bec's and I will be heading there in the morning.

on the way to the royal palace saw this AMAZING photo exhibition and I believe each photo was suppose to bring awareness to a certain environmental phenomena, or some ecological footprint that is altering the natural landscape.

afterwards we headed to dave's hostel to pick up their bags, then off to St. Michael and St. Gudula's Cathedral.


after the cathedral, it was about 7ish and headed back to hester's for some dinner. Dave made us some wicked good cream and bacon pasta, then after our bellies were full, dave and nic left to catch their 9pm train to Brussels and I for more exploring.
That night saw the famous little mannequin, went back to the sqare, had a beer and definitely went for the waffles! by 11 pm it was time for me to go crash which was at about 11:30 and get ready for Brugges!


What I learned is how important it is to check the credits on the cell phone before leaving the country. I ran out, so ended up finding an internet cafe and used skype to call Pedro to see if he was home (originally, the ringer didn't work that morning, but it went back to normal by the evening. and that's day one!