Brussels & Brugge, Belgium

Fries, and beer, and waffles, and chocolate, oh my!

Unfortunately I didn't write anything down during my trip to Belgium two weekends ago, but I'll try to adequately inform everyone on just how spectacular this place is.

Tastes like apples!

I went there with 7 of my friends - which makes mostly all of API Grenoble's year students - plus our friend Stephanie's boyfriend from the Netherlands, Alex, who joined us later. We did this thing called couch surfing, which allows travelers to stay with residents of a city for free. As a large group we stayed with a nice guy named Mathijas, and then later we split into two smaller groups, and my group stayed with an amazingly nice, generous, intelligent guy about our age named Lennert, while the other group stayed with this pretentious, arrogant, Frenchman named Dimitri.

During our time in Brussels we ate the fries, waffles, and chocolate that are so raved about, and drank the beer that is usually exalted. Yes, Aunt Cathy, I tried the cherry beer! It was good, but I have a notion that you liked it better than I! We pretty much survived on these foods the whole trip, or very nearly. I could do without eating fries for a while.

Also, Brussels, as a bilingual city, is a very interesting concept. People speak French and Dutch, and a lot speak English as well. Lennert told me that outside of Brussels, in the predominantly Dutch speaking areas of Belgium, French isn't second, but third following English! Dutch is just between German and English when looking at linguistic lineage. Belgians are very nice, too. Much less hostile (read - more welcoming) than the French. Though, surely, the French are welcoming too (just watch out for those Parisians)!

We drank beers in a park, and one day went and visited the Atomium which was good to see, but we just goofed around. Sometimes while in Europe, you actually forget that people take vacations here - living out dreams. We actually live here, and the idea is just bizarre. One night, while in our separate groups, we took ourselves (couch surfing host included) to the other group's place, as their host was having a party. We got there at 11, and the party was dead - not to mention that Dimitri was rude to Shawn when she asked where our friends were. Oh well, we had fun sitting in our corner making fun of his apartment.

One day we took a train to Brugge, which is said to be the Venice of Northern Europe. It's full of canals and cute houses. That's another thing - I really did love the architecture in Belgium (from what I saw). Lots of brickwork that reminded me of what I imagine America's big colonial cities to have. Once we got of the train we bought things for a picnic, and after a stop for fries, we walked a ways and found a nice grassy patch to sit on. Then, after walking around a bit, we found an open air market.

This isn't even everyone! Atomium.

Still not everyone. Big group, one room.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip and a very lovely city. I would definitely go back, and I even read that 23% of Brussels' population is foreign, so you never know. I could stay!

Grottes de Choranche

In mid-March we went to see the caves of Choranche. Everything was lovely! Though, I don't have any pictures of the actual insides, but let me assure you that there were stalagmites and stalactites aplenty! Here's one from Wikipedia: click!

Pictures from Spain

Reading by the fire in the farmhouse.

Orange picking.

My room in the farmhouse.

Part of the million buildings of Al Alhambra.

On our hike.

Hike continued.

Twenty candles!

View from the farmhouse.

Spring Break in Spain

Well, dearest. Nearly a month's gone by my last post. I don't blame any of you if you've left the edge of your seat to get a mug of coffee in anticipation of my next endeavor and decided that there's no point and that you shan't ever return. Really, though, I'm about to flood this whole blog with posts because I now have a sufficient amount of time.

So, starting February 24th and going until March 6th, I was in Granada, Spain. I went with two friends - Allison and Emma - and we stayed with an eccentric family friend of Emma's named Paul, or to his Spanish friends, Pablo.

For starters, we took a bus to the south of Spain. It took more than a day to get there from Grenoble. No, really. Literally more than 24 hours. And actually it took two busses to get there - one full of people going to Portugal, and the second full of Spaniards. The countryside was absolutely beautiful, though. We had fantastic views of miles of olive groves. Turns out we were going through Jaén, Spain, which is apparently the largest olive producing province in the world.

We met Pablo at the bus station. He was a very nice, very hospitable person. Over dinner we shared stories, and he asked us to help him with things around the house if we could, especially electronics, saying "I don't know how electricity isn't just leaking out of the walls." One thing I wrote down that I noticed about Spain/Granada: it's a lot like California aesthetically.

The next day we had a nice pastry breakfast and then bussed into town. We toured Granada, eating tapas, going to St. Nicolas Square, meeting Pablo's friend, looking at all the gorgeous buildings and markets. We then had a nice view of Al Alhambra from our table in the Sacramente neighborhood. It was very warm that day.

We woke up the next day and bought more pastries from the bakery and then went for a hike. It lasted about three and a half hours and was full of picturesque natural beauty. I found the perfect rock for Heather too! We then went back to Paul's for dinner and then went to his jam session. He plays many instruments, but most notably he can play the saxophone and clarinet at the same time. The same time!


The next day, the 28th of February, we did another tour of the city, and were pretty tired when we got back. We ended up watching an American tv show on the Disney channel over there and it was actually pretty funny.

On March 1st we went to Granada to tour the Al Alhambra. Afterward we went into town and did some shopping, including groceries we would need for Pablo's farm house which was further south yet!

On the 2nd, we loaded the car and drove to Ambra which was where I saw my first coastline of the Mediterranean. The farm house was really charming, if a little primitive. We picked oranges right from the tree, through, and no orange has ever tasted as good! I spent the day reading, mostly, which was quite enjoyable.

The next day, the 3rd, was my birthday and the girls made pancakes. Pablo, working in the yard, told us that there was some honey in the cupboard. We took everything out to the table and noticed that the honey was quite old, but when Pablo came in and started applying it to his pancake Emma tried to stop him but he replied (nearly scoffing) "How old is salt? How old is sugar, huh? Details." Ok, Pablo. Details. The glory, or one of the glories, of this day was the hammock I got to lay in. There's almost nothing more than a hammock that I love. I spent this day reading too. That night we had cake and really good champagne, and I touched a lizard!

The 4th was yet another day spent reading, this time by the fire. Pablo went out for a while and eventually we left to go back to Granada, and it was late when we got home.

The last day we were up and at the bus station in no time and eventually on the long bus ride back to Grenoble. At one point I was sitting next to a grandmother and her screaming grandchild. "¡ABUELA!" is all I can really remember.