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Four days. Three countries. Toooooo amazing of a time!
On Saturday, the chaplaincy was offering another trip. This one was to Bruges, Belgium. For £30, you could take a coach, get on a ferry, end up in France and drive to Belgium! Say no more, I was in. It was just a day trip- leaving at 5 in the morning and then would get back to campus around 7 at night. The thing about Europe is that EVERYTHING IS SO CLOSE. That being said, I decided to definitely jump on this Bruges trip but then stay and not go back to Canterbury right away with the group. Part one of this blog update is Belgium.
Insert description of Bruges- beautiful little city! I think I liked it even more because Kotryna came on the trip too so that was fun to be there with her. The only downside to the day was it rained almost the whole time! But it was okay because then it gave us an excuse to stop into a cafe and get some Belgian hot chocolate ;)) and of course, we also got our Belgian waffles as well ((: everyone... If you've ever had 'Belgian waffles' in America, no. These were BELGIAN BELGIAN WAFFLES. Basicallyyyyyy one of the best inventions ever. Between these legit Belgian waffles and all the chocolate, I was one happy traveler.
What was more significantly noteworthy though, we got to go into ‘The Church of Our Lady'. This is the church that houses Michelangelo's 'Madonna and Child'. Definitely amazing to see. Not quite as extravagant as the pieta, but still quite impressive. This church was also really cool because of its huge devotion and focus on Mary. There was a gigantic wall filled with squares of 'thank you' marble slabs. Then of course, there was a chapel for her as well. Near the chapel, there was a prayer intentions book. Varying a little from your usual prayer intentions books, this one was dedicated to those who have died. There was also a big display set up explaining how November is a time to especially remember all those who have lost someone and are grieving. This was a very powerful time because I got to pray in a special way for Tessa's mom. It was really cool too the fact that I was in a chapel specifically for our mother and I got to pray for a mother. Also I got to pray that Tessa might feel more strongly the love of Mary as her mother especially in this time of loss. Pretty powerful experience. Tessa, if you're reading this, know I love you very much and you have a lot of people here for you <3
We spent the rest of our time just walking through all the streets and appreciating all the unique doors!! So many cool ones… It worked out really well timing wise because my train left the same time that the group did. I said bye to Kotryna and Leah and hoped on a train to Leuven. Next stop: Mark!
Mark is my sister's (other) best friend who is working on his post grad philosophy degree in Belgium for the year. If we were that close, it seemed silly not to go see him! He met me right when I got off the train and from there we just had a lovely evening. Naturally, it wasn't even 5 minutes when he started talking philosophy. Philosophy can get very deep so we decided to go get some nourishment for our minds. Mark wanted to take me to a restaurant one of his friend’s works at but it was closed! A stray cat was hoping to get in too so Mark consoled him for a while, the lil’ cat whisperer (Mark took in a stray cat in Kalispell and dubbed him “Dirty Paws” (Yes, Taylor, thought you’d approve of that name)). We went exploring for another place and we ended up somewhere with a huge white cow outside of it. As you can conclude, yupp, it was a burger place. Perfect for our American friends reunion! ;P
Mark still had some homework to do, so after dinner, we headed to his college. So...his room is basically the coolest room ever. He has a loft!! You walk in and there is a lot of open space and then the ladder for his loft pulls down and you can go up to where his bed is (And then. the stairs. FELL FROM THE SKY!) His room is even complete with an awesome sky light and another window with a beautiful view of the town.
Mark made us some tea and I read one of his zillion philosophy books while he finished his homework. To celebrate him getting it all done, we went out and got some Belgian beer. He took me to a strip that is apparently one of the longest stretches of bars in the world. Got to try some of the famous “Delirium Tremens” pink elephant stuff that was made in Belgium. The glass even had the elephants on it, legit. They reminded me of the 'elephants on parade' from Dumbo...
The first place we went was really loud, thanks to the crazy-bearded DJ with old school dance moves. After our elephant beer we checked out one of Mark's favorite places where he and his buddies from class usually meet to talk philosophy. The sign for the pub had a cat on it...no wonder it was his favorite. I got some delightful peach beer here and we had a good talk. It was getting late so we decided we'd head back to his place. After we got some late-night snacks that is (:
The next morning we went to church (beautifuuuul) and then grabbed a quick pastry from a bakery (although nowhere near as delicious as 'Ceres Bakery' in Kalispell where Mark worked) before I had to get on my train to meet Hailee and Nicole in Brussels. My train was late getting to the station, which was nice because I got to talk to Mark a little more but not so nice because I was supposed to meet the girls at a specific time… but everything worked out and I found them near our designated meeting spot (getting waffles while they waited for me ;) ).
From the train station, we set out to explore Brussels! We didn’t get to spend crazy long here before catching our bus to Amsterdam. From what we got to see though, there were a lot of similarities to Bruges with all the chocolate, waffles, and lace. Brussels had a little more of a ‘big city’ feel. While we were here we made sure to see the famous “Manneken Pis“ aka a fountain of a little boy peeing. Because all the hype about this fountain, we expected this epic statue but when we turned the corner, we found a little little boy! It was much smaller than we imagined but cool to say you’ve seen something so particular to the place I suppose ;) I hope to go back to Brussels one day with my mom and meet up with her cousin who lives there. She could give us the inside scoop on everything and tell us the stories behind things like fountains of peeing little boys.
After our lap around the main town area, we headed to catch our bus to the Netherlands!!
Keep Calm, You Met Up With Your Friends and Now It’s Time For Amsterdam.
Cheers!
Elyse