Destination #4-Bruges/Brussels, Belgium

Well, it took me a couple of months but I finally took a trip outside of the UK. To be quite honest, before I came over to London, I didn't really know much about Belgium and it was therefore, not really on my list of places to see. Yet, due to a simple "yes" from a friend's invite, it happened to be the first non-UK destination I went to.

Three companions set out from London, Friday eve......

Two friends that I have met over here, Sasha and Nicole, both Aussie's, joined me on this journey. When we arrived in Brussels, unfortunately none of us had really planned out what to do after we got to the airport. As stressful as the task may have seemed, it turned out to be quite easy to get to our hostel. Luckily, we got on the right train to central Brussels and hopped in a cab from there to our hostel. I'll be sure not to make that mistake again though. The hostel we stayed in that night was actually pretty decent. I think it was almost brand new and the staff were quite friendly. My poor friend Nicole, however, got barely any sleep due to some loud snoring in her room. Stay tuned to here how the rest of my sleeps went.

The next morning, before we departed for Bruges, we got some breakfast at a cafe. Not sure if they just pumped a lot of butter into it, but I probably had one of the best cheese omelettes here. This is also where I decided to do my Belgian Dip. You'll need to have seen Austin Powers 2 to understand this.

We then took the train over to Bruges and arrived safely at our hostel. Although this hostel didn't have a "new feeling" like the other one did, it was actually really nice and we had no issues with it, apart from having a snorer in the room for the 2 nights and me getting barely any sleep. After settling in, we ventured over to the city square of Bruges, or rather, 'Markt'. The square is quite beautiful and I really got a feeling of almost being there as if it were the 18th, 19th century. While filled with lots of people, there was also plenty of horse drawn carriages going around that only added to the amazing personality I was observing of Bruges. Next, we wandered over to a museum called Choco-Story. It was basically about the origins of chocolate and it's journey to present day. All we most likely cared about was the fact that at the end of the tour, there was a chocolate making demonstration and we got to try one of these freshly made chocolates. And yes, it was delicious. For dinner, we went to what seemed like a traditional Belgian pub. You should have seen the selection of beers this place had. The book looked like a large photo album. Finding it too hard to make a choice, Sasha and I settled on a beer taster consisting of 4 different types of Belgian beer. And yes, that was delicious as well. Somehow, and this will be prove to be a common theme in this trip, we decided to ignore how full we were from dinner and went to a chocolate store following dinner, bought a bag of chocolates each, and ate nearly half of it in the square. AND YES, those chocolates were amazing too.

After grabbing a few Belgian beers (as you might gather, this trip was mainly eating and drinking), we headed back to the square again as there was a lightning storm, but it was not raining.....yet. All three of us decided to be super cool (note the sarcasm) and try and catch pictures of the sky while lightning flashed. Believe it or not, all three of us were able to grab pictures of the millisecond of lightning that flashed across the sky. Our patience in trying to grab these pictures came back to bite us in the @$$ though. We were standing in the square and literally looking at the top of this building where a light was shining and through the light we could see heavy rain pouring down on this building. How strange though, we weren't getting rained on....nevermind! Took us a second to process what was going on or what was about to happen as we ran for cover.

The following day, after a very filling breakfast, we decided to climb the Belfort tower as it was probably best to try and get some exercise whilst eating all the food. It ended up not being too bad climbing the thing as there were breaks in between and the view at the top was worth the journey as it provided stunning views of the city. This building was also built sometime in the 1400's so that made it all the more interesting.

Next, can you guess? More food. We for some reason thought to go to a fry museum. In the end, it was really all about the end because you can purchase their 'famous' fries. We, of course, did not miss out on this opportunity. Now, the next part of this day I'm going to tell you about...in fact, the rest of this trip is really all about food, so if I'm making you hungry, stop reading. All the while, we did do lots of walking around between these stops, honestly! The city is absolutely stunning with all the old architecture and the canals that flow around. Some of the views were breathtaking and you will see that when I post pictures, although pictures won't do it justice. After walking around, we did a tour of an old brewery. Pretty cool to walk around the deep underground levels they had to make beer and all the intricate steps it took to make the brew. How people came up with idea in the first place to make beer is beyond me. The tour guide was this old lady who I thought was grumpy at first but she turned out to be hilarious. Of course, the end of the tour resulted in being the best part as we got a free glass of beer. After dinner that evening, despite our stomachs telling us they couldn't handle anymore, we decided to seek out some Belgian waffles due to the fact that it would be preposterous if we went home without having a Belgian waffle. Eventually, we found a place that our tour book had suggested and as good as it was, it was too much. Where I just had chocolate and ice cream on top of mine, the girls had ice cream, chocolate, and strawberries. We went back to the hostel that night defeated and ready to burst.

The next day, we headed back to Brussels before catching a flight back to London. It's funny to point out that I think Brussels is more well known than Bruges and our tour book made that clear as it made a huge deal out of Brussels and Bruges was merely a side note. Apart from visiting Brussels city square, which was beautiful as well, and seeing Mannekin Pis, a famous Belgian statue, we really couldn't find anything else to do in Brussels and it was no where near as interesting as Bruges. I would definitely recommend Bruges over Brussels if anyone plans on visiting Belgium. A day in Brussels, however, did not exclude more waffles and beer.

When we were flying back to London, the three of us shared a strange feeling. We weren't flying back home, but we told people we were because I guess London is our new home, for the time being. When really all I was doing was continuing my extended holiday back to where I flew from, it was a comforting feeling we were headed back to London. I'm having a hard time putting this into words really. I guess I want to say that usually at the end of vacations, you hate that you have to go back home. Well for all three of us, going back home was London and we were totally okay with that.

Further to my last post, I will be moving into my new place on Sunday. The following day, I will be showing up to work at a brand new office. I'm super excited and it's going to be great kind of hitting the reset button. I have signed the contract so now I'll actually get paid to go on holidays but the worse part is that I get paid on a monthly basis. I guess it will force me to budget. Next trip is Brighton (again) in a couple of weeks and then Oktoberfest in Germany at the end of September. If anyone wants to catch up with me directly, please do not hesitate to email, facebook, whatsapp, iMessage me, I love hearing from people back home. If you want to skype, I would welcome that as well but it will depend on hour of the day/how busy I am but I would certainly make time for it.

These photo's are courtesy of my iPhone and Sasha. I will hopefully upload all my pictures next week on both facebook and flickr.

Destination #3-Brighton, England

Brighton: The coldest city I have been to yet.

Situated on the south coast of England, Brighton is very easy to get to, being only an hour train ride from London. Some of you may be familiar with Brighton Pier (see below)

and no I did not take that picture. As you might make out, the beach is pebbles. While possibly inconvenient to the odd sand lover, the pebbles are actually surprisingly comfy. From that picture, the sky is beautiful. Unfortunately, this was not the case on our short trip. While the sun did make appearances, it was still quite chilly out due to the wind being relentless. I would hope that it's not like that all year round because I do actually plan on going back in a couple of weeks to catch what might be left of summer! Now, I think I might be fooling myself when I say that it's still summer. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what happened here in London. Through all of July, I never needed a jacket and I was reluctant when I had to put on jeans. Now, it might seem a little insane if I left the house without a jacket. So hopefully England is just going through a bit of cold streak. If this is normal and happens every year, then someone needs to break the news to me gently...


Anyway, back to Brighton. It was my friends' birthday, or rather, birth-weekend. Not much to be said on the activities we did as it mainly consisted of eating and drinking. Walking along Brighton Pier is quite beautiful and the old, retro style gives it a lot of personality. This was built in 1899! When you first walk along the pier, there's lots of venders with your typical carnival food consisting of cotton candy, ice cream, crêpes, and fish & chips. After, there is a dome shaped building with lots of arcade and casino type games to play inside. My friend Robert was adamant that he win a stuffed minion (from Despicable Me) playing that claw drop game. Took him quite a few attempts and probably ended up spending a solid £20 getting the claw to finally hang on to the thing. We were all thrilled for him though. After the arcade, there are more vendors and then you come to the amusement park part of the pier. There's lots of rides including roller coasters, bumper cars, and your other typical carnival rides. However, it is expensive and we did not venture to this part of the pier this time.

Not much else to say about this trip really. My favourite part was probably the 6 of us having a picnic on the beach on Saturday, despite the clouds, wind, and very average outside temperature. I had a great time and the people I was with were tonnes of fun to be around.

A few updates on my London life:
a.) I will be moving into a new place on September 1st. The house is in a good location, the rent will be cheaper, and the roommates seem pretty cool. One guy is from here and the two others are girls from New Zealand, basically having come here and doing the same thing as I am.
b.) I have been offered a permanent position within the company I had been doing temporary work for. I have accepted the offer and will hopefully be signing a contract soon. I'm really enjoying working with the company and better yet, we are moving to a brand new office September 1st as well. So Sept 1st will almost feel like I'm starting over again here.
c.) My very good Canadian friend, Robyn, has been here and will be coming soon to visit again. It was so refreshing to be and talk with a friend; one who I've known for more than 2 months. It was amazing to think as well that we were both on the other side of the world together. Perhaps that is something you as the reader may not understand, but we both marvelled at the idea of it.

This particular post has taken me longer than I thought it would take me to write and the original plan was to write my Belgium experience in the same go. That will have to wait though, so keep an eye out for another post in the next few days....hopefully.

Small Update

Not much to update here. Most recent adventures include having my first Indian dining experience, a trip to some greyhound dog races, doing the Harry Potter studios tour, and a day trip to Brighton. Indian food wasn't too bad, could have been spicier to be honest. Dog races were interesting...lower class version of horse races basically! Harry Potter studios, amazing...pictures coming soon. I bought Professor Snape's wand, a chocolate frog, and a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. And I must say, it was NOT a bargain! Brighton was pretty cool...it was so nice to finally breathe in fresh ocean air!! I am going back in a couple of weeks and then sometime in September again so this will not be the last you hear of it! Unfortunately, I must say that from now on, probably the only blog posts I am going to write will be about trips outside of London. There's only so much I can say after a 5 day work week and going to grab a few drinks with friends really. Do not fear though! Like I said, another trip to Brighton is in a couple of weeks and then the following week, Belgium!

I know there is a few of you without facebook, so I have uploaded my photos to another site for viewing:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125490324@N06/

It uploaded them in reverse order so you will you have to start from the last photo and work your way backwards. I've decided to include some pictures I had of Bella and Ruby!

Enjoy! I miss everyone! Apart from family and friends, I'm missing spicy caesars, keg steaks, Bella, fresh air, fresh water, and I actually miss driving my car!