Belgium

After a great weekend in Amsterdam, I met up with Richie, a boyfriend of a friend, and we headed off to Belgium: First stop, Brussels. Side note: the funny thing about this trip is it was an impulse trip. i extended my plane ticket back to Ireland and I had only met Richie twice before we planned this. We were lucky enough to have places to stay for free the entire trip. We took a train Sunday night into Brussels headed right to his Father's aunt's house. They had a beautiful home with five stories and an elevator inside! It we each got our own beds and stayed in an amazing room.

The next morning we woke up nice and earl around 9 and headed into the city with Ruby, the grand daughter of the grandma. She was 20 years old which was great because we could all relate to each other. We went to a tourist office and then walked around the entire city. Saw a couple buildings: the university library (it was HUGE) and a bunch of churches and government buildings. We were freezing cold so we stopped by a market and bought an extra sweater and gloves; my sweater was 2 euro and it's the warmest sweater I own! There were swords, random dishes, old phones, camera lenses, literally anything you could imagine at this market just piled up. It was kind of dirty, but it was so inexpensive it was worth it. When it started getting dark out, we went to the top of a parking garage to see the view of the city. It was unbelievable and a clear night so we could see the Atomium lit up from there. The best part was the view was free!

Then we headed back to the house and ate dinner with the family. It was so kind of them to make all this food for us, especially since they did not know Richie before we showed up. We went out with Ruby that night and she showed us around. We started at a touristy bar called Delirium Bar - they have 2,000 beers and 30-some beers on tap that they switch around. It was great, but then we headed to a local bar with Ruby where we hung out there for the remainder of the night.

We woke up the next day and had a quick breakfast before heading to Leuven for the next day. We explored Leuven which was much less touristy and is known to be a college town. The longest bar in Europe is there, which is just a block of bars on both sides of the street. It is where all the students go to party hardy we are assuming. We didn't stay the night so we missed the night scene there which I can only imagine to be out of control. We walked around Leuven, but then headed to the Stella Artois brewery where we went for a tour. We saw how it is made, and how it is bottled; they brew beer 24 hours a day. We met a group of kids studying in Belgium which was fun to talk to them about their travels. After the tour we hopped on a train to Brugge where we were going to stay the night with another relative of Richie (his Dad's cousin). They actually live in Roeselare, which is 20 minutes out of Brugge. We went to a bar with the father for a couple local beers and learned about the Trappist beers; these beers are made by monks in order to fund their lives. They are all different and are not that expensive, but are very popular because they are so locally made.

The next morning we got up and walked around Burgge, but I had to go to the train station extra early in order to make sure my train came. You see, the trains in Belgium were on strike on Wednesdays, so they were very unreliable. After missing a couple trains (they didn't come), I finally made it to the airport and headed back to Ireland. It was an amazing trip and opportunity that I got to see local people in Belgium and stay in their homes. I saw so much more of a country that I otherwise never would have traveled to. 

I got back on a Thursday morning (I had to stay in a hostel in Cork due to buses not running late at night), and worked my butt off in school for a week before heading on to Lisbon!