¡Bélgica!

Hey people! We went to Bélgica this weekend!! Thats how you say Belgium in Spanish - Bélgica! So we left real early Friday morning and got  to Brussels around before noon. We flew with Ryanair, a cheap airline that I was a little nervous about. We had heard some stories about how you get what you pay for, but besides the bumble bee color scheme inside the plane and the advertisements going off on the intercom every 5 minutes it really wasn't bad! We had some lunch and wondered why we didn't study abroad there because the food is so much better, and then walked around and saw the sights. Of course it's fitting that right when we left Spain the temperature shot up there and Belgium has one of the windiest weekends ever. 

fighting the wind!

Belgium is beautiful! Really underrated, or at least I hadn't heard much about it. They are all about the cobblestone streets. Look- we took a detour in Ireland!

Just kidding but that's how I picture Ireland looking. Irlanda in spanish! Irlanda! So we were walking around looking for this statue called Manneken Pis, it's actually of a little boy peeing but it's really famous. It's a funny story I think. Some little boy went missing and his dad said whenever I find him I'm going to make a statue of him doing whatever he's doing the second I find him, and of course he found him while he was peeing in the woods. So naturally his dad made the statue. Anyways we came across some people that worked at the US embassy and they told us we could follow them to the statue. One of the men bought a waffle from a waffle truck (like an ice cream truck in America but with waffles) and he let us all split it! BEST waffle I everrrrr had, Belgium knows how to do it for real. Here's a picture of some Belgian waffles. And manneken pis. 

YUMMM

They warned us that it was tiny and kind of a let down but we went annyways. They dress him up in all different types of attire, too! he was nakey when we saw him but here's a picture of him in judo attire.

Before I forget, Belgium is famous for their chocolate and lace, too. It's everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE and the chocolate really is like SO good. After we explored Brussels some more, me and Jane decided to go to Brugge for the night, it's a city about an hour away by train. It's referred to as the Venice of the  North! It has canals running through it and the buildings are all medieval, it was so cool! While we waited for the train to Brugge, me and Jane were asking this older man, who we thought worked at the train station, if we were getting on the right train. This younger guy, looking about our age  came in on the conversation and later told us that it wasn't safe to talk to random old men. We ended up sitting near him on the train and he told us he was going to Brugge because his mom lives there. Of course we pounded him with questions about what we should do in Brugge since we would have less than 24 hours there. He was really nice and offered to show us around the next day. We were very careful about no giving him any information of course we just set a random time at a random meeting place (Brugge is really small). We were kind of surprised that he showed up the next morning at our meeting spot, but after all he said he wanted to practice his english and that he's interested in other cultures. So he showed us all of the important things to see in Brugge! It was lucky we got to see it with a local, or who knows what me and Jane would have ended up doing in Brugge on our own without a guide. We saw the Belfry, a huge tower that overlooks their main square, the Market. Fun fact from Luciaan (our tour guide) - it leans 8 ft to the left! we told him that was a fun fact and we wanted more of those. He didn't understand what fun fact meant and told us everything was a fun fact and we were too nice to correct him. Belgium is also famous for their beer! I'm not much of a beer drinker, but Luciaan said I'd like the cherry beer. So we took a break from the wind and tried some Belgian beer! Not bad, but I prefer the chocolate.

 Luciaan! see, he's not sketchy!

cheers!

 Then we went to see Michelangelo's only piece outside of Italy - Madonna and Child. There it is again in white chocolate at the chocolate museum we went to! It's really shiny in chocolate, and you can get as close as you want. Also at the chocolate museum there was a demonstration and we got to try it fresh! MMMMhmmmm. 

Michelangelo's Madonna and Child

Chocolate Museum's Madonna and Child

We thought there was a lot of chocolate in Brussels, but I think Brugge takes the cake on chocolate shops. After me and Jane wanted to walk into every single one, I think Luciaan got a little annoyed and we parted ways. haha. He also showed us this beautiful field surrounded by these little white houses where monks used to live. It really was strange getting back to Brussels, this busy city, after being in the middle ages. Here's some more pictures so you can see!

 Belgian lace!

Brussels

Bruges!

 cute chocolate shop!

 the Belfry tower