Belgium - the first land to make me gain weight.

Belgium!

7/13/08
We docked in Antwerp, Belgium last night, 8 hours before scheduled because of passing through the Kiel Canal.. It was pretty cool. I went out on the deck to watch and take pictures! I am having a hard time, though, because I am supposed to go to Amsterdam with some friends, but I feel like it would be too expensive. So, I finally decided not to go, still had to pay for the hostel, but felt like I needed to be in Belgium. I finally went to sleep and we had to wake up early for breakfast and preport. We got cleared and Aimee and I went out exploring. No one from the town was really awake at the time because it was like 9 am. It is a cute little town with many beautiful buildings and side streets. We walked around for about 3 ½ hours and got some Belgian chocolates. They were sooooo goood. We ate lunch on the ship and met Marissa and Heather to go out and explore more. We went to get a waffle with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Amazing! So exciting. We sat there for a while and then walked around more and got some fries. Holy crap, they give you A LOT. They were good. They are served with mayonnaise on it, but I got them without. After some more walking and shopping, we headed to the castle that was right by the ship. We headed back to the ship to rest and whatnot. I decided to get some veggies, so I ate and then did 3 miles in 21 minutes on the elliptical and then another mile on the treadmill! Go me! When I came back to my room, I called Marissa and Aimee and figured that they left without me, so I called Marie. I went out with Marie, Stacey, Paul, Christine, Melissa, Norah, and Erica. We had fun. We went to a little restaurant/outside café and I got one glass of cherry flavored beer called Kriek. It was soo good. I don’t like beer, but it was a sweeter taste and a rosy color. We talked to some local Belgians about life and what chocolate was the best, and they suggested to get it from the grocery store. That is the best. After that, we headed to an Irish Pub where I got a glass of hard cider. That was pretty good as well! I managed to only spend 20 Euro or $30 today! Yay! Anyway, tomorrow I am going to Brussels –the capital of Belgium, with Aimee and meeting Marissa there so that should be exciting.

7/14
Aimee and I, after breakfast, walked Paul to the train station to meet up with his boyfriend from Paris, David (Da – veeed). He was really nice, but spoke little English. We got some coffee and went back to the boat to get ready for Brussels. We headed back to the train station and took the 10 am train to Brussels to meet Marissa. We decided we were going to meet in this one park and that required us to get off at the Brussels-Noord station. Well, we walked around for about an hour and a half and got nowhere.. we got a hold of Marissa and decided to meet at the grand place (pla-ce). We got back on the train – maybe the metro – and headed to the grand place. Around 1 we finally found Marissa and decided we needed foood. We looked for a sandwich that had chicken, fries and mayonnaise on it, it was apparently legendary. We finally found it and it sucked. After that, we decided to walk around and got some chocolate and decided to look for mannequin pis. It was soo hard to find, we walked around for a while asking people. It was funny because Aimee kept making gestures of what the statue looked like to get people to understand. They laughed, we laughed, it was all good. We got some waffles with chocolate along the way and finally found the statue. It was about as big as my foot – sooooo small, almost not worth it. We waited in the grand place for it to light up, but it didn’t happen, so we decided to try to find train station – it took at least an hour even though we were close cause we couldn’t find it. We basically walked all over the city. Finally we found it, got on, sat in 1st class by accident and got yelled at cause we were supposed to be in 2nd. Then we got scared we missed our stop, so we asked the guy by us and he said we didn’t so we were okay. We finally got back to boat after being gone for 10 and a half hours, and I was hungry and upset, so I got a protein bar from ship and then worked out, and went to bed.

7/16/08
This morning, we slept in because we were tied. Aimee, Marissa, and I decided to walk around and go to the museums. We tried to go to the diamond museum, but it was closed, so we decided to get waffles and ice cream instead. It was so good, again. We walked around until we got to the fashion museum. It was pretty neat in there! They had a collection of some fashions that was only in there for a bit, but it was neat to see how it was set up. We decided to go back and take a nap, but I didn’t end up napping, I went to work out instead. We ate dinner on the boat and then Amber, Tanya and I went out with Heather, Raphael, Lindsey, and Alaina. While we were sitting at this little bar, we saw Aimee, Paul, and Marissa so they sat down with us. We stayed out for a little bit and then decided to go to bed!!!

7/17/08
Woke up and Aimee and I went to zoo with Iain Campbell on an FDP for class. It was sweet. We got to the snake house and hold a snake then we went to the reptile house and saw so many cool lizards and turtles. We then went to the aquarium and got a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium and it was pretty sweet to see the tanks from above. After, Aimee and I broke off and went to see the SEALS! We also saw camels, monkeys, chimps, lions, tigers, jaguars, and elephants! It was soo cool to see some of the animals.

After the zoo, we got to go to the diamond museum! It was pretty sweet to see the kind of history of the diamond and how they are formed and whatnot. Antwerp is so famous for their diamonds!! We weren’t allowed to take pictures, which sucked, but it was still neat.

After, we hit up Panos, which is the subway of Belgium. It is sandwiches on a baguette with whatever meat, hard boiled egg, tomato, lettuce, carrots and onions. It was SOOO good. After that, we hit up a waffle stand to get one last waffle in before leaving!! It was amazing and so sad to know I wont be having another one again, or at least for a while!!

We then got some post cards, hit up the post office and sent them out! Yay!

Finally, we hit up the chocolate stores!! YUMMO! I got like $20 of chocolates – yay truffles! SOO FREAKIN GOOD. I ate like 3 pieces of it when I Got back.

We came back to the ship and I conked out for like an hour and a half then went to dinner. Then we had our lifeboat drill which sucked but went faster than the first. Now I have to go study for my circus midterm. Yippee.