buy a house
go to prison
get a tattoo
vote
and technically buy alcohol in this country
Pretty awesome, no?
On Thursday, I spent the day with Amandine. We took the train from our local station all the way up to Oostende, in the very northernmost tip of Belgium. Why? So I could see the sea (I usually say ocean, but my Belgian friends frequently correct me and tell me it's the sea not the ocean, gawwwwwsh). It may surprise many of you to know that I didn't see an ocean until I was almost 17 years old; The English Channel is the first body of salt water I ever set eyes on, and I saw it 2 weeks before my 17th birthday.
Anyway, we headed up to Oostende so that I could see (and touch!) the sea. We arrived in Oostende and immediately started taking pictures. We walked around a little bit, and headed toward the beach, which was all blocked off because of construction. We eventually found a portion of the beach that people were allowed to walk down on, so we marched on toward the water. Here's something awesome about the beach: IT'S WINDY. VERY windy. But SO beautiful! It was clean and pretty and there weren't nasty seagulls everywhere, like the public beaches back home. Amandine and I walked to the water's edge and I touched salt water for the first time in my life! It was awesome, albeit FREEZING.
After that, we walked around a bit more, bought waffles, visited souvenir shops, and saw a beautiful cathedral. Amandine told me it looks like Notre Dame in Paris, which is pretty cool. I can't wait to see the actual Notre Dame!
Not long after buying waffles, we hopped back on a train to go to Bruges, which is another city in the north of Belgium. I've been there once before with Rotary, remember? Amandine had never been there before, and I didn't take nearly enough pictures the first time I went, so we decided to add that to our adventure.
Bruges is a very, very beautiful city. It's known as the Venice of the North, as it has loads of canals and waterways, just like Venice. You can take horse-drawn carriage rides around the whole city, and there are loads of chocolate shops and lace stores as well. Belgian lace is truly extraordinary.
Amandine and I walked to the Grand Place and took pictures, per the usual, and just poked around a bit before deciding to go to the Chocolate Museum. Yes, that's right, a museum based on chocolate. We were both pretty excited to go, but since we're the two most directionally-challenged people on this planet, we ended up getting lost and wandering around in circles before finding the chocolate museum about an hour later. And it was about... 100 yards from where we started. But of course, we didn't know that until later.
Anywhooo, the Chocolate Museum. SO awesome. They have a whole section on the history of chocolate: how it was discovered by the Aztecs and Mayas, then Cortez brought it back to Spain when he conquered Mexico, how Belgian chocolate companies have developed and changed how chocolate is made. There was also a demonstration about how to make pralines, given in Dutch, French, and English. At the end, we all got to sample a praline. Goodness they are DELICIOUS.
After that, Amandine and I decided to head home, as it was cold and rainy looking, and the train ride is 2 hours. Of course, we got lost again and ended up walking around in another circle before finding our way back to the train station. We got home at about 8 pm, and her parents dropped me off at my house. I had a quick dinner and hopped off to bed, thus concluding my day of Belgian Adventures.
I hope you're all having a fabulous day!
Mikayla
PS
Pictures WILL be coming, I'm just having trouble uploading them right now because the internet is spazzing out.
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