Ghent

Bonjour again! My apologies for taking so long to update the ol' (or rather new) blog a second time. It has proved quite difficult to find time to sit down and get all of this together. However, I'm very excited to share some pictures and stories about my favorite city we've visited thus far.

Friday, May 16th, our group took a day trip to Ghent. To say I had a fantastic time is an understatement. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd and I like the beautiful cathedrals and architecture. Maybe it's because I'm a man and thus have a natural fascination (or obsession) with castles and all things manly. Either way, Ghent has what the French call a certain "Je ne sais quoi." It is absolutely fantastic.



While in Ghent, I decided that I needed to start making sure that I was actually in some of the pictures I took. So this is the first one of me cheesing in front of some scenery. Behind me you can see some of the great landmarks of Ghent. If I'm not mistaken, the first tower on the left is St. Nicholas Cathedral, the middle clock tower is the Belfry of Ghent, and the far right is St. Bavo Cathedral. The pictures do not do these buildings justice. They are all absolutely spectacular.



St. Nicholas is the more recent of the two cathedrals... it's only a measly 800 years old. Construction began in the 1200's. On the other hand, the construction of St. Bavo began in 942 AD It did have a few subsequent additions, but was completely finished by 1569. (To put this into perspective, that is still less than a century after the discovery of America.) St. Bavo is also home to one of the most spectacular art pieces I've ever seen. It is called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck. The details in this painting are remarkable. Please Google the painting and just look it. I can assure you it looks a million times more incredible in person. I would include a picture, but they did not allow cameras. (However, do not think this stopped all of us. We will find a way...)

And of course... the moment that couldn't come soon enough. We arrived at the castle (Gravensteen or Castle of the Count in Dutch). This was the coolest place I've visited yet. It was constructed in 1180 AD and doesn't appear to have been changed or modified much at all since that time. Inside they have a museum of medieval weaponry, torture chambers, dungeons, and all the things that make castles castles. I have a ton of pictures from inside the castle that I don't really have the space for on the blog. But they include pictures of armor and me with a 7-foot sword (ahhhh thank you!). The real excitement came when we got to the top of the castle. There we were able to look over all of Ghent, seeing not only the cathedrals and towers, but the street shops, houses, and the river through the city. The view was unreal. And of course, I had to do something manly when at the top. After some convincing, I managed to climb on to one of the ledges at the top of the castle and get a picture from the top overlooking the whole city (it was a loooong way down). But this made for what was probably the coolest picture I've ever taken in my life (credit Dan Ebner with the photograph).

And so was my glorious day in Ghent. I went. I saw. I conquered. (No really... I sieged the castle and claimed it as my own.) Unfortunately, we were unable to see the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. I think the exhibit was closed for the day or something. Although it seems rather nerdy, I would have liked to see the document. I don't remember who it was exactly, but someone from the group suggested we just roll in there and say "Hey! The Americans are here and we'd like to see our document!" I suppose I shall survive without seeing it though. After all, I saw quite a lot in the city of Ghent. That being said, I'll leave you with one of my favorite views from the top of Gravensteen. Au revoir!

The First Few Days

Brace yourself. As you read this line, you are witnessing history in the making: Brian has created a blog. You can see everything I'm doing as I catalog all of my European Adventures.

Brussels is a very big city. I didn't really know how big it was until we got on the ground and started walking around the cities. There is really no rhyme or reason to the streets either. They're pretty random and illogical when compared with the orderly city blocks of big US cities like NY and even Charlotte. The people I have encountered are fairly friendly and can speak a little bit of English (Thank God). Most of the ones I've encountered speak mostly French, but French and Dutch are both widely used in Belgium. All the TV stations are either in French or Dutch. We do get the BBC in English, but it's pretty dull. The streets in Brussels are all cobblestone, which makes for a cool antiquated feel to the city. However, when you walk miles upon miles, you begin to appreciate the practicality of paved side-walks over the antique cobblestone streets. The cobblestones mixed with walking nearly 5 miles a day is really taking a toll on my feet/ calves. I normally reserve my running shoes for running to maintain the tread pattern that is unique to running, but I may have to make an exception... my Sperry's are not very breathable. It doesn't help that its been very warm since we got here. Normally it's more cloudy and cool here, but it's been in the high 70's and sunny until today. It's not humid, so it would be pretty refreshing if I were not constantly outside and walking.

Like most US cities, Brussels has a lot of different areas of the city, some of which are much nicer than others. Our hotel is in a moderately nice part of the city, but it doesn't have air conditioning, making certain parts of the hotel very warm. Luckily, I'm on the back side where the sun never shines directly in the window, so our room stays relatively cool. (You can see the view from my window. I have a pretty spectacular view. At night, the large building with the slanted top illuminates in all different colors and even has words scroll across it.) I am looking forward to the temperature dropping 10 degrees or so. The sunshine has been great for all places I've been visiting, but doesn't help when I'm back at the hotel trying to stay cool. I like my surroundings more on the chilly side.

So rather than carry on about the differences in everyday life, I'll get to what I've been up to while here. The city has so much to see. I've already visited a good number of parks and cathedrals with all sorts of monuments. A few of which I'll you can see here. A lot of the places I've visited have been the street cafe's, which are huge here. They're really an essential part of Brussels culture. People sit at these street cafes with tables along the streets and drink and converse with one another for hours. It seems like that's all anyone does here. It's pretty cool though. Almost everywhere I've eaten I've dined outside along the street. I very much enjoy this part of the experience and wish that that sort of life-style would make its way across the Atlantic.

Today, the group I'm here with visited a Belgian chocolate factory. (Belgium is famous for four things: Beer, Chocolate, Fries, and of course Waffles... I've experienced 3/4 of them) It was the most incredible chocolate experience of my life. We learned about the whole chocolate production process and how the cocoa tree yields this amazing chocolate. I also got to try my hand at making some gourmet chocolates. (I'm going to leave it to the Belgians... I wasn't too great). While making the stuff was cool, I can't get over how good it tasted. I'm not a chocolate fanatic or anything, but I had the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted today. I can't even describe how good it was. We also had all sorts of individual chocolates (probably too many). That was definitely a very cool experience.