Belgique !!

This weekend I went on a trip to Belgium which was organized through Erasmus (basically interEuropean study exchange). We went to three different cities within two days : Bruxelles, Gand, and Brugge. So I'll break it down that way!

Bruxelles

Waking up at 7am, I headed to the meeting place for the group since we took a bus the whole time through. There were 4 other Smithies in the group, so it was nice to have people I already knew. Of course, there are limitations to this, namely that it stops me from reaching out to other people or making any sort of effort but... I'll talk more about this later.

Following the bus ride, we were dropped off in Brussels. There was a bit of a tour aspect but mostly we were left to our own devices. I had waffles, which is the only thing I really needed out of this trip. And we had lunch at a meatball place. Other than that, we just walked around. The city center (the guide* called it the hypercenter lol) is called the Grande-Place and it's what you'd think of when you think town square. The architecture there was truly beautiful!

*side note but the guide was... a character! He was very energetic and does a good job but he was really doing the most

Gand

After a few hours in Brussels, we left for Gand (aka Ghent as in the Treaty of Ghent? Remember her all you APUSH fanatics ?!). This was my favorite place of the trio by far. I think someone said it's like the Venice of Belgium, which I totally see. There were tons of waterways everywhere, and it was super charming. There were also a lot of very cute shops. And not cute in the quaint, village way but cute in the modern, aesthetic way if that makes sense.

We stayed in a hostel here over the night, so after arriving, we did a bit of walking and had dinner as a group. Afterwards, whoever wanted to went to this club. I haven't truly gone to a club while here, so it was an interesting experience. The people I was with didn't want to stay that long, so I was fine with that. I in truth wasn't feeling that good after all of this but it was BECAUSE at dinner was heavy. Overall it was a fun night though!!

The next day, we had until noon in Gand, so we just had breakfast and wandered around some more (for french learners you say je m'est baladée un petit peu I think). There was this church that had an Etsy market popup, and I was like wowwww I love this place.

the guy above was the chocolate mascot. Most of the little signs were silly but this one was stranger than the rest. The thing below was an interesting thing about this chocolate family that ate themselves or something. I thought it was pretty dark. Dark chocolate !!! ahahahaha

Brugge

Here, the main thing I remember is going to the chocolate museum. It was called ChocoStory and that was an interesting place to say the least. It was several floors but pretty compact within the floors so easily walkable! There was this one mascot that was a chocolate or something and they also tried to sell this fairy idea but I didn't see her very much. They told the story of chocolate and how it's made. As a BIG chocolate fan, it was an enlightening experience. They also had tons of free chocolate samples (meaning you could take as much as you wanted). Overall, definitely worth the cost :-)

We ended up not coming back until 11:30ish pm which meant that I didn't get home until 12. Which meant that I had a long night to go on another composition that was due the next morning :-(. It got done though, so there's that!

Also, side note but I finally went to the Eiffel tower!! Malika and I went on Friday night and we were standing under it right when it started sparkling! In hindsight, not sure if that's the right angle we should've looked on from, but it was a moment nonetheless. I would say, in total, I was neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed. It was what I expected, so I was whelmed. It was fun because afterwards we went to McDonald's and sat and chatted at my house. This week, my host family is gone, so it's just been me and Raquel. It was awkward though because I didn't realize the door was open and Malik and I were talking full volume and Raquel came and we were scolded....I feel bad about it!! But I can't do much about it I suppose.

This week has been ok. Not the best, but not the worst (like the Eiffel Tower haha). I finally started my search for internships in labs. So we'll see where that goes!