Sun - January 4, 2004

Days of 27 December, 2003 to 3 January 2004


Happy New Year to everyone out there! This is just a run down of all the things that I did for the second part of my Christmas Holidays. It includes all the places that I went, up to my new residence in Vaals.

Well, so much to cover here. I guess the best place to start is to tell you that Nora and I ended up touring Belgium. We visited 5 cities over the span of 7 days. First, we went to the city of Ghent for one night. We then proceeded to the Brugge for two nights, before heading out to Kortrijk, then Brussels. We then rounded it all out in Antwerpen for the final two nights. As if I hadn't had enough travelling after that, we then had to get all the way to Vaals, and that was a heck of a journey.

Ghent is really a beautiful city. It is very old, with canals running all over the place. There was a cool castle there, called the Castle of the Counts. Well, it wasn't called that, it was called whatever that is in French, but that is a general translation. There was also a Christmas fair going on, with lots of booths selling various things like WAFFLES and other stuff. Once I saw the waffles I kinda stopped paying attention. We stayed in a nice hotel, right by the train station, so it was fairly easy getting to where we needed to go.

Brugge is just as nice as Ghent. It is another very old city, that used to be a major place in Belgium. There is a large cathedral there called St. Mary's that houses Michaelangelo's Madonna with Child. I spent a lot of the time in Brugge just wandering around, looking at the old buildings and the winding streets.

Kortrijk was a nice rest stop after the days of walking all around Ghent and Brugge. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast out of the city, so it was very interesting trying to find it on arrival in the city. Once we found somebody who had heard of the address of the B & B, it was a fairly easy bus ride to get there. Kortrijk was an old Roman town, and there was some interesting ruins to see. It was a pretty restful place, and we were all ready to tackle Brussels the next day.

When we got to Brussels, it was really cold and snowing fairly strong. We wandered through the streets, and eventually found our hotel. It was in a really old building, and I was somewhat concerned that it was going to fall down. Although it was the most expensive place we stayed at, it was far from the nicest. Once all our bags were dropped off, we decided to go and explore the city. Which we did, for several hours. Brussels is really like any other big city, there were lots of interesting people and some interesting places. Around the city center there were lots of stands, just like in the other cities. So, just like in all the other cities, I had a sausage and a waffle. Mmmm..mmmmm! Delicious! Anyhow, it was New Year's Eve, so we wandered around a little bit more, trying to figure out what was going down and when. But then it got even colder, so we went back to the hotel. We eventually braved the cold one more time that night, and wandered around again, but we were never able to find the big celebration. Until the next morning that is, when we found where the party was. It looked like it would have been a good one, but it was also really really cold out, so no big deal. So after we surveyed the grounds of the New Year's Eve party, we decided to head out to Antwerpen. After a little mix up at the train station ticket counter, the lady thought I had said the Airport and not Antwerp (which is why I call it Antwerpen from now on) we were once again on our way.

Antwerpen was the last leg of our journey, so we were a little tired. Plus, it was New Year's Day, so there wasn't a lot of places open. There was actually very little open except for some restaurants and the movie theatre. So we wandered around a bit and then went and saw Kill Bill, Volume 1. It was entertaining, and provided a nice break from all the touring. The next day things were still closed, but it didn't stop us. We wandered around a bit (did that a lot this trip) and saw some really interesting looking museums, etc. that were closed. We eventually gave up and just went to some Irish bar and drank beer all night. Antwerpen was pretty fun.

Bright and early the next day (well, 730) we left the hotel and ran to the train station. We arrived minutes before our train pulled out of the station, and were soon on our way back towards Delft. Once we got to Delft we grabbed our bags and headed towards Aachen. We eventually winded up taking 4 trains and 3 buses that day, but by 1830 I (well, Nora and I) had arrived in Vaals. I promptly had a shower and fell asleep, a well traveled individual who had eaten too many waffles in too short a time.

Craig "Hey, I was in Belgium" Broadhurst

P.S. The pictures were posted a while ago, but if you haven't had a chance to check them out, then here there are again .

Posted at 01:24 PM     Read More  


Thu - December 25, 2003

Days from 21 - 25 December, 2003


Merry Christmas, Y'All. Here is what is up with the first part of my break.

Merry Christmas!

I am writing this on Christmas Day, just want to tell everybody what has been happening for the past couple of days. Hanging out with Nora, one of the Americans. Neither of us had any plans so we figured we would just hang out together. Maybe tour around a bit, but nothing really planned.

So for the first couple of days we went to Amsterdam, it was fun. Raining and wet, but fun. The apartment we stayed at was fairly small, but it gave us a place to sleep. We kinda walked around, checked out the city, had a good time. It was Monday and Tuesday, so there wasn't a lot of partying. But we did get to check out some cool museums.

For the next week I am looking at checking out Belgium, some of the cities look really interesting, very historical. Hopefully will get a chance to visit Brugge, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, and any other city that looks interesting.

Happy Holidays

Craig "I enjoy living out of my suitcase, seriously" Broadhurst

Posted at 05:45 PM     Read More  

©