Belgium

This past weekend I went to the cities, Brugge (pronounced like rouge, the color) and Brussels. Brugge is apparently the oldest most well preserved medieval city. It was a beautiful and small city with cobble stone streets, bell towers, churches, and canals. It was exactly what I have been wanting to see in Europe. The city was quaint and the atmosphere was calm and cheerful. We never met anyone who didn't smile when we asked them for help or even when buying gifts. One thing we noticed about Belgium is its casualty considering sex. Shops displayed lingerie and lingerie posters openly in the display windows. We even saw some dominatrix gear in a display in Brussels. In Brugge we stumbled upon an awesome chocolate shop that had large chocolate penises and rather pornographic chocolate on display! You couldn't walk down the streets without seeing one chocolate store with a huge pair of breasts on display! lol. It was comical, but for the every day citizen it was perfectly normal. Of course on every street there were at least 4 chocolate shops and several shops selling hand made lace. There were some beautiful parasols and wall displays that had been advertised as handmade. On every corner there was usually a waffle shop (there were far more than that in Brussels). I can easily say I haven't eaten so much sugar in all my time in college. On Sunday, our one day in Brussels, we ate 3 waffles (two with dark chocolate poured all over them) and then fries (which they call 'frites' and smother in mayo), and maybe a hamburger. lol. I plan on only eating yogurt this week. I like Brugge more than Brussels only because it was quaint and felt authentic, but Brussels was fun. While we were shopping around for some chocolate we heard a band playing 'Yellow Submarine' and came out to see a group of officially clad men walking down the street. Belgium is well-known for its fountain with the baby pee-ing as the foutain piece. Well, it was situated just around the door of the chocolate shop we were in. We ended up watching some sort of a ceremony that a police officer told us was a "butcher parade" or so we crudely translated from french (yes, they speak french and dutch in Brussels, but Flemish in Brugge). They proceeded to make speeches and then at one point they sang a song to the statue. Someone was controlling the water flow from the fountain and turned it on high so it would actually spray some of the audience members. Then to finish the ceremony they hooked the fountain up to a keg (or somethign I couldn't see) and proceeded to serve themselves beer from the pee-ing fountain! It was so hilarious all of the people crowded around were so astounded by it and the butchers loved the attention. All in all, I highly recommend traveling to Belgium it's a great place to see.

Cheers!
Roni

p.s. I had the first beer I ever liked. It was a belgium beer, Bellevue I think, but it was raspberry flavored and it was delicious! I highly recommend it if you can find it.