belgium

flying swiss air is awesome. so comfy, food and wine and beer and chocolate up for grabs on the flight. brussels airport is ridiculous, from the gate to the train track took like 20 minutes of walking up and down through the entire place it seemed. train to brussels north station, kinda got lost in the sketchy part of town, found the hostel, with ineffective ladders to the top bunks. went to eat mussels in brussels. with fries, and beer. awesome mussels, just a big bowl of them. walked around and found a street with many kebab shops. and then i ate a kebab. saw some guy sprint down the sidewalk in full running gear. kinda did a convenience store pub crawl to try a bunch of belgian beer. some good stuff - the standard beer, jupiler, is quite good. kriek is a cherry flavored one, which is actually really delicious and almost shouldn't be allowed cause it is. leffe is pretty strong, 8.4%, an interesting one, definitely couldn't drink a lot of it though. stumbled onto some sort of party in a church square for a bit. ate some frites. wandered around trying to find waffles. chris and i picked up the scent and found some. it was not the first time that has happened. somehow it was quite late already, but i guess we did only get there at 8 or so. back to the hostel to sleep.

woke up to catch breakfast and to the train station, taking the train to ghent. 3o minute train ride or so, and we're there. hit up a botanical garden with big lily pads and carnivorous plants. a contemporary art museum, then a fine art museum. there was an awesome sculpture in the contemporary one. and now i think my favorite paintings are impressionist landscapes, very very cool. walked through a park to find allegedly the greatest place for fries in ghent - and potentially in belgium - and potentially the world. in any case, these fries were awesome, and the sauces just made them better. pretty much, can't go wrong with dipping deep fried potatoes in anything invoving mayo. pat and celia proceeded to eat deep fried burgers as well. also so cheap, 2 euro for a massive box of fries. and beer was cheap too.

wandered toward the city center, went through some vintage stores, a bit of cool stuff but didn't pick anything up. the graffiti in the city was just awesome too. also a really beautiful city, lots of old buildings. it seemed like around every corner there would be another awesome thing to see. really suggest going to ghent, friendly people, lots of stuff to see. got a chocolate pastry and essentially just inhaled it. found this cafe for a really good cappucino and a real belgian waffle, which was so good. saw a parade of geese with a one man band. found some market thing in a cool square, was tempted to eat a burger. bought a bunch of chocolate from a grocery store, and more beer. went to a candy store for some belgian candies. chilled out by a canal to have more cherry beer, and also of course a stella and a hoegaarden, in belgium after all. found an old castle, took a bunch of pictures in the nice lighting when the sun was going down a bit. ate dinner, some italian restaurant that was actually really good, some spinach lasagna, gotta get veggies in there somewhere. and a trappist beer too, called westmalle - these beers have a cool story behind them too. and it was pretty tasty. walked around and by this time it was night, and kinda chilly actually, didn't bring a sweater which was a bit of an oversight. in the city center along the canal, there were people packed in cause there was a stage set up. so somehow we got essentially front row seats to see the brussels philharmonic play a free show. it was so awesome. and some guy shredding a guitar on a balcony on top of a building. and cool lights shining on all the buildings along the canal. and fireworks. had to power walk back to the train station to catch the last train back to brussels. the train was very late, definitely not swiss standards.

tried to get up to take sunrise photos, that didn't work at all. so ended up sleeping in. got breakfast at some cafe, another good coffee, and a piece of cheesecake for breakfast. yes, that happened. then got more fries. and another trappist beer, chimay - which was also delicious. there was another orchestra playing in the main square, with some old army jeeps and stuff there too. really cool. bought more chocolate. wandered through some street market thing. went to the royal palace, walked through it - maybe not as impressive as the one in madrid but cool nonetheless. there is a room that has these jewel beetle casings on the walls, it is really awesome. and there was a random science center in the palace too. walked back to the city center, got some more chocolate, more fries, more beer. and then a deep fried burger. and then there were some really good buskers. this old guy just singing his heart out and playing some good guitar. probably one of the best buskers i've ever seen actually. to the train station, airport, and then home. they also sell beer out of vending machines. i now have a pile of chocolate in my room.

will be running a lot this week to get ready for the race on saturday. and also to recover from the two days of food eating.