Beglium - Land of Waffles and Frites

After much nagging, I've finally written about our travels to Belgium. The first weekend in may was the first Bank Holiday, a glorious tradition that means everyone will be traveling and often enjoying three of the rainiest days of the year (Murphy's law strikes again). Luckily, this long weekend was the exception to the rule and we had brilliant weather on our 3 day adventure across Belgium.

We took the Eurostar across to the continent and spent 2 days and nights in Bruges, then a final day in Brussels before coming back across the water. I had a previously traveled to Bruges, which was a lot of fun, despite being much colder. Laura has now determined that I should be doing recon missions prior to all of our trips so I know where everything is and what to do when we get there.

As it turns out, there are three major activities to do in Bruges:

• Drink delicious Belgian beer
  
• Eat the greatest street food in Europe - Waffles and Fries with mayo
• Look at the medieval buildings all lit up at night

I can say with certainty, we accomplished each one of those activites with gusto. We did revisit my two favourite bars, 't Bruges Beertje and Cambrinus, each with hundreds of beers on their lists. Laura's pick of the weekend was a banana beer that was quite good.


In addition to copious drinking, we also indulged in the fantastic street food of waffles drenched in chocolate and frites (fries) covered in mayonaise.

Bruges has some fantastic canals (like a mini-Venice), so we took a canal tour on Sunday.


We also climed up the 366 steps to the top of the tower. Not a bad view from up there... but definitely not as good as it had been hyped. The fenced in view really put a damper on how beautiful a sight it could have been.


Our final day in Belgium, we woke up and took the train back into Brussels and planned on the whole day there. In hindsight, this was WAY too much time. Brussels has one main square, a cathedral or two, and some shopping streets, but otherwise is entirely skippable. Probably one of my least favourite cities. Part of that could be that we were pretty tired from two days of walking around Bruges, and just wanted to relax instead of sightsee. The other part could be that we didn't have a full guidebook for the city, just the few pages in our huge Europe guidebook.


Either way, I can't recommend Bruges highly enough. Make Brussels a very quick day-trip, but keep your sights on Bruges for any Belgian-based plans you have.

Here are some pictures from Bruges, as well as pictures from Brussels. Enjoy.

Things I Love About London- Part V: English Tea With Milk and Sugar

It took a year and a half, but living in England has officially made me a dedicated tea drinker. Now, don't get me wrong, I've always had a love of tea. But, in the states, this adoration was mainly restricted to herbaly teas of the green and mint variety. Not being a coffee drinker, in London every morning I start off my day with what I now consider the perfect morning pick-me-up: English breakfast tea with milk and 2 splendas.

On this journey to tea dedication, I have learned some important lessons that most British people already know:

1- There are different types of tea for different times of the day

2- Different types of tea need different water temperatures

3- Water temperature DOES matter (boiling vs. just before boiling)
4- Milk in tea is AMAZING
5- Sugar type makes a difference (white vs. brown- I am a brown/unrefined sugar fan, but, due to obvious caloric issues, I have now switched to splenda)

6- Steeping time is very important and varies from tea to tea

I never really understood why hotelrooms the world over had tea and kettles in the room. I mean, who drinks that much tea? Well, thanks to living in London: I DO! Often, when bobby and I are travelling, we will arrive at a hotel, set down our luggage, and the first thing out of either of our mouths is "fancy a cup of tea?" (Yes, we do say "fancy," this is said half jokingly/mockingly and half seriously because I fear that the British version of that word has now legitimately infiltrated our vocabulary. If we were REALLY British, we would just say "fancy a cuppa," but I'll save the state of despair that is grammar in this country for another post.) We will then sit in the hotel room for 15 minutes or so enjoying our cup of tea before we go face whatever strange new place to which we have travelled.


My dedication to tea may be one of the few life-long impacts living in London has on me. I could see myself loving it forever (using the word "fancy" on the other hand, I hope to drop upon my return to America!).

Belgium

We went to Belgium almost two weeks ago. It was amazing and we have some wonderful photographs. Bobby, however, is in charge of that blog which means nothing may be post for another month or so. If you speak with him, yell at him to blog on belgium. He's currently working in Chester (northern England) 3 days a week. What else does he have to do in his hotel room at night? He might as well be blogging.

oh yeah, we went to Dublin

About a month ago, we went to Dublin for a weekend to celebrate one of my London friend's 25th birthdays. I won't go into much detail, as I've blogged about Dublin before, but here as the highlights:

Well, the biggest highlight of course is the fact that it was Lynsey's 25th birthday. She decided that she wanted to drink away her quarter-life-crisis (a life crisis that I think people drastically underestimate-i'm still dealing with mine), so Dublin seemed like the logical choice.

Lynsey and I out for her Birthday

Amid all of the drinking, we did actually fit in quite a bit of sight seeing. We took one of the fabulous free walking tours that i'm always raving about, and actually saw some major sites that Bobby and I had missed on our previous trip to Dublin.

Bobby and I at Crist's Church Cathedral

Bobby and I at Dublin Castle

Bobby at the Guinness Factory

Me at Hapenny Bridge

We had a great time, but, nonetheless, Dublin continues to be one of my least favourite cities in Europe. I ADORE the rest of Ireland, but Dublin as a city is just always kind of underwhelming to me.

Things I Miss About America- Part VIII: Not Living in a Constant State of Paranoia

I think I have mentioned in this blog before that, even though I love it here, living in London has taught me that I am actually not a city person. Another illustration of this is how completely paranoid I become whenever something even remotely threatening happens due to the fact that I live in a large city.

Example 1: A month or so ago, I was on the tube platform at Oxford Circus (the huge, touristy, shopping area in London) waiting for the central line train when a voice came on over the intercom and said “due to an emergency, everyone must now evacuate the station.” In my head, this meant “a terrorist bombing of the station is imminent, run for your life.” I sprinted out of the station while the rest of the passengers exited at a leisurely stroll. I was shocked to see that people were standing still going up the escalators as I ran for my life. When I got to the station exit, I saw that all of the tube employees were lolling about, so I figured it must have been a drill, but if the same thing happened to me again tomorrow I’m sure I would react the same way. If I were living in Yorktown Virginia, I would never consider the possibility of looming death due to terrorist action when something slightly odd happened, but in London, anytime someone leaves a bag on the tube I’m convinced that it contains a bomb.

Example 2: Today, a lady sneezed on me on the tube and now I am convinced I have Swine Flu. Once again, if I were living in Yorktown Virginia, my fear of Swine Flu would be calmed due to the remoteness of my location. But I don’t live in Yorktown Virginia, I live in London, and, according to yesterday’s paper: “Swine Flu Has Arrived in London.” In a month or so, when this whole Swine Flu thing has blown over, I’m sure I’ll laugh at myself for going to the pharmacy to price surgical masks, but right now it seems like the prudent thing to do.

Maybe my paranoia will lessen with time. Maybe if I cut down the number of newspapers I read a day (currently at 4), this would help lessen my fears of death due to global pandemic. But, for how, I just have to endure it and be thankful that the positive aspects of living in London outweigh my fear of terrorist bombings.

Coming home!

Bobby and I leave Friday for two wonderful weeks in Virginia! Originally, we thought we had to go home to get our new visas, but it turns out that we can get them here so this trip is kind of unnecessary. However, we will be doing important things like seeing friends/family, gorging ourselves on Mexican food, going to the DMV, and going to the dentist.

Our tentative schedule is:
April 11-17: Yorktown
April 18-26: DC

Let us know if you would like to get together!

Things I Love About London, Part IV: Crazy Flavoured Crisps

If you’re not up to speed on the immense language differences between the UK and USA, then let me begin this post by explaining that by “Crisp,” I mean “Potato Chip.” If you order “Chips” here, you get “French Fries.” If you order “Fries” you get, um, ok, they don’t have anything called “Fries” here. Unless you’re in McDonalds where “Fries” still mean “French Fries.” Yes, it’s all very confusing.

If you’re an American, and I asked you what the craziest potato chip flavour you’ve ever eaten was, what would you say? “I think I had Thai Chilli Once.” “Salt and Vinegar is pretty out there.”

As a British resident, I can answer this question with the following answers:
*Cajun Squirrel
*Fish n Chips
*Onion Bahji

*Crispy Duck
*Builder’s Breakfast
*Chilli and Chocolate
*Prawn Cocktail
*Chicken

Granted, the first 5 I listed were part of a contest to choose a new Walkers crisp flavour (The Cajun Squirrel and Onion Bahji were surprisingly tasty, the Fish n Chips flavour was horrid), but even putting those aside, you can find flavours like Prawn Cocktail, Chicken, and Beef on a regular basis. Flavours I’m used to like Salt and Vinegar, BBQ, and Sour Cream and Onion (or Soured Cream and Chives as they would call it here) are harder to find- although they are becoming more prominent.

At first, I hated the British crisps flavours, but now I find the majority of them delicious and entertaining. I am finally starting to fit in with the people of this country who love their crisps and put a huge amount of pride in their crazy flavours.