Bel-gee-um

Finally a post that'so not all abut food, lol. Well it's been awhile since I updated this, and I'm a bit behind. But it's midterm time, so I'm just going to post a summary of my Belgium trip. I put Bel-gee-um as my title b/c I took German last semester, and I learned that that's how you say Belgium in German.

So I went to Belgium on a study trip for my Renaissance Art History class. We went to Ghent, Brussels, and Brugge. We saw a lot of art of course. Much of it I have studied many a time, so it was great seeing it in person. One of the most famous pieces of art we saw was the Ghent altarpiece. It was huge, seven by thirteen feet, and filled up the whole room. The colors of it were brilliant, jewel like I would say. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of it. We spent the most time in Brugge. Brugge is beautiful. It was a major trade center of the Renaissance. After the Renaissance their economy fell apart, so the city looks the same as it did then. I felt like I was walking onto a movie set or into Disneyland. We got to take a boat ride on the canal, it was so beautiful. We really lucked out with the weather, it was gorgeous fall day. We had a little bit of free time, and I bought some yummy chocolate and a Belgium waffle. My class was a nice group of people, so I had fun hanging out with them and getting to know some new people.

It was weird going to another country where the primary language wasn't English or French. That was a first for me. It was a bit jarring when I got out of the train and the signs were in Dutch. However, apparently Belgium people know like five languages. Everyone knew English, which always seems to be the case! I'm so used to avoiding using English, since French people don't seem to like it when you speak English, and I felt rude speaking English. But the Belgians didn't seem to mind. On Saturday night in Brugge I went out to dinner with some people from my class and out waiter spoke British English! That was funny. Like I said I took German last semester, and I noticed some similar words, like the words for street. I don't think they're too different.

Our way back to Paris was a bit hectic. The plan was to take a train to Brussels, then switch onto another train to get to Paris. When we got on our first train there was no sitting room left, so we had to sit in the aisle on the floor for about an hour! Then it turned out that that train was too slow, and we missed our other train to Paris! There was only one other train left going to Paris that night. My teacher talked to the train people, and they told us there were 19 spots left on the last train, and our class had 20 people in it! Luckily they let us get on. Then they opened up what we think was some emergency seating in the back of the train, and we all got seats. That was a major relief. I was happy to be back in Paris after all that craziness. My teacher was really intense, and she was the fastest walker I'd ever seen! If you didn't keep up she didn't hesitate to leave you behind. So that was a bit stressful. But it was really fun seeing some new cities.