Antwerp, Belgium

This week, my friend Julie had a friend visiting. It is mid-term week at school and I had only one mid-term, so all my other classes were cancelled. Julie, Jessi, and I took the train to Antwerp, Belgium for an overnight trip, just to visit and check it out.

Antwerp was a very nice city, very clean, and NO tourists. Walking to our hostel, we kept passing tons of people dressed in traditional, Orthodox Jewish apparel, so I can only assume we were staying in some type of Jewish neighborhood. Our hostel was in an extremely old building. The smell was atrocious; it smelled like an old house that had never been cleaned or renovated, mixed with cigarette smoke. Luckily, we were only there to sleep and did not have to spend any time there. We were sharing a room with four other girls, so the accommodation was not ideal.

We arrived around 7 pm, went to dinner, then out to a small bar with a live jazz band. There wasn’t much night life since it was Tuesday, but the band was good and we were able to go to bed early so we could spend the next day exploring.

On Wednesday, the weather was cloudy, but luckily the rain held off until the evening. First, we set out to find the beach. Antwerp is bordered by a river and there was supposedly a beach that you could visit. To get to the beach, we had to cross the river. Instead of a bridge, Antwerp has a tunnel 32 meters underground to accommodate pedestrians across the river. It was really cool to walk through, the escalators are ancient and wooden and you feel like you are going down forever. When we finally arrived at the “beach” it was about two meters wide and you could not even walk on it. Basically, we walked about 45 minutes to see nothing, but we got to experience the tunnel and get some good views of the city.

Antwerp has a lot of historical buildings, castles, a fortress, and is very pretty-I will try to put pictures up soon. We spent the rest of our day walking the city, shopping, and exploring. I did eat a Belgian waffle which was delicious, but we did not get any chocolate. Much to our surprise, chocolate was very hard to find. When we asked a local where a good chocolate shop was, she suggested we try Godiva.

It was a very quick, short trip, but we all had a good time and I got to put another star on my map!!

As school is picking up and funds are dwindling, my travels are probably going to become more sporadic. Currently, I am looking forward to my parents’ visit for Easter and our trip to Paris. For May break, we just booked a trip to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. At the end, I am planning Spain, Southern France, and Italy. Stay tuned!

Kiss Me I'm Irish

Hello again! I know it has been too long since I last posted, but I swear I’m trying. Apparently, my school work has been getting neglected so I have been spending quite a lot of time catching up. The good news is I had my first mid-term today and I feel that it went really well! Since I have fallen behind, I’m going to try to post several today and tomorrow! Hopefully I will be able to catch up.

I last left you in London and after London I had another girl’s trip to look forward to-this time with my sister coming along! Ireland was actually one of the first trips we booked, wanting to make it there for St. Patrick’s Day. The group consisted of me, Carly, Marli, Julie, Gen, Gen’s boyfriend Henry, Mathilde, and Kathy. Trying to avoid the crowds and expense of Dublin, we traveled to Cork, a very small town in the southern part of Ireland.

Departing early Wednesday morning, we were excited to have the whole day and night to explore. Before our plane even touched the ground, we were in love! Never have I been somewhere so green; just seeing the green grass bordering the ocean was beautiful. After arriving, we went to meet Henry, who had arrived the night before. Sidenote: Henry is Gen’s amazingly cool boyfriend who is also on exchange in Norway. He met us in Ireland for St. Patty’s Day. At Henry’s suggestion, we decided to spend the afternoon seeing Blarney Castle. The weather was simply amazing: so warm that you did not need a coat, just a sweater! Coming from cold, rainy Amsterdam, we were ecstatic. Blarney Castle is an old castle but it also sits on acres of gardens, trails, waterfalls, and a lake. Enjoying the nice weather and view, we stayed until dusk. We climbed up the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Kissing the stone is supposed to give you the “gift of gab” for the next seven years. Winston Churchill kissed the stone so I suppose it has a good track record. In order to kiss the stone, one has to lie down backwards and lean over a ledge, while being held by an old man. It’s quite scary and I closed my eyes.

After the castle, we returned to the hostel. Julie and I decided to make dinner in out hostel instead of eating out. After eating we showered and napped, waking up in time to meet the rest of our group at a traditional Irish pub. We joined them at a pub called Preacher’s that played American music circa 1960-1980. We absolutely loved it and I made the comment to Carly that my dad would have really enjoyed it. Irish people are some of the most fun people I have encountered. They speak English, which is so nice and are very friendly. My favorite part, though, is that they LOVE to sing. In every bar or pub we visited, everyone would be singing along with the music. People were up dancing; these were not the kind of bars where you could sit down and talk. Irish people also like to start their parties pretty early; most of the pubs closed at 12.

Our second day in Ireland was St. Patty’s Day. We got up early because we were under the impression that festivities would last all day, but that wasn’t really the case. We ended up spending the morning buying St. Patty’s Day accessories and walking around the city. Again, it was quite warm and we spent most of the day outdoors. The parade began at 1 and was about the least impressive parade I have ever seen in my life. The parade was definitely geared toward children, but there was not even candy. There were no floats, just people walking. Everyone was out of work and school though, in Cork St. Patty’s Day is a bank holiday. Most of the city was closed. After the parade and eating a quick, late lunch, the pubs opened their doors early for the holiday. We spent the afternoon/evening/night visiting different pubs and meeting a lot of people. Every place was completely packed, playing music (including traditional Irish music-which I loved), and busy with singing and dancing. It was a great holiday, although, as reported I think we have bigger celebrations in the States.

On Friday, at Carly’s urging, we signed up for the Paddywagon tour. This was a tour that began at 8:15 am and lasted all day, driving you through the Irish countryside, the Cliffs of Moor, and the Burren.  There are a lot of pictures online and I suggest that you check them out. Words cannot describe how insanely beautiful this trip was. The stone walls, small cottages, cliffs, and fields of green grass are straight from a storybook or movie. The bus ride was a little dangerous and windy driving down the coastal roads. Everyone was feeling very queasy and Carly had a very hard time. The tour was a perfect activity though, because we got to snooze on the bus ride and see some truly beautiful parts of the country.

After celebrating St. Patty’s Day then spending the day on the bus, we were all feeling a little ragged. Our plane for Amsterdam left at 6:00 am Saturday morning so we, of course, did not feel that we needed a hostel for Friday night. Our thought process was that we would go out on Friday night, and then head straight to the airport to catch our flight. However, we were so tired and dirty that no one wanted to go out. We tried to doze in the lounge of our hostel, but were eventually kicked out for some unknown reason. With nowhere else to go, we headed straight to the airport, which was completely deserted since it was about 11:00 pm. Since it was so late and flights were not departing for several hours, security was closed, meaning we could not get through to the comfy benches/chairs. This left us sitting on some wooden benches and chairs, sleeping sitting up for the next four hours. Not the most pleasant experience, but at least we saved ourselves some money. Traveling is not for the faint of heart!

This is unrelated to the trip, but I would like to share this story nonetheless. As we were eating breakfast on St. Patrick's Day, I noticed that a guy in our hostel was wearing a fraternity shirt that a lot of my friends have. I knew it was from SEMO, but I thought it would be too random if he went to my school, so I assumed maybe another school had the same shirt. Eventually, I asked him about it. Turns out, he was originally from St. Louis and goes to school at Eastern. He got the shirt last year on Spring Break in Panama City, trading it for one of his frat shirts from his school. Small world.