These blog posts have felt like a trip appendix of sorts, and dragging them out has let me prolong my adventure. This is the last one! Oddly, it feels kind of like leaving Europe again. Closing this chapter of my life. This trip was pretty life changing for me, for so many reasons which are difficult to put into words and I don't particularly feel like trying. But It was exactly what I needed. Now: Amsterdam! We only had one day in Amsterdam, but it was such a fun end to our trip. We loved all the beautiful bikes and crooked buildings (so crooked). We stayed in our first hostel of the trip, which also turned out to be the most expensive accommodation of the trip. I swear by airbnb! But it was fun to be in a really lively atmosphere for the night. We happened to be there while there was a huge carnival downtown, so of course we went on a few rides. I also got my first Chinese food of the trip haha! I had been craving it for over a month. Bikes, bikes, bikes! Goodbye, bless, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, adíos, adéu, arrivederci, vaarwel!
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On our last day in Belgium, Maarten took us to Antwerp. We ate mediocre pizza and delicious chocolates, walked along the water, played on the weird Belgian playground, and hung out at an awesome bar. I am in love with this city! ^^ Cool alleyway full of street art. ^^ How they do slides in Belgium. In other words, pole. ^^ My favorite bar of the trip! ^^ Maarten pretending to pee (?) Annnnd, Rachel peeing on the sidewalk a mere 20 yards from our destination. She just couldn't hold it. Favorites in Antwerp:
Korsakov such a fun bar with a nice hip to punk ratio. Graffiti Alley bright & beautiful street art Leonidas (again) because it's just so good BRUGESDespite Maarten's claims that Bruges was a boring tourist town, his dad insisted that we see it. So we went for a little day trip and it was so lovely! The canals reminded me of Venice, and while Maarten was right (it is touristy), I was glad we saw it since we had skipped out on Venice. Later that night we watched In Bruges which was, in the weirdest way, a surprisingly great movie. ^^ All the pretty doors! Heart eyes. ^^ All the black and white!!! GHENTAfter Bruges, we headed to Ghent where we purchased the most overpriced waffles, watched stumbling drunk people in the middle of the day, and incessantly commented "that's so cute!" to a degree of which I'm slightly ashamed. ^^ Swoon! ^^ One of the thousand churches that Maarten's dad took us too. We started to get a bit immature... But you do see why I thought everything was cute, right?
My friend Maarten met us at the (beautiful) train station in Brussels. As we walked through the icy streets, Rachel and I were completely in awe of the charming Chirstmas-like city. Maarten took us to a bar where we got delicious and cheap belgian beer. As soon as I tried it, I understood why Maarten thinks that American beer is shit. It is! Maarten's family was was the absolute sweetest. They hosted us for a week in their lovely home. We woke up every morning to coffee and a delicious breakfast of fresh croissants, jams, fruits, and local cheeses that his mom had made for us. Since Maarten had to work some of the days we were visiting, his cute dad played tour guide and took us all over the country. His dad was obsessed with churches and so we saw tons of cathedrals, and it was really neat to see them from his perspective. He was also obsessed with sweets which really worked in our favor, and we sampled so many belgian chocolates. Oh my gosh. I am drooling just thinking of them. ^^ The most delicious carrot soup and meringues the size of our heads. ^^ Maarten's dad and brother took us to the Atomium, which was built for the world fair in 1958. It was massive! ^^ The peeing boy statue "Manneken Pis" and a thinking man made of chocolate. Haha ^^ Aren't these buildings just beautiful? Had I not known Maarten, I probably wouldn't have thought to visit Belgium (no offense Maarten!), but it turned out to be one of my favorite countries in Europe. The people seemed so open-minded and friendly. The food was delicious! And the cities couldn't have been cuter. Maarten and his dad made fun of us for calling everything cute. Haha. Favorites from Brussels:
Peck 47 for the best carrot soup, a healthy smoothie, and the coziest atmosphere Lonidas for the tastiest chocolates (try the manon blanc)! Elisabeth Chocolatier for melt-in-your-mouth truffles and huge meringues Rachel was so sweet to take me out for my 5th wedding anniversary while we were in Rome. Naturally, we got lost in the cold rain on our way to the restaurant and ended up traipsing through thorns and bushes, hugging the nonexistent shoulder of windy one-way road. We reached the address we had written down to find a dark warehouse in the middle of a field, with nothing else in sight. Rachel was sure we were going to die, but we finally found the restuarant a few miles away. It was a local spot, where servers carried around a big blackboard menu of the day, written only in Italian of course. We pretty much picked our meals at random and they were so delicious! Unfortunately Rachel got food poisoning so the whole thing is kind of a touchy subject. Because of Rachel's food poising incident + my UTI, we spent our only full day in Rome very uncomfortably. We tried to cram in as much sight-seeing as we could, and my hourly attempts to find a bathroom detracted from this a bit, but added a little humor. ^^ Floor, ceiling. Sistine Chapel. Rome was kind of our last straw for all the pushy men selling random shit. We both freaked out on people at different times, and I was sure that one of us was going to get physical but we never did. The day ended with Rachel getting mugged, so that was cool. They stole her coin purse which had some money and Jon's anniversary gift in it. It was the perfect end to our time in Rome. ;)
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ELLEfeminist. linguist. traveller. foodie. crafter. ARCHIVES
January 2018
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All photos are the property of Elizabeth Cheney and may not be used without permission.
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