a little late...

so i haven't exactly gotten around to blogging about my amazing trip to brussels until now. my bad for making two trips to and from the netherlands in one week. poor planning of course. also, i have a spanish final that i missed the final review of and have not even began to start studying. clearly, this semester abroad has really made me a more responsible student. anyway, i finally have the time and brain power to give the dirty deets on my trip to belgium. (amsterdam post to come.)

the flight to belgium was the last ryanair (aka cheapest but worst airline company ever) flight of the semester thank god because i'm getting sick and tired of packing three days worth of trendy clothes into a backpack and sitting in seats that don't recline. also, i realized after taking the bus, then metro, then walking 15 mins to our hostel that i'm really looking forward to getting off a plane, and having someone there in a car to drive me home. the public transportation and walking in the rain was worth it though, cause our hostel slash bed and breakfast was better than i could have imagined. it was an actual cozy home, complete with a dog. Karel was the man who owned the house and he lives there with his nugget sixteen year old euro child. he was actually the sweetest little man and very helpful throughout the weekend. me and kim got put in the old master bedroom of the house. it had the most comfortable bed i've slept on in months. with an actual down comforter. imagine that. however, there was an aussie couple as our roomates, traveling the world romantically together for 9 months. nauseatingly living my dream life. they were nice...until they started cuddling and me and kim had to use facebook chat to communicate across the room and avoid awkwardness. 

early the next morning, we set out to see the city. we totally lucked out with weather and managed to get around being stuck in the rain. we walked all over and found the royal palace, grand palace, and most importantly, the famous statue of a little kid peeing. no joke. its the size of a toddler. oh, and it gets dressed up for special occasions. 

after eating our first of many amazing one euro waffles of the trip, we wandered to find the christmas markets! the entire city was decorated with lights and trees and even a live animal nativity scene. we picked the right time of year to visit. we finally spotted the giant ferris wheel and walked up and down the blocks of booths. most of them were food and alcohol, but of course i managed to purchase three new pieces of jewelry. oh, and we stopped for lunch at a burger place, being true americans. they were surprisingly the bomb.com. after going back to the bed and breakfast to shower and lay down for a bit, we went back to the plaza with the grand palace to see a christmas light show. choreographed to music from the nutcracker obvi. it was actually one of the only and best light shows i've sat through. then we started drinking glasses of hot, spiced, red wine (a drink that i will be making many a time next semester.) we managed to meet up with some of kim's friends i had met in barcelona and we went to a bar called delirium, known in brussels for having 2000 beers on tap. YUP. 2000. i drank some dark beers, tryin to be adventurous. and a mysterious spanish man, who spoke french and english, told me i was guapa with good smelling hair and bought me a strawberry beer. i was beyond satisfied. belgian beer is a lil stronger than i thought. nothing like natty. 

the next morning we slept off our slight hangovers and actually went on a spontaneous day trip to brugge, a small town about an hour away from brussels by train. this was probably the best decision we made all weekend. this town was the definition of quaint. actually adorable. all the streets are cobblestone and complete with chocolate shops on every corner. there is a canal that runs through the whole thing, inhabited by a million swans and ducks. we only planned on being in brugge for a few hours, and we ended up staying the entire day. we didn't have a map and just wandered until it got dark and we found more christmas markets! we treated ourselves to an actual sit down dinner for the first time all weekend and then headed back to brussels for our last night. this trip was just the relaxing vacation from a vacation that i needed. of course, less than 24 hours after returning to madrid, i headed back up to the netherlands to spend my last free days in amsterdam. but that's a story for next time. i need to start studying for the first of my exams tomorrow. hooray. 

rofl's for waffles

ferris wheel selfie

light show!

beautiful brugge.

gingerbread lookin houses.