Kelly and Chris- Belgium!!

[March 28- April 2]

And once again, a week behind here I am going to post on Belgium!!

Just like with Isa, I got to stay in someone's actual home when I visited Belgium, and it was absolutely wonderful! Visiting Kelly and Chris Maloney was really the perfect way to see Belgium, I got to combine hanging out in good company, watching movies and drinking delicious hot cocoa, with seeing most of Belgium.

Kelly and Chris have an apartment in Leuven, which is a short distance from Brussels, and basically a college town. One of my favorite Leuven quirks: if you own a bike, (which most people there do!) you better lock it to something permanently stuck in the ground. If you don't you better be prepared to buy a new bike, because students will throw un-tethered bikes into the water! When we looked over bridges and into the little canals, you could see various bicycle wheels popping up out of the water!! I thought it was hilarious! But I forgot to take a picture....

I really enjoyed Leuven, I love the architecture of the buildings in Belgium, and really enjoyed what a small down Leuven is... It was refreshing to be staying in a small town and just visiting Brussels, rather than staying in Brussels itself!

Here are some of my favorite points of Leuven:

Over-Looking Leuven

Funky church... old on the outside,
but pretty modern on the inside!

In addition to Leuven, I got the chance to see Brussels, Liege, and Bruges!! They were great!! I loved each place for different reasons, Brussels I mostly liked for the waffle. We don't do Belgium waffles right, it's ridiculous how wrong we make food. :)


Brussels:

It was very cold. But beautiful!!

Kelly and I :)

The Manneken Pis!! ... Famous statue,
but SO much smaller than I was expecting!!

The selection.....

The MOST delicious dessert I've ever had,
but so rich, I couldn't even finish!

There were a few times random people offered to take pictures of Kelly and I which was convenient, and now we have some great pictures!!

Bruges: Probably my favorite spot in Belgium...

There are canals going through Bruges,
I believe it's sometimes referred to as the "Vencie of the North"

This horse was MASSIVE.
That cart he's pulling has at least 25 people in it i think...

Some really cool old windmills!

I love the architecture!!

Swans! They are fed by the city, and seemed to all be tagged,
they're all over the place when you first enter town!

A Church

I love this picture

Liege: We took a really cool hike in Liege and I got some really awesome photos! Unfortunately it was Easter Monday, so the waffle place was closed!! The waffle in Liege-- "Liege waffle"-- is apparently different from the "Brussels waffle" 

SOOOO MANY STAIRS!

I think that pretty much sums up Belgium!! I have more pictures, and other random things as well, but I am having a hard time sorting out which pictures were which city!! Down-fall of making these posts a week late!!

Oh! I also got a really cute picture of Kelly... I didn't mean for this photo to happen, but it did, so I thought I'd share! :)

Thank you SO much Kelly and Chris for having me!! It was incredibly nice to visit you two, and very refreshing being with friends from home! You are wonderful hosts, and I appreciate you letting me crash for a long and very enjoyable weekend!


This past weekend I was with Rachel in Berlin... I'll post about that soon :)

Ciao!!