Thursday 18 November-Saturday 21 November

Thursday I went up to the Bank tube station to look at the store windows in that area. We had passed it on a bus the night before and I saw a Louie Vuitton and Gucci store. The area was really nice. Then I took the tube up to Oxford Street to meet Chelsea at Liberty. Liberty, of course, looked amazing on the inside too! The ceiling in the gift room and the jewelry and handbag room was covered with metallic gift bows, COVERED. It looked so pretty.

Then we headed to Bond Street because at 6PM the city was lighting the Christmas lights. Before we even got to Bond Street we saw snow! There was all this stuff flying through the air and we were like SNOW!!!! When we got to Bond Street there was soooooo much snow!!! When we got closer to all of it we realized it was soap! We walked down all of Bond Street. We saw reindeer and all of the stores decorated. As we walked down the lights overhead lit up one at a time, starting at the Old Bond Street end and ending at the New Bond Street side at Oxford Street; it was so pretty, the snow made it amazing.

We were pretty hungry by the time we finished so we walked toward Piccadilly Circus and wandered through some streets until we found a place that looked good. It was called the Bistro. It was Turkish and Mediterranean cuisine and they had really good fixed menu prices. The food was really good! We met up with Bridget in Soho after dinner and had coffee and dessert at Bar Italia on Frith Street. Chelsea was on a walking tour and was told that Bar Italia had the best coffee in London. The coffee was really good and so were the desserts! I had a cannoli, sooooooooo good!!!

Friday Chelsea and I went to Twining Tea Co. and to Covent Garden. Then I met up with Harry at the Knightsbridge tube station. We went to Harrod’s and Harvey Nichol’s to check out the windows. Harrod’s windows were themed to The Wizard of Oz and Harrod’s lit up like Emerald City at night! It was soooooooooooo pretty. The windows at Harvey Nichol’s were really awesome, very imaginative. I went home afterwards and waited with Chelsea and Bridget to hear from Christine and her friend. They were at the movies and we were meeting up with them for dinner and to go out afterwards. Christine’s friend is a vegetarian so we ate at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Mildred’s by Oxford Circus. The food was DELICIOUS! I had pumpkin and ricotta raviolis and sweet potato fries with sour cream and a glass of vegetarian pinot noir, naturally (whatever vegetarian wine means). We all shared white chocolate and pistachio cheesecake for dessert. I definitely want to go back there; there was so much on the menu that I wanted to try.

From dinner we took the tube to Covent Gardens. We took them to Los Locos, which is where Eya, Chelsea and I ended up last week. It wasn’t as crowded but the music was just as good! After a while there we went to the Verve (another bar we went to the week before), which was packed! We left around 3AM.

The next morning, Bridget, Chelsea and I headed to Borough Market, a large ALL FOOD market by the London Bridge. It was, in a word, SPECTACULAR. EVERYTHING looked soooooooooooooo good. There was cheese and bread and pastries and olives and more cheese; tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh juices and smoothies. Anything you could want was there. To start, I had a chocolate muffin, which was actually a regular muffin base with chocolate chips and chocolate crumble on top. So yummy! I got a latte too. Then Bridget found this amazing cheese vendor-they were cooking up cheesy potatoes and grilled cheese!!!!! The smell was outrageous we had to try it! Chelsea had the cheesy potatoes, which were served boiled with melted cheese (I think the wheel was cheddar) and a side of gherkins. Bridget and I got the grilled cheese, which was served on dense whole wheat bread with a mix of cheddar and gruyere swiss cheeses and garnished with a white and red onion mixture, then grilled to absolute perfection. It was the best grilled cheese I have ever had!!!!!!!! Afterwards I grabbed some toffee and dark chocolate covered caramels for later on.

We walked to St. Paul’s from the market to hop on the tube. We were headed for Portobello Market in Knotting Hill. A lot of the tube stations are closed for engineering work on the weekends, so we had to get off before the Knotting Hill station stop and hop on a bus to go the rest of the way. Once we got there we walked quickly through the antique and food section until we hit the new goods/fashion area. We had already been to this market so we knew what we were looking for which was good because it had started to rain. We took the bus back to Oxford and took the tube the rest of the way home. We all just relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday 12 November-Wednesday 18 November

Thursday, after Bridget got home from work, we went to Covent Garden to get our hair done. We had picked up vouchers (coupons) during the week and she wanted a hair cut and I needed to get my highlights touched up. After a couple hours there (with new hair!) we went to Oxford Circus to go shopping for some new jeans for Bridget, with my help of course! I had been to Uniqlo a while ago and knew they had pretty cheap jeans, so we went there. Oxford Street was all lit up with lights! It was so pretty, but it was raining so I couldn’t get any pictures. Bridget was able to get a pair of jeans and a few other things, which was great. Christine met up with us and we had dinner at Nandos again (second time in a week).

Class we pretty uneventful on Friday; I was done with the first class by 11:00 and Alan wasn’t in his office yet so I just went home. I took a nap and then headed to the hardware store down the street to see if there were any paint samples there. Unfortunately there wasn’t (that’d be too easy). But one of the workers told me where I could get some so I decided to head there on Saturday. I went across the street to sit in Café Nero for a little bit-had a mocha and white and dark chocolate cheesecake, mmmmmmmmm! After that I went back home and got ready to go out with Eya and Bridget. We went to Covent Garden and ate dinner at Nandos again (third time!). After dinner, we met up with a few of Eya’s friends at a club called Verve. It was pretty cool, good DJ. We were there until about 3 AM.

The next day we all slept pretty late. When we decided to get up and do something Eya, Bridget and I took the tube to West Kensington where there is a Home Base, a store kind of like Lowe’s, so I could get some paint samples for the store. While walking from the tube station to Home Base we passed an enormous Tesco with a double decker parking garage. After getting some samples we went into the Tesco and picked up a few things. It’s so funny to see regular size grocery stores here, especially ones with parking lots. Everyone in the store had carts, buying tons of stuff, like they had regular size refrigerators at home! Haha

Chelsea was home from Italy by the time we got back. Her, Eya and I met up with Harry and his friends right outside the London Bridge tube station. There is a bar there call the Shunt. It’s supposed to be made up of all these underground caverns. When we got there though they were not letting anymore people in! The guy at the door was actually being pretty mean to people. We left and headed to Piccadilly Circus. Harry’s friends had a hard time deciding where to go for some reason, so we eventually left them and walked to Covent Gardens. A promoter ended up giving us a flyer for Los Locos, a club/bar in Covent so we ended up going there.

Los Locos was PACKED. We found some seats and got drinks. The DJ was really good, he was playing Whiney Houston, Bon Jovi, Bruce, everything you could sing to or would here at a wedding. We had a really good time there.

Sunday Chelsea and I went to Spitalfields Market. She hadn’t been there on a Sunday yet, which is the best day to go. We started at Petticoat Lane where we found some cheap souvenirs and I bought a cute dress (only 8 pounds!). From there we went to Old Spitalfields Market. We had breakfast (well by that time it was actually lunch, it was already 11) at a café that my guidebook says everyone goes to. After we fueled up, it was time for some shopping! We walked through the entire Old Spitalfields. We found stalls and areas that I didn’t go to the first time I went too. There was sooooooooooo much good stuff. I love that the people selling the goods are up incoming designers and hand make mostly everything there. We wandered in there for a few hours we walked to Brick Lane, which is right up the street. We walked through the Sunday Up Market in the Truman Brewery. It smells amazing in there. All of the food stalls are right in the front so as soon as you walk in you are bombarded with sweet and sour, chili, curry, etc. It makes you hungry instantly. We walked through the whole market there and grabbed some lunch. Then we walked up Brick Lane and stopped at the beigel shop at the end.

Monday and Tuesday I did a lot of things for my project for the store. It’s coming together but it’s making me nervous because I think I may run out of time! I don’t have many weeks left here and there’s still so much to do! Because there is so much going on at work I’m finding it hard to communicate with John and Rachel and have decisions be made as quickly as I’d like them to. Tuesday night I went to McDonald’s to use their free WiFi (getting pretty sick of pub food). I ordered from their value menu and got a large drink and fry and boy am I glad I got a large-their size large is like a U.S. size medium!!! I was ready for some Biggie sizes!!!! No wonder we have an obesity problem haha, but seriously I needed more :)

Wednesday I was able to talk to John about everything that I had pending for the store. After over a week of sitting with first draft artwork for the front door, I got everyone’s opinion on the changes and emailed the graphic designer back. When I got home from work, Chelsea and Bridget were getting ready to go to the Absolut Ice Bar off Regent Street. I missed out on going to the Ice Bar in Barcelona so I definitely wanted to check it out. We bought our tickets, which paid for entry and your first drink. We had to wait a few minutes for the next time slot so we stood on line. Once the slot came up we were given thermal capes with gloves and in we went! At first it was like going into a meat locker, walking through those rubber flaps, and then an automatic door. Once inside, it was really cool. The ice is from Sweden and there’s a bunch of cool stuff carved in it. We got our drinks, which came in a glass that was a giant ice cube-kept the vodka nice and chilled! You are only allowed to stay in there for 40 minutes and the website said the average length of stay is 25 minutes; its -5 Celsius. We were in there for almost the entire time. I was fine except for my fingertips.

After we left the Ice Bar we wanted to look at some Christmas decorations. I knew the windows at Liberty would be amazing so we went there first. Luella Bartley, a British fashion designer, designed everything for the department store, Liberty’s Luella Christmas. The windows were awesome, filled to the brim, crazy. Inside, from what we could see, looked amazing too. From there we turned down Carnaby Street, which is decorated in a 60’s theme with HUGE balloons, hearts, deer, etc.

THURSDAY ALREADY?!?!

Monday I really began to organize my notes and ideas for Braintree's rebranding and windows. John wasn’t going to be in the office until Tuesday, so I could only send out a couple emails requesting quotes because I still needed a little more information on some things. I sent out emails to get quotes for the doormat with a custom logo on it and got responses right away.

John was back in the office Tuesday, so I was able to run some things by him about the store. We finalized an idea for the front door. I mocked something up in Word then Rachel emailed that document to the graphic designer so she could put it in all the right dimensions, fonts and add the artwork. Once that artwork is approved, I can send it to the company for a quote and hopefully get it ordered for the store!!! I sent an email asking for a quote on a custom hand-carved wooden plaque for the sidewall of the store. The owner mocked something up fairly quickly with the little bit of information I gave him, and it looks really nice. I need exact dimensions and it definitely needs to be stylized more to grab people’s attention, so either I’ll mock something up or Rachel may ask the graphic designer to come up with something.

I reminded Rachel that I had a list of green publications and forums for her to look over so she said we’d go over it the next morning. We also started talking about my plan for when I go back home, with job hunting, etc. She told me to bring my resume in so we could go over it and that she would be more than happy to write a recommendation letter for me!!! I definitely want to get her opinion on my resume, especially with what to put for this particular internship. She said that we could also discuss what type of jobs I was or would be looking into, interviewing, cover letters and all that stuff :)

Tuesday night I went to Convent Gardens to check out the Christmas lights with Chelsea and Bridget. They were really pretty, I think they are all LED lights. Afterwards we went to Nandos, a Portuguese restaurant. Delicious!!! Really good, spicy chicken and mashed potatoes….MMMMMMM

Today I showed Rachel all of the GREEN publications I found for Braintree to send press kits and releases to. I found mainly online magazines and forums (makes sense since they are GREEN companies-NO PAPER!). She was interested in a few which was great. I had to dig for a little more information on those in particular, some membership fees, etc. She wants to send them press kits and releases, for when a new range comes out for example, but Braintree currently doesn’t have anything like one really. She asked me if I had any experience writing a press release, which I do not formally, only through school, but I told her that I could definitely draw something up because I can write well. So we will see about that because in the meantime I’m still working on everything for the store!

I got the artwork back for the front door, but some small changes need to be made so I probably won’t be able to send that off for a quote until next week. I put in the order for a doormat and now I’m just waiting for a visual mockup from the company for our approval. I picked everyone’s brain about another one of the outside installations so I could mock something up and send it off to get a quote. I ended up finishing that particular mockup after work and emailed it to John and Rachel to see what they thought.

Rachel went over my resume with me. She made some really good suggestions so now I have to tweak it a little bit and show it to her again on Monday. She said that we could do some cover letters and look over specific job posts next week. She also wants me to look into fashion placement agencies so I can contact them before I leave for home, that way I could have appointments set up with them for when I return.

After work, I went to the Bleeding Heart Tavern with Eya, Chelsea, and Bridget. It’s right around the corner from us, on Bleeding Heart Yard. There is Bleeding Heart Tavern, Bleeding Heart Bistro, and Bleeding Heart Restaurant, all different menus and price points. The tavern was really cute, small. The staff all had French accents. The menu had a French flair about it as well. I had spinach and cheddar roulade with mashed vegetables. It was really, really good. For dessert (because you have to have dessert!) I had peach and blackberry crumb with clotted cream and white coffee (filtered coffee with milk). Delicious! The menu had a lot of interesting things on it and the prices, at least in the Tavern, were not bad, so I think we’ll be going back there again!

Yet Another Week Gone By

The past week has flown by! I went to work last week Tuesday-Thursday because Chelsea and I were in Amsterdam on Monday. My whole week was thrown off; we never got a chance to catch up on sleep until Saturday morning! I'm so used to having Thursday to myself. I started to input all of the spring and summer 2010 styles onto the Braintree website. By doing that I was also able to streamline all of the color names and other information like that on all the order forms and the sketchbooks, making sure everything was the same so as not to confuse the customers, the factories or ourselves!!! I also had to take down some sold out styles from the a retail website that sells Braintree but that we (the company) have to input all of our own data (pictures, everything). Braintree is doing really well, they are sold out of a lot of styles for Autumn/Winter. The company seems to be growing at a good rate which is really good!

Thursday night, Chelsea, Bridget and I decided to check out the fireworks that were celebrating Guy Fawkes Night. "Remember, remember the 5th of November..." ring a bell? Ever see V for Vendetta? Guy Fawkes Night celebrates Guy Fawkes and his groups' failure to blow up Parliament. Its the biggest celebration of someone's failure EVER. Fireworks are set off all over the place for over a week. November 5th is the night his plan was supposed to take place until he was caught and failed! We wandered around, heard lots of fireworks. We ended up eating at Pizza Express along the Thames. After dinner we wandered back towards our flat and decided to check out a road we'd never been down before. It has big office buildings with all these neon lights all over the place. We ending up finding a cute little square (The Square) of stores. A nice paper/stationary store called Paperchase, a cute boutique, chocolate shop, and an organic restaurant/take out place.

Friday we watched "This is England" in class. It was mostly based on the director/writer's life. The main character is a young boy, about 12, who lost his father in the Falklands War. He's a loner and is bullied a lot of school. He befriends a group of skinheads and soon joins them. By the end he realizes what he's become and finds his way back. It was a really good moving. After we talked to Alan (our independent study professor). We told him about our trip to Belgium and Amsterdam. He gave us more places to go. One sounds really interesting, its called Cockpit Arts. Its a company that financially supports small designers. One of the stores Braintree sells to is supported by Cockpit Arms. Saturday Chelsea and I found the store at the Greenwich Market! It was so cute, really nice screen printed tees and tanks. After class, we had lunch and wandered back to The Square to do some browsing. The paper store was so cute! Lots of really nice things. We went to the organic restaurant and had some coffee and tea to warm up; its starting to get chilly here!!!

Saturday we FINALLY got to sleep in. It was so nice. When we decided to get up we got the bus to Greenwich, about 40 minutes ride outside the city. It was like we were in a different world! There was a drive through McDonald's and KFC and a Pizza Hut in a Pizza Hut building!!!! We were like where are we???? When we got to our stop we popped in a cute boutique called Coco-James that was featuring up-incoming designers. Then we headed over to the market place.

The market was AWESOME!!!! It was full of handmade things-sweaters, handbags, jewelry, headbands,t-shirts. There were stalls of really good looking food too, Ethiopian, Nigerian, an olive bar, sushi, fudge, hot apple cider. The cider was very tasty!!! The store supported by Cockpit Arms (Emma Nissim) was in the market. It was adorable. The store was a compact space filled with trunks, an old bike, and lots of cute, antique looking items, like someone's attic. The racks had one of each style hanging and the trunks were filled with the backstock. The store sells its own namesake brand and Braintree clothing. Emma Nissim is an eco-friendly brand like Braintree.

After we ate lunch we headed over to the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum, home of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), otherwise known as the Prime Meridian. We stood in two hemispheres at once! The Observatory had a laser marking the Prime Meridian too which was pretty cool because you could see it go out into the city. The view of the city from there was amazing too. We headed back into the city just in time to grab some dinner. Eya, Bridget, Chelsea and I went to Wagamama's, an Asian food chain. It was really good. For dessert I tried the Wasabi Chocolate Cake-delicious!!! Aubrey, our GE coordinator, recommended it. After dinner we filled in our calendar with our London "To-Do's" because our time is running out!!! FAST!!!

Sunday we slept in again (our little vacation took a lot out of us!). We had no plans for that day so Bridget, Chelsea and I decided to just head out and wander around from there. We went up to Camden Town and popped into the 99p store (the version of the dollar store). From there we went to King's Cross and checked out where Chelsea had stayed and hung out the first time she went to London. More wandering ensued from there until we found a 3 story Paperchase!!! I think we were in there for at least an hour, so much stuff to look at.

Amsterdam

The train ride to Amsterdam took about 2 hours. Once we got to the station we went outside and it was raining!!! Luckily we saw signs for our hostel!!! We followed those and checked in to our private room. The room looked like a dorm/prison cell, not joke. It was very cold and drab looking. We had to make our own beds which I’ve never heard of but that was okay. Definitely more barren than the hostels I’ve stayed in previously. We were starving so we went out to grab something to eat. It was still raining pretty good (my brolli didn’t survive the storm!) so we just went to Burger King!!! We sat in there for a couple hours because it was raining and because we didn’t want to go back to our hostel room. Eventually, when it stopped raining, we left and walked around a little bit then headed back to the hostel. Chelsea unpacked the sheets to make the bed and as she was unfolding the sheets she saw a stain on one of them! Then she unfolded the other one and it was stuck together! We were horrified!!! Definitely not sleeping in those beds!!! We didn’t know what to do really, but decided it would be a good idea to try and find somewhere else to sleep. We went out and went to 2 hotels before finding one with the same rate! 55 Euros for a private room and bath, breakfast and WiFi included!!! The hotel even had 2 cats!!!! They were sooooooo cute!!! We paid for the room and went back to the hostel to grab our things and talk to the person at the desk about a refund. The person at the desk was the night guard and told us that he could not do anything about a refund, we would have to return in the morning. So we left and stayed in the nice, kitty-friendly hotel :)

Breakfast in the morning was really good. The cats were hanging out with everyone too. After breakfast we went straight to the Anne Frank house. Rachel told me that the line gets ridiculously long so to go early. We got there at a great time, no line! We weren’t allowed to take pictures, which was disappointing. But it was really awesome being in there. I haven’t read the book in a long time, since 5^th grade, and I also haven’t seen the movie for a while. The rooms were unfurnished, that was Mr. Frank’s wish when the museum was opened. Anne Frank’s original diary was on display, as well as sheets of paper she’d written on after the diary was full. There were interviews being played of Mr. Frank and one of the women that helped the Franks hide in the annex. There was also an interview with one of Anne Frank’s friends. It was pretty amazing all of the items the museum had on display. After walking through we looked around the gift shop where we could see the MASSIVE line that had formed outside! Glad we got there early!

We took the tram back to the area near our hotel walked to the hostel to talk to the manager about a refund. We explained to her what happened and that we came downstairs and told the night guard we were leaving and that he simply only asked us for our room number. She told us that this was not normally grounds for a refund, that clean sheets or another room would have been offered to us. We further explained that we did not trust that “new” sheets would be clean and that we were not going to sleep in the beds so what were we staying there for? She then said that the night guard didn’t tell her any of this had happened, therefore she would have to speak with him to get his story. She couldn’t do anything for us until she spoke with him. She did say that we could file a formal complaint with the company by writing a letter :P (Result as of November 5, we got our refund!!!!)

After that ordeal, we went back into the shopping area and walked around all the shops. There are tons of stores all over the place. After a little shopping we wanted to check out the Red Light District. INTERESTING is the only word to describe it I think. I’ve seen pictures of it before, but it’s a bit different in real life. Tons of people walking around there too, with women (not attractive by any means either) on display here and there. It was just really odd to see and be around. The area reportedly gets sketchy at night but attracts a lot of curious tourists during the day for obvious reasons. We wandered around some more and eventually went back to the hotel so we could organize our luggage before heading to the airport for our flight home. After some repacking, we took the tram to the central station and took a train to the airport. We got to the airport a little early, so we couldn’t check in right away. But when we finally got on the plane it was smooth sailing from there! Literally up and down! We arrived at the Stansted Airport in London at 9:30 PM and took a coach back into the city. We got home around 11:30 PM. After we unpacked we were off to bed for work in the morning. BRILLIANT HOLIDAY :)

Ghent & Antwerp

The train from Bruges to Ghent took about 40 minutes. We didn't really know where we were going once we were there, but we guessed right!!! We took a tram into the city center, dropping us off in front of 1 of the 3 towers (3 towers are the Cathedral, Belfry, and the Church, see 1st picture). We found an information center that gave us a map and other information. We weren't planning on staying in Ghent overnight so we had our luggage with us, which was pretty annoying on the cobblestone walk and roads. Not to mention the entire city (at least the city center) was under MAJOR construction; craters in the Earth, like a bomb went off, which made wheeling around a suitcase even more difficult. Luckily, Chelsea spotted a Marriott and we went inside and told them we had stayed at a Marriott in Brussels and asked if they would hold our luggage for a few hours. Thankfully they said yes!!! That made our lives much easier!!! After we unloaded all of our stuff we took a boat ride in the River Leie along the Graslei (in the 2nd picture I'm standing on Saint Michael's Bridge overlooking the River Leie and the Graslei), one of the most scenic places in Ghent's city center. The boat ride was really nice, long too. We saw the castle, which was awesome because it wasn't a palace like Buckingham Palace or the Palais Royal in Brussels. It was a CASTLE, like from a movie (3rd picture). After the boat ride we wandered around for a bit. We had another waffle with Nutella, soooooo good!!! We also stopped for some delicious hot chocolate at a chocolate store. Ghent was really nice, I definitely want to spend more time there. It wasn’t touristy in that there were not many souvenir shops, which was really amazing because it made the city seem untainted in a way, which is unusual I think. After some walking around it started to rain a little so we decided to go back to the Marriott, grab our luggage, and head to the train station to catch a train to Antwerp.

We arrived in Antwerp and headed for our hotel, which was not far at all. We were staying outside of the city center so we did not take the train to the central station, we stopped at a smaller one. We checked in, dropped our stuff off at our room, relaxed for a bit, then headed back downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We both tried a Flemish dish of chicken, potatoes, and cheese-delicious!!! Really filling, so good!!! After dinner we just relaxed in our room and went to bed. In the morning we checked out and took a tram to the central station. We dropped our luggage off at a locker in the station then went out to grab some breakfast. Antwerp is the diamond center of Belgium, and really of all of Europe too. Nearly 80% of the world’s diamonds pass through Antwerp at least once, thus our visit to the diamond museum! We were a little disappointed that there wasn’t any ACTUAL diamonds in the museum. However, it was interesting and pretty informative so worth going. After the museum we were prepared to go shopping!!! Many people have told us that Antwerp is a place to shop, especially around the Central Station. This being the case we were really excited!!! NEVER did we think about what day it was, Sunday. Apparently, in Antwerp on Sundays, NOTHING is opened. LITERALLY NOTHING. Not one store. We just wandered the streets, along with everybody else. It was the strangest thing, we didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t anything pretty to look at either, no gothic, medieval architecture there :( We decided to head to Amsterdam a few hours early. The 4th picture is of the Antwerp Centraal Station, right next to the Diamond Museum and the 5th is something touristy we found :)

BRUGGE PARTIE DEUX ET TROIS!!!!

We got up in the morning and headed downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast room was so cute, very quaint. The walls were brick and it was decorated just like the lobby area. A man popped out of the kitchen area and asked if we wanted coffee or tea and we helped ourselves to all the bread and cereal we wanted!!! The bread was really good. It was a thin raisin bread, a little sweet, just added some butter, mmmmm. Then I had a really good oat cereal that had more raisins and dried fruit in it. So good!!!! After breakfast we headed outside and walked to Market. It was kind of foggy out so we wandered around for a little bit until it cleared up and decided to take a boat ride in the river first. The map we had showed us where the river boats would pick you up, so we headed in that direction. We passed tons of cute chocolate, lace and tea shops, all of which are visited at some point!!! The boat filled up pretty fast and we were off. The morning turned out to be really nice after the fog cleared. We went under little bridges, saw the Church of Our Lady (which unfortunately was completely covered in plastic and scaffolding), we passed restaurants and little homes for rent. There was even a guy with a ladder in the canal painting his house!!! At least if he fell it wouldn't hurt!!!

After the boat ride we wandered around all of the little streets. We went into a lot of the shops. We found a cute one with all hand-knitted scarves and ear warmers. There were tons of chocolate and lace shops too. Eventually we stopped at a pub for dinner and tried some more beer!!! I had Kriek Mystic which is a cherry flavored beer, pretty good, sweet. Its cool to try all of the different kinds (there's tons of them!!!) because each one comes in its own unique glass. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to drop some things off and went back out to a bar near the pub where we had dinner. The bar was completely decked out for Halloween (even though it was Mischief Night) and so were all the bar tenders. We tried a few more beers, all in their own glasses! They were all pretty good too. After hanging out there for a while we headed back to the hotel for the night.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel again. Then we went out to do some more wandering around and shopping!!! We wanted to see the windmills on the edge of Bruges, so we headed towards that way. There are 4 of them, one was being worked on so we couldn't get a good picture. The area was really nice around the windmills too so we just walked around for a while. We headed back into town eventually, went into a few more shops, grabbed some lunch, then went back to the hotel so we could leave for our next stop, Ghent.

BRUGGE PARTIE UNE!!!!

When we arrived in Bruges Central Station and we waited right outside for a bus to take us to Market, a square not far from the hotel we were staying in. Christine had stayed at the same hotel, Hotel Lucca, a few weeks before and gave us directions from Market. We ended up getting off the bus one stop early, which turned out to be a good thing because we were on a street with TONS of stores-JACKPOT!!!! Lots of clothing and shoe stores. We walked into Market which was so pretty, it was kind of foggy out and the Belfry was lit up. There were horse-drawn carriages, lots of restaurants with seating outside. We figured out which way we needed to go and headed towards the hotel. We passed a really cute chocolate shop, with chocolate covered fruit in the window. We walked a little ways more and found the yellow doorway for Hotel Lucca. The hotel lobby was really cute, old, antique furniture and a fireplace. We had to carry our suitcase up to the third floor, which was fine until we got to the third set of stairs that were really narrow, steep AND winding!!! Our room was a little smaller than our flat room with a sink. We had a shared shower and toilet on the same floor. After we got settled in we decided to go get some dinner in Market. We checked out some of the menus and decided on one. We both ordered the chicken dish which came with salad and fries. Belgian fries are delicious!!! Skinny and fried perfectly!!! For dessert we shared a very yummy apple cake :) After dinner we headed back to the hotel. It had become pretty foggy out so we couldn't really take any night pictures and we were pretty tired from the rest of the day.

BRUSSELS!!!!

Our train to Brussels was pretty quick. It was like we were there in no time at all!!! The train took us to Brussels Midi Station where we had to take the metro to the De Brouckere station stop. From there, we took a bus to get to the Marriott Courtyard we were staying in. At first we got off at the wrong stop, we had kind of a crazy driver who decided to pass a lot of stops. But eventually we got to where we needed to be and after a little walking I spotted the green Courtyard sign! We checked into the hotel and dropped our stuff off in our room then wandered back downstairs to see about the WiFi. We found out it wasn't free, it was actually 6 Euros/hour. We decided against that and checked out the gym and sauna instead since that WAS free and opened all night. In the morning after we showered and got ready we headed into town (the Courtyard was outside the city center so the bus ride in was about 30 minutes or so. We also skipped the 30 Euro continental breakfast that was being served!!!! Marriotts over here are not like at home). When we got to the city center, we walked to Grand Place. The little street we were on before entering Grand Place had a ton of chocolate shops!!! We picked up our first Belgian waffle for breakfast :) sooooooooo yummy!!!!! Way better than any waffle at home. Grand Place was really pretty. The first picture is of the 6 guildhalls that are on one side of the place. Guilds are an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. Grand Place was built by the guilds of Brussels. Brussels Town Hall is also in Grand Place. It was pretty quiet when we got there which was nice. We wandered around to find the Palais Royal de Bruxelles or the Royal Palace of Brussels. We walked through Parc de Bruxelles Warandepark (3rd picture) which was really pretty, lots of trees and people walking everywhere. The palace was across from one side of the park, with a wide road set between it. It was a traditional palace, kind of like Buckingham. From there we walked to Sablon which is the antique center of Brussels with cute cafes. We wandered around there, looking in windows at the shops and galleries. We bought our first Belgian chocolate there too!!! Finally we found a cafe to have some lunch. We both had really good sandwiches and our first beers in Belgium!!! I tried Rodenbach, which had a cidery taste to it. Chelsea had Kwak. After lunch we wanted to find the Manneken Pis statue (the last photo). Unfortunately he was not dressed in one of his many, many costumes but it was still funny to see. We wandered back to Grand Place and just walked around in and out of all the different shops. We found out the accessories brand Kipling is a Belgian brand. We had to take the bus back to the Courtyard to get our luggage and take the bus back into the city to the Brussels Central Station. We headed back and it took forever!!! There was so much traffic. Finally we got to the hotel, grabbed our luggage, and hopped back on the bus for the Central Station. Fortunately, Eurostar tickets are good in Belgium for up to 24 hours upon departure or arrival so we got the train to Bruges for free!!!