With love, Eyjafjalljökull

As I didn't manage to put up pictures in my last post, here is a selection of my favorites from my time in France and Belgium. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera to Louvain la Neuve when we went to hang out, but I at least have a few things to show you all!

This is the harbor at Granville where the Werbroucks have their boat. She's one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the harbor, which is cool, but also the reason why it was difficult to set her back in the water.

With the high winds the area had been getting, the harbor master was worried about the size of the boat and how dangerous it might be while trying to lower it back into the harbor. Because of that we didn't get to go sailing, but it was still very rewarding to work on the boat, see it and eat on it, and also explore Granville.

We made a trip to Saint Malo, a very old, walled city in Brittany that sits on the English Channel. It was a city once notorious for being home to French privateers and pirates.

These days the city is a great tourist attraction and is also featured in a very popular song by Hugues Aufray, Santiano.

We also headed to the Mont Saint-Michel, a tidal island and also apparently a commune in Normandy. The island has a population of 41.

The story goes that St. Michael the Archangel appeared to St. Aubert, bishop of Auvranches in 708 and told him to build a church on the islet. The bishop ignored the visions until the angel burned a hole in the bishop's skull...

Then there was also the Cote D'emeraude! Such beauty!

The colors were so intense and rich, it is ridiculous to think that a mere picture can convey the magnitude of beauty and emotion that this kind of landscape can evoke.

We didn't go inside the castle because it would have taken too long and cost money, but the walk around the coast was probably better than anything you would find in the stone fort.

When we returned to Belgium, Cedric took me around to Waterloo where we saw the lion and a cool panorama of the battle as well as the military museum in Brussels, which was unfortunately undergoing a lot of maintenance so many of the rooms were closed off.

We also picked up his friend, Jenni, who he met in Tennessee and was visiting from her semester abroad in France.

That evening we headed out to Louvain la Neuve for some famous fries and I ended up getting a ridiculous baguette with sausage in it and topped off with a massive amount of fries...I suspect the shop owner aimed to kill me via cardiac arrest.

We met up with his two other friends Martin (on the left) and Antoine (on the right) who are both engineers and go to school at Louvain la Neuve.

We were also joined by Cedric's cousin and her boyfriend later that evening. We each ordered and the drinks came in these massive glasses, vases really, with little napkins tied around them like neckerchiefs. Very cute.

Then a bbq the next day!

Chilling ouuuuuut. Such a relaxing day. This is apparently an average Saturday for the Werbrouck family.

I wish I could be swinging in that hammock again...

That weekend when we went out to Louvain la Neuve again, keep in mind this is a massive college town (more like a small city now), we hit up a "Circle," something like a cross between a Swedish student nation and a fraternity. You would join a circle depending on certain characteristics you shared with other individuals, like your major or where you were from.

The Circle we ended up going to was one for engineers- and I would like to reiterate (for those of you who know me) my love for engineers. If they aren't awkward, socially retarded introverts, then engineers are by far the most amazing people in the world. They are outspoken, fun-loving people who aren't afraid to look foolish and that makes them all the more interesting.

At one point, they were playing this song at the bar and suddenly all the students, mostly dressed in their red engineering sweaters, charged the bar and with their arms either around each other or reaching over the bar jumped and danced like they were a single organism, the scene resembling something of a small mosh pit.

At the chorus the mob got even crazier and the bartenders started throwing buckets of water over the crowd. Interestingly enough, this seemed to fuel the dancing students' rhythmic groove and still they continued!

It was awesome.

Jenni and I also made a day trip out to Bruges where we had some interesting adventures.

First I'd like to comment on some very interesting chocolates we saw in the windows of some of the chocolate shops...

But aside from that, Bruges is most definitely a beautiful city, filled with cafes, lace, and canals.

Unfortunately my camera died before we got to the most beautiful area of the city, so I don't have any pictures of that. But imagine this canal:

...flowing down and if you follow it, you end up in a beautiful park with swans everywhere and small stone bridges spanning the canal's width. On one side you have small shops selling waffles and sandwiches, a fountain with horses' heads spewing water for the cabbies to fill their buckets and water their hardworking steeds, and a fenced in park for waterfowl with a large swan's nest built only a meter away from the rail with people hanging over it to take photos.

On the other side you have a large, walled area with a convent inside. When you pass through the gate, there are rows upon rows of small white houses fronted with white walls in which there have been set low doorways with a metal bell.

The gardens in the area are planted with yellow and white flowers, narcissus and daffodils i think, and the roads paved with cobblestone.

If any of you have seen the movie "In Bruges" this is a photo taken from the top of the tower in the main square. I was tempted to lay in the square face down in front of the tower so that Jenni could take a photo of me like I'd just jumped, but sadly I wasn't ready to look so ridiculous in front of so many people.

The following day, we made a trip into Brussels with Wivine (Cedric's mother) to meet up with Cedric and Morgane and had lunch there. After some walking around we passed through the usual sights: the cathedral where the royal family has their marriages, the Grand Place, EU buildings, saw the street where the US embassy has a closed street all to itself (who the hell knows why), the royal palace, etc...

A tribute to my favorite beer thus far: DELIRIUM :)

And here I leave you with my final image from the last day I had in Belgium:

It's Raph's old house! Wivine took me into his town before we headed to the airport so I could see what the village looked like and the house he grew up in. Apparently the house is bigger now because the current residents added an extension, but the hedges are still the same ones Raph's family planted and that willow tree is still the same one he broke branches from to hit people with.