Antwerp, Beer, and Frog Legs...

So I have had quite an eventful last few days. On Friday it was my turn to cook food for the family so I cooked my favorite thing in the world, kielbasa with noodles and garlic sauce. Everyone really liked it so I was happy.

Saturday we had our second class trip, this time to Antwerp which is to the north of Belgium. We visited many different things including Ruben's House and a printing press museum, and the famous cathedral of Antwerp, the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The printing press museum was actually really interesting. We watched a film on how the first printing press came about, and lets just say that it was way to difficult just to print one page. Thank god for printers. We also saw the famous harbor, which reminded my of a less populated Charles river...so it wasn't that exciting. Antwerp had a different feel than Bruges, as it was a little more populated and lively, but certainly not as pretty. The church however was pretty sweet. A few of us ate lunch at a small italian pizza place, and I got a pretty big personal pizza and a coke for 6 euros...score! This was once again another hectic day with Professor Delsemme, so by the time we got back on the train we were all pretty tired. By accident a few of us sat in the first class section, and after about 15 minutes we were told to move...whoops. We spent the night just hanging out downtown etc. with some friends. We met a few kids from Brazil who were studying in Germany and showed them a few things including Delirium Cafe. They were cool.

Today I slept in till about 1:30, and when I woke up I was starving, but broke. So I had to find an ATM that actually worked, which ended up being one downtown. Ryan, Matt, and I went to the ATM then found a pretty cool little Thai Restaurant for lunch. I ordered a chicken and honey dish, Ryan a chicken and curry dish, and Matt got FROGLEGS! I tried some of the legs, and they were suprisingly pretty good. They were like real tender chicken wings (smaller of course). After lunch Ryan wanted to check out a beer store. So we went there and guess what I found...the number one ranked beer in the world, Westvleteren 12. Beeradvocate.com has had it ranked number one for years, and it is extremely rare to find. You can only buy cases of it from the actual monastery, and the monks brew only a small number of batches of beer a year. Yeah, be jealous. I can't wait to try it. It was very expensive though, 7 euros, so that is vitaully a 10 dollar bottle of beer. But whatever, number one is number one :)

During the afternoon we watched a rally of people in front of the Bourse building. We werent sure what they were doing but we figured out that it was a bunch of people from Kosovo who are celebrating their new independence from Serbia. People were beeping horns, hanging out of cars with flags, and dancing through the streets. It was pretty cool to see and I felt happy for them.

This week is going to be hectic, I have lots of work to do. But its okay, because on Friday we are heading with class to Amsterdam for the weekend! I have heard so much about it and can't wait to go.