Weekend in Bruges and Ghent!

This weekend, I went to Belgium with my art history class! We are studying Renaissance art in Florence and Flanders, so this trip was heavy on the history and art, luckily for me!

We left St. Pancras station at around 9am on Friday morning, getting into Bruges (after a train switch in Bruselles (sp?) at around 1pm. We went to a hostel called Le Passage at the west end of the city. Then, we went to a private viewing at the Groeninge Museum, where we got to look at lots of paintings up close and personal. An exhibit was in the works, so many of the paintings didn't have glass covering them, and one huge Jan van Eyck painting was leaning against the wall. I got to sit right next to it, which apparently is something few art historians ever get to do!

Saturday was a busy day. We started out with a walking tour of the city, including checking out the Markt and the Burg. A great fast food option in Bruges turned out to be fries (do NOT say "French fries"... locals are very touchy about French culture in Belgium...) For lunch, me and some friends checked out a fry stand, and I got mine with curry ketchup which was phenomenal. We sat in the Markt square and basked in the sunlight while eating fries. After lunch, we went to the Church of Our Lady to see Michaelangelo's "Bruges Madonna and Child" which is one of the few Michaelangelo sculptures outside of Italy. Then, we went to the Memling Museum which is housed in the old St. Jaan's Hospitaal. Forrest and I went to Bruges last summer, so a lot of this was redundant, but it was fun being with an art professor who knew a lot of information pertaining to what we were looking at.

Saturday night was a night I'm sure I'll never forget. It started out with me and a few girlfriends going to "BRAS", which is a bar that played terrible techno music. It was pretty quiet, though we witnessed a barfight and subsequent police intervention at the bar next door. Some other Grinnellians and Oberliners showed up at BRAS and they wanted to go to a club across town next to the Bauhaus Hotel. We all ended up going, and it was pretty dead when we got there. One of the girls proceeded to get really drunk and had to be taken care of. At this point, though, me being the ridiculous person I am, I had introduced myself to some 20-something Belgian locals, Janna, Christoph, Pieter and Andrew. When the rest of the Grinnellians and Oberliners left at around midnight, I decided to bite the bullet and stay, considering my new Belgian friends told me that clubs usually don't start getting busy until 1am.

I had THE BEST time. These Belgians were so incredibly nice to me. They spoke in English the whole time for my benefit, and they bought me drinks. It was super cool to see nightlife from the perspective of a local. The music got progressively better and the club definitely filled up. I had a great time dancing and hanging out and didn't end up leaving the club 'til (Mom, skip this part) 4:30am! Bruges is a very safe and well-lit city, so I decided to walk back to the hostel alone. I definitely felt safe, and communing with the belfry tower in Markt square was pretty cool.

So, after 3 hours of sleep I got up and went with the group to Ghent, or "hent" as the locals pronounce it. The train ride was about half an hour, and once we got to Ghent we did a little sightseeing, grabbed some lunch (fries again!) and then went to St. Bavo's Cathedral to see Jan van Eyck's "Ghent Altarpiece", which was seriously incredible. Then we got on the train back to London!

I DID take pictures like my mom told me to, but my camera's low on battery right now and it takes a while to charge, so if you want to see pictures, try checking Facebook in a day or two.