I'm seriously behind on my blogging. Gotta keep up that resolution of mine. Ok so, we had a semester break for school in February, and I was supposed to go to Egypt with the VDN kids. However, that didn't work out and I chose to go last minute on a trip to Belgium, Scotland and England with my friend Shawn. We were gone for almost two weeks, skipped the first couple days of school (oops), but nevertheless had a great time. There are so many pictures and stories from this trip, so below is a summary:
First stop was Brussels, Belgium. Our hostel was really cool and so was Brussels, but it was freezing and pretty much snowed the entire time. We walked around the town, I got a really pretty gold and pearl bracelet at this antique jewelry store, shopped at a flee market and ate some Belgian fries. The next day we headed to my favorite city of the trip: Bruges, Belgium. The windmills aligned the river.
We went on a tour of Half Moon Brewery where I had the most delicious unfiltered blonde beer. Shawn and I were there for a few hours telling stories and drinking these delicacies.
Bruges is known as the romantic city of Belgium and coincidently we were there on Valentine's Day! It was funny because the map we had had hearts marking the romantic spots on the map. We walked to this little pond full of swans, they were so cute. Sidenote: I had Rolos in my pocket. Yep, they had my favorite chocolate in Belgium, which one would think is strange that I am in Belgium eating American chocolate, but heyyy I'm deprived of these things in Italy. We later on went to this guy's house that he converted into a bar and had really great warm rum punch. The place was essentially underground with a jazz band and Cuban music. 
In a park in Brussels...it was so cold. 
Cute cottage in Bruges.
Seaport castle where they used to hold prisoners in Antwerp, Belgium. Antwerp was amazing. Our hotel room window looked straight out to the Kathedraal, which was absolutely gorgeous.
Me with the Kathedraal in the background. Antwerp, Belgium.
The Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. The Scottish crown jewels are held here, which were really cool and had a bunch of different exhibits.
So after Edinburgh, Shawn and I headed to Inverness, Scotland hoping to be able to see the Northern Lights. We weren't far enough North unfortunately, such the bummer, but we still got to see Inverness, which was absolutely gorgeous.
Along the Ness River. Inverness, Scotland.
After Inverness, we went to Glasgow Scotland where we walked around all day taking pictures and saw Avatar in 3D. We found this little park on our day adventure and snapped this great night shot of one of the churches. We had time to kill before our movie started; we slacked and didn't get a map of the city so we invented our own game called "green man". The pedestrian signs in the UK are characterized by a walking man instead of a hand or the word "walk". The man is either red or green. So, we walked around and only crossed the crosswalks where there was a green man, leading us around the city. We ended up lost, taking us a good hour and a half to find our way back to the movie theater, just in time for it to start.
The next morning we caught the 5:30a.m. shuttle to the airport to make our 7a.m. flight to London. Took us a while to reach the Victoria Underground because of traffic, but we finally made it to Shawn's friend, Colleen's, flat in London. She lives there with her husband, Frits. They are great. We had such a good time staying there and it was such the relief to finally be staying in a normal place, out of those dang hostels. I had an open mind with those hostels, but after a while, let's be real...I don't do well with communal showers and possible bed bugs. They took us around the city, so here I am by the Tower Bridge in London.
Another view of the Tower Bridge on the other side of the Thames River. There was this really cool statue of a dolphin and a girl. It was such a nice day, the sun was out; it was still cold, but at least it wasn't raining!
On Bus 15. This bus took us everywhere and thanks to our trusty Oyster Cards that allow you to just jump on and off the public transportation all over the city, we were able to see a lot. In this picture we were on our way to St. Paul's Cathedral where we actually go to stay for evening mass called "Evensong", and we got to sit next to the choir, it was a great experience. Overall, London was amazing, reminded me a lot of the United States, made me miss home a little.
All in all, I had a great trip! It was a little exhausting to say the least, jumping from city to city, country to country, but I suppose I need to get used to it cause traveling has just been amazing. Definitely a trip to remember. Going to work on another update now because I went to Southern Italy for 5 days, have really great pictures and stories from that trip. I'm heading to Greece a week from today!!! This is the trip I've been waiting for, and best of all, it's for spring break. I can't wait. Until next time...
XO-Ash
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