Mary Visits

mary's studying in france but she has a break currently so she's visiting for the weekend here in belgium before going to glasgow. thursday night she showed up and we luckily coincided in the streets outside of the leuven train station. we went out to experience some belgian nightlife, cuz that's really all there is to do, especially on a thursday night (which is the big night because all of the belgian students go home on the weekends). first place super packed so mary and i split from the group and got a beer and sat outside at a different place. super drunk guy that only said the word "amigo". talked to some guy in a punk band that was with him, he was actually coherent enough to talk to us for a bit, and in english, too. then met up with the other people for a bit in another bar before heading back here. bas (one of the belgian guys who lives in jr. house (which is the house i live in)) is such a character, and talked to mary in french, and just seemed all around into her. funny. but he repeatedly said how he "loves his life" and that is just an uplifting thing to hear. and i told him he could cut my hair in two weeks and he's so excited. good person to be around. so that was thursday.

friday we had another daytrip thing with the bigger group, so i went to that and left mary here. gave her a map of leuven and my keys, which she was fine with and ended up enjoying. relief. the daytrip was cool. not the best one because of several reasons (girl threw up on bus, cold and rainy, etc.) but fun anyways (for me at least). chocolate factory was a smaller tour than i expected but we got cheap delicious chocolate at the end. then we ate at an overpriced and not delicious place before seeing the three border thing (which is a small stone monument signifying the border of belgium, germany, and the netherlands). that was cool i guess, nothing that special to me. i guess i kept thinking how the borders were manmade anyways. last we went to a word war 2 american soldier cemetery. that was cool, the guide knew his stuff and told us stories about specific soldiers. it was cold, rainy, and windy so i wanted to just get out of there, but it was neat anyways. then we came back, made dinner, and watched old school. and part of the patriot before going to bed.

today (saturday) mary and i took a little daytrip to a place called Dinant, a small town in belgium. a guy on the train from brussels one night told me he was from there and it was pretty. i looked it up in google and decided that i agree. we got there, walked around a bit, and realized we wouldn't be there very long. it was beautiful beautiful but so small and not much to do. that's okay, though. it's on the river, has a beautiful church, and sweet cliff faces. there is a citadel on the top that you have to pay 7 euro to walk up to, so we decided not to. tried to find our own route to the top (we didn't think we would-- it's very high up). but we did. randomly went through a parking area, went up some stairs, then just didn't quit even when the stairs ended and the going got rough. it was fun. pretty much climbed a mountain. well even at the top there was an entrance to the citadel for 7 euro so we didn't go anyways. but we had fun. went back down to the town by road, looked around for a little while, then headed back.

pictures.

Abdij Van Park & Daytrip to Eupen, Trois Bornes, and Henri Chapelle

Dinant, Belgium