Katelyn's Semester in Spain: Beautiful Belgium

From the train near Brussels

Belgium. I don't think I have enough words to describe Belgium. I went with fellow blogger Damaris (check out her blog if you haven't already!) to Belgium this past weekend. There was a festival on Thursday throughout the province of Valencia so we didn't have class. She used her long weekend to visit one of her friends from high school and she was kind enough to invite me along.

Kortrijk near where
we were staying

Wow. I didn't know what to expect when travelling there, I was just hoping to have a good time. I was a bit nervous when we were flying out because it was just me and her, we had put together the plan ourselves and we had to hope for the best. There wouldn't be anyone to meet us at the airport on the other side, we had to take a train and to get where we needed to go. It seemed like a lot, but we made it, no disasters of any kind. So we went to Kortrijk, which is kind of in the upper left hand corner of the country (I'd google a map to see where it is in relation to everything else). It's about two hours from Brussels by train. We go there at about 8 at night and let me tell you, it was refreshing. Belgium is a lot like Michigan this time of year, so it seemed, and I loved it. I never thought I would miss the cold crispness of fall, but I did. It was nice to feel the nip in the breeze. We didn't see that much of the town that night, but we wandered around and got to know the town more on Friday. I don't know how to describe it except that it was everything that I expected Europe to be, which might be cliché or stereotypical, but I loved it. The streets were cobblestoned, the houses were skinny and packed tightly together. Lots of little shops lined the streets. Lovely. It was interesting to compare it to Spain. Maybe it's because Alicante has a higher population density than where we were in Belgium, but it's very urban with apartments everywhere. There's also the fact that it's in the south of Spain so the climate is very different from Belgium which is in northern Europe.

Cathedral near the
train station in central Brussels

Friday was very relaxed, Damaris's friend had a class so we got to go adventuring. Yesterday, we went to Brussels for the day because our flight back to Alicante this morning was at 6:55 am, which was really early especially since we were staying two hours away and we found out that the trains didn't run all night. We decided the best plan was to go to Brussels early in the day and then camp out in the airport overnight, which is exactly what we did.
Brussels was awesome. There were beautiful buildings everywhere. I don't know a lot about architecture or anything, but the styles seemed to range greatly. I think the best thing that we saw is called Grand Place. It's this huge plaza that is surrounded by beautiful old buildings. Most of them also had gold leafing on the outside, it was incredible.
I really don't think I've done Belgium justice at all, but I can't think of anything to express how much I loved it there. I fell in love and I fell hard. Thank you, Belgium, for exceeding my expectations so greatly. I can only hope to be able to make it back there in the future to see more of the country. Two days was definitely not enough. I'll end with some of my favorite pictures from the trip to try and explain what I can't. Until next time :)