Well, we've been back a week now. Work was as mind-numbing as usual. Since I haven't exactly seen any clamoring for a post about Whitby (or, "dear old Whitby" as Lynnea and I now like to call it) I shall, I think, put it off further. It's Sunday and I'm lazy and I just don't think I have a full post in me today.

Meanwhile, some things I learned from the trip (in no particular order):

1. I hate cobblestones.
2. French speakers are considerable more intimidating to me than I might have expected.
3. Kippers are delicious
4. The middle ages was not a good time to live in Scotland.
5. Everything in Europe is very old, including the new stuff.
6. I really, really hate cobblestones.
7. British food is actually pretty good, but eating it for every meal is taxing.
8. As far as I can tell, you can't get bad food in Belgium.
9. Red Leicester is delicious
10. Cask ales are grand and all, but it rapidly gets difficult to tell them apart.
11. Cobblestones are made of evil.
12. The North Sea is rather windy.
13. I highly enjoy rail travel.
14. Haggis is made of love.

Matt on 10.11.09 @ 12:29 PM PST [link]  [No Comments]

Well, we're back home. Blogging sort of fell apart at the end of the trip there... of course, what with no wifi in Whitby, no wifi in London, and an extra special kind of no wifi back in Brussels (the hotel booklet thing said that net access was 20 euro a day, but that there was wifi in the lobby. It turns out the wifi in the lobby was also 20 euro a day... what the heck?) it was a little hard to come up with a good way to update. I guess I could have written the posts out and posted them when I came by some internet, but after traveling that long, our enthusiasm was sort of falling off. (Oh, by the way, Lynnea was posting the trip as well, see her blog for more).

Anyway, the last bit of the trip just involved going back to Brussels for a day then back home. The second round of Brussels was a little bit easier than the first since we pretty much knew what to expect. We finally managed to make it to the Museums of Ancient and Modern Art. Saw a bunch of Rubens, some various Brueghels, a Bosch, and for you TMBG fans, several James Ensors. Among various other things. Of course, at that point in the trip we were a little overloaded with having seen stuff, so it was cool, but not awesome.

After that we wandered about the Grand Place area for awhile, ate some moules et frites for dinner (we of course had frites for lunch and frites the night before as well - one must eat all the frites one can in Belgium) then had a horrifically long flight back home the next day. Got in here at around 6:30 last night (3:30am Belgium time), managed to stay awake until about 9:30, and crashed.

I should mention the second hotel we stayed at in Brussels. Now, the first one we stayed at was the Four Points, which was a rather nice hotel room. The second one, on the other hand... I have never, ever, stayed any place that posh. It was the Mariott Renaissance directly next to the EU Parliament - apparently the rooms usually go for a standard rate of 500eu a night. 500 EURO A NIGHT. We got it for $105 a night through Priceline. How, I do not know. But damn that place was crazy nice. It was also bigger than our apartment.

Anyway, we're currently recuperating/unpacking/catching up on the world. I've still got a couple posts about the trip (especially about Whitby) in me, I should get them up in the next couple days. With pictures even. Honest!

Matt on 10.04.09 @ 03:39 PM PST [link]  [1 Comment]