July 28- Gent and Brussels

I decided to stay around Belgium this weekend, since we have our two midterms coming up next week.  This morning, six of us went took the train from Leuven to Gent.  It was raining when we left our dorm and the forecast predicted rain all day.  Luckily, we had beautiful weather.

When we got to Gent, we took a taxi from the train station to St. Nicholas Church.  There are about 250 stairs up to the top of the tower.  We had an awesome view of the city and it was neat seeing how the bells chimed.  We took an elevator down from the tower, and almost overloaded it with a Japanese tour group who couldn't speak English at all...  After the tower, we walked over to the river and took an hour long boat cruise.  We all had to go to the bathroom really bad, so we ate lunch at the Mcdonalds near the river.

After eating, we went to Gravensteen Castle.  Really awesome medieval castle and they had a guillotine and torture devices, so that was neat.  Going off advice from the taxi driver, we had drinks at the "Beer House" on the canal front.  I had a banana beer and it was delicious.

Since it was still early in the day and we had seen everything we wanted to see in Gent, we took the train to Brussels.  We found the famous Mannequin Piz statue (little boy using the bathroom in to a fountain), then had more beer at the Delirium, a famous place with over 20,000 beer selections.  Cherish got a little too tipsy!... 

There is a sing along festival tonight in Leuven, so we decided to come back early for that.  It's now about 7:30 and we're about to go out again.  I have to write my field trip report and study for two exams, so tomorrow and Monday are dedicated to that entirely!