First of all I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has been reading this and commenting on my entries. Even though I haven’t responded to many of the comments, it is still great to hear from everyone and I hope that you can forgive me for not replying. I am going to start making an effort to respond to everyone’s comments, so if you have questions about anything feel free to ask!

After a brief stint of two days on the ship, we landed in Antwerp, Belgium. Or as all of the signs said: Antwerpen. Antwerp(en) is a beautiful little city on the Scheldt River, but the second largest city in Belgium after Brussels. Our ship was docked along the river and it was right across the street from the main parts of town. From the ship, it was about a 3 minute walk to the main square, the older part of town, with the Cathedral and many great restaurants and bars, and after that about another 5 minutes to the more modern part of the town with all of the stores. If I walked briskly from the ship then it was about fifteen minutes to the central station and the diamond district. All of these places were along the same road more or less.

Belgium is famous for many things.  All of them could drive a man to bad health: Beer, Chocolate, Waffles, Fries, and babes.  Over the years they have combined many of these things together to make some very interesting and wonderful discoveries.  Like perhaps chocolate on a waffle.  Or Chocolate Flavored Beer.  Or even Raspberry or Cherry flavored beer.  Of course you could always mix some of the others in as well.  I will not go any further though.  If you get what I’m saying then maybe I made you laugh.  If not, then don’t worry about it.

Monday July 14^th

After going to the political debriefing, I went straight onto a bus for a trip into Brussels to visit the EU economic headquarters and the US Embassy. I went on this trip as a part of a course fulfillment for my International Business class. My professor takes student groups to Brussels very often so he knew is way around fairly well. After about a one hour drive, we arrived to the EU headquarters and were given a presentation about the EU, its history, its future, and how it is made up. The presenter was a Frenchman in charge of one of the divisions within the Economic division of the EU. He gave us kind of a flow chart type analysis of the workings of the EU. He was drawing arrows and boxes all over a sheet of paper to show the interactions between the different divisions. Eventually, the sheet ended up looking like a mess with lines and arrows going every which way on it. It was a mess, which basically makes sense because the EU hasn’t really done much. But I digress. After our meeting, we went to a nearby park to have boxed lunches. The lunches were not that great but the park was very nice. It had a statue in the middle with a fountain and a pool around it of mountain dew colored water. Around the perimeter of the park there were alcoves in the brush housing smaller statues. Following lunch, we walked down a few blocks through a really large park with tons of locals sun bathing in it to the US Embassy. Security there was very tight. We sat in a board room and had a round table discussion with one of the representatives who was actually an alumni of Semester at Sea. We talked mainly of the EU and the US relationship with it but sometimes we talked about his experiences with Semester at Sea. When this was over, the group headed to the Grand Place which is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. It was a really cool place to be, if you stood in the middle of the square you were surrounded by old beautiful ornately decorated buildings. This is when me, my friend Sam, and Taylor left the group. I got some frites(that’s fries) at a nearby stand which is one of the things Belgium is famous for because they were invented there. They were really delicious, not to die for, but very good. I took the frites with me on a walk away from the square to Manikin Piss. This is a statue of a baby peeing into a pool four feet below him. Legend has it that there were lit bombs that were going to blow up the building and he put them out by peeing on them. The statue has survived two world wars. It was a pretty cool thing to see but very small. After being satisfied with my pictures of the statue, we then went on a quest for food. We found a nice Greek place that served gyros with outside seating. I got a gyro and this is what it was: chicken, garlic mayonnaise, onion, lettuce, and frites all wrapped in pita bread. It was delicious. I washed it down with Leffe Blonde, a very sweet sugary light beer brewed by Trappist Monks. Delish. It was a great meal. Following dinner, we went on a quest to find the fabled bar that had over 2000 beers available called Delirium. On the way, we sort of got lost and found a sign that was a boot filled with beer. Upon further investigation, we found out that this place had one liter glasses in the shape of boots. This place was empty, filled with only like two drunk old regulars. It was a definition of a dive bar. We couldn’t pass this opportunity up and had to get some. After we drank our liters we asked if we could buy the glasses. Why yes, of course you can buy the boots for 10 Euro. I couldn’t pass it up. And most of us bought them. Boots in hand, we left the bar and finally found Delirium. The place had a menu about 4 inches think of laminated pieces of paper all with beer on them. If you looked down the bar, your eyes would see about 40 taps all lined up in a row. Looking on the ceiling behind the bar, you would see tons of different shaped glasses, a different shape for each beer. After hanging out there for a while, we headed back on the train to Antwerp for the night. On the way to the train station I had to get a waffle with strawberries and chocolate on it. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. So good! They make their waffles with cubes of sugar in them. Wow. It was really good. Did I mention it was delicious?

Tuesday July 15^th

I spent this whole day in Antwerp walking around on my own. I just walked around aimlessly for about 4-5 hours. I walked up to the diamond district. It had a museum of its own but I didn’t go into it. The diamond district is just like a block filled with tons of tiny jewelry stores. Every three steps and I would be in front of a different jewelry store with a display case full of diamonds and shiny things. I then proceeded to an ATM to take out all of my money and blow it on a pair of diamond earrings which I have in right now. They pierced my ears for me. Just kidding, I didn’t buy anything.

I randomly walked into the Meir mall. All I can say is that it was about a billion times nicer than any mall I have ever been in. There were gourmet restaurants in the main atrium which were very contemporary. I also walked into a store called Men at Work, the style was really weird and the prices were crazy.

On the way back for dinner, I walked to the castle on the river right next to the boat. Took some pictures there, it was pretty cool I guess. But, nothing too special.

Wednesday July 16^th

I headed to Luxembourg in the afternoon this day with Laura, the other person from Louisville. We went to visit a mutual friend from school: Kartik. She actually went to high school with Kartik and he is my fraternity brother. He is spending the summer in Luxembourg with an internship with Amazon. We had about a four hour train ride. We were greeted by Kartik with champagne. If anyone who is reading this has no clue who Kartik is then I will try and describe him to you. If you met him there is no way you wouldn’t like him. He can light up the room with his words and gets along with everyone. We had a really great time staying with him. After a short walking tour of the city, we had dinner together at a restaurant that broke up its menu into four cities: Miami, Beirut, Marseille, and Tokyo. The food was really really good. Following dinner, we went to a bar and caught up on old times and enjoyed the drink special for the night: 2 Euros for any type of shot you would like. After leaving the bar, we ran into a bachelor party walking around the streets. It was a group of about 5-7 guys who were walking around pushing a shopping cart filled with bottles of alcohol. The groom was wearing a sun dress with a bra on the outside and a pair of underwear over his head. Somehow we got to talking with them for about an hour in the street and it was a really good time. Then headed to bed.

Thursday July 17^th

After a short trek to the train station, we sat around for about 30 minutes waiting on our train. We then arrived in Antwerp around 1pm and went and got fries. I got frites and a pork kabob which was deep fried. Yummy! I then walked around the city for a little bit longer and drank some more of that famous Belgian beer.

After two days at sea, we entered to Strait of Gibraltar. It was really awesome to see both Africa and Europe at once. Quite an amazing experience. I didn’t take any pictures though, I will get them on the way back out.

Tomorrow we land in Naples, Italy. My itinerary for this is as follows:

First day: the island of Capri stay on the boat

Second day: Rome and stay the night there

Third day: Vatican city stay on the boat

Fourth day: Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm and is filed under Semester at Sea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.