My Trip to Belgium Part One: Day 1 & Day 2

Belgium has the reputation to be a boring little country but that is completely false! Sammie and I had the greatest times of our lives in Belgium and we absolutely loved it! I wrote a day-by-day summary of our time in Belgium, things I learned, and of course, I posted some pictures I took in an album so make sure you check those out on my profile!

For those of you who may not have read my last blog, my friend Hailey had graciously offered to take both Sammie and me to Belgium with her to visit her fiancee, Anna. While Hailey had offered to pay for our trips in full, we had agreed to pay for half since she wouldn’t let us pay our own way and I am beyond thankful for her. A little about Hailey...Hailey was my neighbor growing up, she moved into a few houses down from me when I was in high school. I’ve grown awfully close to her over the year, partially because we share the same interest...we both like girls. Hailey has been dating Anna since they met while Hailey was studying overseas during college. They have been dating for nearly 6.5 years and sadly, they both have faced obstacles with their family and money that have kept them separated over the years. Anna lives in Belgium, Hailey lives in Wisconsin and yet somehow, their relationship has lasted over the course of nearly seven years. Their relationship is the epitome of all relationship goals, they skype each other nearly every night and each year, once a year, they visit each other for a week. After six and a half very long years, Anna has finally sorted things out with her family and both have saved enough money for Anna to make the move to the United States. By the end of January, Anna should be moved in and they get married in February! Since this is Anna’s last month in her home country, she invited Sammie and me to come with Hailey so she could give us a tour of Belgium so we all could experience it one last time before she moved! I am beyond blessed to have the both of them in my life because without either of them, I wouldn’t be where I am today, I wouldn’t be with my angel and our relationship wouldn’t be the same, and both of them have taught me so much about life!

I hope you enjoy hearing about our trip!

Day 1: We left the night of January 3rd, flying out of Chicago O’Hare airport at about 8 pm. To be quite honest, the both of us were quite scared. Sammie had never flown before and she wasn’t very comfortable flying for nearly sixteen hours. This had been my third time flying but I had never flown over water before and I certainly hadn’t flown for much more than four hours so I sixteen hour plane ride was certainly a new experience! I want to lie and say that I wasn’t scared for much of the trip...but I was. Sammie had it worse, she hated the flight over there. She seemed to be comfortable while we were flying out of the United States but as soon as the ground turned into a vast body of water, she had grown worried. Hailey had volunteered to take the seat closest to the window since she was the most comfortable with flying. I took the middle seat and Sammie reluctantly took the end seat. Hailey and I had slept most of the flight but Sammie had a hard time falling asleep for much more than a few hours. It was about a seven-hour flight to Dublin and once we were in Dublin, we had about an eight-hour layover before we could fly from Dublin to Brussels. Though we had the option to take a train to the city and explore the city while waiting for the layover, we opted to stay at the airport. It was probably the longest eight hours of my life but luckily, Sammie, Hailey, and I were able to catch some rest while waiting. Even from the start, arriving in Dublin, I knew the time change would certainly take some time to adjust to. Back in Wisconsin, it would be almost one in the morning, but in Dublin, it was nearly seven in the morning and the airport was teeming and alive with people catching early morning flights. With so many people flowing into the airport, it was hard to find a quiet space (or a space at all) to rest but we found a few booths to sleep in. When 3 pm finally rolled around, we boarded the next flight from Dublin to Brussels. On the airplane, we were able to catch up on even more sleep though Hailey had stayed away for the entire ride. This trip was much shorter and in about two hours, we had landed in Brussels at about 5 pm though it was until about 6 pm that we were finally able to escape the airport. Even though our first day had been spent mostly flying and sleeping, my all-time favorite part of the trip still occurred on this first day. We found Anna waiting near the baggage claim. Hailey and Anna’s reaction to seeing each other was my favorite part of the trip and one of the most adorable and heartwarming things I’ve ever seen. Hailey had screamed her name, jumped into Anna’s arms and wrapped her in a giant hug and began crying on her shoulder. The heartfelt moment hit me, it reminded me what true love really is. This was their first time seeing each other since August and this trip marked the beginning of their lives together. After this trip, they’d be getting married and Anna would be moving to the United States and I think it all hit them at the same time and they were overwhelmed with emotions...and so I was. It was too adorable! I’ve never seen anyone so happy to see one another and their emotional but joyous reactions to each other had made me tear up!

After packing our luggage into Anna’s car, we drove to Anna’s house in Lede, which is a very small and beautiful town about a half hour from Brussels. I was already enjoying the differences in weather from Wisconsin. When I had left Wisconsin, it had been utterly cold and snow blanketed the ground. In Belgium, it was much warmer, about 30s to 40s, and everything was much greener; there was barely any snow on the ground. The sun had already set and it was getting dark outside by the time we got to Anna’s house in Lede. Despite catching some sleep on the flight and in the airport, we were all actually quite tired and we decided to relax and settle down for the night. Anna gave us a taste of Belgium by making sole meuniere, a delicious, buttery, lemony fish! And of course, Sammie and I both enjoy wine so we certainly took advantage of the legal drinking age of sixteen in Belgium! So with the sole meuniere, we had a glass of Sancerre, a French white wine. After dinner, Anna had surprised us with a yummy lemon cream and berry pie! After dinner, Sammie and I unpacked our bags and settled into the guest bedroom where we’d be staying. After settling in, we decided to give Anna and Hailey a little time together and we went out for a walk around Lede, which is a beautiful town, full of many pretty brick houses, yards, and art! Since we weren’t familiar with the town, we only walked a short distance before returning back to Anna’s, where we cuddled up in bed and fell asleep, wanting to get enough sleep so we’d be able to walk up early the next morning.

Day 2: We all woke up early so we’d be able to make the most of the day. Our plan was to explore the nearby city of Aalst for most of the morning before taking a train to the city of Ghent. Our first visit in Aalst was the town square...which was awesome! Not just speaking for Aalst but for every single city we passed through, I was star-struck at the beautiful, complex architecture of all the buildings. It was a whole new experience and I just enjoyed the various buildings, city halls, markets, and churches! We visited the Aldermen’s House, which is the city hall of Aalst and dates back to 1225 which is absolutely mind-blowing to stand in a building that has been around for that long. After the Aldermen’s house, we visited the St. Martin’s Church, which dates back to 1480. I’m not much of a religious person but I’ve always enjoyed touring old churches, they are peaceful, beautiful, astoundingly large, and have stunning architecture, plus, they seem to take you back in time! We walked around the town square for a little while, sampling chocolates and doing a little window shopping before we headed to the train station. While we had been walking around the town square, I had noticed that there were more languages being spoken than just French. Luckily, we couldn't have had a better tour guide! Anna could speak Dutch, French, English, and German perfectly and fluently!