Chocolate, Waffles, and Thrift Stores

Before starting my Semester at Sea voyage, I wasn't that excited to be traveling to Belgium.  My original plan was to actually skip right over Belgium and spend all the time we were given for Belgium and France in Paris because there wasn't really anything I wanted to see outside of France's capital.  However, this plan didn't work out, so I ended up with 2.5 days in Belgium.  Before arriving in Belgium, I thought the only things Belgium was known for is chocolate and waffles.  First of all, this is definitely true.   It seemed like everywhere I looked in Antwerp had a chocolate shop or a cafe advertising their waffles!  So of course, I tried both.  Belgian waffles are actually quite different than the waffles in the United States.  In

Belgium, the waffles are VERY crispy, like pretty hard to cut crispy.  I had my waffle with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice (vanilla ice-cream).  It was SO good.  I also tried Belgian chocolate, in the form of hot chocolate.  Hot chocolate throughout Europe is also very different than American hot chocolate.  In Europe, hot chocolate is literally melted chocolate with extra sugar.  It's delicious, but it fills you up VERY fast!  While these foods define the country of Belgium, Belgium is also known for its fashion!  There is a huge shopping street in Antwerp that reminded me exactly of New York City.  It was AWESOME!  My friends and I also searched out a few thrift stores, recommended to us by a Belgian student on-board the ship.  One of the stores we shopped at, Think Twice, had a sale where everything in the store was 3 Euro (4 USD)!  Needless to say, I bought a few things.  It was also at Think Twice that I realized you should always carry your own shopping bags in Belgium because a good amount of the stores do not have them!  I had to carry around my clothes purchases in my hand for a good portion of the day!  (Although I didn't really mind since I had gotten such great deals)

 

                                                                       

















Belgium is also a country full of rich history.  The first day I was in Belgium, I had a field lab to different World War I sites for my World Literature class.   I saw the In Flanders Field Museum, the Menin Gate (a memorial to soldiers whose graves are unknown), the Tyne Cot Cemetery (a World War I cemetery with many graves marked only with "a soldier known by God"), and the Trench of Death (a trench from World War I).  At the Trench of Death, I was able to actually walk through some of the trenches used in the war.   Something I didn't know before is that the majority of the trenches had something called a mouse trap.  The mouse trap was part of the trench that had tiny peepholes in which a bomb could be thrown through if the enemy soldiers broke into the trench.  While this is definitely sad to think about, I also found it to be a pretty ingenious idea used during warfare.  I definitely did not expect for Belgium to be a country with such a long history, so it was enlightening to learn about Belgium's part in World War I.  Overall, I am SO glad I spent time in Belgium instead of skipping over it just to get to Paris! 

Fun Facts:
People in Belgium don't wear open toed shoes
If you wear any clothing besides jeans in Belgium, people will think you are French, not American