Trista's Summer in Europe

Greetings everyone! I have just returned to Bath from a weekend in Holland and Belgium. I have a friend studying in Holland and I went to visit her. Friday we took the train to Brussels and had lovely weather to tour the beautiful city. There are so many nice things to see in Brussels and we only had one day but got to enjoy a lot of it, as we spent a very full day there. Brussels is considered a twin city to Berlin and I could kind of see why, although I'm no sure which city came first and who copied who but the Brandenburg Gate was built before the Cinquantenaire.. so.. Of course Belgium is known for their waffles and in the city you can smell the fresh waffles everywhere and find a kiosk or a shop serving Belgian waffles with fruit and cream and chocolate to-go. Besides waffles there are Belgian chocolate shops everywhere, carts selling chocolate covered fruit, and ice cream.. it's fantastic. I have some photos here and more will be added to that soon.

On Saturday we slept late to recover from the long day in Brussels and then rode our bikes around Tilburg, Holland, where Sara's University is. We had another very sunny day and although I'm out of shape, riding bikes around was nice. It's a nice lifestyle they have there where everyone rides their bikes. There are more bicycles than cars, bike lots with hundreds of bikes parked there at any given time, bicycle street lights, and a path between the street and the sidewalks designated for bicyclists. They even have a free underground bicycle parking garage, where you can leave your bike for free and people who are paid by the government watch the bikes for you while you are around the city center.
Tilburg is a beautiful little city, very quaint and Dutch with the red brick houses all lined up very neatly along the streets and then a very open city center and an adorable street for night life where bars and cafes line each side of the street and everyone is sitting outside along the streets under the overhangs and everyone is happy and music is playing. Sara and I went back during the night to go to this street and have a drink and pretend we are both very European.

It was my first trip outside the UK alone where the signs and the announcements where not in English, and although I was a little anxious on some of my travels listening to the voice overs and crossing my fingers that I was on the right bus, because I couldn't understand them. But all is well, it was wonderful and next weekend I am off to Paris!