So, 2 weeks ago I went to Belgium with Andrew & Tony. We caught the Eurostar after work Friday from Kings Cross St Pancreas to Brussels, then a couple of regional trains to get us to Ghent. I think we were there about 22:30 (europe time, not this am/pm bollocks) so it was pretty easy.
Tony posing at St Pancreas, we were going to get some champers from the Champagne bar, but at £7.50 for the cheapest glass we decided to head to M&S to get a few cheap beers (and hot cross buns!) instead.
Arriving in Ghent we eventually stumble upon our hosts Thibaut & Angela's place - a couple who Tony & Andrew hosted through Couchsurfing. Thibaut & Angela were excellent hosts - they took us out for drinks at The Pink Flamingo - a bar with cool music, cool decor (similar in feel to the Wunderbar in Lyttleton, but different...), a definite undercurrent of European trendiness and plenty of smoke! It also had plenty of beers to aid us on our quest. 
Andrew & Tony with an Italian couple & Angela
The Next day we did some tourist stuff around town:
The Boat el - love it!
Tony pointing out a wall - great tour guide!
There was quite a lot of graffiti around, here are some of the better/more amusing examples:
One thing I didn't know was that Belbium brews Primus beer, the beer of Optimus Prime:
We visited a castle, it had these 'cool' video tour guide things; they played a pretty aweful movie that was both educational, cheezy & mildly entertaining.
Tony & Andrew modelling the video guides
A Medeval Bread slicer of sorts
Meta-tourism, nice posing Tony
Le Trebuchet
In the afternoon we wandered around the town looking for beer, waffles & frites (belgium fries), we managed to find ample quantities of all of the above, also a shisha store...
A beer shop, look at all the bottles! Also note that it appears the guy in the poster is going to shove a big orange pencil up my bum
In the evening we made our way to Brussels, we stayed with Yosef, a Morroccan dude Tony met back in NZ a few moons ago. He had a wicked pad:
The next day we ventured to the atomium, this was both impressive and disappointing. you would think that when you build a big, cool structure like this you would at least try to make it interesting inside, well they obviously didn't.
Andrew was obviously impressed, just look at the jazz hands he is making.
Later we ventured into a disappointing town centre - well not dissappointing really, more boring(we had been warned it was rather dull).
Me at the Manakin Pis, we went went back past later and there was this ceremony of sorts with a whole lot of ridiculously dressed men singing and doing all sorts of ceremonial stuff at the base of the statue.
These couple of characters were touts outside a narrow alley restaurant, they figured out we were NZers and challenged Andrew & Tony to a scrum. I think it was the first time any of them had been anywhere near a front row but I still reckon they could teach the aussie forwards a thing or two!So that is a bit of a whistle stop summary of Belgium, on the whole pretty good, love the beer, Ghent was nice, Brussels was boring. Waffles & Frites are good, so is deep fried cheese.
Next post will cover Madrid, probably unless I get sudden inspiration before then
Haere Ra
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