It was the week before Christmas... and we got a lot of snow! There were travel nightmares with planes and trains cancelled while people where trying to get home for Christmas. Luckily by the end of the week things had settled down. I went to Westminster Cathedral for their Christmas eve service, which was very cool. A packed out enormous church with beautiful carols. Spent Christmas day with friends just up the road from me. They cooked us an awesome champagne breakfast, then we continued to eat most of the day, and had a freezing walk in the remaining snow and just chilled out. A very different Christmas to home, but nice all the same. Makes a bit more sense pigging out on roast dinner when its freezing outside!
Boxing day Todd and I headed to Belgium on the eurostar, which was fantastic, much easier than flying! Just had a wander in the city on our first afternoon. On Monday walked down to the market centre for more of a look around, had an amazing paella (which ended up costing twice what we thought!) Sampled the Belgium fruit beer which I can actually drink! Some were kind of bubbly and so tasty. Tuesday we jumped a train to Bruge about an hour away. It's a gorgeous town with winding canals throughout. Went to Chocostory - a chocolate museum - really interesting, and got a demo and taste tester also. I love Belgium :) Stopped for dinner which looked out onto a cute little square. Had some Flemish stew which was very tasty and just what was needed to warm my belly.
Then next day we went up north to Antwerp, which is known as the fashion city and had a massive stretch of shops - very tempting! Found some more Christmas markets and stopped to sample the goods - yum yum. Found a genius invention in one shop - a chocolate square on a stick, you just mix it into hot milk and voila - hot chocolate :) On our last day I enjoyed the last of our amazing hotel buffet breakfasts - selection of pastries, fruit, bacon and eggs and coffee of course! Belgium is all about the food :D
Went to the museum of Brussels which was very cool, had all the history behind the town and its planning. Even found a reference to New Zealand! Its situated in the main square (which was voted the most beautiful square in europe - its gorgeous). Then went a block in a direction that we'd not been before and stumbled across a massive market and the main central part of town! haha. Had a last taster of Belgium chochies before heading back to grab our stuff and get the train home.
Had an awesome trip, ate some amazing food, very relaxing and much underrated I think :)
Now back into work again and things are picking up. It is starting to get lighter again in the morning - yay less darkness! But still getting frosts and it's pretty cold. Planning to move closer to work to save some money and have a longer sleep in! So will soon be a village resident instead of the big city girl :)
