In Bruges

Hello!
So, here I am...made it to Belgium (yesterday), and tomorrow will be off to Berlin. First day was fun...I met one of my roommates in the hostel when I checked in who I went around the city. His name was Chris, from Toronto, a year older than I am, and works in the toy business. We went to the chocolate museum first, where i tested my chocolate allergy, and I seem to be fine. I've also been fine with the bread and the beer here....so I'm getting my figure back...yay curves...and yay for delicious food. mmmm. The beer here is really really really good, and it's pretty strong too :D Then we went and climbed the bell tower in the middle of town, which was nice exercise. We then went to a few churches in town, one which has one of the only Michelangelos outside of Italy. It was beautiful, and small, of course of mary and jesus. This place is amazing, incredbily old and quaint. It's nice to walk everywhere, and I think it's the perfect place to start my solo traveling experiment.
We ended up going to this local place that Chris had heard about from someone he met in Paris. He had this ridiculous map that just showed a lane between two chocolate stores (there are tons here), but we managed to find it. To our delight, it was almost tourist free, and the beer was cheap and came with some really nice cheese. Then it was off to get french fries which were enjoyed in the square with some great entertainment that made me feel at home...a mariachi band. Can you believe that??? It was really funny, but it was comforting somehow.

We came back to the hostel and met all the other solo travelers and made a little band. There was Natalia from Mexico, and Gina and Diane who are both flight attendants from Korea, but who didn't know eachother. We drank lots of beer, played cards, and then ended up going out for more beer at a local place. It was nice for me to meet other beatiful women traveling solo successfully....and it was really funny when we left the local club and a huge group of guys sighed in disappointment when we left. It's was amusing.

Today was pretty relaxed, I had a picnic in the park, and played on a local swing set. Then I went to the only local brewery that's been around since the 1500s and had a tour of that. While I was waiting for it to start I sat by the canal and watched a huge group of older japanese people doing watercolor. There are also TONS of swans here. The beer tour was amazing, and made me want to move to Europe to apprentice to open my own brewery. I espcially liked the labs! We got a free beer with the tour so I had a seat in the courtyard by myself and identified another solo traveler and invited him to join me. Eric is a chemical engineer from australia but living in tolouse in town for a conference. It was good times...and now I have an invitation to the south of france :D I love making new friends...

Anyway, my time is running out on the computer...talk to you all soon!
Love,
Lauren