Some Travel Advice

When traveling, few things influence your overall impression of a place more than the weather. In my experience, a frozen tourist is a grumpy tourist. Or maybe that's just me.

For most of my trips, I was lucky in the weather department. Munich was rainy but not too cold, Fes was hot but not terribly so...but Belgium (in late June) was worse than Dublin in November. The wind was so bad it broke my umbrella.

Antwerp was also the site of my weirdest hostel experience. Anyone one who has traveled on the cheap in Europe knows hostels are plentiful and usually pretty decent. We stayed at a women's hostel in Rome so when I was booking hostels for Antwerp and Ghent, I forgot to make sure the rooms in Antwerp weren't co-ed.

We arrived at the hostel in Antwerp and the first person we saw looked like he'd been a Rolling Stones' groupie who'd never made it to rehab. Yikes. Luckily KT and I managed to get a double room to ourselves that night (instead of the four person room I'd booked for us). The second night however, we shared a four person room with a very tall, steel-toe boot wearing bald Englishman who said something to me about how it was good to open the window because he needed to sober up. That night, I slept with the sharp part of my broken umbrella under my bed. Note to self and other budget minded female travelers: make sure the hostel has an age limit OR book a female only room. You'll sleep much better if you do.

*This picture is from Porto, Portugal...but you get the idea

Winter, World Cup, Waffles and Beer

Now that I've drunk beer in Belgium, I might have to start forking out the dough to buy Chimay and Leffe. It's like once you've eaten Argentine beef, everything else just doesn't compare.

It was absolutely freezing the whole weekend we were there, so KT and I had to experience Belgian culture mostly through our stomachs. I had the best waffle of my life in Ghent (a quintessential Belgian town that literally reeks charm). In fact, if I have to resort to unemployment plan numero uno, I think I will sell Belgian waffles at the Farmer's Market. Anyone have a waffle iron lying around?

In case you've been living in the States and have no idea the World Cup has been going on for the past month, one of my favorite 'tourist activities' was to watch the matches. I think I watched every game with people from at least one of the countries playing which is so much fun!

I mention football because while we were in Antwerp, KT and I traded coffee drinking and shopping for beer, French Fries and football. A word to American restaurants that serve French Fries - cook them in animal fat - they taste SO much better. KT and I decided that if you're going to eat fries, might as well eat the artery clogging version instead of the semi-artery clogging version. It's totally worth it.