I love Brussels! I love Belgium! I love the Netherlands!

I have been having the same wonderful conversation with my friends here. We talk about how even though we've all been here only two or three weeks, we feel like it has been much longer. We don't constantly remember anymore that we're "away on exchange in a foreign country". Rather, we are living in another one of our world's remarkable cities. But every once in a while, we stop and think, wow, I can't believe that I get to be here, in Brussels for so long.
So finally, I feel like I am living in Brussels, not just here studying on exchange. And for the first time since coming here, I realized what it meant to not only be living in Brussels, but also in the whole of Belgium.
I took a trip to Bruges this weekend. Incredible, incredible, incredible! That city is magical. Its beautiful canals, small, elaborate, colorful houses with pointed roofs, and winding cobblestone roads are only part of what gives the city its charm. I climbed up the 366 stairs to the top of the clock tower, took a boat ride through the canals, learned about the history of chocolate at the Chocolate Museum, wandered through the roads of the city, admiring the every beautiful house, church, square, and bridge Bruges had to offer.
The second day my friends and I rented bicycles from our hostel and decided to bike outside of Bruges. We followed the most amazing canal from Bruges to the small but pretty town of Damme, then made our way to Sluis, a town just on the other side of the Belgium border in the Netherlands. It was on this bike ride that I really felt what it meant to be living in Belgium. I realized how beautiful the countryside is, how all the small towns and villages we passed on the way were similar but offered their own charm, and how Belgium's central location really does make it easy to go anywhere.
My first adventure outside Brussels was a grand success, and I can't wait to see where I'll go next!

A bientot!
Sarah xoxoxo

Crossing the Dutch border